Despite sort of becoming a series due to the fact that its had two games, even though practically no one liked the first game, the Ninety Nine Nights franchise, which has absolutely hardly anything to do with nights, ninety nine of them or anything whatsoever, produced some equally baffling characters to play around with. If you've never heard of Ninety Nine Nights, there's probably a reason for that. N3, as 'tis affectionately dubbed, is a hack n slash super beat-em-up where you are cast as one of seven heroes battling legions of countless enemies repeatedly using uber-powered moves of doom. Admittedly this one did come out way back in 2006 - and as such we can't expect too much of it - but even for its time, the Ninety Nine Nights experience was hard to stomach thanks to bad level design, impossible objectives and moves that left you completely exposed to attacks that would drain most of your health bar. More annoying still, the cast of heroes were irritating, pointless and were meant to have storylines that all branched together to make one glorious whole, culminating in an event that tied everything together. Instead we got a generic list of dudes, including the busty teenage temptress in tight-fitting armour, the lovely blonde floppy haired heroic knight with the posh accent, a goblin dude to represent the other races, the big burly gentleman with the big burly weapon that's almost entirely useless thanks to being far too slow, the annoying 12 year old with magical powers and....a troll. Throw in some poor voice acting, a dash of plot points that made no sense and - voila! - you've got the recipe for a perfectly steamed pile of festering manure with a side order of characters that make you want to beat yourself to death with your controller. Magnifique.
Dan Curtis is approximately one-half videogame knowledge, and the other half inexplicable Geordie accent. He's also one quarter of the Factory Sealed Retro Gaming podcast.
