#i'd say yar har it but the game apparently emulates like trash

[thedreamparadox]

What are your pros and cons of NiD and JoD?

NiD Pros:

Available on Steam and easy to play as a result (especially given that I've seen the game without a manual sell for $100! yikes!)

A-Life system adapts the music to (functionally) how much you accidentally paraloop Nightopians (the game functionally has three tracks for every stage except for Twin Seeds)

Nostalgia

Easy to learn, hard to master gameplay with the link system

Manages to tell a decently coherent story without any words entirely using cutscenes

There are actually hidden things you can find in the free roam sections and it is totally possible (though not easy) to bonk the Alarm Egg to roam more

Saturn version's debug mode turns off the Alarm Egg so you can wander around freely and just vibe (does not work on Steam, requires a Game Shark)

Completely banger soundtrack the entire game through

Pretty much the entire reason that controllers have thumbsticks now

Steam port also has Christmas NiGHTS

Trick ribbons!!!!! Make use of those shoulder buttons (warning: on a lower end pc this will lag your game to hell and back)

NiD Cons:

Completely unintuitive gameplay mechanic required to get the true ending (bonus time REQUIRED and if you don't make use of it your score suffers so much)

The English translation of the story changes and drops details and no one's ever fully translated the jpn manual (some day I will attempt to make progress on my very, very rudimentary attempts at this)

Minimalistic story can be really confusing (more of an issue for younger players who are less used to media that uses little to no spoken dialog aka me at age 7 with no idea what the hell was going on the entire time)

No explanation of gameplay you are dropped into a dreamscape and get mobbed immediately and it is just sheer confusion the whole time if you are going in blind

Steam port's seasonal features don't always work and a bunch of the features from the Christmas sampler (including Sonic Into Dreams) are missing entirely

You really do need the manual to understand a good chunk of what is going on beyond the plot that exists in the cut scenes

JoD Pros:

More accessible to new players, younger players, and people who have no idea how the original worked, or even that it existed. Infinitely more accessible to young gamers than the original

Great soundtrack (the Dream Gate theme is hands down my favorite track in the game)

Voice acting! Reala and Wizeman's put work into making their characters sound intimidating and NiGHTS voice actress exudes sass (within the occasionally clunky script)

The graphics are so good when it comes to the level design

Plot through line with relatable characters and understandable motivations for the kids

Dedicated on foot sections were a neat!

A+ boss design with my only real critiques being Girana's really confusing mustache and Reala's pink nails. Queen Bella for most effective Nightmaren design imo but that's the arachnophobia talking

Motion controls are totally optional and the thumbstick controls work great

On the Wii, which back in the day made it extremely easy for people to play due to how common the console was

Optional collectables have a cool bonus reward (aka being able to play as Claris and Elliot)

JoD Cons:

Owl (specifically his voice clip spam which gets so annoying so quickly)

I really don't enjoy the key chase missions and wish the game let you free roam outside of them more effectively

Bomamba's boss stage tilt table thing

Chamelean's unintuitive boss design

Reala's criminally underutlized in gameplay

Helen and Will not being able to put two and two together about NiGHTS and Reala being related for so long

Some extremely clunky dialog (ie "Go over and touch NiGHTS" which will be memed for all eternity by the fandom)

Character modeling and graphics are off on Owl's feathers and the kids' faces just don't look quite right in some scenes

Issues with plot and pacing (aka pretty much the primary motivating factor to my rewrite's creation in the first place)

The ambiguity of the game's timeline (aka is this a sequel, a prequel, or a soft reboot) but that's a completely personal gripe

My Dream. I LOVE the concept of it and loved playing the same levels repeatedly to try and shift the landscape but its inconsistency of what effected what got added, as well as Nightmaren drawn in by paraloops having to be manually taken out before they eat any Nightopians severely disincentivized paralooping in stages as an enemy removal tactic. That, and the stage never seemed to graduate beyond "grassy flat field" minus the occasional shallow water feature or hill

The ending's focus on the yellow Ideya just vibes so weird to me

Personas were kind of a weird inclusion that I wish the devs would have had a lot more time to utilize

Awakers are weird and I get the three count thing but the Alarm Egg was iconic. Annoying, yes, but iconic, I don't really get its removal.

Despite the wall of cons for JoD, both games are good for their own reasons!