3. NiGHTS: Into Dreams (Sega Saturn – 1996)
Few games captures the magic, or shall I say, essence of video games the way NiGHTS: Into Dreams does. This is the crowning achievement of Sonic Team and producer Yuji Naka. The game communicates emotions through sound/music, visuals and gameplay in a way few other games ever did. The game world is packed with creativity and the Arcade-style gameplay is so damn smooth and addictive. It really drags you in when you get a hold of it. Safe to say, it pulled off that feeling of speed and visual sensation that the Sonic games aimed, but it was only here that the developers truly managed to deliver that. The game is short, but the replay value is high, and all the levels feel exceptionally well crafted, and the boss battles are some of the best in any video game. There is no game quite like NiGHTS. I can recommend the Steam port and the Xbox 360 version (which is backwards compatible on XO and XS), but the Saturn version is still the finest, the quality of the 3D visuals of that era (of which this is certainly a top 10 contender), strangely enhances the dream-like quality of the game, which is unfortunately not fully preserved in the remastered version. The Saturn version also controls slightly better.
