One look at Ninety-Nine Nights II’s screenshots or trailers should be enough evidence to see the train wreck. Attempting to fill the screen up with as many useless foes as possible, Q Entertainment and Feelplus created a title with no soul and lacking real direction. Obviously, they didn’t learn from their mistakes with the original that hit store shelves in 2006.
Once again providing an assortment of playable characters – five this time around, as opposed to seven – Ninety-Nine Nights II under-delivers a rousing story. With no hook, line or sinker, N3II couldn’t be more passé even if it tried. Each of the characters are as clichéd as the next, as is their motivation; warrior with trust issues and a haunted past, check; large-breasted women who are ready to prove themselves and will go extreme measures to improve their reputations, check; goblin who hasn’t earned the confidence of his peers due to his upbringing and race, check.
As it’s painfully apparent, Ninety-Nine Nights II follows a formula and doesn’t tend to break any of the common conventions within the hack-and-slash genre. Galen, the lonely warrior, is the main character and he’s out save the world by protecting an orb light from the evil Lord of the Night. Rudimentary, my dear Watson – N3II is a shell of a game that has no real purpose besides sending endless waves of enemies for the player to slice through and move onto the next group. Players expecting a story arc that has them at the edge of their seats will have to look elsewhere; all that N3II offers is a standard affair of predictability.
The strong point of Ninety-Nine Nights II, the sheer amount of enemies capable of being populated on the screen, in fact turns out to be a plague when it comes to producing a smoothly running title. Too often the title would run at a snail’s pace with screen-tearing, dipping frame rates, and environments that were slow to pop up textures. If there’s one thing that bothers video gamers nowadays, it’s titles that not only are ugly, but stutter when the prime action occurs. As a hassle to play through from beginning till the end, N3II is as far-removed an entertaining action title as Mel Gibson is from being a completely sane human being.
If players must venture through Ninety-Nine Nights II – for whatever excuse they may have – then they should know the combat has been improved, even if they still don’t allow players to cancel attacks before they commit to them. Building up combos and chopping through the tireless amounts of enemies is like cutting through butter; it’s a cinch due to the uncomplicated controls. In comparison to the original, players no longer control big groups of computer AI soldiers on the field, instead, this time around, players are tasked to run the battlefield solo and save their behinds from getting their tails kicked. Per convention rules, the ally and enemy AI is on par with any old village idiot trying to convince the townspeople that the world is close to an end.
Luckily, online multiplayer cooperative modes do improve the replay value of Ninety-Nine Nights II. Whether it’s playing through the campaign missions or braving through the Survival mode, N3II, at the very least, has functional co-op to draw in players who are seeking their next title to partner up with a buddy.
Still, the fact remains, Ninety-Nine Nights II is a piss poor title that should bring a sour face to any hardcore hack and slash fan. There’s a reason why Microsoft dropped the franchise from their first-party line-up and it wasn’t because of superb quality. Avoid at all costs unless you absolutely need a title to waste a few hours of time with a buddy through co-op.
