Please place entries for Journey of Dreams here.
The game
- Anti-Climax Boss: Despite being NiGHTS' Evil Counterpart, Reala is a total pushover. Defeating him is a simple matter of trapping him in a paraloop three times. His only attack is to try to do the same to the player, but it's incredibly easy to avoid and barely impacts the mission time limit.
- Awesome Music:
- Pretty much the entire soundtrack for both games is great, but particular mention goes to the series theme song, Dreams Dreams
, a cosy ballad about finding the person you love in your dreams. The Child Vocal Version (which plays in the normal endings) is just as good, evoking feelings of childhood crushes and carefree days.
- Pretty much the entire soundtrack for both games is great, but particular mention goes to the series theme song, Dreams Dreams
- Complete Monster: Wizeman the Wicked Was Once a Man who visited the dream world; however, he turned himself into something far worse. Fancying himself as a god, he ruled over Nightmare with an iron fist. When one of his top henchmen, the titular NiGHTS, betrays him and tries to fight back, he traps them in a strange, gazebo-like place, before they are eventually rescued. When his minions fail to defeat NiGHTS, he punishes them with cruel methods, such as crushing them in the palm of his hand, sending them falling to oblivion, or simply verbally abusing them throughout the games. His worst act comes in Journey into Dreams, when he traps several visitors in an And I Must Scream state, leaving their consciousness in a never-ending nightmare, and in the waking world, trapping them in a permanent coma. Being perhaps the poster boy of Vile Villain, Saccharine Show, Wizeman might just be one of the worst villains Sonic Team has produced.
- Creepy Cute: NiGHTS is a slightly odd example, staying mostly on the "cute" side with big starry eyes and a sweet smile. They're thinner than any human should be, has something of a ballet dancer's physique, and those eyes could most definitely be uncomfortable; they're a step 'above' cat-like. Combined with the way they move and their precise body language, they also veer into disconcertingly beautiful and graceful territory. Then there is official concept art◊ showing NiGHTS making Nightmare Faces and revealing their seldom seen Scary Teeth and Overly-Long Tongue...which heavily evokes Venom.
- Disappointing Last Level: Twin Seeds in the original is a perfectly fine last level, but its level design is the same for both protagonists. To view the full ending, then, you have to play the same stage two times in a row (and then a third because the first ending scene showing either kid leaving the dream world only unlocks after watching the other one's for some reason).
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite not being as prominent as Reala, the other Nightmaren antagonist in Claris' route, Jackle the Mantle, is incredibly popular amongst fans. This is largely thanks to his fun design, maniacal personality and his jazzy theme. Unsurprisingly, fans were disappointed that he didn't return in Journey of Dreams.
- Fanon: The first game had a deleted boss character named Selph. Since very little is known about Selph, not even what they looked like, fans have free reign to come up with their own designs for Selph. Most, if not all, make the character an Evil Counterpart to NiGHTS, in the same vein as Reala and Jackle, except bigger and with darker colors.
- Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
- Some people can be very insistent about ensuring that the title character's name is capitalized as NiGHTS, not Nights or NIGHTS.
- NiGHTS is genderless. Claiming otherwise tends to start internet wars that can last for months.
- Foe Yay Shipping: Many fans ship NiGHTS/Reala, despite the fact that they're technically siblings.
- Goddamned Boss: Puffy is easy enough if you're just trying to win, but if you're going for a high enough score to unlock Elliot's Twin Seeds she becomes a royal pain due to how the fight works—you can't hurt her directly and must throw her into various rooms of her mansion, where the final toss buries her under rubble and pops her. The throwing mechanics are very slow, and tossing her at the wrong angle will make her bounce erratically and sometimes backwards, wasting even more time. To make matters worse, the breakable areas alternate positions between rooms and the hitboxes can be wonky.
- Harsher in Hindsight: The "Sonic the Hedgehog Into Dreams..." minigame in the Christmas NiGHTS sampler allowed players to roam freely as the blue blur in the NiGHTS engine, which many believed would have been perfect to use for a proper 3D Sonic title for the Saturn. Not only did such a game never appear on the system, but when Yuji Naka learned Sonic X-treme would use the NiGHTS engine without his permission, he threatened to quit the company if the game went forward with itnote . The incident is seen as one of many contributing factors to that game's cancellation.
