A Couple of Reviews

Just posted this on a game forum re: my experience with Natural Doctrine:

Okay, now that I've spent some time on this game, I can say I belong to the fraction who enjoys it v much. Yes, I seldom make it through a battle without Game Over-ing at least once but what is a game without any challenges, right? I'm now in this battle in which there seems to be an endless reinforcement of enemy gunners (so I need to keep everyone alive) while at the same time trying not to accidentally kill certain key characters on the battlefield AND to get to a couple of goodies chest guarded by these lizardmen...

I think I'm getting the hang of the link/chaining system but a good part of this game is also about strategising (getting as many turns as you can and physical deployment of team members). I agree with the criticism that, in some battles, you MUST do it the way developers want you to do it or else it's sayonara. That is a bit frustrating cos it might take several attempts (and many hours!) just to work out what the "correct" strategy is.

EDIT: I'm still trying to learn how to chain more than a dozen moves in one turn (which apparently is possible)... one skill also enables chaining of members scattered around the map...

I actually am enjoying this game. It is certainly much, much harder than Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together because there is no second chance. If you blew it, you blew it. You cannot reverse your move (as in the "chariot system" in TO) or revive any dead party member. Once someone on your team is killed, it's Game Over. I mean, just how unforgiving is that?! Just read on a strategy site how the "chaining" system work in this game and it is very complicated... Am surprised I got this far without fully understanding how the mechanism works. But I think I've reached a point in the game I must learn how to get as many moves as I can in one turn. 

JJH with her pink Samsung Note 3

On Tech-land, I just renewed my (two-year) contract with my mobile service provider -- and got a "free" Samsung Note 3 Neo out of it. I got this phone mainly because the brand was featured (prominently) in a super popular K-drama called He Who Comes from the Stars and, let me tell you, product placement totally works for someone susceptible like me *LOL* The one I got is green in colour (yeah!) and I've costumised it so it looks like a Stars phone. But compared with my Sony Xperia Z, I think this phone is less solid and it's WAY to sensitive to touches; i.e. in Instagram, before I hit the snap button it'd already snapped! Which can be extremely annoying. And it really has far more fancy little functions than I'd care for. Still, it didn't cost me anything so I'll just stick with it. But it does mean I now have to carry to big phones PLUS my Blackberry cos I don't wanna centralise all functions onto one phone (so Xperia Z has Whatsapp while Neo has Line) ... all very cumbersome but what is a phone geek to do?