Even though the series only has two games and a bonus edition, the NiGHTS series has one of the largest cult followings out of all the SEGA franchises, and even SEGA, Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka and Naoto Oshima acknowledge that, [[Lynne Triplett]] (better known as TRiPPY), is a famous artist and NiGHTS fan among the NiGHTS community and was responsable for creating [http://www.nightsintodreams.com/ NiGHTSintodreams.com] along with her boyfriend, Niyazi Sonmez (better known as Digi Valentine), a NiGHTS fan site dedicated to NiGHTS' news, facts, fanarts, fan comics and more, Lynne and Niyazi also met and interviewed the serie's creators and developers, revealing information about the game's development which were previously never known, such as official information about the deleted character [[Selph]].
+
Even though the series only has two games and a bonus edition, the NiGHTS series has one of the largest cult followings out of all the SEGA franchises, and even SEGA, Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka and Naoto Oshima acknowledge that, [[Lynne Triplett]] (better known as TRiPPY), is a famous artist and NiGHTS fan among the NiGHTS community and was responsable for creating [http://www.nightsintodreams.com/ NiGHTSintodreams.com] along with her boyfriend, Niyazi Sonmez (better known as Digi Valentine), a NiGHTS fan site dedicated to NiGHTS' news, facts, fanarts, fan comics and more, Lynne and Niyazi also met and interviewed the serie's creators and developers, revealing details about the game's development which were previously never known, such as official information about the deleted character [[Selph]].
−
In 2010, the NiGHTS community started a campaign to make NiGHTS a playable character in Sonic and SEGA All-Star Racing (a racing game featuring a lot of SEGA characters such as Sonic, AiAi, Virtua Fighter characters and more) once it was revealed he wouldn't be a playable character in the game, the campaign was strong enough to reach SUMO Digital Studios and Steve Lycett answered the campaign saying they would be considering to make NiGHTS a DLC, unfortunatly though, Metal Sonic was the only DLC character for the game and there were no more talk about NiGHTS, however, both NiGHTS and Reala became playable characters in the sequel, Sonic and All-Star Racing Transformed in 2012.
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In 2010, the NiGHTS community started a campaign to make NiGHTS a playable character in Sonic and SEGA All-Star Racing once it was revealed he wouldn't be a playable character in the game, the campaign was strong enough to reach SUMO Digital Studios and Steve Lycett answered it saying they would be considering to make NiGHTS a DLC, unfortunatly though, Metal Sonic was the only DLC character for the game and there were no more talk about NiGHTS, however, both NiGHTS and Reala became playable characters in the sequel, Sonic and All-Star Racing Transformed in 2012.
In 2011, to celebrate the game's 15th anniversary, OverClocked ReMix (OC Remix), a community which makes remixes of video game music with composers from all over the world, made a fan album for NiGHTS into dreams, called ''NiGHTS Lucid Dreaming'' <ref>http://lucid.ocremix.org/</ref> and Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka themselves were gifted with copies of the discs.
In 2011, to celebrate the game's 15th anniversary, OverClocked ReMix (OC Remix), a community which makes remixes of video game music with composers from all over the world, made a fan album for NiGHTS into dreams, called ''NiGHTS Lucid Dreaming'' <ref>http://lucid.ocremix.org/</ref> and Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka themselves were gifted with copies of the discs.
Revision as of 14:46, 1 April 2020
Logo for the NiGHTS series
NiGHTS is a video games franchise developed by SEGA starring the titular character, NiGHTS, a genderless nightmaren who was created to do evil but decided to rebel against it and now fights to protect the world of dreams from the nightmarens, the series started in 1996 with the release of NiGHTS into dreams for the SEGA Saturn. Even though the series only has two games and a bonus edition, NiGHTS has managed to become one of SEGA's most popular series, the serie was created by Yuji Naka, who was also the creator of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, in fact, one of NiGHTS most notable aspects, is the fact it has been referred in a lot Sonic games, such as Sonic Adventure, Sonic Riders and Sonic Lost World.
Beside's it's two games, NiGHTS had a cancelled Dreamcast game called Air NiGHTS, a small comic series released in 1998 and a storybook released only in Japan in 1996.
NiGHTS, the rebellious nightmaren and game's titular character, as he appeared in NiGHTS Journey of dreams.
