When players plunk in a new game, they expect to be able to figure it out quickly - an impossibility with Nights (official title: Nights Into Dreams). Even the best and brightest will scour the manual, page by page, to answer their many questions: What are all those funky loops in the sky? Why do I have to collect all those colored spheres? How come I spend as much time on the ground as do I in the air - I thought this was supposed to be fast-action flying? However, after an hour or two most gamers will have Nights sussed out - and then quickly realize all those psychedelic graphics conceal a surprisingly short, excruciatingly linear game.
The storyline, in a sentence: A boy and a girl have been sucked into a land of dreams and need to bump off the bad guy who's trying to turn it into a land of nightmares.
The gameplay, in two long sentences: Players control the boy or girl (one is chosen at the start of the game, and it's not possible to switch during the game), and wander through various dreamscapes, collecting spheres called Ideyas. Grab enough of them and the player can transform himself into an androgynous, goofy-hat-wearing character who soars through the air, loops and zooms through rings, and collects gold chips and stars.
While Nights might look 3-D, it most certainly isn't: The gameplay is set very firmly on rails. The player is tasked with navigating a series of courses in each dreamscape, trying to achieve the fastest possible time while still grabbing all the goodies. The game provides an A-F grade for each course, which has the effect of limiting the game's replay value: Most players will only go back to a level to earn that A. After that.... Overall, the game is too short, with only seven levels split between the two characters (three for each, and a final level that's the same for both).
Beyond gameplay, it's worth discussing the 3D Control Pad that comes with the game. The truth is that Nights plays equally well with the bundled control pad or with the standard-issue Saturn controller. In fact, players may have a slightly easier time using the Saturn one.
While Nights is gorgeous, it isn't even close to being the Super Mario 64-beater that Sega thinks it is. Ultimately, Nights is much too short, strange, and confusing to capture the mass audience that Sonic the Hedgehog did. Even so, it is fun while it lasts.
