I was a Sonic kid.  Unlike my friends, I never went Super with my Nintendo, I begged my parents for a Genesis instead.  A couple years and a hundred mowed lawns later, I purchased a Saturn due to the impending hype of its first killer-app, Sonic Xtreme.  While a true 32-bit Sonic would never materialize, in its place Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka would deliver NiGHTS: Into Dreams..., a game promising to capture the essence of flight.  Hooked by the Christmas NiGHTS demo I got from Blockbuster, NiGHTS (which from here on out will mostly be typed without the asinine capitalization) would go on to consume more of my time than anything else I played that year.  I got A's on every level, 2.0'd every boss, and fiddled with my A-Life for a ridiculous amount of time.  It clicked with me on some intangible level, and even today I'm at a loss for words when I try to describe what made flying around as a purple jester so exhilarating.

It didn't have the humor of Crash, and it couldn't touch the innovation or duration of Mario 64.  Yet, to say Nights was just two hours of collecting orbs and racing through levels is like saying Rez was nothing more than a shooter or Shadow of the Colossus was just a boss gauntlet.  Through ethereal bursts of acrobatic finesse and aerial insanity, Sonic Team reached a plateau few other developers have dared to climb; their game wasn't something you played, it was something you experienced.  If videogames had souls, Nights' was as pure as gold.

Since then, Sonic Team's work has gone from promising endeavors to unpolished disasters.  Burning Rangers and Chu Chu Rocket were fine post-Nights efforts, but then Sonic Adventure started a tail spin from which they have yet to recover.  That's actually putting it nicely; it would be more appropriate to say they repeatedly set their autopilot to self destruct and eviscerate themselves further into oblivion with each new title.  I actually purchased and played completely through both Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, and each left a stain as the worst game I played that particular year.  Now, once again in the shadow of Mario, Nights has finally made a triumphant return as NiGHTS:Journey of Dreams on Nintendo's Wii.  Is it another nightmare from Sega, or does it reach for the stars of its predecessor?

Into Dreams

The original Nights wasn't exactly an easy game to pick up and play; your first try usually resulted in spending as much time skimming the ground as it did flying through rings.  Thankfully Journey of Dreams alleviates this problem from the get go. After selecting Will or Helen the first thing you do is receive an overly basic tutorial from your new best friend, a talking owl.  Mr. Owl winds up holding your hand (often unnecessarily) throughout the entire game, but at least he initially makes it clear how to play.  For those still not in the know, the basic concept behind Nights is this: You're a purple jester flying on a two dimensional plane in a three dimensional world.  Your flight path is kept on rails and, though your goals change, the overlying concept is to complete a course in as little time as possible. 

Yes, time still is the key.  If you boil it down to its core, Nights is more of a racing game than a platformer.  The original gameplay, which consisted of you scouring a course for a set number of blue orbs, has received a minor facelift. This time around, you're charged with the task of catching up to giant birds and stealing their key.  Speed isn't everything, as the best way to close in on these birds is to mock their flight route.  Enemies, called Nightmaren, and other obstacles try to hamper your pace of the bird’s tail, but your drill dash (which also doubles as a speed boost) can make quick work of any adversary.  Once you reclaim the key, a new part of the course opens and the process is repeated.  After three courses, it's off to fight the level's boss.

After a trial run at the end of a chase stage, the bosses later receive their own mission to close out a world.  While most of the normal levels are by no means meager, the bosses in Journey of Dreams are some of the most wildly imaginative and formidable foes in gaming this year.  I'm serious, the exclusive landscape of Nights' gameplay easily lends itself to unique encounters, but Sonic Team has gone the extra mile and crafted an arsenal of foes that are truly epic.  Donobalon, while paying homage to Puffy, is one of the most insanely challenging adversaries of this generation; trying to hurl his massive visage through obstacle littered vertical corridors is a task I've never before done in a videogame.  Another, Chamelan, hides behind a screen filling curtain, which needs to be hacked away with paraloops to reveal his location.   Girania's massive size and scale is entrancing almost to the point of distraction, and the method behind his destruction is equally mesmerizing.  Some others aren't quite as avant-garde, but are still light years ahead of the cookie cutter crap populating regular platformer/action games.

