- "Hey, stop undressing me in your mind!"
- ―Natalie, Epic Battle Fantasy 4
Natalie, or Natz for short, is a magician and a playable character throughout the Epic Battle Fantasy series, appearing in every game up to date. Along with her friends Matt, Lance, Anna, and NoLegs, she often saves the world from destruction and similar events.
Appearance
Natalie is depicted as a teenage girl with blue eyes, fair skin and fiery ginger hair. She is quite voluptuous, and her large breasts are constantly discussed and joked about by her teammates. She wears a variety of equip-able attire, but her signature outfits include a standard White Mage Dress with a crystal-tipped wooden staff and a flower or star in her hair, or as has become the standard the Red Dress with the matching Red Ribbon in her hair.
Based on her general appearances in the series, it appears that Natalie's "official" outfit may be the Red Dress/Red Ribbon/Dark Tooth combination; it is the outfit worn in Epic Battle Fantasy 2, Adventure Story, and the cutscenes of Epic Battle Fantasy 4 onward.
Personality
Natalie is initially portrayed as a cutesy, tree-hugging girl, though in later games she is firmly established as being the "brains" of the party, acting as a moral compass and sometimes giving general advice. She is often at odds with the guys of the group over moral issues, though given her party member's general indifference she doesn't quite get a huge effect. As she explains to Anna, she has learned to tolerate Matt's less-than-moral quirks over the years. Natalie has something of a sweet tooth, and is very fond of cats, especially NoLegs.
She is easily flustered but wise and cautious, and usually directs the party. Natalie also often actually knows about the area (or at least can make vague commentary). While she is frequently at odds with the other party members in EBF4, this gets smoothed out a lot in EBF5, with her having much better justified issues with Lance.
In EBF5, Natalie reveals that she is a straight-A student at a prestigious university, making her the only party member with a confirmed formal college education (Lance may also have done so, but this is unconfirmed). When challenged by Lance as to why she's traveling with them instead of staying there, she admits that she was caught writing smutty fanfiction involving one of her lecturers and she couldn't bear to face her class afterwards. Natalie's role in EBF5 is also much more coherent, with her providing the imperative aspect of the plot and helping push to get things actually done. While freshly at odds with Lance on account of him kidnapping her, she gets along great with the rest of her party members; her relationship with Anna in particular is far better than in EBF4. She also has some sort of romantic feelings for Matt.
Role
In combat, Natalie is a master mage, with the ability to both fling spells and heal allies. Natalie has disastrous physical stats, but has the single highest Magic Attack out of all of the party members. Oddly enough, because of the low power of her attacks, Natalie is sometimes ignored in favor of Lance for magical offense, as Lance has significantly more powerful options for single-target damage.
In earlier games, Natalie is the healer of the party; with Healmore, Regen and Barrier, she can easily weave a web of strong defensive abilities to keep the party strong no matter what. While many of these become shared skills in later games, Natalie still has strong defensive capabilities, though Anna may be seen as a more useful choice.
In EBF5, Natalie has exclusive access to the Syphon tree and Cleanse, though their effects can be more readily used than before. However, she is notable for having access to all of the shared magical attacks short of Power Metal, and all debuffs aside from Bind. Given her access to Heal More, Natalie is capable of pulling off a variety of debuffs while still being capable of healing the party with ease. Overall, while Natalie's offenses are still a bit lacking (even after Lance was mildly nerfed by Cooldowns), she is still a useful party member and can offer a unique blend of offense and defense.
Abilities
- "Bonk!"
- ―Natalie upon using her Normal Attack, Epic Battle Fantasy 3 and 5
Being a mage, Natalie's Normal Attack is a useless smack with her staff (though it is a little more useful starting in EBF3 thanks to on-hit effects), but her magic more than makes up for it. In first three games her repertoire of spells is divided into two schools: White and Black magic.
Black Magic focuses on elemental spells (though she can deal non-elemental damage in the form of Lucky Star and, in later games, Star Shower.) For the Ice, Fire and Thunder elements, Natalie can use either a single target attack of varying power, or a less powerful multi-target attack. She can also use single-target or area-of-effect Dark magic.
Her holy spells are much the same. She has a basic healing spell, a party-wide heal, a dispel that removes status conditions, a revive, and other abilities befitting the healer of the group. She can also use Barrier to reduce magical damage on the party. As of EBF4, Anna and Natalie can both learn all those spells (but only one of them at a time). Natalie's White magic school has some powerful damage spells as well, like Holy Light and Judgement, though those have no area-of-effect versions.
