NiGHTS Journey of Dreams getting completely average reviews

[Baloo]

Don't bother with this game, it is highly mediocre.

Get the first NiGHTS game instead, leaps and bounds better.

[Kamahl]

Is this game worth getting or not? I never played a Nights game before, but I do enjoy good platformers/action games.

Get the original, it's a masterpiece. I haven't played this one but from gameplay videos and reviews it seems to not be nearly as good.

[NeoZeedeater]

Never had any of these myself. Examples?

I don't remember exact areas but there are parts where if I try to loop, NiGHTS stays still like there's an invisible roof or floor.

[Genesis Knight]

Edit: blah

[StarMist]

I don't remember exact areas but there are parts where if I try to loop, NiGHTS stays still like there's an invisible roof or floor.

All right, I know what you're talking about, just wanted to make sure it wasn't something dumb (unlikely coming from you) such as not adjusting to the increased stress on Nights's boost gauge or controller synching problems (there are games that synch worse than most but they are only shovelware or very low budget titles).
By and large I've found these to be open sky areas with artificial rooves because the design team didn't want to put in artificial rooves. I enjoy NID's abstraction but one could argue it's too abstract or too obviously based on console limitations having every environment rooved in. All such areas in NJOD seem to have landmarks--poles, trees, walls, etc--to suggest the limits how high he can fly.
I don't recall any trouble flying downwards, even underwater. Perhaps in Helen's first stage taking her above the main gazebo type structure in dolphin form. That form tends to be restrictive. Chamelan's stage is something else but you don't need that pointed out. The game is a bit less smooth, that's fine, it's a wonderful counterpart to NID which it enhances by being different. The only ways I would've preferred a new game exactly like the first is if Sega had kept the engine but developed and improved upon every underused element or simply made a new one with at least seven stages each character.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Don't bother with this game, it is highly mediocre.

Get the first NiGHTS game instead, leaps and bounds better.

There's nothing stopping you from getting both. After all Journey of Dreams has been in most stores bargain bins for years now.

[jerry coeurl]

Journey of Dreams sucks. Save your money for the upcoming HD re-release of the original game. Or get yourself a Saturn. Either way, JoD is to be avoided.

Get the original, it's a masterpiece. I haven't played this one but from gameplay videos and reviews it seems to not be nearly as good.

They did the same crap they did with the Sonic Adventure games, really; overload it with gameplay styles that don't really compliment each other. Some of them work, most don't. They also gave NiGHTS one of the most grating voices in video game history, and he talks entirely too much. Same for the owl and the stupid kids you play as. The cutscenes where the characters stand around and do nothing but talk are made even more frustrating by the fact that they can't be skipped!

The story is stupid... NiGHTS and Sonic never needed a story, a basic plot outline in the instruction manual is more than enough. Music isn't nearly as good. Compared to the first game, there is next to no replay value (at least for me), as they removed the aspect of gameplay that I liked most; namely, that you could fly around the stages and rack up as many points as possible until the clock ran out. Here, as soon as you catch up with the birds carrying keys (huh?), you move on to the next stage. Lame.

If it wasn't the cocked-up sequel to one of the best games of all time, it might not be as disappointing... but it'd still be, at best, mediocre. Skip it.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Again like the Sonic games Nights also has fans that have put the original on such a high pedestal that nothing can ever been seen as anything but mediocre crap in their eyes.

The first NiGHTS isn't without its' flaws you know. For example going to the title screen after every level is extremely annoying and stupid. Why not just return you to the stage menu? The game has no explanation of what you are supposed to do or why. While yes not every game needs this, for NiGHTs it would be a bit of a help as you really have no clue what you are doing or why without the manual. What bit of story is in the game can be described as 32-bit era FMV garbage where they just throw a bunch of random images and sequences at you and it's up to the player to pick up the pieces and try to figure out what the hell it all meant. Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2 suffer from this issue as well.

Journey of Dreams isn't perfect, but it's not an awful game by any means of the word. The Story is no more stupid than the story in the original. The difference here is that the player is actually told the story in detail. There is nothing wrong with the music either. It has the same feel as the original, and in fact some tracks are flat out remixes/remakes of the original songs. While the first NiGHTS is arguably better, Journey of Dreams is still a solid sequel and worth playing, especially since it's dirt cheap now.

[Kamahl]

Journey of Dreams isn't perfect, but it's not an awful game by any means of the word. The Story is no more stupid than the story in the original. The difference here is that the player is actually told the story in detail.

And it fails, hard.

[jerry coeurl]

Again like the Sonic games Nights also has fans that have put the original on such a high pedestal that nothing can ever been seen as anything but mediocre crap in their eyes.

You're such a fanboy I don't even know why I bother responding to your posts. It has nothing to do with "putting it up on a pedestal," the fact of the matter is the original game was fantastic, and the sequel is mediocre.

The first NiGHTS isn't without its' flaws you know. For example going to the title screen after every level is extremely annoying and stupid.

That's one single flaw, and it's not even that bad.

Journey of Dreams isn't perfect, but it's not an awful game by any means of the word.

I didn't say it was awful, I said it was mediocre at best when judged on its' own merits, and a frustrating disappointment in the light of its' pedigree.

The Story is no more stupid than the story in the original. The difference here is that the player is actually told the story in detail.

In excruciating detail, you mean. Yeah, the original game had a stupid story too, but they didn't shove it down your throat. You could completely ignore it if you wanted to. That's not an option in Journey of Dreams.

While the first NiGHTS is arguably better, Journey of Dreams is still a solid sequel and worth playing, especially since it's dirt cheap now.