When humans go to sleep, they are transported to the Night Dimension, a magical dimension divided into two types of locations: the world of dreams, known as Nightopia and the world of the nightmares, know as Nightmare, Wizeman the Wicked is the God and creator of Nightmare and all of it's habitants, called the Nightmarens, he created them with the intention to destroy Nightopia and steal ideyas from humans (who the Night Dimension residents call "Visitors" or "Dreamers") when they are sleeping, ideyas are colorful orbs representing human dream energy and every Visitor possesses five of them, once Wizeman steal enough Ideyas from humans, he will be able to invade and take over the real world, but out of the five ideyas, the red ideya of courage is the most powerful and due to it's power, the nightmarens cannot steal it, for that reason Wizeman created two nightmarens who are his most powerful creations called NiGHTS and Reala with the intention to steal the red ideyas, but for Wizeman's surprise, while Reala stayed very loyal to him, NiGHTS decided to rebel against him, since then, NiGHTS has been fighting Wizeman and his minions to protect the world of dreams and humans, NiGHTS is assisted by human children who are having a hard time in their lifes, during their adventures, NiGHTS helps and encourages them to face their problems, to defeat the nightmarens, NiGHTS has the power fuse with humans so he can use their red ideya to become more powerful, in the games, this type of fusion is called "dualize".
Ideyas
Ideyas, the human's dream energy the nightmarens are trying to steal to accomplish their goals.
Ideyas are colored, crystalline orbs representing dream energy. The Nightmarens try to steal them from visitors to further their goal of destroying Nightopia and once they collect enough of them, they'll be able to invade the real world. Each time an Ideya is stolen, Nightopia disappears bit by bit. Ideya represents the visitor's consciousness in the Night Dimension. Every dreamer possesses five of them, although they are often stolen by Nightmarens on the way to the Night Dimension. The name is a play on the word idea.
The ideyas are the white ideya of purity, the yellow ideya of hope, the green ideya of growth, the blue ideya of inteligence and the most powerful one, the red ideya of courage.
The ideya of the courage cannot be stolen by the nightmarens due to it's power, because of this, NiGHTS and Reala were created with the intention to steal it, in the Archie Comics, it's revealed that NiGHTS' ruby on his chest is actually a shard of the red ideya which latched on to his chest.
Nightmarens
Nightmarens are the residents of Nightmare who invade Nightopia and creations of Wizeman, created from his own twisted ideas. They serve the purpose of stealing ideya and destroying Nightopia, they are generally evil and obedient to Wizeman, with the notable exception of NiGHTS.
The nightmarens follow a system where they are ranked as first, second or third level nightmarens:
The hierarchy of the nightmarens from NiGHTS into dreams according to Nightmare's level system.
First level Nightmarens are the highest ranking nightmarens and Wizeman's strongest creations, there are only two of them, NiGHTS and Reala, they were created specifically to steal the red ideya.
Second level Nightmarens are all of the bosses from both games with the exception of Reala and Wizeman, they are big and powerful monsters with many different designs and abilities, they have the power to create their own battlefield to fight NiGHTS, second level nightmarens are stronger and more resistent than most of the nightmarens from Nightmare, but they are not stronger than NiGHTS and Reala.
Third level Nightmarens are the enemies who can be found through the levels and are Wizeman's weakest creations, they can be easily defeated any attack and even visitors can fight and defeat them by themselves.
Visitors
The "Visitors" (or "Dreamers") are the humans protagonists from the games they are addressed by that name by the Night Dimension residents, so far, the NiGHTS series presented four visitors (five with the Archie Comics), Elliot Edwards and Claris Sinclair in NiGHTS into dreams and William "Will" Taylor and Helen Cartwright in NiGHTS Journey of dreams, all four of them are having a hard time in their lifes, Claris is feeling insecure about the dreams she wants to follow, Elliot is feeling embarassed after being bullied by older kids, Helen is feeling guilty about her behavior towards her mother and William is feeling lonely after his father leaving him due to his work, one night during their sleep, they are having nightmares releated to their problems when suddently, monsters appear and start chasing the visitors, they run from the monsters until they see a light which transports them to the Night dimension, where they meet NiGHTS and their journey begins, before every level, NiGHTS gets captured by the nightmarens and is imprisioned in a cage, but the Visitors red ideyas are capable of releasing him from the cage for a limited time so NiGHTS can save a Nightopia location one by one, in the Archie comics, Elliot's bully and rival, Roger Wilkeah, is also a visitor, Roger is sent to the nightmare world and he joins forces with Reala to defeat NiGHTS.
