Nights Returns
Interviewing in the game industry, I often get asked “What’s your favorite game?” Sure, it’s pretty trite, and I’m normally not good at keeping track of my favorite whatever, but I have a pat answer to this one. It’s the 1996 Sega Saturn game, Nights.
Nights was built up as the Saturn’s answer to the immensely influential and popular Mario 64, so all eyes were on it when the team behind Sonic the Hedgehog debuted it at E3 eleven years ago. It was also my first time going to E3 as an pro – I worked for what was Sega’s LA office at the time. So as an exhibitor employee, I got to go on the show floor an hour before the general public. I went straight to see Nights and was surprised to see Shigeru Miyamoto checking it out already. Clearly, this was a much-anticipated game.
Well, it didn’t live up to the expectations that many had for it, mainly because it wasn’t in the same genre that Super Mario 64 had just created. But I sure enjoyed it. I played over and over and over, until I had to put it up in the cabinet to keep myself from playing it anymore.
So now here’s some gameplay footage from the upcoming Wii installment. I’m pretty excited to see this.