Natalie's signature Limit Break is 7th Heaven, also known as Kyun in older games. With a fan service-like gesture and a jiggle of her breasts, Natalie uses a very powerful party-wide heal that also places a variety of status buffs on the party. She can also unleash Genesis, a massive angelic beam of holy energy reaching all the way into the skies, that deals Holy damage to all enemies and revives members of the party (or places Auto-Revive status on those who are alive). On the darker side, she can also use Black Hole, a very powerful, but dangerous Dark Limit Break that damages both the foes and the party and may kill both foes and players instantly. (In EBF4, Lance can learn this move as well).
She uses staffs to increase her powers and can unleash a special attack that changes, depending on the weapon. Also, attacking with the right staff will inflict status effects, anything from Syphon to Doom.
Gallery
Epic Battle Fantasy 5 Emotes
Trivia
- Natalie's nickname, "Natz", originated as a fan nickname. Matt Roszak officially adopted the nickname in EBF2.
- A running gag/secret in the series is that clicking on Natalie's breasts makes them jiggle. In EBF3 and EBF4, you can earn the Pervert medal by clicking on them ten times.
- This would expand to foes that resemble her, like Dark Natalie in EBF4, and Natalia in EBF5.
- In her appearance in Brawl Royale, Natalie has heterochromia, with one of her eyes being green instead of the usual blue.
- Her "Kyun" Limit Break is a reference to the anime, Lucky Star.
- Natalie is the earliest EBF character created by Matt Roszak; she appeared in the fifth entry of his early animation series, Attack of the Black Mages, as the generically-named "White Mage". According to Matt Roszak, he re-purposed the White Mage's design for the EBF series because he didn't feel like making more unique characters.
- In theory, the Natalie/White Mage could be inspired by the "White Mage" character from the popular Final Fantasy parody web comic, 8-Bit Theater; both are admired for their beauty, their breasts, and their healing skills. However, Natalie soon differentiates herself and is an entirely different character in virtually all respects.
- Although many fans speculated about Natalie's relationship with Matt, Matt Roszak has repeatedly stated that they are "just friends". However, there are various instances where Natalie is suggested to have romantic feelings about Matt.
- Near the beginning of EBF4, she reacts in a flustered manner when Anna confronts her about her relationship with Matt, especially when Matt declares that they are "more than friends". Additionally, she appears disappointed when Matt clarifies that he and Natz are "a team", along with NoLegs and Lance, thinking "So that's all I am to you, after all this time?" to herself.
- In many of the cut-scenes, she appears to be close to Matt, such as being horrified when Anna "kills" Matt, hugging him when they are reunited, and clinging to him when they enter the dark part of the Crystal Caverns.
- In the ending, she states that she would have liked more romance in the game's story, and then goes on to say that it would be left to the fans, and that she does not trust them.
- In Bullet Heaven 2, when Anna assumes that she has had any romantic implications with Matt, Natalie quickly tells her off, while thinking "She knows too much. I'd better be careful." to herself shortly afterwards.
- In EBF5, Matt and Natalie's relationship is expanded upon a bit, though it doesn't actually culminate in anything.
- Natalie is implied to be afraid of the dark, shown in the Crystal Caverns cutscene in EBF4. She also has a crippling fear of insects and spiders.
- While she can eat food such as bacon and ham, she displays a skull and crossbones as an emote in EBF3. This could imply her formerly being a vegetarian.
- This is confirmed in EBF5 when she comments on how she was surprised that she ever tried being vegetarian.
- Natalie has something of a sweet tooth given her emotes in EBF3 when she eats Muffins, Ice Cream, Cupcakes and Ice Cream Sundaes. Also, her personal set of Steroids in EBF5 consists solely of sweets.
- Natalie is also shown to be too sheltered at some points, especially from the wilderness. This is disapproved of by Anna in EBF5, as evidenced by when the two get into a fight about Natalie being underexposed to the wild. They try to resolve the argument later, and Anna suggests that they go camping sometime. Natalie says they'll be fine if they have running water and WiFi, after which Anna thinks to herself, "She's hopeless!".
| Playable Characters |
|---|
| Matt - Natalie - Lance - Anna - NoLegs |