What a breakthrough year 1996 was for three-dimensional gaming. The most popular titles left and right reveled in this new format, from "Tomb Raider" to "Quake" to "Super Mario 64", to what would be Sega's best game since "Sonic the Hedgehog 2".

"NiGHTS Into Dreams", with its years of reputation as a cult classic, is the most exhilirating and structured 3D effort in the Sega library. It really does make sense that Sonic Team would be the ones to create this game, because it translates every last good detail about the Sonic games into 3D. What this game nails most of all is the sense of how dynamic speed becomes its own experience as you play. The faster you zoom through each level's circuits, doing more and more things while your score climbs into the tens of thousands and upwards, the more it's revealed how the game uses 3D to create a space for all this action. By placing the focus on score-attacking, the 3D spacing of "NiGHTS Into Dreams" allows every movement and press of the action buttons to build into a chain of arcade-style accomplishments. It's less vast than other games from 1996, and most of Sega's 3D forays after this game, but it's leaner than any of them.

The fantasy setting of this game, about two kids uniting with a friendly creature to fly through a dreamscape, grows out of its structure. It's used nicely, and the pop-psychology themes about courage and the subconscious become one big stocking stuffer to go with everything else in the game. This Steam version is a bigger stocking than the original game, with bonus content and the option between PS2-quality and Saturn-quality graphics, and the main game is just as great.

What a breakthrough year 1996 was for three-dimensional gaming. The most popular titles left and right reveled in this new format, from "Tomb Raider" to "Quake" to "Super Mario 64", to what would be Sega's best game since "Sonic the Hedgehog 2". "NiGHTS Into Dreams", with its years of reputation as a cult classic, is the most exhilirating and structured 3D effort in the Sega library. It really does make sense that Sonic Team would be the ones to create this game, because it translates every last good detail about the Sonic games into 3D. What this game nails most of all is the sense of how dynamic speed becomes its own experience as you play. The faster you zoom through each level's circuits, doing more and more things while your score climbs into the tens of thousands and upwards, the more it's revealed how the game uses 3D to create a space for all this action. By placing the focus on score-attacking, the 3D spacing of "NiGHTS Into Dreams" allows every movement and press of the action buttons to build into a chain of arcade-style accomplishments. It's less vast than other games from 1996, and most of Sega's 3D forays after this game, but it's leaner than any of them. The fantasy setting of this game, about two kids uniting with a friendly creature to fly through a dreamscape, grows out of its structure. It's used nicely, and the pop-psychology themes about courage and the subconscious become one big stocking stuffer to go with everything else in the game. This Steam version is a bigger stocking than the original game, with bonus content and the option between PS2-quality and Saturn-quality graphics, and the main game is just as great.