I mean this is definitely a giveaway demo for NiGHTS into Dreams, as there's basically only two levels to be played, both of which being in the same snowy dream valley. Despite that, it actually works in this games favor. Christmas NiGHTS is a very seasonal game, with the Sega Saturn's RTC clock dictating various events and bonuses depending on what day of the year you play the game on. It's certainly charming, and there's also a bunch of little other bonuses such as presents you can open to view concept art, sing karaoke, check your save file for the main NiGHTS game to see A-Life progress, all sorts of things like that. All of it comes together to make a wonderful little demo disc that I could see myself playing every year from here on out.

This was definitely a kart racer. The story mode is charming and there are definitely vibes to be had in terms of the games overall aesthetic, but the gameplay is just kinda eh. Not bad, but not great either. The items work kinda like lego racers in that you have to roll over the same item over and over again to level it up, but theres also these "skills" you can equip that give you a perk over a period of time, and one of those is an item steal, so if any opponents have that skill theres no way you are ever going to be able to level any item up to its maximum. The racing controls are also really slippery in a way, and drifting feels really weird, like toggling on and off drift mode by holding down the button. If you like final fantasy and kart racers then like theres plenty of worth in playin this, but otherwise its basically the same as any other kart racer

nice rez like gameplay but the pacing just KILLS it forcing you to replay levels unless you know exactly what you are doing before you even begin playing. a victim of the "force replays to bloat out the game time" era of gaming. I'd still suggest trying it out because even if its not really as good as rez it still looks and sounds phenomenal and is really overlooked in general. I never tried the kinect support but the PS move support wasn't that good and I eventually switched back to a regular controller.

This game goes raw. I would say it's like the japanese equivalent to something like M&M's kart racing in that it's a thrown together licensed game with not a lot of substance or content, but this game at least has decent sound design unlike our western candy friends. Charinko hero is just funny. Karts are slow, the rubber banding is so broken that I would go as far as to say peoples position in the race does not matter until the last half of the last lap, the items can stun opponents for several seconds, and the track designs are very difficult to effectively maneuver through. Despite all that, its just really funny to play. Definitely a fun imbalanced kart racer to play with the homies, and not much beyond that.

A fun continuation of what Symphony of the Night did, but a little bit more scaled down to be on a portable. Exploring Dracula's castle is as fun as always, the music kicks ass, and the powerups you find for defeating bosses are always fun to use. However, I didn't really like the way items were handled in this game. Drop rates are incredibly low, and there is no shop so duplicate pieces of equipment become pointless. There are also these cards that you can combine to give yourself various effects, and those cards are also locked behind random enemy drops. I would have liked it more if the cards were something you naturally found around the map rather than something that you have to grind for. The last bit of the game becomes a bit of a slog, with the second to last boss being in a particularly annoying to reach area and the final boss being really cheaply designed imo. Despite that, I still had a lot of fun with a majority of the time in this game, so it's def worth trying if you like metroidvanias.

Compared to the other 16-bit castlevanias (rondo of blood and super 4), this game I feel is the weakest out of the 3. That isn't to say this game is bad, but more that the controls and level design is better in those games and while this games OST is certainly better than super castlevania 4s, it doesn't even come close to touching rondo of bloods OST. All in all, a neat more obscure castlevania game, but nothing essential to the castlevania playing experience imo, its just a solid castlevania game and thats kinda it