Nostalgia Times Episode 2: Nostalgia (DS)

Remember the good ol’ days when RPGs was abundant on the PS1? I consider it the golden era (1994-2002, around there). Then in 2004/5 the DS took over as the next RPG haven. This first paragraph is an attempt to start off this entry trying to sound smart and sophisticated like a professional writer but whatevs.

Let’s dive straight into this episode’s topic 😂

Recently (like today), I decided to go through my DS collection, ah the memories of my hard-earned money spent on my favorite things in the world, games! Of which almost half of it were gone cause yours truly was despo AF and sold some of them for cash over the years 😡, the sheer regrets and hurts that ensues when I suddenly yearn to replay all of the DS classics again in 2019 is really shitty.

Anyways… 😫

Today I am going to share a little bit about Nostalgia on the DS. A very basic as hell (yet again) JRPG that is so basic that I still struggle to finish it 10 years later.

You play as Edward (I think so, memory’s failing) who is on an adventure to look for his missing father John (ummm…), along the way Ed met Pat (I think so, memory’s not good) I think Pat’s a female but I am not sure? Pat uses firearm as an offensive, later we stumbled upon Marlon (yeesssh) who utilizes arcane spells to wreck havoc on the battlefield, spells look basic, just in different colors and minimal animation… actually everything is minimalistic with this game. Then Ed, Pat and Marlon met Fanny in some random Pyramid and I gave up.

I tried to muster as much willpower as I could to start this up again and pick up where I left off but I am haunted by the repetitiveness of Nostalgia, yes, I know gurl, I could say the same thing for almost every RPGs out there but Nostalgia really dropped the ball and my jaws with its basicness.

Battle is done in turn-based style and I love turn-based as much as I love money but I am literally just hitting the A button to get it done and over with, well, to give the game some credit it was a challenge at first but once you have accumulated enough EXP and leveled up it gets really breezy and I was overleveled unintentionally cause the random encounter was on steroid TBH. Ugh.

I dunno why am I so critical when the general consensus found the game serviceable? I dunno? Maybe it’s a personal thing since I couldn’t finish the game even after a decade? 😂 thinking and looking back Nostalgia isn’t a very terrible title. Sigh… Maybe I will make some time to get down and dirty with Ed and friends and finish their adventure one of these days. I just wish Red Company would remaster Thousand Arms for the Switch, oh yaz. I live for that day.

The Good:

– I dunno?

The Bad:

– Minimalistic everything.

– Boring Adventure

Nostalgia Times Episode 1: Jeanne d’Arc (PSP)

I’m currently playing Jeanne d’Arc on the PS Vita (amongst a sea of million games that I own and only God knows when I will ever finish them) even though the game was released back in 2007 making it 12 years old now (where has all the years gone?), it still exudes a lot of charm; the nostalgic kind to be exact.

Back then the PSP was teeming with decent JRPG/RPGs; Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions followed by Wild Arms XF, the Disgaea series, unique ones like Riviera: The Promised Land (ported over from the GBA), it was definitely a good time.

JDA is one title I always find myself coming back to though. It’s really just a basic SRPG that is really not that much different from the many of the above titles I have shared but I can’t help falling in love with its myriads of characters, its little quirks like saying “thanks” when a party member assist in recovering lost HP in battle, absolutely adore the interactions.

The graphics for its time was really stellar and looking at it now from a 2019 perspective, well, I’d say it aged quite well saves for the fact that the game looks blurry (bilinear filtering, lol) when being played on the Vita and when the filter is off it looks jagged, oh well.

While I won’t go into details of its gameplay (YouTube videos are abundance) I will just say that JDA is a game not to be missed especially if you are a SRPG addict like me. It’s available on the PSN for cheap and knowing how fickle the platform is this gem may just disappear one day without a trace just like how Crimson Gem Saga just fell off the face of the Earth, it hurts!

Here’s hoping for a remake or even better, a new entry. C’mon Level-5!

The Good:

– Simple SRPG fare.

– Actually really easy battles.

– Fun to mix/match skills, etc.

– Anime cutscenes is cool.

The Bad:

– Turn Limits (ugh…).

– Can be really sluggish at times.

– Limited number of party members in most battles.