Friday, May 21, 2010

Nostalgia

Developers: Matrix Software, Red Entertainment
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Release Date: Oct. 27, 2009
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E10+

In a nutshell: I still have idea why it's called Nostalgia.

0:00 Of all the unplayed DS game review copies I took down on my two-week trip to Maryland, this is the one I have the strongest memories of hearing some good things about. But those memories are still pretty vague...

0:01 A vignette of hand-drawn manga scenes shows an airship, a sword battle, a hero carrying a girl from a crumbling castle, a woman casting a fireball, and another reaching for a bird bathed in white light. The music is peppy but also full of pomp and circumstance.

0:03 A blocky, red-haired man in a suit of armor walks to a pedestal with a rotating yellow... thing on it. He reaches out for it, but it pushes him back. Cyclopean robed figures force a girl over to him. "What is it?" she asks. "There is no need for you to know," he answers. No monologuing for this bad guy!

0:04 Suddenly, one of the robed cyclopses runs up and takes the girl to safety. He removes the robe and announces himself as Gilbert Brown, a guy who looks like Indiana Jones plus a bushy brown mustache. Brown shoots a trigger on the wall behind armored dude and runs through a closing door, just dodging a thrown sword.

0:05 In control now, the girl and I are running down a spiral staircae. The music seems a bit too sedate for such a tense situation. Anyway, we quickly come to the first random battle. The robed guy (a "Caba Combatant") hits me point blank IN THE FACE with some repeating rifle shots, but I only take two damage. I attack twice, doing 53 damage with my sword slices each time. Nice victory music... it's got a very old-school Final Fantasy feel to it. Is that why it's called Nostalgia, perhaps?

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