Trivia / NiGHTS into Dreams…

• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: In their climatic fight, Reala is saying "Beadichinoa NiGHTS"! ("Come on NiGHTS!" in a fictional language), not "There is no NiGHTS!" as commonly believed in the past.
• Fake Brit: In the sequel, NiGHTS inexplicably has a British accent, despite his creator and fellow Nightmaren having no such trait. According to this interview, giving NiGHTS a British accent in the second game was to emphasize the more "European" inspiration of the character (like Peter Pan, for example).
  Takashi Iizuka: Well like the character of Sonic is designed to be more like American style, 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.
• Follow-Up Failure: NiGHTS into Dreams… was intended to be Sonic Team's next big project after their previous work on Sonic the Hedgehog. While it did do well enough to become the Sega Saturn's Killer App and received critical acclaim at the time, despite a massive marketing push, the mere fact that it was released on the Saturn (which was a massive flop outside of Japan), on top of steep competition from the likes of Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, amongst other games, meant the game never managed to reach the same heights that Sonic had. It still enjoys a dedicated cult following nevertheless.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The original game and Christmas NiGHTS was stuck in this for years, with the only re-release being a Japan-only remake for the PlayStation 2. Fast-foward to 2012, Sega eventually released an HD remastered version of the game based off the PlayStation 2 version for Play Station Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and PC via Steam. Even then, the remasters are missing some of the original games' content such as Sonic into Dreams.
  • The NiGHTS into Dreams… comic was never rereleased after its initial printing, with individual issues going for exorbitant prices online.
• Killer App: As much as the Saturn ever had one.
• Late Export for You: The Playstation 2 port released in 2007 wouldn't see a release outside of Japan until it received an HD remaster 5 years later for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Steam in 2012.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: The first game had a cut boss character named Selph. Very little is known about this character aside from the mere fact that there was going to be a boss named Selph. One common rumor involves an icon from the game's Japanese website, depicting what looks like a twisted and evil-looking version of NiGHTS' head. Many fans believe that this character is Selph, but nothing has been confirmed or denied. This video by DiGi Valentine explores the history of the Selph rumors, and it showcases some Dummied Out icons from the game that are also speculated to be potential designs for Selph.
• What Could Have Been:
  • One of the game's many original concepts was a baby bluebird who would gradually gain the ability to fly, so it can fly south for the winter. The idea was scrapped to distance the game from another main animal character franchise they made.
  • The game initially started out as a pure 2D side scroller similar to the Genesis Sonic games, however as the dream theme came into focus and Sonic Team began to better understand the Saturn's hardware, they felt it would be best to represent the world with 3D (despite initial reluctance), leading to the game becoming retooled into a 3D flying game, however, due to control issues and them not feeling right, this idea was scrapped and the team ultimately decided on a mix of the two concepts by making it a 2½D on-rails flying game.
  • The game was originally intended to be a slow-paced game, but as development progressed the gameplay pace gradually increased, in similar vein to Sonic.
  • There's an unused set of hatched and unhatched Nightmare Eggs within the game's files. It's unclear if these eggs were meant for the Mepians or if the Nightmarens were originally planned to reproduce alongside the Nightopians.
  • The tadpole Nightmaren Crewle and Pole was originally going to have a solo variation that would resemble Gillwing. While there's no sprite or model of solo Crewle, a picture of him can be seen in Puffy's boss arena.
  • Twin Seeds was meant to be an exclusive level for Elliot, as the internal name for the level is called "Elliot's City." Claris was meant to have her own final level, internally titled "Spiral Claris".
  • A boss named "Selph" (a play on the Jungian 'self') was planned for NiGHTS into dreams..., as the one defined as "Myself I could never be exceeded", but was cut due to time. According to Yuji Naka, Selph was meant to be a secret boss, but it's unclear if the boss in question was planned to be a Superboss or a True Final Boss. Development on Selph went far ahead before the boss was cut, as a boss emblem and a nameplate (titled "Self") are still in the game's internal files. Similarly, an unused nametag for Self meant for the credits was also found, but it's currently unknown if an artwork for the boss still resides within the game's data.
  • There are eight 3D emblems inside the E3 demo's files. While four of these emblems resembles NiGHTS and Reala, the four remaining emblems features a design that doesn't resemble none of the characters featured in the final game. It's theorized that these emblems are related to Selph. Interestingly, one of the emblems resemble the "More Nights" icon from the official japanese website.
  • An unused nameplate in the game data reveals Reala was originally intended to be fought a second time under the title of "Reala Returns". The idea was reused in Journey of Dreams.
  • Other than the Halloween costumes, the PS2 remake was also going to feature a Halloween themed variation of Mystic Forest as well, with Puffy serving as the level's boss. While the idea didn't went far into production, an unused song and a unused model of a Nightopian wearing a devil costume can still be located within the game's internal files.
• Cirque du Soleil provided a large amount of inspiration for the game design of the original NiGHTS.
• NiGHTS into dreams... reflects the thoughts of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Holtz, and other scholars who researched dreams.
• The first person to play NiGHTS, other than the SEGA team, was Steven Spielberg. During the development of the original NiGHTS, he visited Sega and they asked him to play with an experimental version of the new controller. Since then they have called it the Spielberg controller.

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