Those of us who bought Journey of Dreams a couple of years ago pretty much can all agree that the Sweet Snow version of DREAMS DREAMS is incredibly beautiful and like eating the best kind of icecream while drowning in 90ft of deep nostalgia and not caring. What made that song so special (other than just sounding ultimately pretty!) was the fact that the original girl who sang the song as a child – Jasmine Ann Allen, returned to sing the song once more as an adult. We all thought of her as the Claris of the song and tried to sing along as best we could as kids ourselves, lol.

But there was another equally important part to DREAMS DREAMS that Sweet Snow unfortunately missed out on. That was … Cameron Strother.

Cameron Strother was the Elliot Edwards to Jasmine's Claris and thanks to the wonderful Joshua Goring and Cameron himself we have a truely magical gift for you all.

Merry Christmas, happy 15th and a brilliant new year everyone!

Dreamers reunited!
 

I was very young when I first heard and sang this song. I'm not sure how many years ago it was now but it seems like I  recorded it a year or two before NiGHTS was released. It was my first paid singing job. I was paid a handsome sum (didn't mean much to a kid) and was given an armful of Sega Saturn games (meant the world). More than the money or even the games though, I remember the special feeling I got when visited the Sega HQ building. Video games were my chocolate so I felt like I was walking around Willy Wonka's factory, witnessing a magical process. 

I remember seeing the early plans for a game that was supposed to replace Sonic the Hedgehog as Sega's new flagship series. I was supposed to keep quiet about it but I told all my Japanese school friends about this amazing new game that was coming out and how I had seen the secret last boss. Suffice to say, It was an awesome experience and it holds a very special place in my childhood memories and I was glad to revisit that happy time by singing Dreams Dreams again. I myself am a big NiGHTS fan and I'm still holding out for a proper sequel or at least a good re-release for the current generation of consoles. 

Thanks for keeping NiGHTS alive!



-Cameron Strother

 

 

 

* DOWNLOAD 'Dreams Dreams ~Sweet Snow~ [NiGHTS 15th Anniversary Duet]' *
(.MP3)

 

*This is a fan made song/edit/tribute not created for profit and is not endorsed by SEGA in any way*

Fly faster to that download that you've ever flown before.

A new era of dreaming is about to begin~

Level 99 sure looks happy about his physical distribution copies of NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming finally arriving, doesn't he? That can only mean one thing. We are getting ever closer to the release date for the remix album.

In light of Lucid Dreaming's forth coming release, Level 99 has been invitied on to Radio Free Gamer to talk about the album. The interview is set to take place on Wednesday June 22nd, from 7 – 9pm EST. The show will be live so you can tune in during those hours to drop a comment for the man or check out the downloadable MP3 after the show has aired. Radio Free Gamer has also landed a little bit of an exclusive in that they'll be playing a tune from NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming that has not been heard anywhere else yet. I think you'll be wanting to check that out, most definitely.

NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming is set for release on July 5th. I know. You can't wait. Neither can I.

I sometimes forget that the blindingly epic songs I've been listening to for months still haven't been heard by the rest of the fanbase. My bad.

The release of the upcoming NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming album by OCR is nearing closer, so just to poke more proverbial sticks into the anticipation bonfire – here's a preview from a selection of the songs featured on the final product.

I'd also like to divert your now jiving attention to our previous post regarding the donation pool for this project. Thanks hugely to the people who have helped out so far but we still have a long way to go to reach the goal. Help a man out and salute Level 99's determination in getting a batch of these albums made in hardcopy. All the funds raised will be going directly to the printing of those physical copies, which contains two CD's and an artbook. NiGHTS merch collectors – this will be one bit of gear that will become quite rare in a few years time. So help out all you can. After the amount of time and effort each of the musicians poured into this it's our duty to make sure the project is a success. Remember - If you donate $25 or more, you will get a copy of the physical release!

Without a doubt this is one of the most professional and beautiful fan projects that I've ever seen, so hats off and dig deep folks.

July 5th, mark it in your calenders.

It's July the 5th, it can only mean one thing – another year of NiGHTS into Dreams. Another year of hoping your old Saturn doesn't bite the dust, another year of looking back and remembering the fans and people who brought him here today. Time really flies, I can't believe 14 years have passed! I'm still as hyped as I was in 1996 for the game and everything else that goes with it.

