Nights was the very first Saturn game I bought, with the console and the 3D controller, I wouldn't have thought of playing any other way. It's quite comical that all the games magazines at the time were grouping Nights, Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot as direct competition, because they all were released around the same time for different consoles. Like you said, you can't really define Nights, so having the official Sega magazine try and defend Nights over Super Mario 64 was quite funny actually.
I still enjoyed it though, take it for what it is. It tries to be something unique yet still sticks to Sega's arcade style roots focusing on high scores and speed/fluidity. Have you tried Christmas Nights?
This is still a mindset I find with a lot of retro gaming where people try to match up 'equivalents' on other consoles when they had entirely different libraries of games, it's a little bit silly. Not only can't you define Nights but to this day there are many that argue Crash isn't a 3D platformer for example.
I think it's a great game too, I'm not sure if I'd give it my #1 on Saturn but it's up there. I don't own Christmas Nights yet but I'll be sure to grab it, I know there's all sorts that's been found in that game like Valentine's day themed stuff too, if you mess around with the console's date and time.
Driving by to say this post inspired me to fire up Nights on the emulator last night and was absolutely charmed by it once again, just like I was when I was 12. I didn't have the 3D pad for my Saturn. Playing it with a modern analog controller was a revelation! Felt really good.
Ah that's great to hear! I love it when someone decides to play/replay something I've written about. Let's hope Sega brings it back and stay true to Nights' roots.
My recollection is this game was as heavily hyped as a Saturn game could be a year after launch, with the PS1's lead only growing and the Saturn's viability in serious and ever-increasing doubt. I think Nights might have even had TV advertising.
But what sort of game would it be? The initial advertising was unclear. The expectation of my closest Saturn-owning friend is that it would be a grand 3D adventure along the lines of Mario 64, but with buttery-smooth flight controls. A vast world that would be a "dream" to explore. THIS would be the game that turns around the Saturn's fate.
This seems to be the "denial" stage of grief for everyone that has invested too deeply in a failing format. Like Hitler imagining that his rockets and jet fighters would turn the tide as the walls closed in around him, the devoted fanboy of a dying console is always given to dreams of the game that will rescue his bad decision from oblivion and set the world right.
We could say that when denial turns to anger is when the reputation of failed consoles goes too negative. So let's be clear on the Saturn: there is a lot to enjoy on it today, for those who passed it over. It was not a failure the way the Jaguar was a failure. Even the 3DO was not a failure the way the Jaguar was a failure (IMO, those two are frequently and unfairly lumped together retrospectively.) And the Saturn was better than both.
But let's also not forget that owning a Saturn at the time, in lieu of the alternatives, was regrettable. I saw that regret firsthand.
As for Nights: it couldn't possibly support the hopes placed upon it. My friend rented it on a Friday and invited me over that night. First there was confusion, then sadness. We recognized pretty quickly that this game would not rescue the Saturn. We didn't really get it. It was KIND of fun. But not fun enough. He didn't end up even buying it. I didn't give the game much more thought.
I didn't think about the game for a long time. I remember some years later, probably in college (which would have been the PS2 era), someone mentioning the Saturn offhand and how Nights was the only good game on it. Which immediately started an argument with me: the Saturn had many good games, and Nights was not one of them.
But I decided to retry this game many years later via the Steam re-release (apparently now unpurchasable.) And I finally got it. I didn't play it a ton, but I sunk maybe 5 hours into it and had fun with that time and mean to play it again sometime. I get it now, finally. It is sui generis, and it is a quick pick up and play experience. At my age, I enjoy both those things, especially when discovering (or re-discovering) retro games. But it isn't really what sold systems in 1996. In retro games, "sui generis" is another way of saying "dead end." It's natural that such games are fascinating, but I'm also inclined to think that every dead end is a dead end for a reason.
This is the kind of comment I hope to get under every article, thanks for writing this, there's a lot of food for though, especially for me who doesn't remember a time before the PS2/GCN/Xbox which defined my early gaming years.
