The setting is the 19th century, using real world locations spread across Earth. The game begins in London, and you take on the role of a young boy named Eddie that's just joined a local Adventurer's Guild in order to search for his missing father, a world renowned explorer type. So what's your first mission, your introduction to the dungeons and monsters of the world of Nostalgia? To hunt down rats in the sewers below London, and take out the big rat at the end, all the while trying to save a plucky poor boy commoner named Pad that will become your right hand man by the end of the game. Sound familiar? Of course it does. Nostalgia plays on all the familiar tropes of RPG's that we've grown up with over the years, and obviously that's not too surprising considering the name of the game. If you're like me, you enjoy the occasional retro RPG play through every now and again, and when you hear of a new game coming down the line that looks to recapture that look and feel, you get a little excited. It bit me in the ass when Black Sigil came around earlier this year, and that's the same feeling I get from Nostalgia. Nostalgia is certainly the better game between the two, but that's not necessarily saying much.

Once you've started out on your quest, you'll also gain access to an Airship, and I've heard people mention Skies of Arcadia in the same breath as this title, but I don't see how the two really compare outside of this one aspect. The Airship does play a large role, it's your primary travel device when you're not in a town or dungeon, and it's the only way to navigate the fairly large overworld. You'll get into random battles while piloting it much like you will in dungeon environments, and each character in your party takes on a specific role with the Airship. Eddie makes use of the giant forward blade attached to the front; Pad is a gunner, and so on. The biggest difference between battle on foot and in the Airship comes from health and turns. The Airship is one entity, there's only one health bar to the ship, but all four party members will get a turn to attack. Along the way you'll gain skills for your characters that are Airship specific abilities, and you can outfit your Airship with new weaponry and parts at every city location that has an actual port. Your ship can also be affected by status effect problems, like fire, so there's a handful of items you'll want to keep with you for every situation.

For your standard, on foot combat, it's all turn based like a traditional RPG. Each character has a facial portrait in a wait meter that's shown to the left of the bottom screen, which is very reminiscent of the system used to tell turns in Final Fantasy X. It's useful in the sense that you can tell which enemy will attack the soonest, allowing some degree of strategy to circumvent attacks and try to double up on your own turns. It doesn't really come into play that often though, so it's purpose is often negated. It will let you know what moves or abilities take longer than others, which is useful for the two primary magic users in the group.

Each character has a basic melee attack (in Pad's case, it's a gun), along with special abilities that they'll gain as they level, and make use of the somewhat awkward and non-informative power-up skill system that you'll gain SP for from every battle. I had a difficult time with this, and even after finishing it I found myself a little bewildered, trying to figure out if I missed some integral explanation along the way. Basically, every battle nets you SP, which you can then go into the menu and use to upgrade abilities that your characters have. The SP gained is shared by the entire party, which makes it a little tricky to use well when you finally get a full party together. You pour the SP into a skill, causing it level up, and you get a small description of what's changed. However, there's also a skill tree present, which makes it look like skills are tied into unlocking other skills. This isn't quite the case though, as actually leveling up your character with EXP seems to do this as well. However, certain skills actually require both things, a standard level goal to reach with your character, plus a corresponding skill that's been leveled up with SP. This is the case with an early fire spell, which needs to hit level 3 through the use of SP, but your character also needs to hit a certain level as well, which unlocks an multi hit version of the spell. Needless to say, I didn't find it explained very well in the game, and I actually ended up flipping through a strategy guide to get an idea of what was needed and what wasn't. I hate the idea of wasting the SP on a skill that doesn't need to be leveled, and I felt like that was the case more often than not. It was frustrating and unnecessarily obtuse.

I'll admit, as the game progresses, it certainly improves, at least as far as the story goes. The combat doesn't see much change, along with the skill system, but once you get a full party together it feels a little better. The problem stems from it being such a slow burn, and while I've played my fair share of RPG's that take a few hours to get going, Nostalgia never really kicks it into high gear until roughly the halfway point of the game. When the world really starts to open up, and you get more options in the way of sidequests and things to check out, then it feels far better and more realized than the start, but it's a real chore getting to that point. The pacing is off, and the characters aren't that interesting to get you through the most boring pieces of the game. It's a decent enough first entry into a possible series, I suppose, but I think the slow pace will really put off players, and it certainly did with me.

If you've got some time to waste, and you're looking for a new RPG, than Nostalgia can fit that bill. However, don't go in with your expectations too high, it's certainly a very average approach to RPG's that's hindered by a slow plot, boring characters, and a very standard approach to combat. It's a game that attempts to mimic old school mechanics a little too well at times, and doesn't have enough modern trappings attached to make it a very worthwhile RPG on the DS. I'd suggest waiting until you've absolutely nothing better to play before trying to delve into this one, as it'll be easy to get distracted with bigger and better titles during this time of the year.

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