The visitors from the series:
Elliot Edwards, one of the two visitors from NiGHTS into Dreams.
Claris Sinclair, one of the two visitors from NiGHTS into Dreams.
William Taylor, one of the two visitors from NiGHTS Journey of Dreams.
Helen Cartwright, one of the two visitors from NiGHTS Journey of Dreams.
An interesting fact, is that Wizeman the Wicked, the series' main antagonist and God of all Nightmare has been confirmed to be an actual visitor/human from the awaking world as well, though that was only mentioned in the NiGHTS into Dreams japanese manual, Wizeman was a visitor with no ideyas and he somehow got trapped in the Night Dimension, how/why that happen or how he became who he is now are unanswered mysteries.
Nightopians
Nightopians are little fairy-like creatures and as their names suggest, they are residents of Nightopia, according to the now, unavalible NiGHTS into dreams official website, they don't have any goal other than live their lifes and have fun in visitor's dream worlds, they can be found in every level from both games but Twin Seeds and Bellbridge, in 1998, the Nightopians were the inspiration for the creation of the Chaos from the Sonic series.
Nightopian Artwork from NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.
Nightopians were Sonic Team's first Announced "Artificial-life" (A-Life), in NiGHTS into Dreams, the game will keep track of the moods of the Nightopians (harming them will displease them, for example), and the game features music engine that changed the background music (BGM) depending on the mood of the Nightopians in that specific level changing tempo, pitch, and melody. When two Nightopians touch, there is a chance that an egg will appear. By paralooping a Nightopian, the player will kill it, and lower the mood of every other Nightopian in the level, and drill dashing near one will cause it to be afraid of the player, and will lower that specific Nightopian's mood. Nightopians will either follow the player, run away from them, or be completely indifferent to their presence, based on their mood. If one is skilled enough, and has the patience, they can lure any two Nightopians close enough, and breed them, another thing that can happen during gameplay is that the nightmaren enemies from the levels may eat the Nightopians at any time. After a few playthroughs of the same level, Nightopians will disappear, with the oldest ones being the first to go, as to make it easier for the hardware to load the level and keep a decent framerate.
In NiGHTS Journey of Dreams, the Nightopians act the same way they did in the previous game, this time however, their mood won't change the level's music, there's also a feature called My Dream also known as "Nightopian Garden", a place where the player can take care of Nightopians in a similar way to the Chao Garden from the Sonic series, when the player paraloops a Nightopian in this game, they won't kill it, but rather transport the Nightopians to My Dream, the player can also transport and take care of Nightmarens and feed them with Nightopians.
The games also feature special types of Nightopians called Mepians and a very rare Nightopian called Super/King Pian, these Nightopians will only appear in the levels or in the Nightopian Garden if the player does specific things in the levels.
Awakers
The Alarm Egg from NiGHTS into dreams.
Awakers are neutral creatures from the Night Dimension who's purpose is to make the visitors wake up, they will appear at the beggining of the levels if the visitors don't dualize with NiGHTS or if the visitor unfuse with NiGHTS (which happens when the time runs out when the player is controlling NiGHTS) and will start chasing them. If the Awakers get the visitors, they will make the visitors wake up and cause a game over screen, (which is called Night Over in the games) the Awakers are invincible and the only way to make them disappear is by dualizing with NiGHTS. In NiGHTS into Dreams, the Awaker is called Alarm Egg, it's a clock inside an eggshell with a light coming from below. When either Elliot or Claris go inside the light, they will wake up, [1] the two visitors however, can defend themselves from it by jumping over the clock which will stop it for a few seconds. in NiGHTS Journey of Dreams they are simply called Awakers and they are ghost like creatures who make alarm clock sounds, they pop up on William and Helen's way and if three Awakers get the visitors, they will make them wake up.
