At it's heart, Nadia Was Here is a puzzle game. The description might say it's an RPG, but if you don't like lots and lots of puzzles, then thanks for your time, but this game is not for you. For everyone else, let me tell you about this awesome undiscovered gem.
Nadia Was Here has two major gameplay features: the dungeons and the combat, which are both puzzle based, in my opinion.
First up, combat. Combat works like a typical Final Fantasy Active Time Battle system in that each character has a gauge and it fills up. Once it's filled, the character takes an action. The difference with NWH is that there is no pause once the gauge is filled for you to select your action. All the characters will continuously do whatever action is selected until you switch them. Instead, when you want to switch between actions, you just select the character, select the new action (which pauses the game), and that's it. The character will now continuously do the new action.
Another part of combat is lanes. You have 3 characters arranged in a vertical line. Each character faces an enemy arranged in a similar vertical line. Each character can only hit the enemy in front of them. However, you can switch you characters around at any time. So if your physical attacker gets paired with a physical immune enemy, just swap him with the mage. You can also see the enemy's attack gauge, so when you combine the two, you get some neat puzzles to solve. Do you want to steal something with your squishy thief, but the enemy is a strong physical attacker and will ice her in one hit? Wait for her attack gauge to fill up, switch her in for the hit, and then switch her with your tank so he can take the enemy hit.
Let's talk about the characters, because they're all unique. First up is Nadia. She's a thief, so she steals stuff. That's it about her, right? Nope. She steals enemy weapons, which she personally adds to her arsenal. So, eventually you'll stockpile a huge pile of weapons (really, just special skills) that she'll use on the enemy. Need to poison an enemy? Use the fang. Health is constantly low? Use the claw which does more damage depending on how low your health is.
Next up is Hogan, your physical tank. His specialty is shields. Some of them will reduce physical or magical damage, but others will increase his attack or inflict status ailments when he attacks.
Last is Tereshan, the mage. He's actually a newbie mage, so you'll have to learn them from enemies by having Tereshan complete his study action while an enemy is casting the spell you want to learn. He'll be your main magic and status damage dealer, along with your healer.
Speaking of healing, any items you need to use don't take an action for the character. They're done real-time, by you. Do you want to chuck 5 small potions on your characters in 5 seconds? You can do that. Dump a bunch of charms (magical damage) on one enemy before their turn? Go for it!
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the battle system, don't worry. You can always pause the game at anytime to see what's going on, or set the battle speed to 50% if it's going by too fast.
Aside from getting weapons/skills/shields/magic/etc, from the enemy, the only other piece of equipment to worry about are amulets that you'll find around the world. Each character has 3 slots for amulets, and an amulet can be upgrade 3 times for better and better effects. You can get more HP, a better steal chance, or just more money and dust (currency for upgrading amulets) from battle. That's it for accessories. No armor or weapons or whatnot to worry about.
In addition, there are no random battles. Either you'll see the enemies in the dungeon (and the only respawn in one dungeon in the game), or when you move to a new area for the first time, the game will pop up with a window saying that you'll have to fight X battles in a row. Once you do that, that's it. If you want to fight some more, you'll have to find some new areas on the map or go in the arena.
That's a lot of words for the battle system, but that's a major draw to the game for me. The battle system is amazing. Every battle is fun and exciting, and once the game starts ramping up the enemies, they do really become a puzzle to be solved. Is an enemy kicking your teeth in? Then you better change your strategy because there is no grinding and no levels. You might worry about the "no levels" bit, but the difficulty curve is so good that [i]I didn't realize there weren't any character levels until near the end of the game[/i]. In this game, I'm constantly looking forward to new enemy encounters because of how fun they are. What new weapon and/or magic will I get from this enemy? What kind of new strategy do I need to defeat this group?
The second major draw from NWH is the dungeon puzzles. In each dungeon there are multiple puzzles to solve before you can progress, eventually you'll get items which are used to solve more puzzles in dungeons. And then you'll get more items that will combine with your other items in puzzles that need both items to progress. The first item you get is the Earth Flute, which is a bit boring. You use it to grow plants. I didn't find many interesting puzzles using it, but the second item you get is the Fire Bongos, which let you set the space one square in front of you on fire, which is used for burning plants that block your way. Notice the limitation of one square in front of you, and not directly in front of you. There are a lot of puzzles that take into account the fact that you can't just walk up to a plant and torch it. The other two items you get are equally as awesome and interesting.
Because there are no random encounters, the puzzles become quite elaborate, but that's OK because you're never interrupted in the middle of your puzzle.
The game also has a couple of quality of life improvements for an RPG. While there are save points that refill your HP and remove any status effects, the game also saves on every screen, so it's easy to put the game down for the night when you're in the middle of a dungeon. To talk to people or search objects, you just need to bump into them, no mashing X required. There are also hidden items everywhere, so it's fun to walk around and bump into things and see what you get. You can also switch characters on the fly, and NPCs will sometimes say different things depending on who they're talking to.
The story has an interesting hook, once it gets going, and the characters are pretty interesting, but they could be fleshed out a bit more. If you're playing this game, it's a lot more for the gameplay and less the story.
It's been a while since a game hooked me like this, especially a psudo-RPG. I've got 21 hours so far, and I'm taking on the side quests because I don't want the game to end. I'm planning on getting all the achievements too (they're pretty reasonable). I love the chiptune music, and something about that weird colour pallet just draws me in. This game definitely needs more love, so if you want to solve puzzles in dungeons with a cool battle system, go pick this up! There's also a battle demo, so you can check out the battle system if you're interested! Go for it!
