Nostalgia for Nintendo DS Game Review

In this strange time we all live in, gamers are becoming increasingly older and, as a result, increasingly nostalgic for the 'good old days' of gaming. With more and more games constantly being thrown into the public sphere, it is easy for many modern gamers to feel a certain longing for the days when a single game would be released that would command the public attention as well as hours and hours of the gamer's time. What better way to combat nostalgia than with a game with the same name? Nostalgia for the Nintendo DS seeks to fill in the gap for those gamers who miss the good old days of simple RPGs as well as to introduce this old, trusted RPG formula to a younger audience, who may not have been so lucky.

Storyline

Set in an alternate Victorian England, you play as Eddie, the son of an explorer who has gone missing after leaving on a mission to search for the Tower of Babel. Naturally, Eddie, being an honorable son, gathers together a rag-tag team of friends to go looking for his father. After a while, the mission becomes more about saving the world from an evil group of people who are searching for mystical items in order to open the gate to heaven. The story shows bits of the colonialism of the period as you travel literally around the world to places like New York City, Cairo, and Easter Island, but this is mostly though a rather childish lens that focuses on Eddie and his romance more than anything. You travel around the world with your airship, which will remind you of the popular Final Fantasy series.

Gameplay

Nostalgia has a turn-based battle system that will feel familiar to most RPG gamers. Each character has a special class which affects what skill they can learn, though they can all also attack. After each battle you'll get experience and skill points which you use to unlock new abilities. The system is standard and is fun enough--the problem with the game lies not in the battle system but the ease of the battles. You will find yourself defeating enemies without even trying--something that seriously takes the fun out of a game if you are a serious gamer. On the other hand, the developers obviously had younger gamers in mind who may enjoy the easy way you can fly though the game. Besides random battles, the game also includes a ship battle system which is fairly self explanatory. You use different weapons that fire in different directions to damage the ships near you, and, like the other battles, you shouldn't have too much trouble--the difficulty level is not high.

Conclusion

The storyline and gameplay of Nostalgia are simple and easy. That having been said, the game is very creative in its use of real world locations and excellent art design. The game is also a decent length: about 30 hours without counting side-quests. It would seem that the game is really intended for young players in order to introduce them to the old way of doing things more than anything else. Because of this, the lack of difficulty can be somewhat excused: many great games have lost points with gamers because of their insane difficulty. Reviewers give it a 4 or 5/10 but gamers rate it significantly higher at around 8 or 9/10. All in all, it is a simple game that can be a lot of fun which, we should remember, is what games are really all about.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia_%28video_game%29