Against all odds and perhaps common sense, Sonic Team decides to give the Nights series a second go, a solid 12 years after the original game. A lot has changed in terms of consumer expectations in that length of time, and a lot has changed in SEGA/Sonic Team themselves, which makes this a very interesting sequel if nothing else.
Something that changed and is readily noticeable, the game has a lot more story this time around. There's a lot of it, it's pretty boring, it's fine enough for kids. This should sound familiar, because that's the same situation for the studio's 3D Sonic games. I understand times changing and all, but I feel like giving detailed lore and explanations to the game's world loses part of the charm of the original, where you don't really know what you're even looking at most of the time.
Another concession they had to make was making the game longer, and longer it is. The original game will take less than 2 hours, this one will take... about 3 of actual gameplay. Not sure it was really worth it either, since a lot of this extra content is basically filler.
Some of it is neat, like the levels where you have to make the highest link combo possible to get a good rank, but a bunch of this is pretty worthless. Harder versions of boss fights, really bad 3d platforming sections (which again, seems very counterproductive considering what the appeal of the game is) and other such sections that seem to exist only to pad things out, while hurting replayability.
The "main" levels themselves are a bit different now: instead of trying to make the most points within the time limit, now you'll have to chase a bird who has a key, and getting that key within the first go around of a level will mean getting a very good rank. The ranking in this game now is very geared towards the time taken to complete any given level, which is probably another concession to make the game more appealing to most people, but a lot of the uniqueness and the addictive flow is lost from the original because of this approach. Doing combos and getting points still matters to an extent if you want that A rank, but the game is so geared towards getting a good time that most players will probably not bother with the minutiae.
Sadly Journey of Dreams is a lesser version of Nights into Dreams in pretty much every way. It's a charming game, and it is fun still about half of the time, but it can't really get anything going because there's too much going on in its very short timeframe. Ironically, despite changing series, this game falls into the same trappings of a lot of Sonic Team games from this time period. It's a shame it wasn't better, but I am glad they made another attempt at a Nights game. Now I'll wait another 15 years before they try it again again.
Something that changed and is readily noticeable, the game has a lot more story this time around. There's a lot of it, it's pretty boring, it's fine enough for kids. This should sound familiar, because that's the same situation for the studio's 3D Sonic games. I understand times changing and all, but I feel like giving detailed lore and explanations to the game's world loses part of the charm of the original, where you don't really know what you're even looking at most of the time.
Another concession they had to make was making the game longer, and longer it is. The original game will take less than 2 hours, this one will take... about 3 of actual gameplay. Not sure it was really worth it either, since a lot of this extra content is basically filler.
Some of it is neat, like the levels where you have to make the highest link combo possible to get a good rank, but a bunch of this is pretty worthless. Harder versions of boss fights, really bad 3d platforming sections (which again, seems very counterproductive considering what the appeal of the game is) and other such sections that seem to exist only to pad things out, while hurting replayability.
The "main" levels themselves are a bit different now: instead of trying to make the most points within the time limit, now you'll have to chase a bird who has a key, and getting that key within the first go around of a level will mean getting a very good rank. The ranking in this game now is very geared towards the time taken to complete any given level, which is probably another concession to make the game more appealing to most people, but a lot of the uniqueness and the addictive flow is lost from the original because of this approach. Doing combos and getting points still matters to an extent if you want that A rank, but the game is so geared towards getting a good time that most players will probably not bother with the minutiae.
Sadly Journey of Dreams is a lesser version of Nights into Dreams in pretty much every way. It's a charming game, and it is fun still about half of the time, but it can't really get anything going because there's too much going on in its very short timeframe. Ironically, despite changing series, this game falls into the same trappings of a lot of Sonic Team games from this time period. It's a shame it wasn't better, but I am glad they made another attempt at a Nights game. Now I'll wait another 15 years before they try it again again.