Nights into Dreams HD has finally made its way onto Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. For those who are new to Sonic Team’s magical 1996 Sega Saturn title or need a quick refresher, GamesBeat has you covered.
The game is broken up into two characters: Elliot and Claris, who both have three unique stages. Every stage has four Mares (areas) where your objective is to grab 20 blue orbs and then free an Ideya, which is housed inside a giant blue floating globe. After all four Mares, you’ll face off against that stage’s boss. Each stage takes less than 5-8 minutes to complete, but there’s a bit of replay value in trying to get the best score and nab an A ranking. Plus, with the online leaderboards, there’s now an additional incentive that wasn’t in the original.
Nights into Dreams’ scoring system might seem intimidating at first if you’re getting all Es and Ds, but it’s easy to start improving once you know a few key tips on how the scoring actually works:
- Don’t worry about completing each Mare quickly. You have 120 seconds and should only progress to the next area with around 10 seconds on the clock.
- Use the rest of that time to do multiple laps of the Mare and collect as many orbs, stars, links, etc. as you can.
- You want to free the Ideya as fast as possible. That will activate Bonus Time and increase your score considerably.
- Your approach may differ, but I suggest worrying less about trying to do or collect everything in one lap and instead find the path of least resistance. That way you can rack up more links and possibly complete additional laps.
- Even if you don’t get an A on a specific Mare or at the score round-up screen before the boss, you can still complete the stage with an A by defeating the boss very quickly. If you get a C, you’re probably **** out of luck.
Hello Mepian (40)
Witnessed the hatching of Mepian.
A Mepian is the horrid biological offspring of a Nightopian (the cute little flying things) and a Nightmaren (the mean little flying things). Whenever Nights comes into contact with a Nightmaren, he will grab on to it. Pressing A will cause the Nightmaren to shoot off in any direction in a rolled-up ball. If the ball hits a Nightopian, a Mepian egg is created.
Chances are you’ll accidentally unlock this without even trying while obtaining all the other Achievements, but if you still don’t have it by the very end, Spring Valley seems like a good place to make some mutant babies.
Stage-specific Achievements
The following Achievements are simply for completing each stage with any ranking.
- the IDEAL (10) – Spring Valley cleared.
- the POSSIBILITY (20) – Mystic Forest cleared.
- the CONFUSION (30) – Soft Museum cleared.
- the AFFECTION (10) – Splash Garden cleared.
- the CONSCIOUSNESS (20) – Frozen Bell cleared.
- the REVIVAL (30) – Stick Canyon cleared.
the GROWTH (40)
Twin Seeds cleared.
Twin Seeds unlocks once you get at least a C rating on all three of one character’s stages. Note that each character has his own version of Twin Seeds, but you only need to complete one of them for this Achievement.
Twin Seeds is different than all the other stages in that laps do not reset anything, so the number of collectibles is finite. Your time also does not refill after each Mare, so you need to rush through them as quickly as possible or else it’s game over.
into dreams… (50)
Cleared all stages with All A Rank.
The wording on this Achievement suggests you need to complete every stage with an A on every Mare, but you actually just need to get an A as your final rank for all eight stages.
DREAMY !!! (30)
Got best rating “DREAMY” in Acrobat Time.
Acrobat Time is triggered whenever you fly through a blue and yellow ring. A yellow ribbon will follow Nights while he’s flying, and pressing the L or R trigger will perform a stunt. The more stunts you perform before Acrobat Time runs out, the more points you’ll get. If you get 11 or more stunts, you’ll receive a Dreamy rating and the Achievement.
While getting 11+ stunts is normally somewhat challenging, there is an easy exploit that makes this very easy. While in Acrobat Time, if you scrape either a floor or ceiling and spam the trigger buttons, you will rapidly perform stunts. This is also a great way to improve your stage score and earn better ranks.
Note: Pressing both triggers at the same time will immediately end Acrobat Time.
Paraloop Master (100)
Successfully Paralooped all of Gillwing’s tail in one hit.
Based on your luck (and/or skill), this will either be the easiest Achievement in the game or the hardest. Gillwing is the boss of Claris’ first stage, Spring Valley. To get this Achievement, you must create a Paraloop attack that takes out Gullwing’s tail in one go (21 links). See the video below for an example:
Once you complete a stage, you can replay just the boss battle from the stage selection screen, so that’s the best way to practice this. Gullwing bends just perfectly for you to do this within the first seconds of the battle, so if you miss it, you might be better off restarting the battle altogether.
Note: Some players prefer doing this on the Sega Saturn classic version, and in fact I also earned the Achievement in classic mode on my second try.
Mystic Garage (10)
Guided the lost car to the garage.
In the final Mare of Mystic Forest, you’ll enter a top-down flying sequence. Below you is a red card that will drive on the ground and follow you as best it can based on your movements. In the same area is also a green garage. Get the car close to the garage and then circle overhead until the car enters it and the Achievement unlocks.
Merry Christmas! (10)
Spring Valley (Christmas) cleared.