Natural Doctrine

released on Mar 19, 2014

Strategy role-playing gamers be ready, as this game will truly test your ability to conquer the evils that lurk in the sprawling networks of mines and ruins in the areas surrounding the fortress city of Feste. Seasoned explorers and novices alike venture underground into dangerous caves to collect the coveted material known as Pluton. During your first trip down into the depths of one of these mines, you and your new explorer friends quickly realize that things may be more dire than you had imagined as you encounter a brand-new type of evil lurking below the surface. You and your newfound friends must strategically defeat these new difficult foes and warn the kingdom of their presence before it's too late.


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Quite possibly the single worst designed game I have ever played. I platinumed this fucking game out of spite, and to tell anyone who tries to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about to fuck off. Every gameplay decision in this game is so baffling stupid, that I cannot believe that this was created by a team of actual humans.

First off, the game barely has any kind of story. The characters have no discernable traits and the plot exists solely so you can go to a bunch of different maps and fight random groups of enemies. And you know what, that's fine. If they wanted to keep the story basic and focus on the battle system, then that would be fine. But the problem is that would require them to make the battle system not complete fucking dogshit.

Natural Doctrine is not a tactical RPG. It is an incredibly shitty puzzle game pretending to be a tactical RPG. Despite the skill tree and equipment system making it look like you can build you characters in different ways, every level in the game has one and only one correct way to solve it. There is no room for deviation allowed, only trial and error until you find the very specific way to win that level, and then you move on. If you try and do anything other than what the game decides is the right move, you will be instakilled and forced to restart at a checkpoint. This is made worse by this game having one of the single worst checkpoint systems of all time, with most levels being over an hour long and having one checkpoint at most. Hell, there are at least 3 levels that take 40 minutes to beat each that don't have any checkpoints at all!

There's also the braindead decision that, for 99% of the entire game, if anyone in your party dies it's an immediate game over. So not only does the game demand perfection for most of its run time, but some levels also have enemies that you are told not to kill and get a game over if they die, despite the fact that they will still try and kill you and your characters will auto attack back without you being able to stop them! And then, for the last 3 levels, they throw all that shit out the window and just have permadeath for your whole party. What is the fucking point of introducing an entirely new system for handling party deaths at the very end of the game?

IGN, the absolute joke of a website that it is, gave this a 3/10 and that score is too damn high. It deserves a single half point because it's technically functional (as in, you can turn it on and play it) and that is it. What a fucking waste of space.

this is one of those games that doesn't help you at all and just throws you right into the middle of shit. to top things off the combat system is extremely convoluted and has a terrible UI. despite all that the darn thing still manages to be rewarding and fun, with a cool gritty fantasy setting/style. definitely worth playing just know you're in for some shit, it's got a bigger learning curve than most people would have the patience to stick around for.

One of the worst games I have ever played, but I do have a sincerely great memory of playing it with my wife on her birthday pretty early into our relationship and just being totally baffled by every single decision it made. It also has maybe the strangest UI I have ever seen.