The Battle System
Just like most hand held RPGs, the action generally takes place on the top screen, while the bottom screen consists of a menu and character health display. However, Nostalgia is a little different, since it has a more stylized health display that also displays who’s turn it is in battle. One of the more amusing things is that you get to see each characters face, and their portraits generally give you the weird eye.
This turn order system is rather unique for a traditional RPG game. As the turns are generally random and dependent on a characters speed, yet having an turn order almost makes it like a tactical RPG. It allows you to plan your moves during hard battles. It’s easier to exploit this turn system and use certain character skills to delay an enemies turn or even move up one of your characters turn.
While battles are generally straight forward on the ground and in dungeons. Fighting in the sky with your airships is a different story. While airship battles retain the same system as dungeon battles, sky battles are a little more deadly, as you have to fight enemies in different zones.
There are three different zones in an airship battle. Enemies can appear on either in front of your ship, or even to the left or right. There can be one or more enemies on either of these fronts and depending on how the enemy acts they can move to a different one during battle.
What makes these battles so deadly is that your airships weapons are effective for attacking different zones, and if an enemy is on your weak side your battle might take a while to finish. Yet, that isn’t the only problem with airship battles.
Since your airship is your only means of getting around you are more than likely going to venture into an area where the enemies are much stronger than you. Which can make flying around somewhat frustrating, as you can end up facing a strong enemy that takes a while to defeat. While it is really hard to determine where the stronger enemies are, I would suggest that you constantly buy new ship parts and beware hire elevations until your ship can handle stronger enemies.