I relate to that fanboy of a dying console feeling well: that was me with the Xbox One for the first 2 years of its life. Like the Saturn it did have plenty of games that were better than on the PlayStation and exclusives like Ryse: Son Of Rome and Dead Rising 3 were good games. I thought Halo 5: Guardians would be the console saving experience: the feeling at the time was that Halo 4 had set up a bright future and now that 343 had cut their teeth on 1.5 Halo games (they collaborated with Bungie on Reach) we'd see them reach their peak in Halo 5, powered by the new tech... we know how that story ends. Unlike Saturn, the Xbone didn't have hundreds of hidden gems.
You're spot on about the failure of Saturn, even now, as someone who wasn't alive before 2000, I feel its shortcomings in-spite of my love for the platform. There is no SM64 or Metal Gear Solid on Saturn and outside JRPG's there are really very few games that offer a fusion of narrative and gameplay in the way that people wanted; it doesn't help that most Saturn games are quite short too.
Nights Into Dreams might've been loved if it came out alongside Sonic Adventure as a Dreamcast launch title or if the Saturn had gotten its big 3D Sonic... but that's not how history worked and this quirky, fun arcade flying game was saddled with the hopes of a generation instead.
Good observations. Especially about that missing "fusion of narrative and gameplay" that isn't a JRPG -- and let's be honest, as JRPGs go in this era, there was FF7 and there was "everything else". And in the popular imagination, I don't think "everything else" put together approached FF7's cultural power. But even so, the PS1 totally dominated in both the FF7 and "everything else" categories.
There's a parallel for me with your comparison to the XB1 vs PS4 competition, because that's the first console generation I never participated in and didn't really even pay attention to when it was happening. To this day, I don't have much frame of reference for it, because the key games don't mean anything to me.
It sounds like exaggeration to say the Saturn had *hundreds* of hidden gems. I'll give you "dozens". But I can see how it's easier to fall in love with an old console from the days when exclusives were far more common. To fall in love with the Saturn in retrospect means falling in love with an entire era of 1st-party Sega. Or for others, an entire era of Japanese SHMUPs, for example, or an era of fighting games.
One thing we can also say about the Saturn: it didn't give us Sonic 4. This sounds like a bad thing, but said another way, it's a good thing: look at the actual, real-life Sonic 4! If it gave us THAT Sonic 4, maybe that would be more like what Microsoft did with Halo on the XB1. Sega swung for the fences with a lot of original IP here. Even the misses deserve to be remembered more fondly than Sonic 4. Or, apparently, Halo 5.
I can say with confidence, nothing is ever going to cause me to retrospectively fall in love with the XB1 or the PS4. I don't really even know what that would mean.
Such a beautiful game. It's a shame how under the radar it is and even moreso how despite the recognizability of the character, SEGA just kind of parades them around as an off-brand mascot without really doing anything.
I'm kind of shocked they haven't added it as a playable title in Yakuza or something, if for nothing else than to gauge modern interest.
They are quite interested in reviving older IP's lately so I hope Nights gets another chance to shine. A lot of indie games are more casual/score-based now and given Nights' cosy aesthetic I could see a modern one doing well at an appropriate level of both price and polish.
I'm shocked there aren't more Sega collections that are Saturn and Dreamcast games, not just ones from the Mega Drive. A Saturn Essentials collection with the 3 Virtua Cops (with Switch 2 mouse functionality) especially since the third has never come home from arcades, Sega Rally, Daytona Championship Edition, Nights, Fighters Megamix and maybe Panzer Dragoon I and Zwei would go hard.
Dude I would pick that up in a heartbeat. Heck, I feel like just a modern rerelease of Panzer Dragoon Saga would be a real headline grabber. For what the dev team went through and how great that game is it's criminal just how buried in the dust it's become.
I wouldnt he shocked if the source code was lost in a dumpster somewhere.
