In many ways this should be featured here… or refeatured, since i did review both the Ninety Nine Nights games on the old italian blogs, but since i did a new full review of the original game (which i’m gonna abbreviate as N3 from now on, mostly) i knew i “had” to do the same for N3 II.
Even if it kinda shouldn’t, with extra hindsight making it extra obvious, BUT i’m gonna argue it fits the rubric for reason i will explain a bit later.
I mean, i do have to wonder what possessed Konami to get publishing rights for a N3 sequel, let alone that the niche audience of the first game liked it enough to want a sequel, but then again i’m not even sure nobody told Tak Fuji about what the game even was before deploying him on stage during the now legendary Konami E3 2012 Conference, so absurd it seems like a late night live-action show you’d catch on Adult Swim, but nope, it’s real and was actually a worlwide live event.
An “EXTReeeMEeee” one, some might say.
Here’s it where i would recap the story of the first game or complain how they “did a Dynasty Warriors sequels” laundry list of things made worse, like changing the weapons of returning characters to generic boring scrap or recycled & made worse a lot of content from Ninety Nine Nights, like they did with Ken’s Rage 2…. but this ain’t a sequel to Ninety Nine Nights.
It’s not a Samurai Warriors 4-II situation either, when they basically re-released the old game, added a new character, some tweaks and systems, added some content but mostly shuffled around the furniture, to the point they could have added most of it via DLC instead of a full priced game.
Nope, this is the “gonna ignore the first one” completely in pretty much all regards, might as well, it’s not even made by the same developer, with feelplus (Ju On: The Grudge, Mindjack, Moon Diver, the PS3 port of the first No More Heroes) taking over Phantagram (though Q-Entertaiment is still involved as co-developer), so it’s extra baffling how some of the new characters are basically the same ones in the previous game (the goblin assassin is basically indistinguishable from the one in the first game, despite not being the same character it has the same overall design, meaning an Eastern-ish take on western high fantasy stereotypes.
The new designs for the new characters are more on the “grimdarkish” side, and they are more overall consistent, though it loses that gonzo charm born of them trying to mesh two different sensibilities in such a fashion that first one had.
I’ll say that at least this new story isn’t told through many campaigns that clearly contradict each other (someone forgot the idea of “gaiden/what if” scenarios while rushing the first game, i guess), but the story itself is even more generic, being about a “Lord Of The Night” entity, which has moved his hordes of minions to invade this generic high fantasy world, there’s a prophecy about darkness and light, something about the titular “99 natche”, and you, as Galen and other heroes, are sent out to fight him and stop whatever evil plan is afoot.
Also, production values are higher, music is competent but forgettable, graphically it looks better (as expected since this isn’t a launch title rushed to market) than the first one, nothing too fancy, but it looks good enough, the english voice acting is also quite decent, even if the lypsynch is often off and the voice acting itself often cheesy as you’d expect from a Dynasty Warriors (or DW clone) style game, though you can opt for the original Japanese VA if you want.
The more detailed and (often) better textures are unsurprisingly “paid” by having slightly less enemies on screen in exchange for a better framerate as well, fine, i guess, not much to say in terms of bugs or glitches, this time around they’re far less numerous and more funny than annoying or game breaking, though i did find a couple of oddities, but nothing major.
The frustrating thing is that the gameplay almost “gets it”, managing to even strike a better balance between having the usual puny peons that do nothing and even the fodder units being way too strong and annoying, which the first N3 game (alongside many other DW clones/wannabes) didn’t manage, so even the peons offer more challenge and aggression, and the combat system adds upon the DW one, just lacking a cloned version of the Charge System and a “musou attack” equivalent, but also with ARPG style special abilities on cooldown, alongside blocking, parrying, an evasive roll manouver, every character having a special unique ability/attack with a specific purpose, often made so than upon replaying the stages with them instead of the protagonist, Galen, they can access some specific locations or shortcuts, with missions made just for them…
There are also the expect RPG lite stuff, with levelling up, spending the souls/orbs in upgrading the character abilities and so on, with some gear you can obtain and equip… the usual, but i do like that when you’re given a new playable character he starts at Lv. 1, BUT you’re given enough currency/souls to bring it up to speed without forcing grind on the player.
