Bloodborne Before Bloodborne | The Nightmare Creatures Series

[Music] the nightmare creatures series is one of the more notable interesting series to pop up in the early days of 3D gaming series gets PL comparisons to bloodborne and for good reason play renen Streets of mid 19th century London with Things That Go Bump in the night that said nightmare Creatures 2 is more in the vein of bloodborne the first game is more hack and slash with level design similar to Classic FPS titles while it falls victim to some issues plaguing early 3D titles it's still a blast to play one you can pick up at any time nightmare Creatures 2 is slower more spread out more linear in its design in ways much more like bloodborne but a sequel that pushed the hardware of the PlayStation to its absolute limits as a result cutbacks were made in other areas like gameplay nightmare Creatures 2 is a case of one step forward several steps back it's one of the more disappointing sequels I played with that let's look into the nightmare creature Series where the games go right where they go wrong and why they're still worth checking out at least the first game no more screams eh that's what happens when you impale a man through the heart nightmare creatures is one of those old school gaming stories that remains in the background there's an intro cut scene text on loading screens between levels and the game manual ah the days of game manuals they could add so much life and character to a game the year is 18 34 plague has spread across London Ignatius Blackbird a priest and expert in the occult finds a toone left at his doorstep the toone contains the Diary of one Samuel peeps 170 years ago Samuel stopped the Brotherhood of hecate's diabolical experiments in attempts to create more powerful human beings their experiments created heinous monsters Samuel peeps destroy the Brotherhood and their experiments Through Fire which spread throughout London this was The Great Fire of 1666 Samuel peeps was an actual historical figure who kept a diary about this time frame of London the time frame from 1660 to 1671 his diary cronel events like the Great Plague along with the Great Fire of course real world events were different than what happened here he didn't cause the Great Fire of 1666 in reality Samuel kept a record of the experiments and Arcane formulas for creating organic mutations from the Brotherhood of Hecate this discovery causes ignacius the priest to send the to to Dr GF in New Orleans a world expert in Immunology he heads to London with his daughter Nano before acius and Jean can meet Jean is murdered the toe missing Naji receives a note from one Adam Crowley and the Brotherhood of Hecate come find them and stop them if they dare with that we're off to stop Adam Crowley and the monstrosities Unleashed upon London and should no one stop him this city will be consumed by a horde of nightmare creatures now with a last name like Crowley I'm guessing Adam has a relation to Alistair Crowley although Alistair would be born for another 40ish years or so after the events of nightmare creatures oh Mr Crowley what went on your head in Nightmare creatures we could either play as ignacius or Nadia each with their own unique skill set and combos nacius is slower in movement using a staff to ward off enemies Nadia uses a sword and is far more agile Nimble and more fun to play for most of my time in Nightmare creatures I played as Nadia for making this video I haven't played either games in the nightmare creatures series I've been aware of the series for long time seen them in action but never with a controller in my hand this time frame of early 3D gaming is a fascinating one to look back on a time frame before best practices emerged and how to handle 3D movement and cameras nightmare creatures came out in the late 1997 all things considered it handles well for the time frame as aged pretty well the year before in 1996 there were three Landmark titles in how they handled 3D movement in the third person that being Super Mario 64 Tomb Raider and Resident Evil Mario 64 set a benchmark for 3D platforming Tomb Raider would take a grid-based approach Resident Evil would use tank controls with fixed camera angles not the first of their kind but but ones that set the benchmarks moving forward nightmare creatures handles more in the vein of Tomb Raider not quite a grid system but it's evident in movement and combat in one-on-one combat controls handle great it's easy to dodge block get your moves in blocking is Noble nullifying almost all attacks when in close range of an enemy the camera will snap to your opponent I found this reasonable and didn't find it causing too many issues there were a few stretches where the camera would get in the way but this was a rare occurrence nightmare creatures does a good job of spreading out enemies so most encounters remain oneon-one that said there a few set encounters where group combat occurs things get more tricky with where the camera will snap to you may find yourself in the position of the camera snapping to the enemy who leaped into the back again these encounters are rare so it's nothing too egregious but worth noting it's the platforming