NiGHTS Gender Debate
"Men or women, we all have dreams, so I thought that the residents in the dream world shouldn’t have a gender, rather, the form of the characters should be determined by the person who is dreaming."
Puffy has a very feminine appearance and is refereed by female pronouns, however, she is confirmed to be genderless, just like NiGHTS and the rest of the residents from the Night Dimension.
The characters gender (specially NiGHTS' gender) is a very infamous detail which has caused a lot of debates among the community, many people question if NiGHTS is actually a boy or a girl while others try to prove NiGHTS actually belongs to a specific gender, however, Yuji Naka himself already confirmed in an interview that every resident from the Night Dimension is genderless, including NiGHTS, Reala, Nightopians, Owl and others, [2] even characters like Puffy, Bomamba and Queen Bella, who have a very feminine design and go by female pronouns, are actually genderless, even though NiGHTS is genderless, he is referred to as a "he" in all types of media and his voice actors are females most likely to make him sound like a child, after all, many young girls and boys in movies, TV series and video games are voiced by women, Wizeman, who is confirmed to be male, is the only exception, he is the only resident from the Night Dimension to have a gender because he was an actual human before getting trapped in the world of dreams and becoming the God of all the nightmarens.
Other examples:
Donbalon's name means "Sir Ball" in spanish, yet he is genderless as well.
Queen Bella is also genderless despite having the word "Queen" on her name.
Owl is not a nightmaren, but he is a resident of the Night Dimension, therefore, he is genderless.
Sonic Team wanted NiGHTS to appeal to a wide audience and be relatable to everybody regardless of gender, therefore it was made clear that the character has no gender of their own, so it's up to the player to decide how they want to see NiGHTS. [3] There's also a popular belief among the community where they believe NiGHTS' gender will change depending on the visitor he dualizes with, if NiGHTS dualizes with a male visitor, NiGHTS will become a boy, if NiGHTS dualizes with a female visitor, NiGHTS will become a girl and when he is not fused, he will become genderless.
Inspirations
Carl Gustav Jung works were the main inspiration for the NiGHTS' series.
The works and theories of psychoanalysts Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud heavily influenced in the game, the development team researched dream sequences and REM sleep, including the works of the psychoanalysts Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Holtz, Jung's theories of dream archetypes and theories associated with them were deeply analysed and were the inspiration for characters and more, NiGHTS is reflective of Jung's analytical Shadow theory, Claris and Elliot were inspired by Jung's animus and anima and the Personas from NiGHTS Journey of Dreams were inspired by Jung's Persona, there's also a deleted character who would make an appearance as a boss in NiGHTS into Dreams called Selph, who would be inspired by the Self archetype. [4] For character's designs, the designs and performances from the circus, Cirque du Soleil, were the main inspiration for the nightmarens designs as well as NiGHTS' acrobatics skills.
Gameplay
NiGHTS is known for being a game all about flying, being even nicknamed "Sonic in the air" by IGN, before taking control of NiGHTS, the player take control of one of the visitors who can explore the level by themselves and discover secrets, but for a limited time, because if they don't dualize with NiGHTS quickly, the awakers will appear and try to make the visitors wake up which will result in a game over, when the visitors release NiGHTS from his cage by dualizing with him, the player takes control of the character and the level will truly begins, the levels consist of laps (known as mares), NiGHTS will have a limited time to accomplish a goal which is the same in every lap (the goals will be explained below) and once he makes it, he will need to go back to where the level began to go to the next lap.
NiGHTS can freely fly through the levels, collecting items, passing through rings and defeating third level nightmarens while he tries to accomplish the lap's goal and he has two main basic attacks, the drill dash, where he will spin and fly faster, destroying any nightmaren in the way and the paraloop where he will create a void which will suck anything by making a circle in the air, NiGHTS can also grab the enemies and either drill dash or paraloop them, these moves are called touch-dash and touch-loop respectively, he also has the ability to shapeshift which is used in certain sections of the levels, for example, in Splash Garden, NiGHTS will turn into a mermaid during a water cave section and in Frozen Bell he turns into a bobsled during a snow mountain section, in NiGHTS Journey of dreams, NiGHTS has three masks which will make him turn into a mermaid, a rocket or a dragon at any moment during the levels, the masks give NiGHTS special abilities.