One thing that isn’t made clear is that you can’t learn new combo strings either way, there’s no skill tree for them…. which i guess would be pointless, since you have all the combos from the start, but at least give me a command list, it’s a pet peeve of mine, i know, as is the game having systems in place to also make the unique abilities have a combat purpose (not all are obviously combat oriented by default); but not telling you meaning i only realized i could do shit like impaling half-dead enemies with Galen.. AFTER finishing the game.
Still, even replaying recently and finding about (also by fiddling with combination of the light and heavy attacks) that there is a bit more to the combat moves, you’d wish you could learn more combo attacks, as every character moveset is honestly not that extensive when you get down to it, though on the flipside of having 5 playable characters instead of the 7 ones of the first N3, they are more distinct in terms of playstiles and more fleshed out (where some in the first game where included just for shit n giggles, like the random troll guy).
The game also does away with the stupid and vestigial shit like forcing you to eliminate every single peon of a group to make the mission objectives proceed/unlock, or the whole “squadron” that in the first game was technically support but in reality did nothing of note aside from staring at the enemy trolls more than fighting them, not that their survival or not mattered. It didn’t.
Hence it’s incredibly frustrating to see the game improve upon the first one… only to shoot itself in the foot with a plethora of other horrible design decisions, like it had to compensate for correcting the issues of the first game by doing worse and more numerous one of its own.
The first big design issue is the spawners. Initially you won’t think much of them, but the game quickly gets completely carried away with them, and does immediatly use them as a cheap crutch during the many boss encounters, which are mostly notable pile of garbages, starting immediatly with the first one, which is a generic brutish dude (so generic he later gets reused as a medium or loer tier of unit) backed up by two spawners that are made expecially more durable than normal, which just goes to show how insecure the developers were about the boss fight.
Even the few decent bosses are stupid or confusing shit like one having destructible pillars that are just there to not immediatly make you try the actual most efficient and logical solution/approach , but they’re mostly exercises in frustration, due to some other design flaws, like getting easily stunlocked to oblivion, even aside the game’s penchant for annoying and overpowered archers and such, i wonder what’s the point of letting you do a mid-air recovery manouver when you’re not given any frames of invincibility, leading often to getting pillored by enemy attacks that can also poison or paralize you long enough AND get you paralyzed again the second you shake off the previous paralysis…
i expecially LOVED the crystal caverns boss, where you’re pelted by way too much shit dropping from the ceiling or energy projectiles launched in the air, while fighting 3 mini-bosses with a separate health bar each in a very small arena, and you’re not supposed to kill them off quick before they can come back, NO, that would make too sense.
You’re just supposed to defeat one of the 3 and hope its the one that will make the boss real weak point appear. Just pure guessing work.
It’s another case of “well meaning, maybe” but ultimately clueless design, as they clearly figured out they needed to make the regular enemies more aggressive, but never cared to do so while also keeping in mind to not go too far, as it’s easy to just make the whole experience simply frustrating and not really challenging by upping the enemy aggression even on the peons, and that just adding obstacles over obstacles without stopping to think if that made gameplay simply worse or better.
Just keep piling shit on top, more is always better, yeah?
As i previously lamented, the game loves spawners, but they make less and less sense as the game goes on, as not only it abuses them, but enemies spawn in into the maps anyways, making you wonder what’s the point, but i guess the point it’s just annoying the player in every way it can, be it with groups of flying enemies a bit too good on pushing you back, the archers being OP and often coming in dozens to stunlock your ass, when there aren’t enemies that inflicted burning damage by bumrushing you after hiding behind a crate, enemies that block you from using magic, skeletal turrets spitting firebombs from blind sponts, arenas when spawners keep appearing out of thin air as soon as you look away, or boulders dropping from the ceiling with no recognizable patterns.
The ol’ tactic of using any cheap trick they can think of to fabricate a sense of difficulty, because i never felt challenged, just annoyed, tested on the subject of “guess what bullshit i’m thinking right now”, at best, and even so, it can’t properly mask that there aren’t many types of foe or obstacles.