where nightmare creature stumbles in its controls our characters aren't Adept at swimming resulting in instant death now there are some decent quality of life features for example while attacking you won't fall off a platform as a result of foreign movement that's some great foresight on the developer part that said you can get knocked off by enemy attacks still this was a rare occurrence there weren't many enemy encounters located near water to make a more direct comparison to a Souls like I'd hold my breath while making a precise jump there's one early sewer level that's egregious with it you have to be precise or else you'll lose a life one great example is a section of trying to get to these docks surrounded by giant octopi it's easy for them to knock you off a platform your jumps need to be precise between platforms there are few items you could grab on one of them grabbing items can be awkward in Nightmare creatures some items you pick up right off the ground those drop by enemies then you have items that you find in boxes or elsewhere you need to face them and hit a button to grab them which can be a bit iffy at times to have your position right but all things consider the game handles well for an early 3D entry when people talk about games not aging well I find many from this time frame of early 3D gaming as suitable candidates where movement in the third dimension and camera systems were still unexplored territory yes there are some issues with how nightmare creatures handles but it's not a huge detriment hats off to the developers not falling victim to what was so common in those days with 3D gaming combat handles well for the most part the left and right shoulder buttons allow you to dodge left or right dodging feels satisfying with the ground that covers there are several combos for each character and Nightmare creatures the manual lists a few but further experimentation allows you discover others I settled only good four to five combos for NAIA to use at any given time some to break enemy stances some to slice off [Music] limbs this membrance system is pretty impressive for its time for most enemies a combo that takes off limbs will finish a fight others will continue to fight on limbs missing one enemy that can be fun to fight is the Dockers depending on your finishing blows they'll stand until you let them fall to the ground you can continue to rain down blows and take away body parts or some [Music] laughs there's a decent sized enemy roster to deal with in Nightmare creatures werewolves Dockers zombies zombies insects spiders rats octopus harpies demons hellhounds gargoyles combine this with the foggy plag Grant streets of mid 19th century London it's easy to make bloodborne comparisons while groundbased enemies may have different looks and sizes their combat patterns tend to remain the same flying enemies will throw a few more hurdles your way as this is a fifth generation title there's enough detail and textures to flesh out enemies but still leaves room to fill in the blanks there's a reason the style presentation is popular amongst Indie developers the technology limitations draw distance remains limited this adds to the UN of what's around the next Corner Music also does wonders for building out the [Music] atmosphere now there is a caveat with the combo system in putting your combo can be a bit iffy In the Heat of the Moment during combat it's easy to rush your inputs and not pull off the combo you want sure you can Button Mash your way through the game but getting those precise combos to take off limbs makes a world of difference one combo with a slash can be enough to kill an enemy otherwise you might be button mashing for some time there's one combo of Naas that's great for slicing up enemies on a PS1 controller it's XX then back and square at the same time two kicks followed by a spitting slash thing is more often than not I would get the three kick combo instead there's another great combo breaking enemy stance with a heavy kick ending with an overhead slash but again this overhead slash came out less than I wished this is by far the largest issue with the controls of nightmare creatures trying out the N64 version it felt a bit better but there were still issues with it for the PC version when I could get to run I had a similar issue in Nightmare creatures there are several powerups at our disposal one time usage to deal with enemies like guns one can be a single shot another will do a 360 spin while [Applause] [Music] firing you have proximity mines firebombs and dynamite you could use chaos skulls to get enemies to fight one another the one I enjoyed most was the repulsive smoke toss one down to keep monsters at Bay it's as if they ball the smell of Smash Brothers [Music] players there's some the more useful side items I've come across in the game handy in any situation you might be low on health not want to risk taking damage so use a power up instead you'll find them spread out amongst levels and you'll want to find them nightmare creatures is no walk in the park level designs in the vein of classic FPS titles like Doom the way levels will loop around and back with several side paths and secrets