Goals
NiGHTS into Dreams: Before the levels, NiGHTS will be imprisioned in a magic blue cage called Ideya Palace, the player first controls either Elliot or Claris who are attacked by nightmarens that steal all of their ideyas but the red one and place them inside a blue Jellyfish-like capsule called Ideya Capture, the kids must dualize with NiGHTS and recover the four stolen ideyas in a limited time one by one, each level has four laps, each lap has an ideya to recover, to do that, NiGHTS must collect 20 blue chips around the lap under 120 seconds and then go inside the Ideya Capture, which will be destroyed and NiGHTS will get the ideya back, after doing this, the player must bring the ideya to the ideya palace to go to the next lap and repeat, once all four ideyas are recovered, Wizeman will send a boss to fight NiGHTS.
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams: Before the level, Reala will imprision NiGHTS in a golden aquarium-like cage called NiGHTS Capture and then leave, to destroy the cages, it's necessary to collect it's keys which Reala will leave with three Goodles, grinning imp-like Nightmarens that ride colorful peacock-like bird nightmares, each Goodle will keep a capsule key, once again, the player must make one of the visitors, this time either William or Helen, dualize with NiGHTS to release him, then, they will have a limited time to chase the Goodles, one by one in a different lap and bring the keys to the capture back so it can be destroyed, once all three keys are recovered, Wizeman will send a boss to fight NiGHTS.
The games secondary goal and what they're actually about
The NiGHTS games are overall score attack/arcade like games, after accomplishing the main goal, the player doesn't need to immediatly go to the next lap, the player is supposed to spend every second to make as many points as possible, adapt to the level's environment and hazards and beat the bosses fast to double their score. As stated above NiGHTS flies freely through the sky and can pass through rings, collect blue chips and destroy third level nightmarens, if the player start doing that fast, they will make links, which will make their score higher, at the end of the levels, NiGHTS must face a boss and after winning the fight, the game will multiple their score by a number from 1.0 to 2.0, the fastest the boss was defeated the highest the number will be, if the player get a 2.0, they will have their score doubled, additionatly, before dualizing with NiGHTS, the play can control the visitors and explore the level to find more collactables.
A common criticism that the NiGHTS games receive from new players and reviewers is that their arcade-like gameplay is not very explicit, in fact; some new players don't understand that the game is supposed to be a score attack game where they're supposed to master the levels and spend every second, of the available lap time, collecting as many things as possible to maximise their score. New players might benefit from watching the videos below, showing professional players mastering the levels and demonstrating how the game should be played.
NiGHTS into Dreams... - Spring Valley 993,440 pts (WR)
NiGHTS into Dreams − Frozen Bell 1,187,700 (World Record)
NiGHTS Journey of Dreams -Crystal Castle- 213360score
Items and Collectables
See also all of the game's items and collectables as well as their purpose:
The Nightopian above is an example of Mepian, a Nightopian with Nightmaren parts, in this case, he has a Scaropion head.
In all of NiGHTS games, NiGHTS can interact with the Nightopians and change their mood, the player can make the Nightopians like NiGHTS by opening Nightopian eggs in front of them, they can make Nightopians fear NiGHTS by paralooping them or drill dashing next to them and more, in NiGHTS into Dreams, the level's music will change depending on the Nightopians mood, another thing the player can do is create Mepians, a special type of Nightopian, when NiGHTS attacks a Nightmaren, the nightmaren will turn into a ball and if the ball collide with a Nightopian, an egg will appear and a Nightopian with nightmaren parts will be born, there are many types of Mepians for a single Nightmaren, they can be born with the Nightmaren's head, body, hands/claus and more, the Nightopians artificial life system from NiGHTS into Dreams would later be the main inspiration for the Chao's artificial life system in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2.
The NiGHTS games are connected with the console's internal clock and they have special features and easter eggs such as special costumes and backgrounds that will only appear during specific days.
Characters
NiGHTS: the main protagonist from the games, NiGHTS was created to be one of Wizeman's strongest nightmaren and to destroy the world of dreams and steal human's dream energy to his master, but he rebelled against his own creator because he didn't want to do evil, NiGHTS protects the world of dreams from the nightmarens with the help of kids who possese the powerful dream energy known as the ideya of courage.