It's quite staggering isn't it, the fact that NiGHTS' fanbase has remained strong for so many years and actively stuck around. Every year that goes by just sort of bolsters my love for this community. I always wonder who will turn up in the upcoming year, what new friendships will be forged, what sort of news and general mischief we'll get involved in. Thanks guys, for caring about NiGHTS. There has been points in my life where I've considered passing the torch to someone else and stepping away from the .com, but I never have, especially not when because of this website I found the greatest love of all through my wonderful co-admin DiGi. NiGHTS brought us together and I know that he's done the same for a lot of other people. It always makes me smile. So it's DiGi and I's job to stick up for the purple guy even if it gets us into trouble sometimes

We have a lot of cool secret things coming between today and NiGHTS' next birthday in 2011. None of which I'm going to talk about right now incase I jinx them, but stick around for the regular sort of madness.

One of the big things happening that I -can- talk about and that I'm personaly looking forward to is the OCRemix NiGHTS project- NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming. Due for release in 2011, today we have something real special for you thanks to the insanely talented Level 99.

A full track from the album which is free to download – Twin Seeds Flyby  (Right click and save as).

Level 99:
This is the teaser track for the upcoming NiGHTS: Into Dreams arrangement album called NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming. This project is brought to you by OverClocked ReMix, in part association with NiGHTSintodreams.com.

The project is going to feature the original soundtrack to NiGHTS: Into Dreams ReMixed, by over 20 different musicians. The project will also feature a strong emphasis on art that captures the feeling of the music and the original game.

The track you are listening to is Twin Seeds Flyby by me, Level 99. It is a ReMix of Growing Wings, and you can follow the following link to the project thread to both download the song and stay up-to-date with project progress:
http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread….

The project will be released on July 5th, 2011, in honor of the 15th Anniversary of NiGHTS' original game release. This teaser track is being released on NiGHTS' 14th Anniversary, as a birthday present and to show a little bit of what to expect from the project. It is also being released in support of NiD15.com, an online campaign to get Sega to port the original NiGHTS onto current-generation systems so that many more people can have the opportunity to play this fantastic game. Please go to NiD15.com and show your support!

July 5th, 2011. Be ready to fly.

 

Happy Birthday NiGHTS

Level 99: Oh, I'll write up my full report over the coming week, but first…
 

I left Thursday right after my home inspection, which went pretty well! A few things need to be fixed but it didn't damper my mood for the trip. Got to BWI nice and early, hung out, got on my two flights and was greeted by two strange hobos at the baggage claim…OH WAIT, NO, IT WAS ZERO-SHIFT AND INFRACTUS! After giving hugs and handshakes and all that, we got in the car and proceeded to get repeatedly almost-lost by a GPS with bipolar disorder. The car ride was just a taste of things to come: we couldn't stop laughing most of the time.

We arrived at Senor Wongs and met up with Brushfire and OA there. All said their hello's and we got a table not far from the karaoke table. I had forgotten that I shouldn't be drinking anything alcoholic since I hadn't eaten anything after I got on my first flight. Drinking after 7-ish hours of travel without eating would be bad. So, of course, I ordered sake and a huge mixed drink before eating anything. IM A SMART. Delicious drinks/sodas and sweet potato fries which were seasoned to perfection and breaded just right helped break the ice between everyone as we perused the list of karaoke songs. OA went up and did two after I had finished my drinks. There was a woman there who was really really really REALLY really drunk. She danced kinda funny too. Zero-Shift and Infractus ended up leaving before we did cause Zero needed to get his wig ready for the following day. After they left, as we were leaving, the crazy lady ended up (as random and disturbing as it sounds) asking us for "CRAAAAAAACK". Scared of this woman and worried for our safety, we proceeded to leave with most haste (we assumed she didn't mean butt-crack). Got to OA's quite late and went immediately to bed.
 

I forgot to mention that Flik ended up showing up Friday morning as we were making breakfast. He's done some stuff on OCR, and on thasauce, but mostly he does compo's. Very funny and crazy dude. He brought his ridiculously awesome camera to get pictures, so most of the stuff I'll post picture-wise is from him.