at the end of a level you're shown the enemy's kill percentage and items found percentage there were several times I thought I was thorough in the exploration of a level only to discover I missed a good chunk of items there is a map which while not the greatest in how it handles gives you an idea of where you've been it's easy to get lost due to the lowlevel vision the worst mechanic and greatest flaw of nightmare creatures is the adrenaline meter this depletes on the regular which refills by killing enemies if the drops to zero your health starts to whittle away while non-issue at first as nightmare creatures progresses the adrenaline meter drops at a faster rate on one hand the adrenaline meter keeps you moving forward seeking out enemies to kill the issue is how it cuts into the exploration you might want to head down a side path to see what's over there while some areas will loop around others will be a dead end so when you come back you may not have enemies along the way to refill your adrenaline meter your trip may end up being a net loss due to the game's difficulty you'll want to seek out powerups to have on hand along with finding weapon upgrades health and lives the adrenaline system is a total Clash for the game take this with a grain of salt but someone claimed to have worked on nightmare creatures gave its reasoning this is one of the top comments on Josh strife's video on nightmare creatures well I can't confirm it's a legitimate but does make sense in its reasoning it was a last minute addition to the game as in a few days before the game would go gold before the adrenaline meter you could run past all your enemies and finish the game in very little time the publisher NOS this and wanted a quick solution the adrenaline system is the result I'm sure if they had more time they would have done a different solution like having to clear out a certain percentage of enemies before you could complete a level or clearing out enemies to open a path forward or you know they didn't need to bother at all bringing up doom again you can run past most enemies if you want to say for a few instances you could say that for a lot of games actually at least in the N64 version released a year later you could disable the adrenaline meter in the options at various points we'll see Adam Crowley just Out Of Reach escaping at the end of levels we'll also get some short blurbs from Mr Crowley these do a lot to add to his character and remind us of what's at stake ah run run run into the arms of death give it up I'll murder you the way I murdered that imbecile Dr Jean F Society funded my experiments and now it shall destroy itself how beautiful the rest is silence prepare to die before we reach Adam we'll have a few bosses throughout they could be frustrating trial and error Affairs they would feel of placing a Crash Bandicoot game with her structure one example is the snow creature in a church you have to Chuck Dynamite at the explosive Barrel next to him he'll Chuck giant snowballs at us it's easy to get caught in he dreaded stun lock with [Music] them as mentioned earlier grabbing items can be a bit iffy flying yourself up in front of them and hitting a button can take a moment rep plashing your Dynamite while avoiding snowballs isn't the smoothest tasks another annoying boss is against this knifethrower trying to throw switches while avoiding these knives isn't the most pleasant experience like the snow creature it's easy to fall victim to the dreaded stun loock finally we come face to face with Crowley himself no gimmicks here it's a straightup fight to the death this took many tries to take him down finding that timing between his attacks only to have my combo Miss as he Dodges or dodging one of his Combos and getting several hits in while frustration levels Rose it was a different kind of frustration W myself instead of stunlock issues with other bosses or dealing with gimmicks I was finally able to slay Crowley Q credits an unknown figure arises to claim Crowley's head nightmare creatures is not a long game but very much a playable one whether switching characters seeing how fast you can complete a level or how many monsters you killed or items found as well you can unlock a mode to play as the monsters more of a novelty I would get my ass handed to me still it's a fun little unlockable to give these monsters a [Music] spin [Music] while it does show its age and it's a bit rough Rough Around the Edges nightmare creatures is a blast in an addicting game and not in the modern gaming kind of way it's one where gameplay is King an arcade likee feel with old school FPS level design as this was the early days of 3D the amount they were able to get right is very commendable it's one of those games you could fire up at any point and have a [Music] blast [Music] nightmare Creatures 2 would released two and a half years later in 2000 you would think they would continue the same vein as the original with some tweaks along the way they took the game in a much different direction resulting on the more disappointing sequels I've played I had stayed too long in my cell my Lair tormented by Inner demons but I could lament no longer she needed me