Since forever, I have been playing all kinds of strategy games, either turn-based or real-time. However, there have not usually been too many who have wanted to innovate in the formula. It’s not like there are too many options to innovate in a big way, and yet Square Enix has succeeded.
The big question is whether Square Enix has succeeded or been forgotten by many, and that is what we are going to discover in this analysis of The DioField Chronicle, a daring proposal by the company to bring the action even to genres. of videogames where the turns prevailed.
A game that renews the formula
I know that it may seem a bit strange to mix the Action-RPG genre with a turn-based strategy game, but the truth is that Square Enix has hit the nail on the head so that the strategy game genre reinvents itself again. Unfortunately, Square Enix misses this opportunity by leaving out the translation into Spanish and other languagessince in the absence of these translations, many will back down when thinking about whether or not to play this title.
The DioField Chronicle is the result of mixing Fire Emblem and Age of Empire in a blender, resulting in a juice with perfect gameplay. Although it may seem at first that the game looks complicated, the truth is that nothing could be further from the truth, since the game is visually very self-explanatory in its ephemeral tutorial. In The DioField Chronicle, we have three phases: The first, where we will prepare our equipment before starting the battle, thus being able to buy weapons, armor, potions, among other things. The second: Where we will not take action yet, but we can take some time to see the entire mapping area where the enemies will be and plan our strategy to be victorious. And third: Start attacking, yes, once we have moved our characters, the battle will not stop at any time, so we will go directly to the action-
However, this is not a problem, since we can press the skills button (in this case the Y) and stop the game to think for a brief moment about what we want to do and what our next moves will be, although theirs would be not think about it too much, since unless we have gone crazy attacking randomly, we should know exactly what we want to do from the second phase of the battle, in the planning. In addition, there is a factor that is very important when playing: Magic points or skills, since are limited throughout the battlesso we will not be able to recover the PE that we spend unless we find small purple spheres that are on the ground or that the enemies have dropped when they are defeated, although I already anticipate that this is not very frequent.
the wrong platform
The way I see it, although this game is quite beautiful visually during the combats, even having a way to see the entire map as if it were a handmade model with the characters as figures, the truth is that in the cinematics leaves a lot to be desired, showing us some characters that are not very expressive and sometimes too static. The graphics are perfect for a Nintendo Switch, but for a new generation console, it falls short of what we should have today. If Square Enix’s intention was for the game to shine, it has done so, but more because of its shortcomings than because of everything the title offers us, which is not little.
In itself, this is not a problem when playing, since the game is very enjoyable and in the end, we will be more playing within the combats than watching cinematics, since these are very scarce and they interrupt the rhythm of the combat and, if we wish, we can spend a little of the history of this game, since it is the typical one of several politically opposed nations in the purest Triangle Strategy style.
A missed opportunity
We are already accustomed in recent years to Square Enix making moves that are at least doubtful, and this time it is not spared, since we have some very important declines in the company’s latest title for Xbox that if they had not been present, could be considered even a jewel within the industry like Octopath Traveler and any Square Enix HD-2D game has been.
The DioField Chronicle takes us to a medieval fantasy world, where there is a valuable material that is the protagonist in the story due to the ambition that all the factions and an entire empire want to take advantage of this resource. The story also will present several script twists, where we will see betrayals and unexpected moments. The only bad thing is that the story unfolds very slowly, but yes, patience is essential in this game, since it will be quite rewarded, giving us a story that could have left a mark if the Spanish translation had been present, but it is not the case. So history has been wasted outside of territories where Spanish is not spoken.
Another lack that The DioField Chronicle has is Artificial Intelligence, since it seems that it does not always attack as it should and that is why we will have to constantly give them orders, telling our units where to move and who or what to attack, since it seems that they will not move much, even when they are attacking us from two sides or more, thus being a challenge try not to eliminate the units. On the other hand, the Artificial Intelligence of the enemy units does not differ much, although it seems that they will always go to the rough, trying to launch all the attacks they can to take down all our troops.
Another factor that I did not like is that it seems that the game tries to make the enemies more resistant before giving us a challenge as such, since they will have a lot of life, but they will not be difficult to beat, but we will run out of skill or magic points prematurely on some occasions. This can become a serious problem, especially if we are facing the possible arrival of a final boss that has between two or more life bars, which can give us a little headache to defeat it, since we will have to go sometimes a battle of attrition, manually reviving our units, which we will have to take good care of if we do not want to regret having spammed skills.
a little disappointment
The DioField Chronicle has a lot of potential to be a great game, but thanks to the strange movements of Square Enix, this has not managed to be the title that many expected and that would make strategy games renew their formula that has not changed for many years. Probably with the addition of more translations, especially Spanish, it would have been reason enough to take into account the purchase of this game, but it has not been the case, so it remains off the radar of most players, thus remaining in oblivion as a game Square Enix did not know how to take advantage of remaining in the non-existence in the mouth of the company’s fans.