Despite being wrapped in next gen (well, as next gen as Wii can get) packaging, the bulk of Nights' replay value is most visible through an old school scoring system.   The now standard Sonic Team grading scale returns, scoring you the way from A to E depending on how much time remains when a course is completed.  A small amount of points can also be obtained by flying through hoops and collection orbs.  Links, created by flying through hoops or collecting orbs in constant succession, have taken on a whole new face as a means to rack up your score; the higher your link, the more bonus seconds are added on to your overall time.  At the end of a course, more time remaining equals more points, so it's in your best interest to not only mimic the bird's flight path, but also to be speedy enough to link together every hoop and orb in sight.  Doing this requires a perfect combination of drill dashing, enemy awareness, and overall aerial finesse.  It's easier said than done and, delightfully, provides a ton fuel for the just-one-more-round mentality. 

If the grading system somehow isn't enough to satisfy your desire for more, Journey of Dreams offers a handful of extras outside the normal gameplay.  60 Dreamdrops are scattered throughout the stages, with most of them being just outside your usual point of a view.  Normally I'd dismiss a collectathon without thinking twice, but your compensation for completing this is worth the effort, especially for fans of the original.  Three different "persona masks" are also unlocked as you move through the game.  These transform Nights into a dolphin, a rocket, or a dragon, and are mainly used in boss encounters or to explore new areas.   A two player mode is also present, offering two different modes of play.  One involves a standard race to the finish over a portion of three different courses, while the other mocks the meteor throwing battle with Reala.  Trying these on split screen wasn't especially fun, but the limited viewing area combined with the horrible dives in the frame rate might have been partially at fault.  Thankfully, both are also able to be played with friends online.

Shoved in a dark corner of the experience, much like in the original Nights: Into Dreams, is the optional A-Life system.  The worlds in which you spend your time are inhabited not only by the Nightmaren, but also by cone-headed pacifists, the Nightopians.  Paralooping these guys (a gesture that would kill them in the original, ironically) will teleport them to the "My Dream" area of the hub world.  Here, they will exist independently as they engage in a limitless number of activities.  They'll shoot off fireworks, go sledding, run with a birthday cake, plop next to a television and play a Sega Saturn, and countless other activities.  You're bound to see one of these guys do something different every time you visit.  For those with more of a God complex, you're also given the indirect ability to mutate these suckers.  Simply ram a Nightmaren into a Nightopian and an egg will pop out.  The egg will be a hybrid of the two, which will then breed with regular Nightopians and unleash some truly effed up creations.  It's mindlessly entertaining, but a little too hands-off in its approach.

Dreams Delight

It's crucial to note that every single part of this experience feels like Nights did on Saturn.  Yes, the context of Nights has changed, but, essentially, it still feels like you're playing the same game.  The sense of immediacy granted by a bird jetting away with the key presents a constant, reachable objective and feels like a natural evolution of the Nights formula.  It also doesn't hurt that the game is jam packed with references to the previous title.  A nod to its level design here, a beautiful ode to its art design there, and an abundance of musical cues everywhere, fans of the original will be grinning from ear to ear when they play Journey of Dreams.  It's a virtual love letter to the dwindling Nights' fan base, Sonic Team literally gave gamers everything they asked for (and by "they asked for" I mean "everything I asked the Sega PR guys at E3") in this sequel. I've never seen a game that's so faithful to the source material while simultaneously trying it's best to welcome new players.   Unfortunately, this also means a handful of things people weren't exactly clamoring for...

Of course, it's now 2007 and, sadly, gamers are no longer satisfied by a five minutes run through seven unique levels.  To help modernize Nights' aged interface, Sonic Team has opted to open the worlds up to different sets of challenges.  While the bird chases and the bosses are obviously the showcase event of each world, three other mandatory missions help round out the experience.  Some of these, such as the link attacks and a couple of the new events, successfully preserve the classic Nights formula.  Others, such as the god-awful bubble pushing Aqua Challenge, do little to sustain your attention span.  These new events never approach the level of misery where a game implodes on itself, but they aren't exactly fun either.  Oh, and then there's the platforming stages.

What?  You mean I don’t get to play as Nights?

Oh my.  To be fair, platforming was a limited feature in the original.  That is, limited to five seconds of necessity or an instant death if you chose to trot around the level on foot for a bit.  Journey of Dreams, on the other hand, gives us four missions consisting of lukewarm "get to the end of the level" gameplay.  On the way there Will and Helen can toss blue orbs at enemies, solve a couple basic puzzles, and exploit one or two gimmicks as a means to an end.  It's a sound concept, in theory (explore areas Nights obviously can't fly to), but the execution is way off the mark; just as the flight mechanics were pulled from 1996, so is the platforming.  It's aged, uninspired, and seemingly thrown in on a whim.  These levels aren't particularly bad, they just pale in comparison to unbridled creativity that overflows throughout the rest of the game.  Unlike the rest of Journey of Dreams, the platforming stages are likely a one-and-done affair.

