Ninety-Nine Nights Demo Impressions

[Eraysor]

For all you folks with 360s (yes, both of you) and those buying them soon, Ninety-Nine Nights (N3) now has a demo on Xbox Live for you all to download.

The game itself plays pretty much like a Dynasty Warriors clone, only less China and more goblin slaying. You go around hammering the attack buttons (well, that's what I do) and slaying vast groups of goblins, around 40 in each group. If you can imagine the soldiers fighting you in DW, it's pretty much the same only with a much larger draw distance.

Not that there is anything to see really, as the environments are very bland greys and the enemies all look identical. Not only that, but you have an army of about 40 soldiers to command around that do pretty much nothing except make it more difficult to find some goblins mixed in with them during a battle. At least friendly fire is turned off so you can't rip your own team to shreds. Fortunately, the main characters look spiffy and the attack effects are excellent, especially the blue trails made by your sword-on-a-stick (I have no diea what it actually is called).

The gameplay is pretty repetitive although I worked my way through the demo so it must have been somewhat entertaining. Worth a try anyhow.

My only other complaint is the voice acting is pretty laughable and not lip-synced (or even attempted to lip-sync) so that detracts from the experience. I'm unaware just how bad anime dubs can get seeing as very little is shown in the UK, but this isn't fantastic. An example of this (and also poor translation) is where you reach an area surrounded by imposing goblin tribal statues and watchtowers that are pelting you with arrows. At this the point, the main character exclaims "What this means is that we are not welcome here." Judge for yourself.