Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1

Been playing a bit of Soul Nomad in the recent days. As I suspected, the collection has two extremely lazy ports. There's been pretty much no work at all done in the "remastering". Sadly (at least) Soul Nomad seems to also crash from time to time. Apart from that, I've been having fun. It's addicting getting your troops stronger and the unique mechanics of the game have their draw. The story is also pretty interesting and there seems to be multiple different endings. I'll try to be a total scumbag after my initial run of playing nice. The dialog is pretty amusing most of the time but it feels a bit dated to see "retard" used as an insult in this day and age. The insult is being used by a terrible person so in that way it's not out of character but it just sounds a bit off.

In any case, Soul Nomad is good and I'm eager to finally see it through.

Gonna buy this even though it's pretty expensive and a really lazy remaster.

If there ever has been defined a "golden age" for Nippon Ichi Software, it's pretty much around when these games were first released. After the success of Disgaea, NIS was constantly trying new interesting things with the SRPG formula with games like Phantom Brave and Soul Nomad. Funnily enough, they even tried writing affecting stories without resorting to parody like they always do with Disgaea games. And on top of that, they stayed away from the ickier otaku stuff that the Disgaea games are littered with to this day. But other than those stylistic detours, the games they made then were NIS through and through: good music, dated graphics, incredible amounts of customisation, lots of little silly details here and there and very addicting level-grind.

I never completed Soul Nomad even though I liked it so I'm looking very much doing that now. Phantom Brave I did beat long ago but a revisit is probably long overdue. And this remaster adds content from later releases to make it fresh for me.

Now, if they would rerelease Makai Kingdom as well... That would be a time-sink.