my nightmare was just about to begin while it does have its merits nightmare Creatures 2 is a sequel that misses so much of what made the original special it's not Devil May Cry two or deox Invisible War levels of disappointing but it is up there for every step forward nightmare creatures too take several steps back several cases of fixing what wasn't broken leading to further issues like the first game Nightmare Creatures 2 has a similar minimal story you get short blurs during loading screens between levels cutcenes and the game manual the year is 1934 100 years after the first nightmare creatures Adam Crowley returns having spent the last 100 years regaining his strength his goal is to summon an ancestral being of great power to merge with after the event of the first nightmare creatures ignacius and Nadia founded the circle a secret organization to keep evils such as Adam at Bay in the surprise attack Crowley Mass cursy Circle and takes prisoner one of its members Herbert Wallace our main character and only playable character Crowley tortures experiments on Herbert for years one day he's able to escape and heads out to stop Crowley this is where the game begins proper one thing that's noticeable right away is the upgrade in the presentation of nightmare Creatures 2 the frame rate is higher the graphic Fidelity is a large jump the draw distance is greater this is a mid 2000's release this is the tail end of the first PlayStation and the dawn of the PlayStation 2 nightmare creatures 2 pushes the PlayStation to its limits it's incredible the difference a couple years can make in pushing consoles to their limits back in the day there was no N64 version of nightmare Creatures 2 the reason given was due to low sales but they also wonder if the system simply wouldn't be able to handle it or if they tried would require major cutbacks due to storage limitations now of course there is a trade-off for this upgrade in Fidelity one that turns nightmare Creatures 2 into a disappointing sequel one is the streamlining of the combat system you have all but two combos in Nightmare creatures too Square XX or x square square kicks are separate and not part of any combos now more combos doesn't make a combat system better by default in the original nightmare creatures of all possible options I used around four to five for each character but to strip down this much is overkill now like the YouTube comment about the adrenaline system in the first nightmare creatures I did come across a possible explanation there was a point where I got stuck in Nightmare creatures too and looked at a playthrough on YouTube one of the top comments claimed to have worked on the game well I can't verify the validity they did give a lot of information and details that seemed plausible not only for nightmare Creatures 2 but other projects the studio worked on according to this comment they cut back on combos due to memory limitation they had to remove a third combo to have enough free memory they pushed the system to its absolute limits makes me curious what nightmare Creatures 2 would have been like had they built it around the sixth generation instead of the tail end of the fifth now that said nightmare Creatures 2 did release on the Dreamcast thing is it's a basic upscale port with a higher frame rate nightmare Creatures 2 is one the many many PS1 to Dreamcast ports there around 150 of them continuing with the combat system I didn't have any issues with combo inputs like the original but there was a frustrating change to combo output in the first nightmare creatures you could input a combo and it would play out regardless if you hit your enemy this could be handy in many situations your first hit may miss but these slash won't dismembering your enemy nightmare creatures too if you don't get that first hit the combo won't continue enemies now have health bars are more spread out and take longer to kill get enemy Health down far enough and you could perform a fatality each enemy type will have a unique fatality animation the fatalities are okay but this point I've almost killed them a couple more hits tends to be enough some of these fatalities can take a while to play out which gets annoying over time I prefer doing this myself in the first nightmare creatures by slicing them up now there is one enemy type that pops up later where fatalities open up far earlier it's a relief as there one any harder enemies to deal with and the fatality is quite [Music] satisfying there are other quirks to the combat system that you have to get used to like how enemies can interrupt your combos once you get a feel for it you could see it coming go for too many combos in a row and they'll interrupt with a grab there's also the Quirk that kicking an enemy down isn't a free combo after enemies love to grab you after you try combo after kicking them down it's very frustrating to be caught in a [Music] grab although I like this one move where they do a reverse banee on you right to the [Music] ribs several enemies will do a roar or an idle animation at which point you could charge them with a combo beyond the docker returning most enemies and Nightmare creatures too are new they come in