Natural Doctrine

eXarc

Trakanon Raider
1,605
502
Didn't see anything on this, I went to pick up my copy of Shadows of Mordor for PS3 today to find out last gen was delayed. Guy that works there is a buddy of mine that knows I'm a fan of Dark Souls and Final Fantasy Tactics among other shit, tells me to check this out. I am incredibly interested, was going to buy a copy right then & there but they only got two in and sold out already.

Hadn't heard a single word about this game except from IGN just a few days ago. I believe it was released NA September 30th.

Looks to be a turn based RPG/fantasy game with pretty good graphics for being what it is while being extremely intricate and in-depth as most of these games tend to be. Buddy said they had to nerf it in Japan to turn down the difficulty already, not sure how true that is. Will post more info once I can actually get the copy!

It has co-op and competitive game modes, hoping these are really well done because I love fantasy/RPG stuff with co op and vs.

Wiki link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Doctrine

Here's a character list pulled from the Wikipedia link above to give a better idea of what the game is like internally.

Jeff: The young male protagonist, who uses one and two-handed swords, in addition to guns. Class: Warrior.Voiced by: Gou Inoue (Japanese), Kyle Hebert (English).[12]

Vasilisa: A young female guard soldier, and a comrade of Jeff. Class: Warrior. Voiced by Ayane Sakura.[12]

Anca: Girl with long blonde ponytail, and a leader of the tunnel pathfinder brigade. Skilled at generalship and medical assistance, and fights with a rifle. Class: Command Medic. Voiced by Risako Murai.[12]

Zekelinde: Seasoned human male warrior who specialises in double-handed weapons. Has a long and distinguished military service. Class: SwordMaster. Voiced by Yoshihisa Kawahara.

Mel: A young human girl, whose innocent look belies her ability to control giant stone golems. Class: Golem Handler. Voiced by Rina Hidaka.

Nebula: A male apprentice wizard. Class: Apprentice. Voiced by: Seichirou Yamashita (Japanese), Sean Schemmel (English).

Tatiana: Short-haired human girl who grew up as a war orphan. Uses firearms. Class: Marksman. Voiced by Aya Suzaki.

Ingobert: A mage of high birth who is a member of the city Senate. Contemptuous of people of low birth. Class: Wizard. Voiced by Hiroki Touchi.

Gomory: A mysterious woman of indeterminate species, though she bears a human-like aspect. Class: Unknown. Voiced by Yuka Iguchi.



Overall, excited to check this out. Anyone playing this yet? Please give me some reviews.


>Hardcore Gamer gave the game a 3/5, calling it "punishing, unfair at times and hell-bent on funneling players through a narrow corridor that leaves little-to-no room for tactical experimentation."
 

Ritley

Karazhan Raider
15,720
34,246
I'm in the uk for work right now, but I had a copy delivered yesterday. I'll check it out this weekend if you haven't already caught up on the reviews.

Amazon had it for $40 with a $10 gift card for ps4 for awhile, so i figured for 30 bucks I'll take the risk. I hope they made some changes that a lot of people complained about on the Japanese version
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,059
2,262
Yeah I've heard some decent things about the game but I'm not too much into tactical RPGs so didn't bother. It looked pretty interesting though and I've heard the difficulty is crazy high at times.
 

Phazael

Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
14,114
30,214
It is a good game, but it is easily the hardest tactical RPG I can recall playing since the original version of Tactics Ogre. One fuck up and its 30 minutes or more of lost time as you redo things from the last checkpoint (no save scumming in the dungeons) and the fighting is pretty brutally hard right out of the gate on Normal. Basically, there is a coop attack linking system in the game that the monsters also get to do and if you screw up, even a little, the monsters will end up chaining a bunch of attacks together and chain raping you. The monsters also have tons of AE attacks at their disposal right off the bat, while you mainly get one guy who has finite resources to use his AE attacks.

I am liking it, but it is pretty difficult. If you are a hard core old school tactics RPG fan, you will like it. Casual JRPG people are likely to find the combat too rough to hold their interest and the story is kind of thin so far.
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
11,003
4,744
I was really looking forward to this but the reviews are pretty discouraging. The biggest complaint about the difficulty seems to be that it's so hard that the only way to beat the AI is to figure out the one viable strategy that the designers envisioned and follow it to the letter. Experimentation just gets you a trip to the load game screen with 30-60 minutes completely wasted. I'll probably still get it from GameFly to see for myself but I am not expecting Dark Souls Tactics anymore.
 

Phazael

Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
14,114
30,214
It is hard, not going to lie. I like it, but I enjoy the methodical puzzle the game presents. Its been a while since there was an RPG that was this punishing. I just wish that you could have one KO and still try and win by raising the person who turfed it. The instant game over when one person drops is the issue, especially when the enemy ends up chaining several turns together and picking on the weak guy.