The DioField Chronicle is an interesting game. It sits in a genre Square Enix rarely plays with and its not part of any of the company’s existing franchises. In the middle of what some could say the company’s strongest years, it could represent the future of Square Enix. A company looking to embrace its former identity as a home for experimental rpgs when it was split between SquareSoft and Enix Corporation. If that’s the case, I happily welcome that future. The DioField Chronicle proves the company can do more than just Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.
The DioField Chronicle is developed by Lancarse, developers of one of my favorite games of the year, Monark. Like Monark, its a strategy role playing game but instead of taking turns, the combat is in real time. It doesn’t really share much in common with most other real time strategy games though. Where more traditional games in the genre feature a heavy emphasis on resource management, DioField is clearly sticking to its JRPG roots.
Presentation
I’ll be honest: I don’t think the presentation of The DioField Chronicle is that great. While I love the designs of all the characters, I feel as though the 3d models don’t capture the style all that well. Most pivotal story moments are conveyed through walls of text rather than actually showing them. Its pretty evident that this game was made on a budget. There are some moments with actual cutscenes and I find those to be pretty good. They’re just far and few between.
The music is pretty standard fantasy fare. None of the tracks are offensive but they also aren’t memorable either. The voice acting is the strongest thing presentation wise DioField has going for it. I found the voice cast to be well casted and likeable. The only annoying thing is that soldiers on the battlefield tend to yell the same generic death cry over and over again.
Story
Before playing, I heard a lot of reviews mentioning how predictable the story for this game is but I have to respectfully disagree. You’ll be put in control of Andrias, leader of the Blue Foxes. The Blue Foxes save a duke and are then thrown into a political war for the island of DioField. Every character has their own plots and schemes that they’re working towards and sometimes it leads to conflicts withing the group. Some of these characters dream of democracy, others are trying to make a bid for the throne. The story really kept me at the edge of my seat as party members came and left the group.
Gameplay
The DioField Chronicle decided to set itself apart by being a real time strategy rpg. Unlike other games in the genre, you only have control over four units at one time. Each party member can fall into four different class types which can also be differentiated by what weapon they use. You can upgrade each class types special skills using skill points. Skills play a huge part in the combat much like a traditional jrpg. My only gripe with the skills is that there are only a handful of skills and since they’re shared between classes it makes the individual units less special.
During battle its important you keep track of your four units and what they’re doing at all times. There are times when I would have two units focused on one set of enemies while the other two are getting attacked by another group of enemies. I played on the normal difficulty and I found it fair for the most part. If ever things got too difficult, I just replayed older missions to level my characters up more. There’s a recommended level for each mission and I found leveling up my party a level or two above that made each mission more manageable.
Conclusion
The DioField Chronicle represents what we may expect from Square Enix following the sale of its western studios. While, I wish that the sale didn’t happen, I am happy that the company is willing to invest in new i.p. With more of a budget, I think the DioField Chronicle can grow into a strong franchise for them. Hopefully, this isn’t the last partnership we’ll see from them and Lancarse.
The DioField Chronicle is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox, and PC.
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