Nostalgia(DS)

When I saw this game, I thought it looked interesting. I had no idea it’d be released so soon. I’ve heard it being compared to FF, but I’ve personally never played it, so be prepared for a lot of comparisons to Golden Sun!

Storyline

The game is set in England, during the 19 century. Gilbert Brown, the Indiana Jones of England, has suddenly gone missing. You play as Eddie, his son, who departs on a perilous journey to find his father.

Graphics
Before the game’s release, I saw a couple of screenshots on GBATemp. Immediately, I was reminded of Golden Sun on GBA, which is a good thing.

However, seeing the actual game on the DS screen is different. Some of the textures are lacking in detail, which is immediately becomes obvious after you gain control of your character. It’s not the fact that the DS is incapable of producing good graphics, but the fact that not enough effort was put into it.

Gameplay

Again, this aspect of the game is very much like Golden Sun.

Even though Eddie is the main character of the game, he’s not the only character you get to play as. Along the way, you’ll meet other characters, who have different abilities and assets to contribute to the team.

When you’re not fighting, the top screen is where all the action will take place, and on the bottom screen is a map.

The battles are mostly random encounters, and are turn-based. The top screen shows your action commands, which are attack, skill, defend, item, and run. The lower screen shows the order of attack, and your statistics. After every battle, you’re presented with your battle results. This shows how much XP, SP and money you earned, and whatever items the enemies might have dropped. It also shows your battle ranking, which depends on how quickly or how well you dispatched your enemy. What is SP? SP stands for “Skill Points,” which you can use to learn a variety of abilities. It’s not unlike levelling up psyenergy in Golden Sun.

In Nostalgia, you can go to different parts of the world via an airship. When you’re in your airship, you’ll also meet enemies. It’s not very different from normal battles; in fact, it’s almost exactly the same.

Controls

Like most RPG games, you move your character around with the D-Pad. B makes your character run or walk, depending on your preferences. A is the action button, which you use to interact with people, open chests, and things of that nature. Y let’s you talk to people in your party, which is known as “party talk” in the game.

Even though it sounds useless, “party talk” is actually quite useful if you forget your mission objectives. It is basically a hint display.

Finally, X brings up the main menu, where you can access your items, change equipment, level up skills, etc. Something noteworthy is a nifty option called the “Adventurer’s Notebook.” It helps you track your in-game progress, and shows percentages about how much of the map you’ve explored, character data, monster data and more.

Overall

Nostalgia is a decent game, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. I’m not a big fan of the airship feature, but others might like it. It’s a very traditional RPG game, and is worth a play if you’re a fan of the genre.