Some of my best memories as a gamer were spent wasting countless hours with the button-masher genre of video games. Dynasty Warriors and Kingdom of Heroes took up much up my time when I was younger, obviously when I heard Microsoft was bringing a Japanese button masher stateside this year I got very excited. This joy from my childhood came to the Xbox 360 in the form of N3: Ninety Nine Nights (N3), which has been developed by Q Entertainment and published by Microsoft. Being a game that was released in Japan a while back there wasn’t much excitement around N3 over the past few months in the online gaming community, but for me it was something to get pumped up about, did N3 disappoint? In some ways yes, but overall it was an enjoyable gaming experience that left me wanting more but feeling empty at the same time. Let me explain.
The storyline is something that really drew me into N3, from the first videos I saw I was hooked. Basically there are goblins and humans that are in a war for the survival of the planet (Lord of the Rings anyone), having seven main interactive characters is something that most games do not have the guts to try. As the gamer you not only get to see parts of the story from seven different angles but you get to take part in some battles that would otherwise never be seen by the human eye. The seven characters are similar but different in style, which makes for somewhat repetitive gameplay but still adds to the overall shallow depth of the game. But this is a button-masher, so no need to get all hooked up on the storyline, the gameplay is what really counts here. I won’t spend much time on the controls, they are basic enough: X and Y attacks, B does special attack, A jumps, L-trigger blocks, and d-pad controls your armies (somewhat). The controls are surprisingly tight and the characters control with a small amount of precision that makes taking on a couple hundred enemies a problem of the past. Let me go ahead and get this out of the way; the single player game is the only thing to have in N3, no Xbox Live modes to speak of, oh and two player co-op is also very noticeably absent.
Unfortunately the same bug that plagues all button-masher games, even the ones of the next generation, strikes N3 and the gameplay gets very repetitive and can start to wear down the epidermis of your fingers. The first few hours I was enthralled by this game, seriously addicted, but after having to replay the same level three times (there is no game saves during a level) and then playing it from a different angle (new character) things got old, fast. There are boss battles at the end of each level but the crazy save style will cause for some very unnerving fights with the bosses. The attacks are varied between characters but once you master a characters fighting style it is all the same until the end. You can level your characters up but the process is really nothing more than some good eye-candy effects. Because you cannot save throughout the level make sure to watch for power-ups and health refills, which are scattered throughout the stage in the form of chests or dead bodies. There are usually other fellow soldiers and heroes on screen fighting alongside you, although all they really do is get in the way and frustrate the hell out of you until they die or you kill all of the opposing troops. The main draw of this game is the sheer size of battles, 50 vs. 200 is something that is very common in N3, this makes for some really fun gameplay. They say there are twenty hours of gameplay in N3 but I have yet to be able to force myself to play it for more than ten, although there is no doubt in my mind that after a little time I will pick up N3 for some more button mashing fun. At its core Ninety Nine Nights is a joy to play, if only button mashers were like fine wine, able to get better with time.