Nights was the very first Saturn game I bought, with the console and the 3D controller, I wouldn't have thought of playing any other way. It's quite comical that all the games magazines at the time were grouping Nights, Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot as direct competition, because they all were released around the same time for different consoles. Like you said, you can't really define Nights, so having the official Sega magazine try and defend Nights over Super Mario 64 was quite funny actually.
I still enjoyed it though, take it for what it is. It tries to be something unique yet still sticks to Sega's arcade style roots focusing on high scores and speed/fluidity. Have you tried Christmas Nights?
This is still a mindset I find with a lot of retro gaming where people try to match up 'equivalents' on other consoles when they had entirely different libraries of games, it's a little bit silly. Not only can't you define Nights but to this day there are many that argue Crash isn't a 3D platformer for example.
I think it's a great game too, I'm not sure if I'd give it my #1 on Saturn but it's up there. I don't own Christmas Nights yet but I'll be sure to grab it, I know there's all sorts that's been found in that game like Valentine's day themed stuff too, if you mess around with the console's date and time.
Driving by to say this post inspired me to fire up Nights on the emulator last night and was absolutely charmed by it once again, just like I was when I was 12. I didn't have the 3D pad for my Saturn. Playing it with a modern analog controller was a revelation! Felt really good.
Ah that's great to hear! I love it when someone decides to play/replay something I've written about. Let's hope Sega brings it back and stay true to Nights' roots.
My experience with Nights, back in the day:
My recollection is this game was as heavily hyped as a Saturn game could be a year after launch, with the PS1's lead only growing and the Saturn's viability in serious and ever-increasing doubt. I think Nights might have even had TV advertising.
But what sort of game would it be? The initial advertising was unclear. The expectation of my closest Saturn-owning friend is that it would be a grand 3D adventure along the lines of Mario 64, but with buttery-smooth flight controls. A vast world that would be a "dream" to explore. THIS would be the game that turns around the Saturn's fate.
This seems to be the "denial" stage of grief for everyone that has invested too deeply in a failing format. Like Hitler imagining that his rockets and jet fighters would turn the tide as the walls closed in around him, the devoted fanboy of a dying console is always given to dreams of the game that will rescue his bad decision from oblivion and set the world right.
We could say that when denial turns to anger is when the reputation of failed consoles goes too negative. So let's be clear on the Saturn: there is a lot to enjoy on it today, for those who passed it over. It was not a failure the way the Jaguar was a failure. Even the 3DO was not a failure the way the Jaguar was a failure (IMO, those two are frequently and unfairly lumped together retrospectively.) And the Saturn was better than both.
But let's also not forget that owning a Saturn at the time, in lieu of the alternatives, was regrettable. I saw that regret firsthand.
As for Nights: it couldn't possibly support the hopes placed upon it. My friend rented it on a Friday and invited me over that night. First there was confusion, then sadness. We recognized pretty quickly that this game would not rescue the Saturn. We didn't really get it. It was KIND of fun. But not fun enough. He didn't end up even buying it. I didn't give the game much more thought.
I didn't think about the game for a long time. I remember some years later, probably in college (which would have been the PS2 era), someone mentioning the Saturn offhand and how Nights was the only good game on it. Which immediately started an argument with me: the Saturn had many good games, and Nights was not one of them.
But I decided to retry this game many years later via the Steam re-release (apparently now unpurchasable.) And I finally got it. I didn't play it a ton, but I sunk maybe 5 hours into it and had fun with that time and mean to play it again sometime. I get it now, finally. It is sui generis, and it is a quick pick up and play experience. At my age, I enjoy both those things, especially when discovering (or re-discovering) retro games. But it isn't really what sold systems in 1996. In retro games, "sui generis" is another way of saying "dead end." It's natural that such games are fascinating, but I'm also inclined to think that every dead end is a dead end for a reason.
This is the kind of comment I hope to get under every article, thanks for writing this, there's a lot of food for though, especially for me who doesn't remember a time before the PS2/GCN/Xbox which defined my early gaming years.
