Nights (character)

NiGHTS
'NiGHTS into Dreams..., NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams' character
File:NiGHTS characterart.jpg
First game	NiGHTS into Dreams... (1996)
Created by	Takashi Iizuka
In-universe information
Species	Nightmaren
Gender	Androgynous

NiGHTS is a video game character and the protagonist of the games NiGHTS into Dreams... and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, developed and published by Sega. The character wears a purple jester style hat and outfit, with a diamond on the chest.

Background

Naoto Oshima

Naoto Oshima was the NiGHTS Designer and Kazuyuki Hoshino was the Character Designer for the video game NiGHTS into Dreams....

Takashi Iizuka

In an interview with James Mielke of 1UP.com about the video game NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Takashi Iizuka said, "I designed the NiGHTS characters and the NiGHTS world basically from scratch." Mielke wrote, "The original character designer, Naoto Oshima, who now is the president of Artoon, was largely responsible for the Saturn game's visuals. Now that he's no longer at Sega, how are you maintaining the look and feel in the new character designs and enemy designs?" Takashi Iizuka said, "As you pointed out, Oshima-san is no longer at Sega, and he was the director as well as the original character designer for the original NiGHTS. But as well there was Hoshino-san, a character designer who worked on the original NiGHTS, and he handled Nightmaren, Elliot and Claris' character design, and he's the main character designer on Journey Of Dreams, so we're confident that we've captured the style of the original NiGHTS." Takashi Iizuka said Naoto Oshima "specifically worked on the NiGHTS character, but he provided artistic direction to the entire design team." Takashi Iizuka said "On the previous NiGHTS I was the lead game designer, but with the sequel I'm wearing a few more hats, director, producer, and lead game designer." and said, "In the previous NiGHTS we didn't get any input at all, not from Sega of Europe or Sega of America, not for a single point of the game, we just made it all on our own."

In a press session at Sega headquarters, Takashi Iizuka was asked, "Why did you decide to give NiGHTS a voice? And why did you choose a female voice?" and he laughed and replied, "Well the original game had voice clips for NiGHTS, but in Journey of Dreams I wanted to use more voice acting. The voice helps to add depth to the game play, and tell the story in the cut scenes. NiGHTS is neutral, and therefore has no gender. The impressions of the character with regards to gender are totally up to the player." He also said, "NiGHTS has been designed to be more like that of European. So that is why the stages have the look of a more European setting. It is also why the characters in NiGHTS have English accents." Takashi Iizuka said, "There were 26 developers from Sonic Team USA" working on NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, and the sound and CG was developed in Japan. In NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, NiGHTS can use different masks. Takashi Iizuka said his favorite mask was the Dragon mask, but also said he liked the Rocket mask.

In an interview with GamesRadar UK, Takashi Iizuka said the character "is a mirror of the child's personality, so when the children dream, they become him. So from a boy's point of view, NiGHTS will be a boy, from a girl's point of view, NiGHTS will be a girl. We expanded the storyline in the sequel, so we needed to have NiGHTS speak in this game to get more reaction."

Takashi Iizuka was interviewed by IGN and said, "Our initial creative process for NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams started back in late 2006." and said, "Our ultimate goal is to create an experience that blends the "fun" flying sensation of NiGHTS with the player's interactivity with the controller." Takashi Iizuka also said, "We focused our developmental efforts on our new 3D rendering engine to graphically push the envelope of the Nintendo hardware..."

