Nadia Was Here reminds me somehow of a Gameboy game that could never have been made. I mean, besides the colors, it's definitely best played with mouse and keyboard, due to the battle system, but its style and uniqueness put me in mind of that era of strange sequels and spinoffs, where games absolutely had to try something a little different to make it work within the format's limitations. Though it may look at first glance like a fairly typical JRPG, Nadia is to me more compelling and subversive than the other JRPG-on-its-head games people like to point to as examples.
Part of that is the complete lack of typical progression and party dynamics. There's no levelling, scaling health, scaling damage, meaningless number creep. Most enemies have about the same amount of health and do about the same amount of damage from the start of the game to the end, but have more troublesome attacks or tricks to correspond with your party's greater flexibility and refinement. There's a little bit of customization in the form of three accessory slots per character, which you can fill with equipment that provides a very powerful, but very singular buff, like faster actions in combat or immunity to certain status effects.
Combat is central to Nadia, not because there's an awful lot of it, or because it's an especially violent or tactical game, but because combat is how each of the three main characters express their roles. All combat takes place on a field of three lanes, and each party member stands opposite either one enemy, or an empty space. Every action besides consumable item use and summoning has a casting time, and you can see everyone's progress on their next action simultaniously. You can also freely pause, shuffle your party into different lanes, choose different actions for them, or throw consumables around.
Within this, each character acts impressively differently. Nadia, the thief type, starts out only being able to steal items from enemies or hit them for a small [but reliable] amount of damage, but her options expand as she steals weapons from certain enemy types, the only way for her to get the weapons. The fighter always hits with the same weapon, but his defenses and attack properties are affected by what shield he has out, so he is generally the one that gets the most micromanagement, especially if you're moving him in front of enemies that are about to attack to take the blow for other party members. The mage can also steal spells from enemies, but only if he can get in front of them while they're casting it, and he is also the only character that can heal others [or heal at all without consumables or slight lifesteal on hit]. Once you get far enough, you can probably afford to brute force a lot of the combat with consumable items, but I did almost all of the combat without any.
The dungeons are also very puzzle-heavy, and this could be a drawback for some, although I found the puzzles to be just the right difficulty where I was challenged but never felt like I had to look up a walkthrough. The game is consistent and clear about how each element works, although the hint fairies vanish forever once you speak to them, so if you set the game down mid-dungeon I can expect you might forget some crucial detail of how the puzzle elements work.
There's a lot of nice incidental dialogue with NPCs in towns, and plenty of side content too. I finished the final dungeon and boss without getting one of the major puzzle solving items, and haven't photographed all 50 flowers yet either, though I plan to at some point.
Nadia Was Here is a fantastic pickup as long as you aren't put off by a decent bit of puzzling in dungeons. If you like unique and interesting RPGs, this might turn out to be one of your new favorites.
