NEStalgia
is a game that overall resembles Dragon Quest from the old NES 8-bit era. It is a parody, but still strives as its own game. It is basically a free MMORPG with few perks from subscriber access.
You start as a "time traveler" (parody of Back to the Future) and make your way to Balzackia where your adventure begins. You are to prevent the future world from becoming destroyed. Along the way you travel in dungeons like the catacombs, running into another movie parody, Ghostbusters. When you talk to the king in Balzackia, King Balzack (Dragon Quest IV reference), he at first isn't convinced that the future will be destroyed, but later believes your story and tries to help you stop this devastation.
The game features classic RPG classes like Soldiers, Wizards, Clerics,and Rangers. There are 4 subscription classes currently, Warlocks, Conjurer, Merchant, and Ninjas, who have their own unique set of skills. It also features up to 3 players in a "party" system to help adventure with you. It also features a PvP system for those who enjoy more player interaction. You can do quests to progress through the story line or simply to get experience / gold / items instead of grinding for them. From time to time there are PvP tournaments in which players can participate in. There are also guilds to help this atmosphere of the RP nature and whatnot.
It is still under development as of yet, but fully playable. Youtube preview here.
This game was created using the BYOND platform.
Nestalgia contains examples of:
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Your party caps at three members.
- Author Appeal: Silkwizard (the creator's screen name) is a huge fan of Dragon Quest, and it shows.
- Bag of Holding: Averted, you're are only given 9 spaces in your inventory... 4 of those are usually taken up by your equipment.
- Betting Mini-Game: The casino allows you to bet on monster battles, slime races, or play 5 card poker. You can exchange your winnings for exclusive items only found in the Casino.
- Blob Monster: Some of the earliest enemies (and quests) are Slimes. In fact, it's in the logo of the game!
- But Thou Must!: Lampshaded by King Balzack. At the end of the Life Rune quest, you must go back and speak to King Balzack. His dialogue used to be:King Balzack: You have done well but I won't be prepared to speak to you until the next content patch. Would you like to wait patiently? (Yes/No)(If No) But thou must!
- Cast from Hit Points: Warlock's modus operandi.
- Church Militant: A Cleric can wield a sacrifical knife, also known as a 'Kris'. They also have the spells 'Smite' and 'Judgement' that have a chance to kill monsters instantly.
- Combat Medic: Clerics are actually quite balanced and can deal a good amount of damage, also warlocks can not only steal HP from enemies but use their own to heal allies. This can also apply to Rangers as they have some minor healing spells.
- Corrupt Church: An alternate interpretation of the poison using, dagger wielding clerics.
- Death Is Cheap: Price for death? Half the money you're carrying.
- Escape Rope: "You cast the spell 'outside'"
- Fan Art: Even such a low profile fan-game gets it's fair share.◊
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The 3 elements in the game.
- Garnishing the Story: Thar be pirates!
- Get on the Boat: The game forces you onto one early on.
- Glass Cannon: The Ninja
- Good Old Fisticuffs: The Ninja class can't use any weapon other than gloves.
- Healing Potion: Due to the limited inventory space and the fact that second tier potions are quite expensive (and third tier can only be found from chests or random drops) most players carry no more than one or two restoration items on them at a time.
- It's also good to note that the MP restoring items aren't potions, but instead Herbs
- Improbable Weapon User: Merchants can equip Abaci as a weapon, how they actually use it to iflict damage is anyone's guess.
- Clerics can also wield giant crucifixes later in the game.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: The name 'Nestalgia'
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests:
- In the Name of the Moon: Taken quite literally in some NPC dialogue as the in game lore holds the moon as a supersticious, almost religious symbol.
- Intrepid Merchant: The Merchant
- Lethal Lava Land: Mt. Vezu and it's fiery mortif.
- Life Drain: The Warlock's bread and butter.
- Locked Door: Magic doors, subscriber doors, and reinforced doors to name a few.
- Metal Slime: Played straight, name and all.
- Mighty Glacier: The Soldier
- Minigame Zone: The casino.
- Puzzle Boss: The catacombs boss.
- Randomly Drops: While you can increase the drop rate of items through certain equipment and items, there are scripts in place that actually decrease the chances of finding rare items the longer you grind in one spot.
- Redshirt Army / We Have Reserves: The King of Balzackia's attitude towards his own soldiers. Apparently he doesn't pay them. Also how he treats you, the player.
- Random Encounters: In the true fashion of NES Role-playing games.
- Respawning Enemies: Some enemies can call in more enemies into battle. The Wolf enemies near the town of Verity are nortorious for this and are a major threat to the soloing adventurer.
- Retraux
- Secret Path: The game has several secret passages found behind fake walls, usually leading to hidden treasure chests.
- Shout-Out: So many shout outs. So many!
- Dragon Quest: The icon style, casino, enemies, spells, even NPC names are HEAVILY inspired by Dragon Quest.
- Back to the Future: Your character in the story is supposidly from the future, and the intro has a lot of BTTF references.
- Ghostbusters: The Catacombs
- Kill Bill: The Ninja's '5-point' skill is a reference to the 5 Point Exploding Heart Technique.
- A New Hope: "Aren't you a bit short for an Ardan guard?"
- There is also the "Leia Mask" that gives your icon hair buns.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Artic region (as well as a few areas before) has several sliding ice puzzles.
- Squishy Wizard: The Wizard (obviously)
- Stealth-Based Mission: There are a few of these.
- Suspiciously Cracked Wall: Fake walls that lead to secret passages usually have a slightly different look from the rest of the wall, usually shown as if it were cracked.
- Time Travel: Your character.
- The Enemy Weapons Are Better: Randomly dropped weapons can have modifiers, making them superior to store bought equipment.
- The Lost Woods: The Maze in Balzak.
- The Medic: The Cleric, and to a lesser extent Warlocks
- Touch of Death: The Ninja's '5-Point' skill can kill an enemy after 5 turns.
- 20 Bear Asses: Several quests incorporate this, whats worse is that you'll need to carry around a conatiner that takes up a slot in your severely limited inventory.
- The way the inventory works has been changed in a recent update, so this is no longer an issue.
- Underground Monkey: Several enemies are simply previous enemies with pallet swaps to fit the new region (such as Lava Slimes and Ice Slimes).
