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At some point in life, you just have to let go.
This project of Lepcis and I’s have brought me a different perspective on the value of nostalgia. If you’re not having fun doing it, then don’t do it. It’s pretty much that simple. 7 months ago, before we started doing this, my plan was to play every single game I could get my hands on–even if it was trash or if I was miserable while playing it. I wanted an encyclopedic knowledge in my databanks of “game” and wouldn’t be satisfied until it was completely filled. Now, I’m not saying that I will never play and finish a sub-par game again. After all, I still really want to finish Wizardry 6, a Tier 3 game in my mind, so that I can import my characters into Wizardry 7, a Tier 1 game. I think the difference is perspective and obsession. My perspective shows me that something that isn’t fun and is poorly made does not intrinsically have value just because it is a game. If I choose to play it, it will be just that–a choice–not a result compelled by my obsession to play all games.
NEStalgia is a game that hits the head far too well in the whole “NES RPG simulator” department. While it may be nice to reminisce about your adventures in Dragon Warrior, let’s be real here; you were walking aimlessly around for hours mashing the A button to attack things. You had one party member which meant your tactics in combat was always “kill them before they kill me.” There was no room for tactics or buffing skills or any real strategy. Maybe at times you might use the sleep spell. Maybe you might use Fireball. The problem is though, that this was still just the “kill them before they kill me” strategy. It just looked slightly different.
One year after the release of Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy I came out, adding in party members to the mix. This certainly changed up your potential strategies and spiced up game play compared to a game like Dragon Warrior, the problem still inherently became a limitation of viable strategies. Ultimately, victory still came down to “kill them before they kill you.” As long as you built yourself a somewhat decent or rounded party, your strategy never really had to change or evolve throughout the game. The most exciting thing you might do is haste your Fighter, or discover that you should unequip the Nunchakus from your Blackbelt to get him to do more damage.
Back to NEStalgia, it emulates all of these things and more perfectly. Combat primarily consists of “push the murder button.” Victory is dependent on two things–did you grind like crazy and get enough levels? Check. Did you buy all the good gear from the store? Check. Aside from that, the game just asks you to give it one thing in no small amount of quantity. Time. There are a couple caveats here to be fair. The game is multiplayer–you can play on a server with three other buddies and form a party of 4 ye olde warriors of light. If you don’t have friends to play with, you can grind in specific areas to raise your reputation points and recruit monsters to join your party. This is a nice touch and certainly a good inclusion on the side of the developer to allow those who aren’t playing with friends to fill in their party and have a chance to actually beat the game but… once again, you’re inputting time, not skill, not thought, not creativity or problem solving.
The graphics are spot-on for RPGs of the era, but are so are the dreadfully slow movements of the spritework. True to the time they are representing, “cinematics” crawl. I know it’s a bit silly, but I got so sick of watching the scenes where characters teleported in through time–you had to watch as each flame sprite popped into existence then converged to summon the entity that was traveling through. After it happened a third time, I felt like pulling my hair out, screaming in my head, “OH JUST GET ON WITH IT!” You can’t progress dialogue boxes in cutscenes either, which means if you skim dialogue at all, you have to sit and wait for the next box for what feels like an eternity after every line.
In the end, I must give this game the accolade of Tier 3 which is rather funny considering it did exactly what it promised it would. It’s a very good simulator of just about any RPG from the NES era. I can’t even be mad or say that it did a poor job. I think I can just say though, that while the NES brought us some amazing games, some have aged much better than others and RPGs as a whole have become much more interesting and better crafted as a whole throughout the ages. Unless you are truly desperate for some of that NES Nestalgia, you won’t want to play this and if you are desperate, why not play an NES game? I sincerely doubt that you’ve finished them all.
