Chasing the birds, of the fluffy variety
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams has been developed exclusively for Wii so I think it’s fair for me to assume, before I booted up the disc, that the Wii-mote’s functionality would lend itself perfectly to the central gameplay element of flight and the spiralling, looping and gliding motions of the androgynous NiGHTS.NiGHTS is almost exclusively about flying. Yes, there are platforming elements and various mini-games, but for the majority of the game, and the most fun part of the whole experience, will be soaring through the skies, pulling off a range of acrobatic maneuvers, whilst dodging and weaving through golden hoops in an attempt to rack up as many links as possible.
As the initial tutorial demonstrates so well, the solid implementation of the Wii-mote and the potential the developer had to use its motion sensing capabilities to twist, turn and loop through the skies, hasn’t been realised. In fact, it’s been very poorly implemented.
You move the cursor on screen by directing the Wii-mote to where you need to go and then you press the ‘A’ button to move NiGHTS towards the cursor point. Using the Wii-mote is more akin to a nightmare than a dream. NiGHTS just doesn’t respond how she should and as a result it’s a bumpy uncomfortable ride.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageAn integral part of the gameplay is para-looping, which involves rotating your Wii-mote in a circular motion, which allows you to suck up blue chips that revitalise your spirit, kill enemies, or capture creatures. The margin for error is so small that you’ll find yourself becoming increasingly frustrated at NiGHTS inability to follow what you’d think would be an easy manoeuvre for the character, especially when the same movement of the Wii-mote has been implemented so well in other Wii games. Sadly, the implementation of the Wii-mote in NiGHTS has been overlooked and therefore it’s a total waste of time using the Wii-mote for flying at all.