- Heartwarming in Hindsight: The kids' version of "Dreams Dreams" in the first game can become this when you consider the female singer, Jasmine Allen, was brought back to sing the "Sweet Snow" version in Journey of Dreams over ten years later.
- It's Short, So It Sucks!: One of the major criticisms of the first game is that it's incredibly short and can be beaten within a couple of hours. It wasn't seen as a big deal when it was first released, since its addictive gameplay and replay value in getting higher scores made up for it, and it was still longer than many other arcade ports for the Saturn and its competition. But when its remaster was released in 2012, when vast open-world gameplay was becoming the norm, its short length stood out and was likely the reason that the sequel went to great lengths to avert this.
- Just Here for Godzilla: Although the Christmas NiGHTS sampler is worth hunting down because it offers so much content it's almost like a companion game of its own, the "Sonic the Hedgehog Into Dreams..." minigame is a huge draw for many fans of the blue blur, especially after the bitter aftertaste of Sonic X-treme's cancellation, and was the closest thing to a true 3D Sonic game at the time. As such, the minigame's exclusion in the PS2 and HD releases is a sore point for many.
- LGBT Fanbase: Non-binary people like NiGHTS for having an Ambiguous Gender.
- Mandela Effect: The music that plays in the battle against Reala if often remembered as "Theme of a Tragic Revenge", but it's actually called "Theme of a Tragedic Revenge".
- Nightmare Fuel:
- Claris' opening, with the judges turning into demons and chasing her through a psychedelic landscape.
- The jingle that plays when you run out of time is an ominous chime tune with a tense buildup, culminating in NiGHTS saying "Goodbye!" in the game's fictional language, while the "Night Over" song (when you lose to a boss as NiGHTS) is a Scare Chord that somehow earned its place even in a rather chill-looking screen.
- Scrappy Mechanic: Doing a loop is not only a way to defeat enemies, but it would kill any Nightopians unfortunate enough to be nearby. It was thankfully rectified in the sequel, and is actually required to save a character in one stage.
- Signature Song: "Dreams Dreams" is effectively the theme song for the franchise, with the vocal version appearing in both main games and instrumental versions and remixes popping up as NiGHTS' main theme in guest appearances. "In the nights, dream delight..."
- That One Boss: Jackle. Unless you know the right pattern to fly in to avoid his cards, that timer will be down to zero in seconds. Once you hit him and separate him from his cape, you'll be desperate to follow him to make sure he doesn't grab it again, otherwise you're back to square one.
- That One Level: Stick Canyon. It's packed with all kinds of neat mechanics and gimmicks, but the timer doesn't allow you to get the most out of the level, and you'll likely run out of time in the middle of the roller-coaster-like ride. You'll need a good memory of the stage's layout and either be quick or skip some things to get that A Rank.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The PS2 and HD re-releases were criticized for having worse and less precise controls than the Saturn version, the latter of which was addressed with a patch, but is still considered inferior to the fluid controls utilized by the 3D Saturn Pad. Their ports of Christmas NiGHTS are also missing several bonus modes and features, including the ever popular "Sonic The Hedgehog into Dreams..."
- Underused Game Mechanic: Many players enjoyed the idea of traveling on foot in the original game, as Claris and Eliot were allowed to explore the 3D stages freely that their on-rails companion NiGHTS normally couldn't. Aside from many fantastic details that most players wouldn't notice by playing the game normally, certain Nightopian eggs could only be reached this way, and Eliot could even ride in an elevator to reach the top of the metal tower in Stick Canyon. Unfortunately, being chased by the clock and not being able to get high scores without using NiGHTS only seemed to discourage this type of play, which was why the "Sonic the Hedgehog Into Dreams..." minigame was praised for removing the clock and allowing for free exploration, even just for one level. The sequel attempted to remedy this by having stages that only took place on foot, but instead of allowing players to roam freely on the flying levels, these unique levels had players traveling on a linear path and were criticized for their slow pace.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: The first game looked absolutely phenomenal on the Saturn when it was first released, showing an explorable 3D world with several small details that many thought the system wasn't capable of pulling off.
The Archie comic series
- Fanon Discontinuity: Fans of the comic pretend the second series doesn't exist, as it focuses too much on the real world at the expense of the dream world and features an out-of-genre subplot about human terrorists threatening Twin Seeds.
- Sequelitis: Poor reception to the second miniseries killed any chance at an ongoing comic.
