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Editor's note: Ninety-Nine Nights II has not been officially released or distributed in New Zealand.
Playing copycat isn’t always best. Ninety-Nine Nights II or N3II as the game box proudly displays, is a sequel to the hack and slash title from 2006 (which I haven’t played).
N3II has you running through castle corridors, pushing your way through gazillions of enemies. You can pull off several combos as well as a few magic moves. You have a green health bar and a blue mana bar, as well as red experience orbs. And you are often locked in rooms until you defeat the onslaught of undead minions or bosses.
Sound familiar? Like many games recently, N3II has decided to “borrow” from the popular God of War games. Like Dante’s Inferno, Darksiders and Konami’s latest Castlevania game. Sure, you could say it plays like other action games like Dynasty Warriors and Devil May Cry, but this truly looks more God of War.
And I’m not just talking about the basic gameplay formula outlined above, but the actual HUD, experience orbs, a similar game over screen, and a few quick-time event s thrown in for good measure. N3II isn’t afraid to be compared to Kratos’ bloodthirsty romp. They even reference that the main character Galen is “like a god of war”.
The only problem is that it’s not as good as God of War. It just doesn’t have the same production values. It’s missing the epic set pieces. Each bland environment is merely a maze of identical looking castle walls or dirt paths. And the platforming parts are just plain weird. The characters don’t feel grounded enough for jumping pillar to pillar.
Ninety-Nine Nights was known for its large amount of enemies onscreen, and the same applies here. But does having more enemies really make it more fun? The stiff AI enemies mimic each other, clustering around you with no sense of self preservation.
It’s not all bad, though. It’s still kinda satisfying to plough through bad guys like bowling pins. It’s like the developers got the basics right. But most of the time the hordes just get in your way when there’s no need to kill them.
The premise of the story is that there are two orbs; the Orb of Light, and the Orb of Darkness. The Lord of the Night gets a little greedy and wants to take the Orb of Light to save himself or end the world for some reason or another. The cheesy cutscenes setting the story are really just not that interesting to watch, though the characters are a relatively diverse bunch, including a princess, an assassin, and a Liam Neeson look-alike.
You can actually play as the five main characters, each with their own abilities and missions. But overall they are remarkably similar. You can follow the main story as Galen (another one of those silver-haired freaks), but a lot of detail isn’t revealed until you play as every character, which kind of makes the story rather disjointed. Their missions cover a lot of the same ground and it’s just no fun doing things twice. I didn’t touch the multiplayer but there are special co-op levels as well as several online game modes.
I think the strangest thing about this sequel is that it threw away what reportedly made the first game so unique: The ability to control armies and the more open areas. I wouldn’t buy N3II at full price. It’s a poor man’s God of War. There’s nothing new to see here, and if you’re cool with that, that’s fine. But as Galen said to the hundred enemies approaching, “You’re wasting my time!”
Graphics: 5/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Lasting Appeal: 4/10
Overall score: 6.5/10
