Let's start our adventure with NEStalgia. After pressing enter button / clicking on the text, we are brought to character selection screen.
As you can see, I already have the character, Lvl 14 Soldier. Despite this fact, I am going to create new character, Wizard named Kisioj.
There we are, class selection screen, I did not subscribe (8$ for 1 year) so I can only choose one of 4 out of 8 classes, I already created soldier few days ago, so as I stated before, I will try the Wizard this time.
On the customization screen, I decided to change my head type to the one with hat, primary colour to light red and secondary colour to dark red.
As I already said, the character is going to be named Kisioj, just like my BYOND Key :).
The game starts by short clip that shows how your character got to the small scope in the cave. You can skip the clip or wait for it to end. After the clip ends, you can play. What I find really nice is that the game gives you really helpful tips at start. When you move few tiles in the NORTH direction, the way splits into WEST & EAST directions, then game informs you that there is a chest on the WEST and you should go there. I did as the game told me, opened the chest and equipped the weapon which I found in it.
Equipped and prepared for the trip through the dark cave, I traveled on the EAST, it was only a matter of time before some ninja-looking assassin came from the future and attacked me. I was really scared but after really long and hard-fought battle, I defeated him.
"YEAH I did it! I killed assassin!" After cutting assassin's head I did put it in my pocket. This fight made me even more confident and raised my faith in my fighting abilities. Time to go to the town..."
I felt like the town was too quiet and peaceful for the player who already has solder on 14th level. I decided to switch my characters, skip the first town and go sightseeing the second town - Balzackia. Before I go, I will show you starting stats of wizard, displayed on game's simple but nice looking HUD:
Switching characters...
Ok, I already switched from my Wizard Lvl 1 to my Solder Lvl 14, everything because I really like the Balzackia city, it's perfect place for sightseeing. Photos that I made during my tour in Balzackia can be found below.
Innkeeper is a really kind guy and my close friend. We meet often. He lets people to sleep on soft beds in his rooms and it's really cheap. Sleeping on these beds is very relaxing so it will make you regain your HP and MP points in no time.
Did I mention about quests before? No? That's bad... So... there is a lot of NPCs in the towns that want something from you and give you various quests; from really easy tasks to extremely difficult missions. After finishing a quest, you usually get a good reward so it's alright. For ex. this guy wants me to find him a royal wine, probably because he wants to make his woman drunk and then touch her in private parts of body her. Well... I don't really care how it will end..."
Banker - this guy is also my friend, I visit him regularly to protect my money. When you are defeated by enemies, you lose half of your money so just in case, I deposit my money in bank to eliminate the risk of losing it after somehow being accidently defeated in battle.
"What the heck is this?" you ask. It's a marketplace where you can buy items cheaper than in the shop. People from the entire world put their items here to sale, attracting potential customers with low prices and quality articles.
Since I am the famous and invincible level 14 Solder, Kisioj that even level 30 characters are scared of, I left the city to have fun and hunt some dangerous monsters.
To my amazement, instead of monsters, in the trees I spotted some kind of the house. In the house there was a beautiful lady and sleeping gay named Acheron. The lady gave me quest - "Acheron's Awakening", sounds familiar? Probably yes, name of the quest has the same name as SilkWizard's other game, Acheron's Awakening. Anyway, I feel really tired and sleepy, so I will just do the last thing and go to bed.
Yeah! You were right ;) Fighting multiple enemies is what I wanted to show you. Too bad I couldn't find people to my party. It's possible to have 2 other people fighting along with you against monsters, since party can have maximum of 3 people. Fighting in the party is much easier and gives your character more experience. There exists especially strong monsters called bosses, some of them can be defeated only in the party since they are too strong to be beated solo.
The End
Gameplay:(Quality of play experience, user-friendliness of interface)
This game is really easy to start and play, controls are simple, interface include everything that is needed for players. Game has guide and automatically gives helpful tips to the new players. Showing in-game clips from time to time improves game's atmosphere. The only thing that annoys me is the need of party to defeat some bosses and since player base in the game is low, you have to choose between waiting for party or keep fighting the same monsters for years till you will be strong enough to kill the boss just by yourself.
8/10
Presentation:(Quality of graphics, sounds, etc.)
I could say that graphics are perfect if we were 20 years ago, but since we have 2010 now, all I can say about the graphics is that they are average; not so good-looking and annoying at start, but since all game is done in the same art style, it makes you start liking the art after some time. About the sounds, I really like the sound effects and music in the game, NEStalgia is probably the game that has one of the best sounds usage on the BYOND.
7/10
Originality:(How original is the concept or style of play?)
If we were talking only about BYOND I could say it's quite original project. The only games on the byond that I've played and that had similar battle system (which is the main system of the game) were pokemon games. NEStalgia is unique BYOND game but it also has many similarity to old PC games, and even RPG Maker projects. Style of play isn't something new to me, it isn't something that I haven't already played before.
5/10
Overall:(What is your general impression of the game?)
This is a great and good quality game. If you haven't played it yet, I recommend you to do it. It's something really unique if we talk about BYOND gaming only and it will give you hours of fun.
8/10