different shapes and sizes but like the original most play on the same way in dealing with them dodging is far less helpful here in the original nightmare creatures your strafe left or right covered a great distance here it's very small most attempts at Dodge resulted in damage better to dodge back or block power-ups return and they're as satisfying as they were in the original there are a couple of notable new power-ups I was always happy to stumble over there are a few variations of guns available one results in the enemy exploding into pieces on a similar note there is a jar of flies now at first when I picked it up I thought it would hold enemies in place as I chip away at their health very common in video games think the insect swarm and the Bioshock games in Nightmare Creatures 2 this swarm explodes your enemy into pieces I always chuckled when using [Music] it and you want to be using items because some of these encounters can take a long time in the original if you're able to pull off dismember me you can finish a fight in the Flash and move on to the next one in Nightmare creatures too you have to whittle down that health bar we get to the point where I started to roll my eyes as levels would go on with further combat encounters what was enjoyable in the first game becomes a chore here while controls are tighter in Nightmare creatures too there is a change that causes issues if you want to leave a combat encounter you need to hold down a button to return to explore mode thing is May situations require combat to advance like opening the next door this change also resultes in frustrations of picking up items during combat while nightmare Creatures 2 doesn't have the awkward pickup item button action combat makes it more difficult to pick up items one time I want to grab this one power up during combat but for whatever reason Wallace wouldn't I had told the shoulder button to enable exploration mode to pick it up this took far longer than needed and resulted in unnecessary damage health is used on pickup instead of being an item to use another choice I disagreed with in a game like this giving you the option of when to heal is the better one along with the change in the combat system nightmare Creatures 2 takes a different approach to level design levels are fewer but far longer some could take a good 30 to 40 minutes there are short loading screens throughout or enemy cutcenes to mask loading screens again this shows how far they push the [Applause] PS1 levels are far more linear and do away with the FPS like Doom field to their layout in making the bloodborne comparisons nightmare Creatures 2 is far more in that vein the combat is slower paced and the level structure fits more in that vein to an extent I did fire up the fand Dake of the PS1 bloodborne afterwards and you could feel the similarities but there is one large difference in how levels play out here they're next to no cases of looping level design where you open up a shortcut to a prior area something I would have appreciated there are several times per level where paths will Branch off One path will need a key or explosive to clear the path forward this item will be on the other path instead of looping back to it afterward you return the way you came with more enemies in place now I did tend to pick the right path first the path that gave me an item to progress forward was this a case of luck or subtle guidance looking back at the footage I don't see the subtle guidance Lady Luck appeared to be on my side there are cases where the Obstacle of One path is further back you might go through a few enemies and discover you need to go the other path to find the required item to progress I wish they kept the same level structure of the original it works so well beyond a few exceptions this shift also Cuts back on Secrets they're next to no secret paths hidden powerups are instead tucked away behind breakables or Windows now there are some positives here like the adrenaline meter which is nowhere to be found you're free to explore at your own Leisure another nice change is no longer falling to your death in water this time you could swim controls handle fine here and the game is very generous in your air meter you're never in a major rush in fighting with a controls nightmare Creatures 2 uses several stock sound effects that pop up in other games relate to swimming and emerging from the water is the same sound as taking damage in Golden eye7 this one tentacle enemy they use the same sound for Bowser and Mario Kart 64 and an enemy from the original System Shock one enemy uses the same sound as an enemy from Doom and opening certain doors is the same sound in Vampire ire Bloodlines no doubt they've popped up in other games most of these look to come from the general series 6000 sound effects Library released in 1992 a collection that has a little over 7500 sound effects always throws me for a loop when you hear these sounds elsewhere you associate them with a certain game there's a pause of wait where have I heard that sound before there are no level completion stats instead you get a simple congratulations then again I wasn't hang crank to returns these levels to see