Ninety-Nine Nights (or as its affectionately known, N3), is the latest in a stream of action titles from Phantagram, their most famous franchise being the mix between RTS and action, Kingdom Under Fire. This title drops the RTS blend in favour of pure action delivered in a full-on Dynasty Warriors/Drakengard approach with the hope of enticing the Japanese gamers onto the 360. Ok so the RTS stuff isnt entirely dropped, but its immensely simplified from what fans of Kingdom Under Fire are used to; gone is the ability to set your soldiers waypoints and targets in a manner that allowed you to control your attack plan and strategy, instead the D-pad allows you to issue quick commands giving you basic control of your armies. As with Kingdom Under Fire you control a hero who is obviously hugely more powerful than the swarms of enemies you will need to scythe your way through, but the simple combos you start off with, progress into very powerful and energetic combos and attack methods. To get these upgrades you need to dispose of legions, yes I do mean that considering I disposed of 500 goblins within 2 minutes of playing the game! Not only do you have your amazing combinations of attacks that you can string together, but there are also two rather special attacks. When dispatching your foes, their souls are left behind as red floating spheres which you can collect, as you collect them they fill up a meter which when full allows you to enter an Overdrive killing spree, dismembering swarms of enemies in seconds. Obviously these poor victims also leave behind their souls, but in blue spheres which are again collectable, but filling up a second meter. Once the blue meter is filled you can unleash your most powerful attack, obliterating everything in its path, using this at the right time can literally send your kills meter into the thousands in seconds! Graphically N3 is stunning, which is what we should be expecting around 9 months into the lifetime of the 360. The cutscenes are simply mind blowing and should entice the Japanese market with the classically eastern style and fantastic storyline. Im looking forward to seeing the final game and this has really whet my appetite. You can now download a demo of the game from the Xbox Live Marketplace and teach those goblins what steel tastes like. |
