A good game for beginners, that even RPG veterans can enjoy.
- The combat system is simple, with no pointless gimmicks.
- Fun and light hearted over all theme.
- The airships are fun to fly and are upgradable.
- Finishing all the jobs is not required to progress the main story.
- The game is balanced between combat and story events, grinding is not necessary.
Cons:
- No character combat A.I., this makes battles longer and repetitive.
- Combat is easy so there is little challenge.
- S.P. (skill points) max out at 9999, if your not paying attention you can miss out on collecting S.P. from current battles.
- Can't take on more then one job at a time, this creates a lot of back tracking.
- There is a huge jump in difficultly in the jobs near the end of the game, this makes completing all the jobs impossible unless you do some major grinding. (This is why its good that completing all the jobs is not required to progress the game.)
- Most of the jobs are boring and unimaginative.
- To few cities and NPC's; its the 19th century and it feels like there's only about 50 people in the entire world, the game world needs more depth.
Game play is basic turn based RPG in style, you gain experience in battle and after gaining a certain amount you go up in level. Going up in level makes your characters stronger. Through combat you also collect skill points(SP), these SP are then spent to gain access to new skills and enhance old skills. There are two types of combat; character vs monster and airship vs airship, there are skills for both types of combat as well. Movement through out the game is also split into two types. Your on foot in cities and dungeons, but to move around the world you travel on the airships. The airships can travel at three altitudes, and you can only reach certain locations by traveling at medium and high altitudes. The airship can upgrade its weapons and armor just like your characters, and when you find plans through out the game you can have special upgrades built for your airship.
The graphics are good, but some of the camera angles during airship travel can make seeing where your going difficult.
The story is a standard and simple one. Eddie's father a adventurer goes missing, Eddie sets out to become an adventurer so that he can find him. During the first few hours of the game you meet up with other characters and form a party of four, Eddie(the hero), Pad(the rogue), Melody(the magic user) and Fiona(the healer). Each character has a reason for combating a evil group called the Cabal, which you run into at every turn while looking for your father. Soon your group of adventurers are not just settling personal grudges against the Cabal, but also trying to bring the evil doers down before they collect seven ancient artifacts and destroy the world.
Although this is more a game for beginners to the RPG genre, veterans to RPG's can also find some fun in playing Nostalgia. I sunk 47 hours into Nostalgia for only $30, so it has very good value but there's no new game + feature to the game. Once you've played it there's no reason to replay, but I do recommend this game. Its fun and has enough content to keep you playing for a while.
GAME-PLAY: 7/10
GRAPHICS: 7/10
STORY: 7/10
VALUE: 7/10
OVERALL: 7/10