In terms of level design, N3-2 goes for a hybrid between the classic Warriors maps and more contained regular beat em up locales-arenas, so the maps is a bit smaller and there’s a more rigid way to how the missions make you move around the map and progress the conflict, also due to how every map has you activate 4 crystals in order to open the boss room-area.
Still, the maps being smaller means there’s less backtracking or time spent just moving while doing nothing else on the battlefield, and every stage introduces a new enemy type or new obstacle to be mindful, so not necessarily a bad middle ground of sorts… until it lasts, that is.
You see, towards the middle point of the story, the game… just gives up with the Warriors style sprawling battlefield maps, and goes for more linear levels, which is already baffling enough, but with this complete 180 ° flip comes the doubling-tripling down on most of the bullshit that already plagued the game before, bringing the cheap shots to another level, heck, even the checkpoints are even more scarce and badly paced than before.
Of course the final boss is the cheapest sonuvabitch of them all, with the final form being notably way harder than its 2 previous forms, but even then, its not really that difficult, just another war of attrition and seeing who can abuse the gameplay systems faster and better.
After finishing the campaign with Galen, which takes about 9 hours, you can play the other playable characters’ story mode, some even having some stages exclusives to them, often revolving around the characters unique ability (Sephia’s being more puzzle inclined due to this), but they mostly reuse enemies, map and overall content from Galen’s, some maps being identical but used slightly different due to a character’s unique traversal ability.
It’s clear these were maps made for Galen’s campaign (which honestly i stopped caring about halfway through) in mind, the ones for the others characters being afterthoughts that reuse assets and concept, not worse than the main campaign…. but not that much better either.
There is/was online multiplayer…. never bothered, apparently (i’m still not paying for Microsoft online subscriptions) it’s a co-op horde thing with leaderboards, cute, but i would have preferred local co-op and a free mode instead.
Concluding, Ninety Nine Nights 2 is a weird, confusing non-sequel made by entirely different developer, managing to arse up the Warriors formula again, though this time by making their own stupid design decisions…..while also having an entirely different plot that somehow almost identical, as are some designs, since it still goes for a high fantasy (with a touch of anime) style.
At least the story, while more banal (to almost parodical degrees so stereotypical it is), it’s better told, with less detestable protagonists and campaigns that don’t contradict each other, more consistent art direction and character designs (still drawing from western high fantasy filtered with an animesque touch) and more solid production values overall, even in the dubbing, that his the expected amount of seriousness & cheese you’d usually find in a musou game.
It’s so telling (and i think unprecedented) that the game basically stops trying to be a more proper Dynasty Warriors clone/like midway through, reverting back to a more linear beat em up, like a sudden reversal of the Fist Of The North Star musou-like games, but even the first Ken’s Rage was better in its attempt to crossbred the musou formula with the “DNA” of a more typical linear 3D beat em up, but that is the least of its problems, as the design tries to vary things up and make the gameplay more challenging… but it just makes thing more grating and frustrating due to a plethora of bad design decisions, mostly about balance. And some of the worse boss battles i’ve ever played.
I said before, and i’ll say it again, it’s no wonder Capcom just straight up copied the Dynasty Warriors formula with Sengoku Basara.
I’ll admit this is a better attempt than the first in pretty much every regard, and had some fun with it, more than the first N-3, but i struggle to recommend it even today, as people that don’t like games in the musou vein won’t have their mind changed, and musou fans will most likely be baffled that it squanders some solid combat with the increasingly absurd crocks of bad design choices it throws at the player, and it just gives up even trying to be a musou of sorts half-way through.
This is just for the musou buffs that wanna play ‘em all.
Not too surprised the series didn’t go anywhere besides a short lived MMO thingie called Ninety Nights Online, launched in December 2012 in Japan and Taiwanese markets only (maybe other SEA regions)t butit didn’t even last a proper year before the servers shut down, Q Entertaiment had the rights to the series but closed down in 2013 when the founder, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, left.
Phantagram still exists, having been acquired by Blueside back in 2010, but they haven’t done anything besides rereleasing some of the Kingdom Under Fire games like Heroes and The Crusaders on Steam in 2020… so i wouldn’t hold my breath out for anything N3 related, at all.
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