Another trapping of modern gameplay is the attempt to craft a legitimate story.  While the original told its tale through brief CG introductions and epilogues, Journey of Dreams has gone all out with a full blown narrative peppered in between every stage.  Helen and Will are kids with justifiable insecurity issues; Will wants to please his father and, in a roundabout way, Helen doesn't want to disappoint her mother.  When they dream, they visit Nightopia, home of Nights and the Nightmaren, as a way to deal with and conquer their fears.  While this does serve as a readable vehicle to flesh out the characters, it does feel wholly unnecessary.  The in-game cut scenes, while voiced competently, go out of their way to state the obvious.  The backbone of Nights has always been an overload of imagination, so why not leave the narrative fiction open to the interpretation of the player?

LSD Not Required

Speaking of imagination, one area where ingenuity spills over the edge is the art direction.  The original was infamous for superimposing the effects of an acid trip without the use of psychedelic drugs, and this sequel is no different.  For example, take Will's second level, Lost Park.  Watch before your eyes as a desolate amusement park morphs from a barren wasteland into an acropolis full of lush vegetation, then knock down a boulder and fly beside a roller coaster while fireworks explode with confection in the sky.  The art design is literally out of this world, and its visual splendor is prevalent in every corner of the game.  With baddies that put chimeras to shame and landscapes composed from the bits and pieces of the human subconscious, Journey of Dreams is unlike anything you've ever seen.

The graphics might be a mixed bag (see below), but the music of Journey of Dreams is outstanding the whole way through. In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to label it as my favorite soundtrack of any game this year.  Yes, I've played through Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect, and Everyday Shooter, but each of those stellar titles falls under the sonic bombardment found in Journey of Dreams.  Always bookended by music from the original Nights, every level bleeds with infections rhythm.  Long, orchestrated pieces compliment the ethereal environments and sync perfectly with the surrounding pandemonium.  Humans will never be capable of organic flight, but, rest assured, these tunes perfectly simulate the rush of what it must be like.  The Wii's inherent visual shortcomings easy to overlook when the aural melody of the soundtrack is overloading your senses - Tomoko Sasaki and Naofumi Hataya have truly composed a masterpiece.

Perfect for Wii?  Not Wiieally

Of course, no matter how far a developer’s scope reaches, it's always going to be limited by the hardware.  While Journey of Dreams has some pretty big hits in the visual department, there are a handful of misses as well.  The levels are gorgeous and jam packed with content from every angle, but the backdrop often looks overly stretched and sometimes fails at the illusion of a third dimension.  For every instance of rendered bliss, such as the dandelion seeds in Pure Valley or the illumination of the houses in Memory Forest, there's an occurrence of sloppy geometry or poor textures. The frame rate is consistent 90% of the time, but does take the occasional dive when too much is happening.  While the CG cut scenes look fantastic, the in-game story sequences are horrendous; the frame rate slows to a crawl and the character models look like hell up close.  A game with a visual magnitude as overpowering as Nights deserves to be on a system that can better take advantage true next generation visuals.  The Wii simply can't cut it in this department, the game doesn't look bad, but it's definitely behind the times. 

Oh, and ditch the default controls as soon as possible; the dream of perfection from wiimote powered flight is not a reality.  Oh, it's there, if you wish you can essentially use it as a point and click method of movement, but it's tedious, inaccurate, and a terrible way to experience the game.  Thankfully, Sonic Team chose not to Lair us into wiimote exclusivity and opened up the control options.  The nunchuck and classic controller work fine, but for optimal results it's best to pick up a rumbling Gamecube controller.  The eight way notches surrounding every Nintendo analogue stick sort of gimp the control and, compared to the original, limit your aerial maneuvering, but it's still night and day better than a wiimote.  With nothing tying it to the Wii's unique controls (seriously, the whole game can be played without it), one has to wonder what it's even doing on this system in the first place. 

Strong Enough for an Adult, PH Balanced for Kids

The answer to that question lies with the intended audience for Journey of Dreams.  While it is indeed a novel piece of entertainment, the experience is uncommon enough to limit its appeal to the masses.  Through its relatively juvenile story and whimsical setting, Journey of Dreams will have no trouble appealing to the preteen crowd.  Fans of the original, regardless of their age, will appreciate every second as an indulgence.  But where does that leave everyone else?  Nights might be too weird for normal gamers, and it might lose the casual crowd since it's an actual game.  Despite Sonic Team's attempt to broaden the gameplay and include an abundance of tutorials, Nights certainly has a constrained appeal.  Newcomers with enough patience will find a rewarding experience while those with a less prolific attention span might not be so lucky.