In an interview with NGamer, Takashi Iizuka said "We are very fortunate to have Mr. Hataya, the original music composer from the first NiGHTS game aboard creating the new soundtrack." He also said, "We originally designed the gameplay around the joy and freedom of flight system which has made NiGHTS a unique gaming experience. The game rule has been expressively created so that touching the enemies is inherit in the design as it doesn't interfere with the natural feeling of NiGHTS' flight system. By "touching" the enemies, NiGHTS can encounter enemies utilizes his special abilities like Touch Dash or Touch Loop." He said, "Journey of Dreams is being created from the ground-up and is running on a completely new engine engineered specifically for the Wii. We're finding that there are some very interesting graphical effects and processes that are being merged into our engine." The NGamer staff asked, "The character NiGHTS has appeared in just about every Sonic Team game since the game's original release in 1996. There's clearly a lot of affection for the character within Sonic Team, so why the big wait in releasing a sequel?" Takeshi Iizuka said, "Ever since NiGHTS was released 11 years ago, I've always dreamt of making the sequel..." He said "Over the years of my involvement of creating past Sonic titles, neither the market nor platforms seemed right in recreating the sequel...that is until Nintendo released the Wii."

In March 2007, Takashi Iizuka said, "NiGHTS will have a considerable number of acrobatic movements, many of them never seen before, for the player to perform easily using the Wii controller. You can count on loops, spins, and other manoeuvers which will be kept secret for now." He also said, "When I created NiGHTS, I didn't see it as a classic franchise, but I always hoped I would be able to dedicate it a sequel when the right moment came."

Reception

In his review of NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot described the character as an "androgynous jester." VanOrd wrote, "Nights flies on rails, so in terms of horizontal movement, he is always on a straight path--though you do have plenty of room to maneuver him vertically." VanOrd said players will "soar through some lush, colorful dream worlds, from a fragile land of glass to a Broadway-inspired neon utopia. You will often interact with elements of these worlds in clever ways, such as bumping into huge floating billiard balls or having to watch your reflection in the mirror to collect blue chips and fly through rings." VanOrd wrote, "Nights does have a few tricks up his sleeve. You can execute a drill dash, which sends a spinning Nights zooming forward at a quick pace, though you need to keep your dash power gauge filled by flying through rings. You can also perform a loop to capture the various items within the shimmering circle you create, and even transform into a couple of different forms, such as a rocket or a dolphin." VanOrd said, "Nights is smoothly animated", but said NiGHTS' "vocal personification [may not be] everyone's cup of tea." VanOrd wrote, "the jester is genderless...and the accompanying voice is, well, correspondingly confused. But whether you think Nights sounds like a young woman or a young boy, it's a good fit for the character."

Referring to NiGHTS into Dreams..., IGN said "Nights was essentially Sonic in the air..." The IGN review of NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams called NiGHTS a "mysterious creature" and said, "the core Nights flight gameplay makes a return..." but "you never get the fluidity of flight that the Saturn original offered." The IGN reviewer noted, "strangely Nights and all other characters in Nightopia are from England?" but said the voice acting was "decent, if not a bit over-the-top."

Personality

NiGHTS is a first-level Nightmaren, created by Wizeman to steal Red Ideya. Despite being one of Wizeman's most powerful creations, he was also a remarkably mischievous free spirit who did not like taking orders, so much so that Wizeman had NiGHTS imprisoned within Nightopia (in the gondela-like structure NiGHTS inhabits within each of the levels) to keep him out of the way. NiGHTS asks for the assistance of Claris and Elliot in taking down Wizeman simply because he doesn't like him, and not because he is inherently 'good'. NiGHTS rival is his fellow first-level Nightmaren, Reala.

Gender

People can refer to NiGHTS as either gender as they so wish, and neither one is right or wrong. NiGHTS does not speak, except for a few short exclamations in the first game, but is given a voice closer to a female's in the second game, Journey of Dreams. Takashi Iizuka explained that their choice for an androgynous main-character is so that NiGHTS can appeal much more directly to the person's point of view.[1]

Transformation

In the first game NiGHTS shows the one-off ability to transform into a bobsled, an ability that was expanded upon in the sequel with the introduction of persona masks. Each mask allows NiGHTS to change his form and abilities accordingly, including those of a dragon, rocket and dolphin.

External links

• SEGA homepage
• NiGHTS into Dreams.com