Twenty-five years ago, Sega recorded its acrobatic successor to Sonic for theater children Nights in dreams and has outsourced it into one of the greatest examples of fan service in the industry. Part demo, part expansion, part accompanying disc, Christmas nights was a celebration of video game bonus features wrapped in a Christmas aesthetic that was made available for free to gamers at a time when game companies were discovering how cheaply they could produce CDs.
Despite the Japanese boxing art that proclaims “This Winter Only”, the game has become an annual tradition for many fans.
Play in a way Christmas nights Now is just an excuse to play more nights, as there is still little that can be compared. Sonic Team’s game came about when studios were experimenting with how to create 3D platformer. Nintendo opted for open 3D stages in Super mario 64
nights received much critical acclaim but nowhere near the sales numbers of Mario and Crash and never got big enough for competitors to start copying it. So play nights now it doesn’t feel like the first iteration of something refined in 25 years; it feels like the best version of something we haven’t seen since (aside from a disappointing 2007 Wii sequel).
As a follow-up bonus disc intended to support the sale of Sega’s Saturn hardware in Japan, Christmas nights Sonic Team offered the opportunity to infuse their game with decorations and Christmas music, and to overload it with “gifts” like a karaoke mode, a time attack mode and a music player. The developers also relied heavily on Saturn’s internal clock to unlock features on different days and times of the day, which – aside from the obvious interface concept – is why some people like to play it at Christmas where they can see different ones Background effects throughout the day. Sure, you can change the clock and do it anytime you want (and the game has unlockable items all year round, even if you don’t mess with the clock). But when you go as far as pulling out a console over 25 years old to play it, sometimes it feels good to do things the way they were intended.
New blog! Not only is Christmas NiGHTS the best festive game ever, it’s an annual chance for me to escape the stresses of reality and live in a dream …https://t.co/Hy9nLWSqzi
– Games from the black hole (@Games_BlackHole) December 19, 2021
If you wanna play Christmas nights on something more modern you can find it in the ports of PlayStation 3, Windows PC and Xbox 360 from nights – The latter is playable on the Xbox Series X. These versions lack a few things from the Saturn original, however, like the Sonic the Hedgehog Into Dreams bonus mode, in which you walk around as Sonic in 3D – which was embarrassing itself by 1996 standards, but gets a pass if you consider how seldom guest characters were back then.
In any case, consider this your public announcement. There is no bad time to play Christmas nights, but for the 25th anniversary of the day the game was named, it rarely feels more appropriate.
