"For those loyal fans that have been waiting 11 years for NiGHTS to return, I felt the need to keep the game concept fundamentally the same as the original, so that it would be a reminiscent return to their past NiGHTS experience," explained Iizuka. "This way, I could extend my thanks and appreciation for all those fans that have been waiting all this time for the sequel."
He also revealed that Journey of Dreams would have two different control configurations, one of which would incorporate the Wii remote, and the other both the remote and nunchuk. "With the Nintendo Wii, I thought it would be a perfect chance to attempt to recreate the innovative flight experience [of the Saturn version] once again," he said. "We're currently designing the game to be played with two control configurations. Our main focus is to design the game to be played with the Wii remote, but for those gamers that are more comfortable using a more "traditional-style" controller configuration, they will able to plug the nunchuk into the Wii remote as well."
Elsewhere, Iizuka was a little more vague, refusing to confirm whether or not Miis would have a role to play in the game, or how the Wii's Weather Channel would be used. "What's exciting about the Wii is that it has a lot of great functions that we would like to take advantage of," was all he would reveal, adding that, "We have some really special surprises for all!"
Finally, Iizuka confirmed that an entirely original game engine had been constructed for the title, squashing speculation that the next NiGHTS may be based on the same engine as Sonic and the Secret Rings. "Journey of Dreams is being created from the ground up, and is running on a completely new engine engineered specifically for the Wii. We're finding that there are some very interesting graphical effects and processes that are being merged into our engine. We're excited to see how far we can push the hardware this time."
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