The DioField Chronicle review – A fast-paced strategy RPG held back by a lackluster story

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 Rupali Gupta

The DioField Chronicle, the most recent RPG from Sq. Enix, provides a singular real-time fight system set in a fantasy universe. It meets lots of the necessities to be a political fantasy story, and it jogs my memory a whole lot of its predecessors – Fireplace Emblem and Ultimate Fantasy Techniques, specifically.

It’s a narrative of political intrigue, and all the things on this story is sort of severe. There isn’t a lot humor, which is not essentially unhealthy. The issue is when the story doesn’t dwell as much as the expectations it units for itself.

I didn’t really feel drawn in by The DioField Chronicle or its characters. I would like the sport visually and recognize the problem introduced forth by its real-time technique gameplay engine, however I simply felt disillusioned by all the things round it.

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The DioField Chronicle is a brand new, fascinating technique RPG from Sq. Enix

Sadly, the successor to the monarch on this story was murdered, which units off a Romance of the Three Kingdoms-style conflict of succession. All factions wish to rule this land and can do something to make that dream a actuality.

That story needs to be one which instantly pulled me in, nevertheless it merely didn’t. The characters on this story felt like they had been written with out a lot emotional weight. Gamers management a gaggle often known as the Blue Foxes, a gaggle of mercenaries who’ve joined one of many factions on this conflict.

The character designs are excellent, but their personalities feel a bit flat (Image via Square Enix) — The character designs are wonderful, however their personalities really feel a bit flat (Picture through Sq. Enix)

The Blue Foxes battle for the faction in command of the throne, and whereas I’m usually a fan of gritty, war-is-hell tales, Andrias, as a protagonist, simply doesn’t have any emotion about him. His conversations with others typically really feel uninteresting and uninteresting.

Even when the story disappoints me, I loved the model and design of the characters that be part of your celebration. You obtain fairly a couple of characters to affix the celebration, every specializing in a selected play model.

The DioField Chronicle’s story is way from the worst I’ve ever seen. However it feels prefer it’s setting itself as much as be a grand, political epic like Ultimate Fantasy Techniques, however as a substitute, it feels extra like Ultimate Fantasy Techniques Advance.

How does fight work in The DioField Chronicle?

Fight might be my favourite a part of this recreation. You enter a battlefield and get one final alternative to equip and customise your celebration earlier than setting forth. You’ve got a couple of kinds of battles as properly. You will have to defend somebody or someplace, defeat all foes, or carry out an escort mission for an vital character within the story.

Every battle focuses on 4 characters, every of whom can have a help character to help them. You should utilize the help unit’s unlocked expertise, although they share a cooldown with the talents the first protagonist can use.

Choosing a personality to maneuver in The DioField Chronicle may also showcase all enemy aggro ranges. That is wonderful, so you possibly can arrange your workforce in relative safely. Additionally, fight pauses when you choose expertise or actions, supplying you with time to assume.

You’ll be able to arrange some unbelievable ability combos with this method as properly. You’ll be able to knock folks into tripwires with cavalier expertise or stun and poison foes. The levels don’t take lengthy both; when you lose, you possibly can repeat the mission.

Enemies can even use highly effective expertise. You’ll see a concentrating on reticle on the bottom with a cost meter. The ability slowly will get purple, and the impact triggers when it fills up. It’s crucial to get out of this, even when you deliver a healer. It’s not unusual for these large AOE assaults to deal tons of injury, which can be laborious to recuperate from.

Whereas I loved most of those missions, the escort missions had been the worst ones. I had multiple expertise the place the escort simply walked proper into hazard and died in a single or two hits. It might have been good if we might command them to decelerate.

That’s okay, although. This implies it’s important to take into consideration the puzzle extra and determine the place you need to go and what you need to do on these small maps. Battle in The DioField Chronicle is a puzzle to unravel, and I recognize that.

It's very satisfying to rain destruction down from the heavens (Image via Square Enix) — It’s totally satisfying to rain destruction down from the heavens (Picture through Sq. Enix)

It’s additionally extremely satisfying to energy up and make use of highly effective summons – you begin with the most effective one, for my part – Bahamut! You’ll most likely really feel like it is advisable grind on this recreation. You’ll be able to repeat levels to earn rewards and XP once more, which I definitely took benefit of.

One other battle side which may shock gamers is that boss enemies can have a number of well being bars. When you see a circle or two above their well being bar, they are going to refill that many occasions.

Customization is an enormous a part of The DioField Chronicle

With loads of protagonists to choose from and several other weapon varieties, it’s not laborious to seek out one thing to burn assets on. You unlock higher weapons by growing the rank of your faction and by spending Gold/Silver Ingots inside your base. It may be a bit of irritating, although, grinding to improve your whole weapons.

On high of that, you possibly can unlock extra expertise to make use of, however they’re tied to weapons. Every character additionally has traits that they’ll unlock utilizing AP. Fortunately, every character has their very own AP pool, which will increase as they stage up.

You can improve your characters, skills, and even summons in the game (Image via Square Enix) — You’ll be able to enhance your characters, expertise, and even summons within the recreation (Picture through Sq. Enix)

Whilst you can’t create characters, you possibly can construct your squad the way you’d like them to be, although every character solely has one kind of weapon they wield. There’ll possible be occasions once you need to equip a weaker weapon as a result of it has extra highly effective or helpful expertise.

This could be a function I did like about The DioField Chronicle, even when it did require me to do some grinding. I dealt with this by determining which characters I needed to make use of probably the most and easily targeted on upgrading issues that made them higher.

Visually, The DioField Chronicle is satisfying however suffers

I liked the graphics of The DioField Chronicle, however the PC launch had a very bizarre glitch. In the course of the cutscenes, of which there are so much, the characters’ hair glints with this bizarre black grainy filter. It occurred throughout my complete playthrough expertise. I nonetheless loved the character design and the best way the levels had been laid out, however that glitch by no means appeared to go away.

Finally, the levels will really feel extremely repetitive. At the least the enemy packs diversified sufficient, which helped. The soundtrack wasn’t unhealthy both, however a small handful of songs performed greater than some other. Although the OST has loads of tracks, it at all times appeared like 2 or 3 had been at all times enjoying.

In Conclusion

I really like the chance that The DioField Chronicle represents, as there’s a whole lot of potential for a stellar technique recreation sequence right here. The fight was simply the most effective a part of the sport, although. The characters felt underdeveloped, and their dialog felt weak and uninspired, however the gameplay itself? It was a deal with.

Some levels had been fairly irritating, however I at all times felt glad after I might overcome the problem and determine the puzzle. The controls are a bit of disappointing, although – why is there no pause button? Gameplay stops when you spotlight a unit, however that’s the one means you possibly can catch your breath in battle.

The DioField Chronicle undoubtedly has potential. I liked the potential for the story; at first, it actually hooked me. The themes of gaining energy, the divine proper to rule, and the group of warring factions are one thing that appeals to me. I hoped this may very well be the trendy Romance of the Three Kingdoms, nevertheless it fell brief for me.

Even the issues I loved in regards to the recreation felt a bit redundant. It seems like the sport is ready up for a sequel, but when it does obtain one, it might want to put some severe work in to make up for the place the primary recreation lacks.