If we set the Way Back Machine for, ooooh, 2004, developer Phantagram earned a fair amount of kudos for their first stab at a console RTS-lite button masher, Kingdom Under Fire: Crusaders. A console-ised version of the purely RTS PC series, KUF trod where Koei’s genre leader did not: namely, it offered distinct strategic elements to its real-time carnage, a feature expounded upon in its less well-received sequel, KUF: Heroes. One would expect, then, in its first 360 offering, that Phantagram would continue to expand upon this effective melange of genres that has worked so well for it in recent history.

You would expect wrongly, brethren.

Somewhat bizarrely, Phantagram has regressed to an atavistic form of the genre with Ninety Nine Nights, perhaps in an effort to keep things streamlined and pure. Gone are the RTS-lite elements that made the KUF games superior to much of Koei’s increasingly dogged and iteratively repetitive output, including its recent godawful 360 shovelware. Instead, NNN is a simple Tolkienesque hack ‘n’ slash affair with extremely minimal control offered over guard units (literally consisting of Hold and Attack commands). Garnering everyone’s favourite acid-groove gamesmith Mizuguchi as an executive producer/consultant – although, sometimes spectacular and quite trippy special orb attacks aside, it’s hard to see what potential input he’s had on the game – Phantagram have offered up gameplay revolving around simple combos, the execution of which fills up a red orb bar for performing specials, which in turn fill up a secondary blue bar (orb spark) for when you absolutely have to kill every melon farmer onscreen. Accept no substitute.

And that’s it – playing through the game unlocks additional characters whose personalities affect the tone of the missions as they’re played through from different perspectives. Warrior princess Inphyy, for example, is extremely bellicose and thinks nothing of slaughtering a villageful of goblin women and children (which you get to do in real-time, atrocity fans) whilst her more reticent pansy of a step-brother, Asphar, will constantly whinge on about the inhumanity of war. The game also has a nice line in empathy, with goblin and troll characters being unlockable to experience the war from their perspective. The gameplay, however, varies little, other than certain characters being distinctly weaker than others, such as the horrifically underpowered cutesy witch Tyurru (and her pathetic water magic), making their paths considerably more arduous. Disappointingly, and bafflingly considering the almost universal disdain excreted upon it, Phantagram have done nothing to address the problem (if you consider it a problem and not a “gameplay feature”) of the lack of checkpoints in the game’s passage through localisation. Admittedly, it’s really only the Phyola Flatlands, the ultimate mission for every character, that is particularly lengthy but nonetheless, playing through this mission only to die fighting the boss means replaying a good 25 minutes’ worth of unchallenging hackery just to get to the boss again. NNN is exactly the same in its Western iteration as the original Japanese code, voiceovers aside (which, although a bit cringeworthy, aren’t anything like as deliriously awful as in KUF – anyone like to feel my delts?). It’s a shame, unlike the KUF games, that the choice of having the original voice cast isn’t provided, but you can’t have everything.

Replaying earlier missions allows plentiful levelling up and the accruing of many bonus items to enable damage/defence modifiers so if at a sufficient level (7 or above) the last couple of missions should pose no major threat anyway, in which case unwanted replays should not be a common occurrence.

Graphically, NNN is solid without ever being inspiring, outside of the pyrotechnics on display during the orb specials, some of which belch up the most crippling single-figure-framerate slowdown yet seen in a 360 title. Whilst there’s no overt Dynasty Warriors-style fogging (outside of deliberate weather effects) or noticeable pop, there’s a quite distractingly scuzzy depth-of-field effect in the middle-to-far distance. Besides the nicely modelled principals, character models are drab and not particularly impressive and indeed some are rather redolent of KUF. The engine does, however, cope with a decent amount of models onscreen with slowdown only egregiously rearing its head during the destruction of scenery (with concomitant particle effects) and during the aforementioned specials, particularly Tyurru’s. Seeing a glut - or whatever the collective noun, a “skank” perhaps - of goblins crest a ridge and come shrieking towards you is reasonably impressive the first few times, even if they’re all the exact same model and are met with the knowledge that they can be dispatched with little more than randomly and alternately pressing two buttons and a direction sours this somewhat. Also, despite what various guides indicate, it’s eminently and easily possible to complete the game with nearly every character without ever having to block, narrowing the worthwhile combat mechanics even further.

Whilst not as tedious an exercise in the genre as, say, what horrific compound-modified crossover Koei has foisted upon the world this week (Xtreme Tedium Warriors XIII: The Gurning) or Square Enix’s quite stunningly dour Dragon-Dragoon games (Drakengaard in the West), the combat and combo-ing really does grate, unless linking combos into high four figures REALLY gives you a chubby. Each character obviously has unique moves and combos that become more numerous and impressive as you level up, which the game encourages through replaying earlier missions for more XP, which, as mentioned previously, is essentially vital.

The mainly pre-rendered cutscenes are exceptionally striking, for those whom such things matter, and outside of the fact that the dialogue no longer marries up to lip movements – something that hasn’t been performed for the in-engine dialogue either – they’re quite entertaining and on occasion (Asphar’s “bad” ending, for example, being predicated on the only example of a branching mission choice that the game offers) actually a teensy bit moving. Goblin Dwingvatt’s missions, where the player sees the flipside of the campaign involving the goblin king (sadly not David Bowie) whom you’ve been cursing for his cheap overpowered specials in every human-oriented mission thus far, are particularly memorable.

Attaining A and S ranks is relatively painless, excepting (and this is NNN’s real bugbear) weird glitchiness where certain missions seem impossible to S rank on, however well you perform. Rankings are based on kill count, completion time, orb collection/attacks and guard survival rate – the latter being the element most out of your control since guards are effectively a waste of space, indeed being counterproductive on most missions, particularly when they pester bosses with insignificant attacks, thereby making them keep their block engaged and hence becoming much harder to damage. Specific bonus items, such as more powerful weapons, are unlocked through destroying certain bits of scenery, opening particular item chests, achieving a certain rank on a mission or chaining a particularly high combo - for which cursed items which lower stats are useful, such as those that reduce damage inflicted.

Said glitchiness also affects one particular Achievement, for which you have to play through the entire game again with all characters at level 9 in order to unlock, rather than just reach level 9 with them all (as the Achievement criterion states). General bugginess includes lousy collision detection, with archers/goblin wizards the next valley over able to fire through solid rock and hit you, as well as cutscenes that trigger whilst midway through a special, causing you to waste it (and then endure several seconds of blackness whilst re-entering the game from cutscene which causes you to lose any combo chain you had going and also leaves you susceptible to attack, since the game carries on regardless under cover of black). Defeating a boss (whereupon they will drop several bonus XP pickups) at the end of a mission is also frustrating because the mission then ends promptly without giving you the chance to collect said bonuses. Thanks for that.

Essentially, much like a Chuck Norris film, NNN isn’t bad enough to stop you enjoying the red red kroovy on offer and even on occasion manages to add some poignancy and pathos to the various narratives through some well-executed cutscenes; there are just too many niggles and not enough imagination involved to recommend it, even at second-hand pricepoints. There’s some tepid enjoyment to be had, but also much gnashing of fangs amidst bouts of narcolepsy. Hopefully Phantagram’s upcoming 360 KUF title Circle of Doom will be much more of a second-generational effort and build upon past laurels, rather than resting deleteriously upon them.