Nerd Mentality

DS REVIEW – Nostalgia

Posted December 29th 2009 by Abraham Hunt.

A young, inexperienced swordsman is thrust into a huge world-threatening conspiracy when all he wants to do is save his father. This little blurb, or parts of it, describe almost all JRPGs and Nostalgia for the DS does not break from the typical mold. Brought to us by Matrix Software, the developers that headed up the Final Fantasy III and IV remakes for the DS, Nostalgia has a fresh, bright look and solid gameplay, but the level of difficulty might be to low for most RPG fans.

You fall into the role of Eddie Brown, the son of a world renowned adventurer living in a steampunk version of 19th century London. When your father goes missing, you set out in his airship, The Maverick, in search of him. Throughout the game you gather a few staples of RPG classes: The street urchin Pad, a smart talking gun wielding tough guy from the streets of London plays a finesse counter to Eddie's brutish sword skills. You have to have magic in a game like this and Melody the witch steps up to that class, pointy hat and all. And rounding out your party is Fiona, the mysterious healer and love interest that was suspiciously saved by your father right before he disappeared.

The main evil that you must battle in this game goes by the name of Ancient Father's Cabal; they and their lackeys make up most of your enemies in this game. You will do battle with them both on the ground in dungeons, and in the air with your airship. Both battle types are turn based and equally fun and fluid. But the ease in which you can dominate battles both on land and in the air is worrisome. Leveling doesn't feel like much of a grind in Nostalgia, and the amount of money you get from winning battles allows you to always have top tier weapons, and a ton of healing and reviving items. Basically, having Eddie wail on your opponents, Fiona heal, and alternate Pad and Melody between aiding either Fiona or Eddie in their battle roles will allow you to destroy your enemies. That really is the extent of the strategy.



Navigation of the over world is done solely in the airship which is really fun and different. Airships in other RPGs have usually been only quicker ways of getting around, or a means of crossing an ocean. Nostalgia however makes the Maverick almost as important as a character in your party. Upgrading this ship is much like upgrading your party, because each of your members mans a weapon on the Maverick. Your ship has guns, a ridiculous sword attached to the prow, and the ability to be healed by the same magic that heals people. Seeing your ship dash and slash other airships, dragons and various airborne monsters is comical and fun.

The story in Nostalgia is par for the course with JRPGs and makes the gameplay a little stale. You spend most of your time in the game going back and forth between London and various worldly locales. While you do get to explore some pretty interesting areas like the Tower of Babel and El Dorado, along with real places like Cairo, St. Petersburg, New York, and Rio de Janeiro, they all really feel the same. You might get a little different dialogue in each place, mostly referencing where you are, but you find the same stores and styles of people asking and selling you the same things.

One facet of the game that was really wasted is the Adventurer's Guild. The guild allows you to pick up missions from various patrons to bump up your levels, or gain more gold. This would be a fantastic way to bolster your party if they needed it. Not only is it pointless to take missions from the Adventurer's Guild, the missions are boring. More often than not they devolve into fetch quests, that have you traveling back and forth from London, between story missions that already have you do that.

Visually, the best way to describe this game is "cute". The DS is understandably graphically limited, but Matrix Software has found a way to bring us a vibrant 3D world before, and they've done it again. The characters, while being flat copies of other game's characters, are fun and well designed and fit into Nostalgia's steampunk world wonderfully. The music in this game really only serves to let you know a random battle is starting, or that you're entering a town. Beyond the beeps of menu navigation, and attack sounds, there's really no music to write home about. Overall the design of this game is solid, but it's just way too easy to justify delving into the depths this game can provide.

When it comes down to it, Nostalgia might be better as a introduction in to RPGs for kids ready to move on from Pokémon. The gameplay is too simplistic to garner interest from hardcore fans. While it's really interesting to have the airship be a more important part of gameplay, whether it be moving around the map or in air battles, it's not a big enough of draw to make this a purchase. If you're looking for a change pace from your normal dungeon crawl/grinding RPGs, or just need something that's not Final Fantasy, Nostalgia might be for you. But if you enjoy a challenge in your games, you might want to look somewhere else.

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Tags: nostalgia

Posted in: Reviews, Gaming

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