Collection essentials #313 & #314: Nights Into Dreams (Saturn) and 3D Control Pad (Saturn)

Here we have one of the Saturn’s most popular and successful titles, from the creators of the beloved Sonic series. Of course, the console wasn’t very successful in general, so even being one of the most successful doesn’t mean it was a big mainstream hit. 

Nights is a rather unique game that’s a little hard to categorize into a genre. The plot is a little weird, and it involves a couple kids named Elliot and Claris who find out upon falling asleep that there are two dreamworlds, the awful Nightmare and the good Nightopia, and they must team up with a character named Nights (portrayed on the box) to thwart the evils of Nightmare. 

When you start the game, you control either one of the two kids, and you immediately want to go up to Nights and become one with them and start flying around. While the game is 3D, the flying is mostly done on a 2D plane (occasionally switching to a third-person perspective), with the player generally moving to the right with the ability to fly up and down as well as reversing to the left. Basically, the objective is to take a few laps around the area and collect enough blue chips (at least 20) to take to these floating cage-like things. All this is done with a time limit. And after a few loops of this, you’ll fight against a boss, which is also done flying on a cylindrical 2D plane.

Nights was one of the games bundled in with the first Sega Saturn that I bought back in 2004. I knew it was considered a great game, but for a long time I couldn’t really get into it. I felt like I didn’t really “get it” on some level. And that was correct, I really didn’t “get it”. Turns out, Nights doesn’t really do a great job of explaining itself to a new player. For starters, it seems to be a progression-based game with levels that you beat complete with bosses, and an ending and everything. But, really, this is a score attack game at its core. The appeal of Nights’ gameplay is found in the process of learning how to score the most points you can, practicing at the game until you master it and getting a killer score that none of your friends can beat. There are a lot of intricacies to Night’s gameplay and I’m not going to get into that here. But this game certainly delivers to score-oriented gamers.

The original controllers for the Saturn came with a d-pad and no joysticks, but it was becoming clear around this time that analog on controllers was going to be the new norm, and so Sega created the “3D Controller” that has an analog thumbstick. Nights was designed with analog controls in mind, not wanting to be restricted by the eight movement directions you’re limited to with a d-pad. Some copies of Nights even shipped with this controller included, because it was that important for the game. Part of the appeal of Nights is how fun it feels to control, flying around gracefully at high speeds. Add in a lovely soundtrack and you have a game that just feels good to play.

Nowadays, you can get Nights Into Dreams on Steam, so you don’t even need to get a Saturn to experience it. And, honestly, I could use an excuse to really sink my teeth in this game more, as I find score-based games far more enjoyable when other people I know have scores I can try to beat! So drop me a line if you wanna have a little Nights competition.