NiGHTS Into Dreams – better than Sonic?

A reader celebrates two decades of Sega classic NiGHTS Into Dreams, and insists it’s still Sonic Team’s best ever game.

‘I don’t know why you like this game, it’s just a clown flying through hoops!’ is a line someone actually uttered to me back in the late nineties when I showed them what I deemed to be one of the greatest games I’d ever played. Now, two decades on from release, NiGHTS Into Dreams still mystifies onlookers more than it astounds them.

And if we’re being completely honest the game doesn’t help itself. Launched in 1996, the game was Sonic Team’s first real foray into the realm of 3D, back when they were headed by Yuji Naka and still well regarded following the first four 2D Sonic titles. As such the game carried with it a lot of expectation – I bought a Saturn almost for this game alone – and it responded with what’s possibly the greatest troll of that era.



You start as a child in a dreamlike landscape and are able to move in any direction, not unlike a certain other platformer released that year. This gameplay however is fleeting, as the only objective is to walk into NiGHTS’ prison about two feet away and morph into the purple jester to start the game proper. Gone is the 3D platforming, what you’re left with is a game that plays on a 2D plane and isn’t quite a platformer!


I imagine this put a lot of people off 20 years ago. If you were looking for the next Sonic, the Sega response to Super Mario 64 or a solid 3D platformer, you were in the wrong place.

But boy did it feel good being wrong. NiGHTS today is still a game unlike any other, and is easily one of the richest, deepest, most satisfying experiences on the Saturn – or indeed on today’s digital platforms. In part this can be attributed to the sublime gameplay, NiGHTS handles – dare I say it – like a dream. He may fly along a predetermined course on 2D plane, but full 360 degree movement is afforded to you as NiGHTS defies gravity.

The aerial jester is responsive and moves with pinpoint accuracy. The shoulder/trigger buttons perform tricks and at the push of a face button NiGHTS fizzes like a firework, zipping around the screen in a shower of sparks and contrails at that trademark Sonic Team speed.

On a purely objective basis, you must navigate four courses within each stage, each course a race against the clock to free imprisoned Ideya (the game’s token McGuffins) before taking on the boss. At each stage you’re graded, with a ‘C’ grade, the minimum to unlock the next stage, or ‘dream’. If the timer runs to zero during a course you’ll revert to human form, have to evade a giant egg-shaped alarm clock that will end your game should it focus its beam on you. and will get graded no higher than a ‘D’. Run out of time against a boss and it’s game over.

There are seven stages and once you figure out what you’re doing getting the required rank is easy, and finishing all seven can be done in a few hours. You could go back and get A ranks on each stage to unlock the full ending. However, to treat this as an ordinary objective-based game is to completely miss the point.



At its heart NiGHTS is decidedly old school, even for its time. Once each stage has been aced, the true challenge is laid bare. Can I beat the top score in each course? What’s the highest link I can achieve? How many tricks can I perform in a row? Can I beat the boss faster, for a higher multiplier?

The game then becomes an endless quest for improvement, as impulsive as Pac-Man Championship Edition but deeper, vaster, and more varied. You’ll find mechanics you weren’t aware of in initial playthroughs, shortcuts and secret areas abound to make you score swell and all the while the clock keeps ticking. Daring to go around the course one last time with just seconds on the clock is the very definition of risk versus reward, it’s thrilling, compulsive, and captivating.

All the while the game never loses an iota of its playful charm. The gameplay never misses the beat. The soundtrack is sublime; joyful, upbeat and catchy without ever being cheesy. And NiGHTS’ bountiful vistas are truly something to behold, especially on the modern ports but even on the ancient Saturn. Each dream is stunningly realised, the abstract furnishings of each stage never feeling forced or out of place. The art style is a magnificent, effervescent cocktail of cascading colour, wondrous rolling scenery and beautiful subtle touches. It all adds up to one gorgeous whole, stunningly realised as more than the sum of its perfect parts and an absolute pleasure to experience.


Even the Nightmaren, the games bosses, are a pleasure to do battle with. They differ in fabulous ways, from a card-throwing rival jester to a fireworks-obsessed feline to a giant spherical opera-singing rabbit. Not only do they all require specific tactics to fell them but each has their own secret shortcut to defeat, which is important when chasing that all-so important multiplier.

20 years ago I was faced with the question of Crash Bandicoot and a PS1 or NiGHTS and a Saturn. Despite the best efforts of the Currys staff I plumped for the latter and never looked back. NiGHTS oozes class and is just as good today as it was two decades ago. As far as I’m concerned it is Sonic Team’s magnum opus: an impossibly deep, gorgeous timeless masterpiece. If you’ve never given it a try or previously dismissed it out of hand, you owe it to yourself to go back – after 20 years of being worshipped by just a small cult of fans, NiGHTS deserves at least that.

By reader Swooper D (Swooped D – gamertag/swooper_d – PSN ID/Steam ID/Twitter)

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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