Reala: the serie's secondary antagonist, both him and NiGHTS were created to be Wizeman's strongest Nightmarens, unlike NiGHTS, who decided to rebel, Reala is completely loyal to his creator and he does everything Wizeman wants, in the first game he simply makes an appearance as the boss from Stick Canyon, he has more presence in the second game, where he plays with the Visitors minds and contantly goes after NiGHTS and imprisions him.
Wizeman the Wicked: the series main antagonist, he is the god and creator of all the nightmarens including NiGHTS and Reala, his goal is to destroy the world of dreams and to steal enough human dream energy, so he will be able to come to the real world and take over it, while Wizeman's past is never mentioned in the games, the NiGHTS into Dreams japanese manual revelead that he was a human without ideyas, how he got trapped in the Night Dimension and how he became a God are unanswered mysteries from the series.
Visitors (also known as "Dreamers"): In every NiGHTS game, NiGHTS is assited by visitors, human children who are struggling in their lifes and went to the Night Dimension during their sleep, when the nightmarens imprision NiGHTS, the visitors use their ideyas to release NiGHTS from the cage, they dualize (fuse) with NiGHTS to become a single being and to NiGHTS use their ideyas to become more powerful, in the first game, the Visitors are Elliot Edwards and Claris Sinclair, in the second, they are William "Will" Taylor and Helen Cartwright.
Awakers: In both games, if the Visitors don't dualize with NiGHTS quickly, they will be chased by awakers, who are gonna make them wake up if they get the Visitors, causing a game over, in the first game, the Awaker is a clock inside an eggshell called Alarm Egg in the second game they are just called Awakers and they ghost-like creatures who do alarm clock noises, they are neutral creatures.
Cancelled games
Air NiGHTS: Air NiGHTS is a game that would have gameplay revolved around using a tilt sensor in the Saturn analog pad, similar to what NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams did with the Wii remote. The Development started on the Saturn, and eventually moved to the Dreamcast. The project was cancelled, and the technology used for the control scheme was used as a prototype for the motion-sensing technology in Samba De Amigo for the Dreamcast.
NiGHTS - Twilight Adventure: There were rumors that if NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams had sold well enough, the game would either get ported to the Xbox360 and Ps3 or that a new game would be released for the later consoles called NiGHTS - Twilight Adventure, the game would feature new persona masks called "Cloud", "Eagle" and "Magnet", however, the rumor came from the beggining of the game's development and more news about it never came, meaning the rumor was either false or that the idea was disconsidered. [5]
Other medias
NiGHTS has other types of media besides games.
NiGHTS: Flying Through the Sky Without Wings
A mini NiGHTS storybook called NiGHTS: Flying Through the Sky Without Wings was released exclusively in Japan in 1996, the story tells a small adventure about NiGHTS and Elliot trying to stop the nightmarens from taking over Nightopia.
NiGHTS Archie Comics
In 1998 Archie Comics released a total of six NiGHTS comics, while the first three did pretty well, the last three didn't, causing the Archies to be discontinued.
Despite having only two games, the NiGHTS series has been referred in many SEGA games with the most notable references being in many Sonic games, such as the NiGHTS pinball table from Sonic Adventure and the Nightmare Zone from Sonic Lost World, NiGHTS was also referred in other types of media a few times, such as in the Nickelodeon's Animated TV series, Danny Phantom.
Sonic Adventure had a NiGHTS Pinball table with many NiGHTS characters making a cameo in it.
Bellbridge was featured as a stage in the fighting game Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax
In Danny Phantom, a character with dream releated powers wears a hat resembling NiGHTS' hat.