if I could do better this time around as mentioned earlier in the first nightmare creatures I could fire up at any point play a few levels and have a great time I have little desire to return to nightmare creatures too unlike the first game Adam Crowley has little presence whereas we get short blurs from him at the end of levels instead we get wall as providing Exposition some during the loading screen some at moments throughout levels and some during cut scenes between levels all these documents were about ancient Cults summoning of creatures once feared or worshiped one name was recurring bamit the devouring death I feared then that this demented sorcerer planned to use this forbidden knowledge for his own purposes the creature in the museum was certainly linked with all this the passage led to the Paris underground the catacombs were not far away I was sure that Crowley creatures were using this maze as a secret base I felt then that I was about to reach the heart of this now I'm not going to play the audio of these cutcenes because that's going to result in the copyright strike these cutcenes feature The Music of Rob Zombie bit silly sure it's part of the late '90s early 2000s charm as far as a musical fit goes you could do a lot worse than Rob Zombie for a series like nightmare creatures while we start in London our journey will take us to Paris we'll see Rachel throat part of the circle someone who is supposed to be a playable character but ended up on The Cutting Room floor the last encounter has us climbing up the Eiffel Tower to stop this monstrosity and that's it what about Crowley Rachel was safe the horror defeated but while I savored the brief Taste of Victory I was all too aware that Crowley hidden in some dark and sorted Place continued to weave his evil web of Darkness I knew then that I would continue to The Bitter End back to that YouTube comment there are plans for several more levels that were cut for time which is common for games but here it's in the vein of something like Halo 2 where it ends out of nowhere to be fair I was more than ready for nightmare Creatures 2 to wrap up while longer game it's still not a long one by any stretch even then it wore outs welcome long before ending this leads to nightmare Creatures 2 being one of the more disappointing sequels I played title caught in the generation Purgatory where it push its Hardware to its absolute limits had they built around the sixth generation of Hardware the Dreamcast the Xbox the GameCube the PlayStation 2 I would have loved to see what they would have done there's still something quite enjoyable here somewhat of a bloodborne prototype in its feel a bloodborn before bloodborne but something that could have been so much more and we never got to experience a sixth generation nightmare creatures the third title was in development but the studio Kalisto entertainment went bankrupt in 2002 Ubisoft was set to publish the game but instead took over development after Kalisto closed the game was going to be set in 19th century Prague they released short blurs of footage and art but in the end nightmare creatures 3 never saw the light of day now Ubisoft taking over development seems like a bit of an iffy thing but you got to remember this was the early 2000s Ubisoft that delivered the Splinter Cell games the Prince of Persia games Beyond Good and Evil the Rayman games too bad we never got to see what it was like albino moose games announced a remake in 2017 but confirmed in 2020 that it was sheld leaving us with a great first title that's a bit rough around the edges and the sequel that's a bummer as a followup still it's an interesting series that feels like bloodborne before bloodborne existed even with the great differences and approaches to design they come from a time frame when gameplay was King where the story remained in the background well before a time of best practices emerging in how to develop 3D games there were some Growing Pains but there's much to commend with how much the nightmare creature series got right as an early 3D title as mentioned earlier before this video I was familiar with the series but never played them I'm happy to note how well the series has aged the series that could be a nice template for buting any developers out there thanks for watching if you haven't done so already like subscribe subscribe leave a comment if you want to support the channel further consider becoming a patron member or YouTube member you'll get access to videos earlier the forthcoming credits and what I've been working [Music] on [Music]

Channel: Boulder Punch

Views: 163,889

Keywords: nightmare creatures, nightmare creatures 2, nightmare creatures ps1, nightmare creatures review, boulder punch, nightmare creatures 2 review, nightmare creatures gameplay, nightmare creatures 2 ps1, nightmare creatures n64, nightmare creatures 2 dreamcast, nightmare creatures 2 gameplay, nightmare creatures bloodborne, nightmare creatures 2 bloodborne, bloodborne, playstation, nightmare creatures dreamcast, nightmare creatures analysis, nightmare creatures series

Id: cg7qbsGjgUU

Length: 31min 34sec (1894 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2024