There is no dialogue, no introduction to the setting and no details given about your character. Journey’s story is virtually non-existent, at least in terms of traditional plot and narrative. In many ways, however, “art game” is the correct term, for Journey is both a spectacular game and a stunning work of art. The mechanics and presentation are too unconventional and undefined for it to classify as a platformer or an action-adventure game, but I hesitate to use the term “art game”, out of fear that the stigmatic nature of that word may associate it with infinitely inferior experiences such as Dear Esther and The Path. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not good, either - but overall, it has just enough things going in its favour that it’s able to lift itself from “Oh God, this is horrible” to “Meh, you could do worse.// Reviews // 28th Jun 2013 - 9 years ago // By Jack Ellis Journey: Collector's Edition Reviewĭescribing Journey accurately and succinctly is a difficult task. But they are enough to make me think that, deep down, Natural Doctrine isn’t all bad. Obviously, those few moments of fun don’t counterbalance the otherwise constant frustration. Likewise, while most of the time the game looks completely generic, I loved seeing the game’s World Map in action - it’s seemingly designed to look like something straight out of a board game, complete with your characters being moved around like a game piece. Natural Doctrine may have been frequently annoying, but at the same time, there’s a certain satisfaction to be gained from finally figuring out exactly what it is the game wants you to do.
And, to top it all off, the voice acting is…flat, to be charitable (or laughably bad, to be not).Īnd yet, despite all those obvious flaws, I wouldn’t say the game is wholly devoid of charms. The game’s cast of characters is pretty rote, too, and I’m not afraid to predict that however you’re picturing “typical JRPG hero/heroine”, you’re probably picturing the characters here. The graphics are pretty standard RPG fare, though in this case the line between “generic” and “eyesore” is pretty thin. That’s not Natural Doctrine’s only flaw, either.
Considering one of the major joys of gaming is finding your own way through created worlds, you can see why such a strict approach is less than enjoyable. As far as it’s concerned, there’s only one proper approach to take in any given situation, and it strictly punishes anyone who wants to approach problems in a different way. Of course, that’s also the game’s major flaw. If you want to advance in this game, you need to take a strategic approach to everything you do, and if you don’t…well, tough luck. On some level, I guess, this makes sense: Natural Doctrine is a Strategy RPG, and it takes that genre classification very seriously. Try and do things in a different order than the game intends, try and attack enemies before the game wants you to, try and explore areas before the game wants you to discover them - do any of that, and you’re likely to be seeing a Game Over screen before too long. While the tutorials may end after you’ve visited the first couple of locations, the insistence you do everything a certain way or else doesn’t. I’d really like to say that all that preparation is worth it once the game actually lets you loose in its world, but that would be a lie. This is a game that has a lot of ideas as to how you should be playing it, and it never hesitates for a second to make sure you find out exactly what all those ideas are. Tutorial screen after tutorial screen, including some screens that tell you to do something in one breath, only for you to find out they were only giving you directions on what not to do once the sequence is over and done with. If you want some idea of what the first couple of sections of Natural Doctrine are like, the preceding two paragraphs are pretty much it in a nutshell. No, sorry, you shouldn’t have read that last sentence! Anyway, here’s one more sentence to read. Now go to the next paragraph.Īnd here’s a new paragraph.
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