There's nothing "arguable" about it, the first NiGHTS is better than Journey by leaps and bounds. The only kind of person who would argue otherwise is a deluded fanboy.

[Baloo]

No need for name-calling.

However I must say I played entirely through JoD being a massive fan of the original and was severely disappointed. Jerry is right, the game has the exact same flaws that Sonic Adventure did. Pointless HUB, too many different game styles, got too far away from the original, and an absolutely awful storyline.

And why do the original NiGHTS and Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2 really need storylines? They came from a point of time in gaming where every game didn't need some crum-bum storyline attached to it that really made no sense to the game. That's a plus to the originals, not a flaw. You don't need to be totally engaged RPG-style in every game to enjoy it. The gameplay is what really matters in those Saturn classics.

JoD has all of those pointless cutscenes that you can't skip. And you have to trek around the world to get to each level. And now you're going to nitpick and say that the original NiGHTS isn't flawless because you don't go straight back to the menu? Come on dude.

You may have enjoyed JoD, but others here didn't. My opinion, if someone wants to get into the series to simply avoid the game by all means. It's simply not fun. But no need to bash other games to try to make it look good.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Sorry, I don't call games masterpieces because I can ignore their flaws more easily than others. A game that's a true masterpiece in my mind is one where every aspect is as close to perfect as possible. So saying the story in the original NiGHTs is stupid but you can easily ignore it, therefore it's a Masterpiece is a contradiction in my book.

The original NiGHTs has flaws. There are a few bosses that even to this day I find myself scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. The meat of the game is beating a high score which that might be wonderful to have in Arcade games and shmups it's not something I really find appealing in 3D Console platformers. The game is extremely vague with what you are supposed to do. Again for older 2D platformers this was ok because it was obvious what you were supposed to do from the start, in a 3D platformer it's a bit less clear without some kind of guidance.

Do I hold these flaws against NiGHTs? No because it's really what was the trend at the time. I'm not saying NiGHTS is bad by any means. It's an excellent game and I love it. But I'm not going to blindly ignore the flaws it has and then criticize it's sequel for those very same flaws. The story is bad in Journey of Dreams, it's awful in the original too. Sure the original didn't force you to see the story, but that's more of a critique on modern games in general than the sequel itself. We all know had they left it as vague as the original the modern gamer crowd would have cried out in rage. If the original NiGHTs was made today as a new game it would have that same kind of story telling and we all know it. So I'm not going to hold the current trends of gaming against the Sequel to NiGHTs just as I don't hold what was the current gaming trends of the time against it's predecessor. What I critique NiGHTs and it's sequel by is the gameplay, level design, music, and atmosphere. All of which Journey of Dreams and the original excel at.

[jerry coeurl]

So saying the story in the original NiGHTs is stupid but you can easily ignore it, therefore it's a Masterpiece is a contradiction in my book.

The story in the first NiGHTS is pretty much never brought up, it's all in the manual and the "attract mode" videos that play if you sit at the title screen for long enough. Sonic Team recognized that the game didn't really need a story, certainly not a self-important one that breaks up the gameplay every 5 minutes.

The original NiGHTs has flaws. There are a few bosses that even to this day I find myself scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do.

So just because you can't figure out the boss fights, that's some sort of flaw of the game?

The meat of the game is beating a high score which that might be wonderful to have in Arcade games and shmups it's not something I really find appealing in 3D Console platformers.

Well, that's exactly what I like about the first game. It's endlessly replayable because you can always go back to get a better score. I feel the same way about Burning Rangers; both games' strength lie in their replayability.

You might not want that in your "3D console platformers," but NiGHTS is hardly what I would call a platformer, anyway.

The game is extremely vague with what you are supposed to do. Again for older 2D platformers this was ok because it was obvious what you were supposed to do from the start, in a 3D platformer it's a bit less clear without some kind of guidance.

You're joking, right? All you have to do is go towards the right of the screen. Are we talking about the same NiGHTS here? The game is extremely linear, there's only ever one path to proceed in the game. I agree about needing guidance in a 3D platformer, but again, NiGHTS isn't one of those.

If the original NiGHTs was made today as a new game it would have that same kind of story telling and we all know it.

Yeah, and it would really suck, too.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

So just because you can't figure out the boss fights, that's some sort of flaw of the game?

So just because you don't like the story that's some sort of flaw of the game?

See? We can turn your same arguments around and make them look just as silly. This isn't a true flaw of the game, it's simply an aspect of the game you didn't like.

Well, that's exactly what I like about the first game. It's endlessly replayable because you can always go back to get a better score. I feel the same way about Burning Rangers; both games' strength lie in their replayability.

You might not want that in your "3D console platformers," but NiGHTS is hardly what I would call a platformer, anyway.

Journey of Dreams has similar replayability as well. You're still scored after all. And Burning Rangers is different. It randomly generates a new level each time to keep things different.

You're joking, right? All you have to do is go towards the right of the screen. Are we talking about the same NiGHTS here? The game is extremely linear, there's only ever one path to proceed in the game. I agree about needing guidance in a 3D platformer, but again, NiGHTS isn't one of those.

No I'm not. There are many people who tried NiGHTS for the first time at the Game Nights my club held in college, a few people had no idea what they were to do and wandered around trying to figure out what to do.

I'm not saying NiGHTs is bad. I'm simply pointing out that there are negative aspects in it as well. Journey of Dreams is not a bad game. At it's core it's just as enjoyable as the orignal NiGHTs. You may not like the Modern Story aspects of the game, but that's no reason to trash the entire game and call it mediocre at best when at it's core it's the same fun gameplay as the original NiGHTS.