NiGHTS into dreams...


	NiGHTS INTO DREAMS... Sega of America / Sonic Team Sega Saturn 1 Player Game Kids to Adults Rating: 4 Stars by Maria Muñoz		Claris and Elliot only wanted to be the best in what they loved to do. Claris yearned to sing for the local musical, Twin Dreams, and Elliot wanted to be the best basketball player in the world. As they both fell asleep that night, neither had the notion they would be saving the world of Nightopia. The Sonic Team, the team that first devised SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, has once again outdone themselves with NiGHTS. NiGHTS is a wonderful blend of beautifully rendered graphics and a great musical soundtrack that makes a simple game even more interesting and fun to play. NiGHTS INTO DREAMS... is a game that requires the player to save the world of dreams, Nightopia, from being taken over by Wizeman and his devilish Nightmaren. The player can play one of two characters, Elliot Edwards or Claris Sinclair, who both take the role of NiGHTS, a benevolent dream warrior that will help Elliot and Claris through Nightopia. NiGHTS starts out with Wizeman's henchmen stealing four dream energies, white (purity), green (wisdom), yellow (hope), and blue (intelligence). Fortunately, the red energy (bravery) is the rarest of dream energies and is the only one that Wizeman's henchmen cannot steal.
	See NiGHTS soar through the sky... ...and remember, it isn't over till the fat lady sings.		The player must collect twenty blue chips and once collected take them to the Ideya Capture. With the Ideya Capture destroyed, the valuable dream energy is freed and is given back to NiGHTS to take back to Ideya Palace in order to advance to the next course. After the player finishes all the courses, he must fight the Dream Bosses. Jackle is the Nightmaren of playng cards and looks like the Joker from a deck. He throws deadly playing cards at the player that take precious time away from defeating him. Puffy, the circus Nightmaren, uses her ball-like figure to stomp NiGHTS to defeat him; it is not a circus. Reala, an evil version of NiGHTS, attempts to use NiGHTS power against him. Defeating Reala for the first time will then enable the 2P VS mode, in which a second person can play Reala and fight against NiGHTS. Other minor Nightmaren are also out to hinder NiGHTS from his duty: Hollow, an annoying bird that shoots deadly balls; Party, a colorful little fish creature that isn't a party at all; and Gao, who electrifies not only the air around him, but NiGHTS as well, if he can get a hold of him. The player has six possible ratings to score while flying around Nightopia completing the courses. They range from A to F much like the grades in school. This grade is dependent on how many bonus items the player collects or how quickly the player flies NiGHTS through the course. In order to fight the evil Wizeman, the player must score a grade of C or higher and believe me, it is not easy.
	Prepare to fly.		NiGHTS, the game, is sold either standalone or packaged with a 3D analog controller. I recommend purchasing the 3D controller as it is sturdier and it can control NiGHTS better than the standard controller. The controls for NiGHTS are simple: Jump/Accelerate (A, B, C button), Grab Item (Directional Pad in Item's direction or loop around the Item), and Ring Pass (Directional Pad in the Ring's direction). The Left and Right triggers will perform acrobatics. The player can also Delete, Copy, Rename and Load games using the Diary option. There is also a regular Options menu to fix the volume and other things. Scoring for NiGHTS is as follows: Color Chips (10 pts), Star Chips (10 pts), and Rings (10 pts). The player can do a Paraloop which grabs a bunch of items all at once. Both Claris and Elliot have three different worlds, or dreams, that they have to complete. For Claris they are Spring Valley the Ideal, Mystic Forest the Possibility, and Soft Museum the Confusion. For Elliot they are Splash Garden the Affection, Frozen Bell the Consciousness, and Stick Canyon the Revival. For both, there is one final world in which they play themselves (instead of NiGHTS), Twin Seeds the Growth. I highly recommend this game for its awesome graphics and great musical score as well as its playability. NiGHTS is a bit disorienting at first, but becomes easier with practice.