Natural Doctrine Reviews
A difficult game that is hard to enjoy
As I stated above the game is very unforgiving at times and that will be a huge turn off to some players. Still if you like tactical RPGs and a good challenge you will enjoy this game. If you are more of a run and gun player this one should be avoided.
Unfortunately, when all is said and done, NAtURAL DOCtRINE simply doesn't provide an enjoyable experience. A difficult game like Dark Souls will reward patience and show steady improvement of player skill in-game progress, but this is purely hard for the sake of being so. It's too frustrating in today's busy age to spend 45 minutes at a time on the same mission, failing to make any progress for hours. Mid-mission surprises happen too often and the game's design only makes their appearance frustrating rather than tense. There's no saving halfway through a mission, a problem that's sure to annoy Vita purchasers. I haven't finished the main campaign, although I would estimate I'm over halfway. In-game timer reads around 20 hours – although this doesn't include the hours of gameplay lost to rage quits.
Natural Doctrine is a punishingly difficult strategy game but if you stick with it, you may just find it to be extremely rewarding.
A noble attempt to do something unique in the strategy RPG space that won't appeal to most players.
Natural Doctrine is not meant for the faint of heart. You must be prepared for unyielding and at times near hellish combat that only rewards careful planning and the use of intelligent strategy over brute strength. For those who enjoy these elements in their strategy RPG, however, this title will not disappoint.
It is most certainly not for me, but even I can see that there are some things that strategy fans will love about it. Just keep in mind if you do decide to pick this up, you're in for a very difficult, sometimes unfair, struggle.
That's not to say Natural Doctrine is great, because it doesn't naturally move you forward and at times it can be frustrating, with some areas being a bit too much trial and error with some poor check-pointing, making retries annoying. But at the same time those who become good enough to avoid death on a regular basis, will have a cracking time.
With all the bad I have said, there is an audience out there somewhere for Natural Doctrine. If you enjoy mindless hours of grinding with no clear goal or instruction, and if you enjoy hour long battles on the "easiest" difficulty setting where you still feel underleveled no matter how much you grind, then this game could be right up your alley. The system is there to try and be a good game, but it is given no chance to shine and no clear direction on what to do, leaving you with a mess of missed opportunities and frustration.
An interesting take on Strategy RPGs that never reaches its potential.
Although mechanically sound, Natural Doctrine is too unfairly difficult and slow-paced to be worth recommending to anyone but the most hardcore gamers.
Natural Doctrine fails in its ambitious attempt to deliver a wonderfully unique, deep, and rewarding turn-based strategy adventure. The foundation is solid but what's built atop that foundation is a crazy assortment of great individual pieces, but none of them really fit together. Satisfaction isn't out of the realm of possibility, but when seasoned veterans have to spend many hours dissecting the ins and outs of a gameplay mechanic, only to find their efforts thwarted by an unfair and unforgiving structure, well… Controllers may shatter and nobody would blame you.
Natural Doctrine takes strategy role-playing games one step forward, and several clumsy steps back.
Natural Doctrine is an exhausting game. It's punishing, unfair at times and hell-bent on funneling players through a narrow corridor that leaves little-to-no room for tactical experimentation. That being said, it has its moments.
Natural Doctrine is a broken attempt at revitalizing the tactical RPG genre. At first glance, it appears to have all the markings of a classically inspired and intelligently designed strategy game. But sadly, despite delivering its own rare bursts of satisfaction, it remains frustratingly bogged down by artificially challenging gameplay, a confusing and overtly complex user interface and a painfully slow pacing that will try the patience of even the most Zen-like of gamers. If you're looking for the next Final Fantasy Tactics, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to keep looking elsewhere.