From the re-makes of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to the more obscure Shiren the Wanderer, the DS has become one of the best places to find old-school RPGs. Nostalgia is no exception to this trend. Matrix Software even did the programming and 3D graphics for the Final Fantasy III & IV remakes before their work on Nostalgia.

Nostalgia is set in a Steam Punk version of Earth, complete with giant airships and an adventuring based economy. It is clear right from the outset that this is a throwback to a time when not every RPG focused on a character whose main motivation was angst.

You play as Eddy, a young man whose goal in life is to become an adventurer, just like his Indiana Jones looking Dad (had Dr. Jones decided to grow an impressive mustache). Your village didn’t burn to the ground and there isn’t a giant conspiracy as to your origin. You are just a guy who wants to see the world. Eddy even lives in a huge mansion with both of his parents.

This sets a very light tone that is prevalent throughout the course of the entire game. Even when things transpire that threaten the destruction of all of humanity, Nostalgia’s protagonist doesn’t let that keep him down. It is so upbeat that I suspect it will come across as too saccharine for the taste of most modern, jaded gamers.

The gameplay also harkens back to an older era. Combat starts with random encounters and is played out in the traditional turn based fashion. I was very happy to see the inclusion of the Final Fantasy X style of showing you the turn order of the battle on the bottom screen of the DS. Using stat boost for your characters and moves that slow down your enemies adds a nice strategy element to the combat.

The airship battles are more unique than the regular, “four party members vs. a few monsters” fair. When you fight from the ship, all four characters control different weapons, but share an overall health bar. This forces you to be a lot more strategic in your battles than you normally have to with turn based combat. I only died in this game on the airship battles and usually when I was distracted by something else going on in the room. These battles also take a lot longer to finish since you can overcome much more powerful enemies, as long as you plan ahead with your moves.

Your ship doesn’t level up. As you find new cities throughout the world, you will find upgrades to the ship’s shields and weapons. As you discover more cities, new parts will start to show up in London (your base of operations).

The airship has three different planes that it can travel on, each represented by different altitudes. To start, you can only travel at the lowest height. The medium height allows you to fly over some mountains and the highest setting lets you travel anywhere. The trick is, the higher the altitude, the harder the random encounters. Since you have a shared health bar in these battles, there is no way to recover if you die, other than re-loading your save. My advice is to watch your health closely and save often.

As you level, you gain new abilities, both for regular and ship battles. You gain a separate pool of points that can be spent to upgrade these abilities. This pool is shared with the entire party, so you have to carefully manage what points you spend on which abilities. Each of these have ten ranks that are progressively more expensive to unlock.

I thought Nostalgia taking place on Earth, rather than a generic fantasy world, was a fascinating concept when I first heard about it.  Sadly, other than the overworld being shaped after it and the cities having familiar names, nothing about the in-game world is recognizable as our Earth.

"Just like our world, except that it's completely different"

While the game is generally straightforward, there were a few points where it wasn’t quite so obvious as to where to go. Missing something like a small opening in a mountain or a downed pillar that looks like background (but is actually used as a bridge) would lead to lots of wandering and frustration.

Nostalgia isn’t perfect, but it is a nice throwback to a time when games like Skies of Arcadia and Grandia II ruled the RPG scene. While the ship combat did require some thought, the regular battles, even bosses, were fairly easy. It would make a good introduction to a younger player or someone new to the genre.

This review is based on a copy of Nostalgia provided to us by Ignition Entertainment.

The Sega Dreamcast was the greatest system that never really had a chance. When most systems die after a year and a half, it is because they are terrible systems with horrendous game libraries (see 32x, Atari Jaguar). The Dreamcast had arguably the greatest first 18 months of any console in history. The unfortunate thing is those 18 months were all we got.

Why did the Dreamcast die?

The Dreamcast faced three nearly insurmountable obstacles, any one of which would have been enough to derail most systems. The first obstacle was EA. Still bitter about the failure of the Sega Saturn and unsure of the Dreamcast’s potential, EA, the largest publisher at the time, decided not to release games for the Dreamcast.

This meant that some of the biggest franchises, such as Madden and Live, were not going to appear on the Dreamcast. Sega and 2K Sports did an awesome job of filling this gap with amazing sport games, but for many people Madden is football. No Madden meant lots and lots of people sticking with their PS1 and waiting on PS2.

The second obstacle was the hype for the PS2. When the Dreamcast was released on 9/9/99 most people were playing Playstations. Sony was the undisputed leader with no one else even close. For a generation of gamers, Playstation meant video games. Sony was in such control that everyone was anticipating the launch of the PS2. In fact, the hype generated by Sony for the PS2 was enough to convince people that the next generation did not start until Sony released the PS2. This perception caused a lot of people to consider the Dreamcast as competition for the PS1 instead of the PS2. Sony convinced people that the Dreamcast was a toy, and the PS2 was the future.

People always say that everything always comes down to the games, but if you were to compare the first year of Playstation 2 games versus the games that were out on the Dreamcast, the PS2 library doesn’t even come close. The PS2 launch really only had 3 games: Madden 2001, Timesplitters, and SSX. Compare that to: Soul Calibur, Power Stone, NFL 2K, NBA 2K, Skies of Arcadia, and dozens of others. Even with a superior library, the Dreamcast was still demolished by the perception that Sony had created.

The final obstacle was Sega itself. After much success with the Sega Genesis, Sega managed to dilute their brand name by releasing way too many systems. At one point you could go to the store and purchase: a Nomad, a 32X, a Sega CD, a Genesis, a Game Gear, and a Sega Saturn. Having so many systems confused retailers and consumers. By the time Sega got it right with the Dreamcast it was too late. People no longer trusted Sega consoles. They had been burned too many times before. The Dreamcast could have dispensed Nacho cheese and free Beer and people would have wondered if they would need 7 expansions and attachments to play all the games for it.

Any one of these obstacles would have been enough to derail a system. The poor Dreamcast faced all three. Is it any wonder the Dreamcast died?