NAtURAL DOCtRINE is an interesting little game from NIS America. Upon booting up the game on the PSVITA I was thrown into a sizable battle tutorial that showed me this wasn’t going to be a usual NIS RPG. First off, there was no set up or story, you are just a mercenary going through the final trial to land a job. Once you’ve finished the tutorial you are given the job and are then free to explore the world map, and fight more goblins. After this, there was still no direction set in the game, I moved the reticule over certain areas on the map and moved my party there, and nothing happened. Eventually I moved over a cave and the game allowed me to proceed, right into another tutorial. This tutorial taught me more aspects to winning a battle but it still doesn’t train your mind to do what you need it to do. This is not your usual turned based RPG, this game uses strategy in your battles: imagine if Final Fantasy had a child with XCOM. That baby may turn off some casual gamers, or one who has never played a strategy game. Personally, I disliked the heck out of this game, and would have returned it or sold it, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad game. It is just a bad game for me and gamers like me.
The premise of this game is quite simple: strategy dungeon crawler. Your goal as an adventurer is to seek out as much Pluton as possible, deep within the caves. As you and your fellow compatriots go through the caves for Pluton, you discover something sinister is going on. The creatures you must face become more and more difficult to beat, and you see that the entire Kingdom of Feste may soon be at risk. You must defeat the foes in the caves, while trying to get back to the walled fortress, and devising a plan to save that fortress from being overrun. Not the greatest or most engaging of stories, but something that keeps you moving through the game.
The controls are simple once you get through the hour or so of tutorial, in all fairness the second tutorial in the cave is optional, but I do suggest you do it. First thing you need to remember is that your party members can only move two spots per move, keep that in mind as you play. If you forget you may be in a huge battle with only one character, that happened to me more than once, and I perished. What happens in battle is simple once you wrap your mind around it: you can move one of the four people in your party up to 2 spaces, and then chose an enemy to attack. Once you set up all your characters, the battle begins and you are taken on a thrill-ride, you have no more say in the battle until the turn is over. The game enacts your battle choices, then allows your foe to do the same. Rinse and repeat until all the enemies are dead, or until one of your party members has fallen. To make your attacks more powerful you can link attacks by using X while setting up your turn, keep in mind that if your party members are too close, the effect of the attack will weaken. Once you begin to think about each move, the easier the game will become, put a character upfront and have them defend, put a shooter behind them so they can attack from afar and be protected. Then with the two remaining characters you melee attack, after a few rounds, victory is yours and you continue on.
The graphics of NAtURAL DOCtRINE look great on the Vita. The over world map looks hand drawn and could compel you to visit there, even with swarms of monsters. The playable characters are all unique and can be updated to your liking. Enemies’ looks vary from time to time, but generally in a cave you face many twins and triplets. From what I’ve seen and gathered, the Vita version is the best looking version as well. I had a choice of which platform to download and play the game on, I chose the Vita, and I chose wisely. The PS4 and PS3 versions are very dumbed down and don’t take advantage of the console power, so if you are going to pick this game up, grab it for the Vita.
This game is not for everyone, the Vita version is a well put together game that I’m sure will give many hours of joy to gamers who like this type of game. I however do not like these types of games. I like to get in there, kill a bunch of grunts, get my loot and get out. That option is missing from this game. Instead you must make sure every character’s move is perfect, you must not jump right into battle, and you must plan your battle before you allow it to begin. Some gamers love that type of thing, to me it is a giant snore fest, unless it is done with some extreme skill, XCOM style for instance. Personally I did not like NAtURAL DOCtRINE, which was due to its gameplay, that however does not mean that fans of strategy games should shun it, instead they should grab it and love it, because they will.
NAtURAL DOCtRINE
Pros
- Vita visuals are great
- In depth tutorials
- Voice overs well done
Cons
- Painfully difficult
- Screen can get overloaded
- No lifechanging story
