Ninety-Nine Nights
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stylized as ''N3: Ninety-Nine Nights'', is a 2006 fantasy hack and slash video game developed for the
Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...
by an alliance between
Q Entertainment was a Japanese video game developer. The studio created, produced, and published digital entertainment content across multiple game consoles, PC broadband and mobile units. It was founded on October 10, 2003 by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, formerly of ...
and Phantagram; video game designer
Tetsuya Mizuguchi is a Japanese video game designer, producer, and businessman. Along with ex-Sega developers he is the one of the co-founders of the video game development firm Q Entertainment. He formerly worked for Sega as a producer in their Sega AM3 'arcade m ...
served as producer for the game. The game features hundreds of enemies onscreen at any given time, and borrows heavily from other video games of the genre, most notably from the ''
Dynasty Warriors is a series of Japanese hack and slash action video games created by Omega Force and Koei (now is Koei Tecmo). The series is a spin-off of Koei's turn-based strategy '' Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' series, based upon the Chinese novel of ...
'' and ''
Kingdom Under Fire ''Kingdom Under Fire'' is a video games series developed by Blueside and Phantagram. Games *'' Kingdom Under Fire: A War of Heroes'', a 2001 real-time strategy video game developed by Phantagram and published by Gathering of Developers *'' Kingdo ...
'' series. The game was released in Japan on April 20, 2006, in North America on August 15, 2006, in Europe on August 25, 2006, and in Australia on August 28, 2006. A demo of ''Ninety-Nine Nights'' was released on a DVD-ROM as a pre-order bonus in Japan, and on July 28, 2006, one was released on the
Xbox Live Marketplace Xbox Games Store (formerly Xbox Live Marketplace) is a digital distribution platform used by Microsoft's Xbox Series X, S, Xbox One and Xbox 360 video game consoles. The service allows users to download or purchase video games (including both ...
. A sequel, ''
Ninety-Nine Nights II , stylized as ''N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights'', is a role-playing video game with hack and slash game mechanics set in a high fantasy game universe, where a demon army is rising with one million troops. It is a sequel to ''Ninety-Nine Nights'' and wa ...
'' was announced at Microsoft's
Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in September in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. ...
press conference in 2008, and released in 2010.


Gameplay

This game is of the crowd combat subgenre, in which players battle hundreds of foes simultaneously. Combo moves are performed by using various combinations of the two main attack buttons, while the jump and dash buttons can initiate other actions or specialty attacks. Individual enemies are generally quite weak, typically being unable to perform any combos or block with any effectiveness. There are seven different characters with different play styles, although only one character, Inphyy, is unlocked at the beginning. Successfully completing each character's story will unlock one or two new characters, until they have all been revealed. After completing levels in ''Ninety-Nine Nights'', a player's performance is scored, with both a letter grade and 'points' being awarded, depending on how well the player did. Points can be spent to unlock extras, such as concept art and character bios. The title has limited
role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing a ...
elements, with characters gaining levels and being able to select which weapons and accessories to equip. These performance-enhancing items can be found in the different stages or are awarded for excellent performance, providing benefits such as increased attack power. As the characters gain levels they learn additional attack combinations, but there is no opportunity for skill customization. Another key component of the title is the "Orb Attack" / "Orb Spark" element. Killing enemies yields red orbs that are stored up until the "Orb Attack" bar is full. Once the bar is full, a player may press B to enter "Orb Attack" mode, where the character can use powerful attacks to slay groups of enemies. Enemies killed while in this mode drop blue, not red, orbs. Once a player has stored up enough blue orbs (which usually require several "Orb Attacks"), he or she can unleash a super-devastating, screen-clearing "Orb Spark" attack. Killing enemies yields the occasional equipment drop, which you can equip any time during a map as long as you are not retaliating from an attack, in midair, or in the middle of an attack. The orb collection mechanic is not unlike that found in '' Onimusha: Warlords'' except that it is automatic. The orb attacks are comparable to "Musou attacks" in the ''Dynasty Warriors'' series, in that the player is invulnerable while making them, although in ''Ninety-Nine Nights'', such attacks are significantly more powerful. Each character has their own unique attacks, weapons and orb attacks, as well having their own questline (of around four stages on average). The gameplay differs somewhat from previous games in this genre as enemy soldiers put up virtually no resistance. Players will routinely mow down thousands of such troops per level using various attack combinations. The Orb attacks effectively act as "nuke buttons", destroying vast formations of enemy soldiers, with only boss characters and some formation leaders unaffected. Each level takes the form of a series of smaller battles which are often interspersed with cutscenes. Although there are usually several objectives during a level, progress through levels and the game is mostly linear. In a stark contrast to the cannon fodder foes, the boss characters are typically quite challenging and can inflict massive amounts of damage in a short period of time.


Development

'' Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes'' developer Youn-Lee was involved in creating the game; the game had only six months development time - development kits were received in September 2005, and the game was released in March 2006 in Japan.


Soundtrack


Track listing

# Theme from Ninety-Nine Nights :25# From the New World: Molto Vivace (Eternal Mix) :01# Comes off Run There :35# Hammerfall :51# Spiral Maze! :33# Carry Wind Out :18# Destroys Evil Completely :33# The Four Seasons "Summer" Presto (Eternal Mix) :55# Ninety-Nine Nights (N3): The Defender of Truth :59# Place Where They Live :44# Eyes of Evil :06# Ninety-Nine Nights (N3): Tokyo Remix :27# Before the War :08# Ninety-Nine Nights (N3): From a Distant Forest :05# Ninety-Nine Nights (N3): The Arrival :10# The Four Seasons "Winter" Allegro :09 The tracks were composed by: Pinar Toprak (1, 9, 12, 14, 15) Takayuki Nakamura (3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13) Shingo Yasumoto (4, 5) Antonín Dvořák (2) Antonio Vivaldi (8, 16).


Reception

''Ninety-Nine Nights'' received "mixed" reviews according to the
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website
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
. In Japan, however, ''
Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the f ...
'' gave it a score of three eights and one seven, while ''Famitsu X360'' gave it a score of one ten and three nines.


References


External links


Official websitePhantagram entry
* {{Authority control 2006 video games Crowd-combat fighting games Hack and slash games Microsoft franchises Microsoft games Phantagram games Q Entertainment games Single-player video games Video games developed in Japan Video games developed in South Korea Video games featuring female protagonists Video games scored by Pinar Toprak Video games scored by Takayuki Nakamura Xbox 360 games Xbox 360-only games