A warrior who, with a mean sword, hacks and slashes his way across the battlefield, killing hundreds of soldiers at a time.
This has been the formula for many games, from the popular Dynasty Warriors series, Samurai Warriors, to Ninety-Nine Nights (N3).
The original N3 added nothing new to the button-mashing genre, in which the aim is to score consecutive hits to unlock in-game achievements.
Alas, the sequel is a painful reminder of how wretched this formula has become.
A sequel should be better than the original. However, N3 II just comes across as a lazy version. It is as if the game’s developers could not be bothered to try for a better game.
The storyline is simplistic: A country is facing annihilation by an invading army and only a hero with the largest weapon in the land can save the day.
As a player, you are thrust into long and tedious battles which offer no variety and require non-stop button-mashing to wipe out the enemies.
While you have some foot soldiers backing you up, these game characters tend to stay out of the way, perhaps worried that your sword might cut them accidentally.
When you make it to the end of a mission, you have to fight a boss (the final enemy in the level) to go to the next level, where the same gameplay is repeated.
To be fair, the boss characters do require some skill to kill.
After an hour of hacking away to get to the boss, my fingers needed a respite.
To my horror, I discovered that the developers had forgotten to include a save-point option, which would have allowed me to stop the game and return to where I left off later.
Instead, the game allows you save at only the beginning of a new level.
Playing through the same level twice is no fun. It means entering a dreary world filled with badly-rendered buildings and cookie-cutter computer-generated soldiers.
To make matters worse, the gameplay can feel silly at times.
For instance, there is a scene where I have to attack a tower. I do this with gusto, hoping its collapse will wipe out the waves of incoming soldiers below it.
The tower falls apart as expected, but the crumbling pieces disappear before they can land on the soldiers.
Die-hard fans of Ninety-Nine Nights will no doubt enjoy the sequel, but if you are new to the genre, try the more rewarding Dynasty Warriors series instead.
Get the N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights here.
Tags: PC Gaming, Wii, Video Games