Reception
Since its release, NiGHTS into Dreams has appeared on several best-game-of-all-time lists. In a January 2000 poll by Computer and Video Games, readers placed the game 15th on their "100 Greatest Games" list, directly behind Super Mario 64. IGN ranked the game as the 94th best game of all time in their "Top 100 Games" list in 2007, and in 2008, Levi Buchanan ranked it fourth in his list of the top 10 Sega Saturn games. Next Generation ranked the game 25th in its list of the "100 Greatest Games of All Time" in their September 1996 issue (i.e. one month before they actually reviewed the game, and roughly two months before it saw release outside Japan). 1UP ranked the game third in its "Top Ten Cult Classics" list. In 2014, GamesRadar listed Nights into Dreams as the best Sega Saturn game of all time, stating that the game "tapped into a new kind of platform gameplay for its era". [6]
Cult Following
Even though the series only has two games and a bonus edition, the NiGHTS series has one of the largest cult followings out of all the SEGA franchises, and even SEGA, Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka and Naoto Oshima acknowledge that, Lynne Triplett (better known as TRiPPY), is a famous artist and NiGHTS fan among the NiGHTS community and was responsable for creating NiGHTSintodreams.com along with her boyfriend, Niyazi Sonmez (better known as Digi Valentine), a NiGHTS fan site dedicated to NiGHTS' news, facts, fanarts, fan comics and more, Lynne and Niyazi also met and interviewed the serie's creators and developers, revealing details about the game's development which were previously never known, such as official information about the deleted character Selph.
In 2010, the NiGHTS community started a campaign to make NiGHTS a playable character in Sonic and SEGA All-Star Racing once it was revealed he wouldn't be a playable character in the game, the campaign was strong enough to reach SUMO Digital Studios and Steve Lycett answered it saying they would be considering to make NiGHTS a DLC, unfortunatly though, Metal Sonic was the only DLC character for the game and there were no more talk about NiGHTS, however, both NiGHTS and Reala became playable characters in the sequel, Sonic and All-Star Racing Transformed in 2012.
In 2011, to celebrate the game's 15th anniversary, OverClocked ReMix (OC Remix), a community which makes remixes of video game music with composers from all over the world, made a fan album for NiGHTS into dreams, called NiGHTS Lucid Dreaming[7] and Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka themselves were gifted with copies of the discs.
Trivia
NiGHTS was Sonic Team's third original series, after Sonic the Hedgehog and Ristar, NiGHTS into Dreams was the sixth game developed by Sonic Team. [8]
In an interview, Naoto Oshima said one thing that influenced the creation of NiGHTS, was that they wanted to make a positive character who would be suitable for the dawn of a new era, who would be ready to greet the 21st century, someone people would look at and think, “the future looks bright”. [9]
During an Interview, Yuji Naka mentioned that Steven Spilberg, a famous movie director known for movies such as Jaws, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Schindler’s list, Jurassic Park and Ready Player One and also one of the co-founders of Dreamworks Studios visited SEGA during the development of NiGHTS into dreams... and he was the first person outside of the SEGA team to play NiGHTS into dreams, he was also the first person to play with the new controller, which since then, became known as the Spilberg Controller. [2]
Coincidently or not, Elliot shares his name with the human protagonist from E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.
Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda revealed himself to be a fan of the NiGHTS' series, in an interview back in the Dreamcast times, Yuji Naka once said that many fans including Miyamoto himself were curious to know if a new NiGHTS game was in development for the system. [10]
Additionally, there's also a famous Miyamoto quote known among the NiGHTS community, where he says "If there is a game I would have loved to work on, it would be Nights into Dreams… [11]
In NiGHTS into dreams, the characters speak in a ficctional language called Dream Language, when NiGHTS unfuses with with either Elliot or Claris, he says "Adeema" which means "Good-bye" in Dream Language and before Reala's fight, he says "Beadichinoa NiGHTS" which means "Let's go, NiGHTS".
Many people hear Reala saying "There is no NiGHTS!" and assume this is what he said, but Yuji Naka himself confirmed Reala didn't say that but actually "Let's go, NiGHTS!" in Dream Language.
Puffy also had a pre battle dialog which was likely in dream language in the Beta Version of the game, but it was removed in the final version of the game for unknown reasons. [12]
Jackle's theme has whispers which could be saying something in Dream Language.
Curiously, when Wizeman is defeated in the game, he says "No, NiGHTS!", but not in Dream Language.
Yuji Naka once said in an interview, that NiGHTS has a jester-like appearance because jesters can look cheerful and happy but also evil and mean spirit, fitting with the world of the dreams thematic. [2]
The idea for NiGHTS name, which all of it's letters but the "i" are written with caps, was imagined from the gem on NiGHTS' chest, it's also because Yuji Naka wanted to differ NiGHTS' name from the word "Nights". [2]
