The Diofield Chronicle – Preview

It’s always tricky for a developer to create fun strategy games on consoles. More than often the controls for these games are lacking on consoles, and the gameplay then ultimately turns into a hassle rather than a fun experience. Of course, we have seen developers and publishers pull this off successfully, as was the case with XCOM 2 Collection for Switch, which mainly suffered from long loading times. Now, however, we trade in XCOM’s aliens for medieval battles and fantasy creatures in The Diofield Chronicle, Square Enix’s strategy title that is currently still in development. We were able to play the demo, and we quite enjoyed what was on offer here.

In The Diofield Chronicle, you’ll be thrown into a world that is at war with a fantasy medieval setting. It’s mainly different ‘noble’ factions who are once again using the common people as their disposable tools. You’ll command a troop of young but well-seasons soldiers while they also pursue their own personal goals. Of course, you’ll also have to battle for the faction you’re then part of. The story can be a bit all over the place, and we did find it hard to see the bigger picture at the beginning. Nonetheless, the overall charm comes from the characters themselves and the conversations they have amongst themselves.

The game also has fairly decent visuals, but it’s clear that this is a multi-platform title, as we never had the impression the game was pushing the boundaries of our PS5 console. You’ll fight on quite a few battlefields, each often having its own unique backdrops. The battlefields themselves are quite simple-looking, but this might actually be a plus. It’s best not to have that much going on in the background, as this would distract the player from the constant micro-managing of the battles. The characters have somewhat typical anime aesthetics, albeit with toned-down facial features. The English voice acting was great, but it didn’t sync properly with the characters’ mouth movements, which was sometimes quite offputting. The sound design, as a whole, was quite good.

In our base of operations, we were able to roam around freely in a third-person view. While this was a fun touch at first, we eventually started using the map to quick-travel from room to room in order to progress the story. We probably had the most fun going from one battlefield to the next, as combat is still the main component of the game. The combat is reminiscent of older games such as Icewind Dale, in which you can give orders to your party, and then micro-manage where needed. Combat in The Diofield Chronicle, however, is a lot more dynamic. Battles happen in real-time, and you constantly need to adjust the placement of your troops to deal more damage or to perform skills. These skills look quite flashy and are also one of the game’s main attractions.

Controls are an important aspect of games such as these, and we found controlling the game with a controller to be very intuitive. You’ll only have a limited number of buttons that you’ll need to keep track of, and for the most part, there aren’t any complicated button combinations either. You can easily select all characters, and it’s also fairly easy to select single characters as well. In the heat of more hectic battles, we did sometimes miss ‘click’ and this then resulted in one of our characters taking damage we could have avoided. The game also had a function where you can speed up certain battles or other events, which is also a plus.

Conclusion

The Diofield Chronicle is a fun console-ready strategy title with interesting characters and a fun setting. While the story may sometimes be a bit all over the place, you do end up getting attached to the game’s characters and you’re eager to learn what new enemy is lurking around the corner. The game’s biggest strength may be the intuitive controls, which is something that is often not a given when playing games like this on a console. We were only able to play through the demo for our preview, and thus we can’t determine yet how the game will turn out with more content thrown into the mix, but we do suggest keeping an eye on this one if you’re looking for a fun and accessible strategy game.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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