Ninety-Nine Nights: New Hands-On

Fresh impressions from the Mizuguchi and Phantagram title coming to Xbox 360 next month in Japan.

Before we look at what's new with Ninety-Nine Nights, a quick rant: one of the main selling points of the Xbox 360 was that with Xbox Live, publishers could offer demos and trailers of their upcoming titles without the need of a DVD or CD, which is both costly and not very timely, since the game needs to be pressed and then distributed through all the normal retail channels.

Having said that, why in the world is Microsoft Japan so clueless that they would start a promotional campaign by offering a disc demo of Q Entertainment's Ninety-Nine Nights, instead of having the game available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace? Microsoft Japan, what exactly are you thinking? You have the medium to offer some of the coolest deals and promotions that Nintendo and Sony simply cannot match right now. Please don't let it go to waste.

Now that we have that aside, Ninety-Nine Nights is a collaboration between Japan's Q Entertainment and Korea's Phantagram Interactive, both of which are working with Microsoft to deliver what they hope will be a stunning killer app for a system that desperately needs it in Japan. N3, as it's commonly called, promises a deep storyline, tactical strategy and a whole lot of action, all in one game. The demo that's currently being offered in stores across Japan is similar to the demo shown at the Tokyo Game Show last year, along with the ultra high-res intro video that was shown in several trailers before. The demo allows you to control Inphyy, the well-endowed red scarlet of Ninety-Nine Nights, as she leads her army into battle against some orcs.

Seeing as Phantagram has had some extensive experience in this sub-genre with its work on Kingdom Under Fire, they were the perfect partner for Q Entertainment to collaborate with for this game. Inphyy controls very well, despite the fact that you only have two attack buttons available to you. The rest are used for different actions, such as dashing (R Trigger) and guarding (L Trigger). You can also double jump into the air, allowing you to avoid most attacks. Best of all, by using the directional pad, you can give your troops simple commands, such as protecting your left and right flanks during battle. As far as combos and strings go, Inphyy doesn't possess the extensive move set that some of the characters in Dynasty Warriors do, but the demo is still a work in progress, so we expect that her repertoire of attacks will grow in size when the game is actually released.

Surprisingly, the demo actually shows us a couple of new things that haven't been truly explored in the sub-genre thus far. At one point in the demo, Inphyy can choose between attacking the orcs head-on with her army, or she can destroy some barricades that are blocking several boulders, which will do away with the bad guys before your comrades even have a chance to get close to them. Picking off the remaining survivors then becomes a piece of cake.

Another change from the TGS demo is the inclusion of two cut scenes, which gives us a glimpse of the supposed drama that will unfold in the game. The first cut scene shows Inphyy at what appears to be her headquarters, while the other is done in real time after the demo is finished. The first cut scene seems to be real-time, although we can't confirm it right now, but since the second one is definitely real-time, we'll assume that the first one is, as well.

Despite the nearly five month lapse between Tokyo Game Show and this recent release, Ninety-Nine Nights is still suffering from some major visual flaws. Pop-up is constant in the demo, and since the depth of field effect is turned on, it's much more apparent when objects start to appear out of nowhere. Additionally, the game has some major framerate problems, most notably when there are several hundred enemies on the screen at once. While it's pretty impressive that the 360 is pushing over half a thousand enemies on the screen at once, Mizuguchi has been promising over 2000 enemies on the screen. If the system is choking on only 1/4 of that number, it's going to be interesting to see if the company can live up to its promise.

Slated for release on April 20, Phantagram and Q Entertainment have a lot of work to do before the game's release in a little over a month from now. We'll let you know more about the game as it becomes available.

Andrew Alfonso
Contributor, Kikizo Games