Getting back to where I was, there were a few pictures taken of random cosplays as we waited in the long line for walk up passes. Took us about two hours to get them and, by the end, they were counting to make sure they had enough room for all those in line (we should have taken this as a sign of things to come). While waiting in line, Brushfire broke out the AHnold impersonations, which resulted in one of the best ideas we had over the weekend. We also talked with some random folks about OCR and they ended up coming to our panel the next day. Lots of people came the next day because of us just talking about it in-passing, I guess.

So we got the passes, wandered around a little bit more, and took some pictures. We walked past all the rooms showing different Anime, and stopped in the modestly sized game room. The game room was "family friendly" territory, which apparently meant no cursing, however there were a number of fighting games there so in the end, we payed no heed to that rule. But I DID try. For a while.

Next we went to a panel on The Rise and Fall of Retail Anime. It was a pretty good one. Brushfire did a lot of talking (he always does a lot of talking, that's one of the reasons I keep him around ). It was nice to just relax for a while. I'm not terribly into Anime, which is why there was so much that I didn't know or get, but that didn't stop me from enjoying any of it. I'm much more used to MAGFest, where I'm constantly running around doing at least one thing at any given second, so this was a pleasant change to the norm. After the panel, I checked out the room for the OCR stuff the next day. HUGE room, and I was definitely worried we wouldn't fill a quarter of it. We wandered a bit more and then decided to pack it up for the day and head back to OA's. We had already made plans before the con to hang out with some other peoples from the OCR-niverse. BBQ and adult beverages were in store for us. I got to see a few people I hadn't seen for a while, plus I got to finally meet Moonlapse (whom I collaborated with, along with OA, on the Waves of Stone track).

Now is where things started to get very unpredictably fun. Anyone familiar with ANY kind of fanfic is also familiar with just how horrendously BAD fanfic can be. The one that has been tossed around a lot lately on OCAD and in chat is the classic abomination My Immortal. It started as a random topic on OCAD, which evolved into proposing the idea for dramatic readings being recorded, and finally hit a peak last Friday evening. We decided to record each of us taking turns reading chapters round robin style. However, if you had to stop reading for any reason (it started just with cringing, but eventually became if you stopped for any reason, like laughing), you had to take a drink. If entire room all stopped together, everyone had to take a drink. We made it round the rotation twice (8 people, 16 chapters read) before we couldn't bring ourselves to read or consume any more. After that is kind of a blur but there was Rock Band playing and then everyone went to bed or left around 2 AM. I have a feeling we will be playing that fanfic game more often now.

We woke up the next day and, considering what happened just a few hours before then, slowly got ourselves prepped and ready for the day. This was going to be our long day, where we showed up around lunch and stayed through the dance. Things didn't go quite as planned in the end…

*To be continued*

Infractus:
 

One of my personal favourites

Also, there is this

Will's Dad spies Helen

If I were you I'd run.

The following tracks are stand alone mp3's not included on any remix albums.
To listen to fan albums instead please click [HERE].
To download an mp3 right click the download link and 'save link as'. All remix tracks © to their respective owners. Please do not upload onto other websites without artists permission. We only accept .MP3 files for subs.

Dale North
[website]
Dale North – Merry Little Christmas

DistantJ
[website]
DistantJ – NiGHTS into Euphoria
DistantJ – NiGHTS into Euphoria 2007

Elfonso
Elfonso – DREAMS DREAMS LiVE 2006

Elson 'Darkspeeds' Wong
Elson Wong – Love At First Flight
Elson Wong – Heavenly Dance

Klace
Klace – DREAMS DREAMS Piano

Musashi_HUmar
Musashi_HUmar – High Flyin' Dreamer (guitar)
Musashi_HUmar – High Flyin' Dreamer

Skrypnyk
[website]
Skrypnyk – Celebration Remix (2006 edit)
Skrypnyk – Going Home Remix
Skrypnyk – Escape Into The Twilight Remix

SpinningCannon
[website]
SpinningCannon – DREAMS DREAMS (Broken Soul Remix)

Strike911
Strike911 – Dreamer

Whirlwynd
Whirlwynd – DREAMS DREAMS Reflection Remix
Whirlwynd – DREAMS DREAMS Eternal Lullabye
Whirlwynd – Only A Dream
Whirlwynd – Nightlight