I relate to that fanboy of a dying console feeling well: that was me with the Xbox One for the first 2 years of its life. Like the Saturn it did have plenty of games that were better than on the PlayStation and exclusives like Ryse: Son Of Rome and Dead Rising 3 were good games. I thought Halo 5: Guardians would be the console saving experience: the feeling at the time was that Halo 4 had set up a bright future and now that 343 had cut their teeth on 1.5 Halo games (they collaborated with Bungie on Reach) we'd see them reach their peak in Halo 5, powered by the new tech... we know how that story ends. Unlike Saturn, the Xbone didn't have hundreds of hidden gems.
You're spot on about the failure of Saturn, even now, as someone who wasn't alive before 2000, I feel its shortcomings in-spite of my love for the platform. There is no SM64 or Metal Gear Solid on Saturn and outside JRPG's there are really very few games that offer a fusion of narrative and gameplay in the way that people wanted; it doesn't help that most Saturn games are quite short too.
Nights Into Dreams might've been loved if it came out alongside Sonic Adventure as a Dreamcast launch title or if the Saturn had gotten its big 3D Sonic... but that's not how history worked and this quirky, fun arcade flying game was saddled with the hopes of a generation instead.
Good observations. Especially about that missing "fusion of narrative and gameplay" that isn't a JRPG -- and let's be honest, as JRPGs go in this era, there was FF7 and there was "everything else". And in the popular imagination, I don't think "everything else" put together approached FF7's cultural power. But even so, the PS1 totally dominated in both the FF7 and "everything else" categories.
There's a parallel for me with your comparison to the XB1 vs PS4 competition, because that's the first console generation I never participated in and didn't really even pay attention to when it was happening. To this day, I don't have much frame of reference for it, because the key games don't mean anything to me.
It sounds like exaggeration to say the Saturn had *hundreds* of hidden gems. I'll give you "dozens". But I can see how it's easier to fall in love with an old console from the days when exclusives were far more common. To fall in love with the Saturn in retrospect means falling in love with an entire era of 1st-party Sega. Or for others, an entire era of Japanese SHMUPs, for example, or an era of fighting games.
One thing we can also say about the Saturn: it didn't give us Sonic 4. This sounds like a bad thing, but said another way, it's a good thing: look at the actual, real-life Sonic 4! If it gave us THAT Sonic 4, maybe that would be more like what Microsoft did with Halo on the XB1. Sega swung for the fences with a lot of original IP here. Even the misses deserve to be remembered more fondly than Sonic 4. Or, apparently, Halo 5.
I can say with confidence, nothing is ever going to cause me to retrospectively fall in love with the XB1 or the PS4. I don't really even know what that would mean.
Such a beautiful game. It's a shame how under the radar it is and even moreso how despite the recognizability of the character, SEGA just kind of parades them around as an off-brand mascot without really doing anything.
I'm kind of shocked they haven't added it as a playable title in Yakuza or something, if for nothing else than to gauge modern interest.
They are quite interested in reviving older IP's lately so I hope Nights gets another chance to shine. A lot of indie games are more casual/score-based now and given Nights' cosy aesthetic I could see a modern one doing well at an appropriate level of both price and polish.
I'm shocked there aren't more Sega collections that are Saturn and Dreamcast games, not just ones from the Mega Drive. A Saturn Essentials collection with the 3 Virtua Cops (with Switch 2 mouse functionality) especially since the third has never come home from arcades, Sega Rally, Daytona Championship Edition, Nights, Fighters Megamix and maybe Panzer Dragoon I and Zwei would go hard.
Dude I would pick that up in a heartbeat. Heck, I feel like just a modern rerelease of Panzer Dragoon Saga would be a real headline grabber. For what the dev team went through and how great that game is it's criminal just how buried in the dust it's become.
I wouldnt he shocked if the source code was lost in a dumpster somewhere.