Square Enix has often offered us worthwhile games, we can even say that nowadays it's a name that sounds good with licenses such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, or even Life is Strange among other successes. Today, we have the right to The DioField Chronicle, a game that places us at the head of a troop of atypical mercenaries. Is this another achievement to put on the SE board? Let's see this.
Graphics & atmosphere
The game visually offers a fairly decent experience in terms of the main base and everything related to this phase, it's clean, it's correct, but how smooth! On the other hand, once on the battlefield, we find ourselves with a really interesting visual, skills that are nice and something really not bad at all, whether in terms of the bestiary or monster attacks, some of which are truly sublime. Without counting the animations of the chimè... of the luminorbes.
In terms of sound, it's exactly as for its visuals, the base offers a clean and sober experience, with a plus in the theme during battles.
History
War rages on, except in the kingdom of DioField which is neutral and teeming with vital resources essential to the war effort. That's where you come in by joining a troop of mercenaries who lost a valuable comrade years ago. You do your best to save your kingdom against threats, and rise in the hierarchy. But the threats and conspiracies lurking in the shadows are many and much darker than you might suspect...
Gameplay
The game is divided into two phases, the base phase and the battle phase. The first is a preparation in itself, the second is the pure action phase. Let's see it in detail.
La base
Here you can buy equipment, choose your missions, and prepare yourself properly to carry them out. You also have access to equipment and improvements that will help you during your fight. But not only, because you will also have the opportunity to redo the old missions whose objectives have been missed, or even simply to discuss with the members of your team. You will also have to tweak and customize everyone's skills to prevail over your style of play. It should be noted that it is possible, for money, to improve your facilities.
The improvements
You will have access to a class-style specific skill tree that will be available with the correct weapon, giving you the opportunity to choose a specialty and inherently decide your team composition. But don't worry, each character can have a subordinate who gives them their attacks and therefore part of their power. There are so many possibilities like putting characters at a distance during melee to obtain a versatile combination, or pairing up the same class to have abilities that complement each other on a character. It's up to you.
In addition to that, you can customize the passives of your characters by assigning them points (which can be reset) giving you decisive advantages during your fights. Pretty laughable in the early game, very strong as you go up the buffs, such as 30% damage to targets with very powerful conditions on their own.
The Battle
So you have a team of 4 people who will fight during missions with objectives granting you points for the skill tree, ores for weapons, or simply gold for the shop. The goal will be to advance and defeat the units while avoiding being beaten. To do this, you can use the environment to help you, or you can simply use your skills (which consume PE) or your powerful summons. We will recognize the legendary Bahamut from Final Fantasy, or even Golden Horn (original creation) which will restore your PE (mana) and PV (life) to your team. It is also useful to note that your Luminorb summon gauge can store up to 3 orbs which determine the number of times you can use your summons.
The units you come across will drop orbs when they die that will restore your life, your summoning gauge, or even your PE, which will help you move forward without suffering too much. Sometimes you'll have minibosses, sometimes you'll have fairly strong and powerful bosses who can eliminate your team quickly if you don't manage your placements, your attacks, or your PE gauge. Each fight will ask you to pay attention to your placements for maximum damage, to use your skills to counter those of the enemies via stuns or various alterations. But more than that, the tactical sense will have to be at work for these fights in real time.
Summary
The Diofield Chronicle presents us with a certain potential to please fans of the genre. The first chapter shows the game globally, but does not yet make it possible to establish a prognosis on the complete campaign which should hold its share of surprises. But from what I've seen, I like it, even if the game isn't revolutionary! Do I recommend it? If you like this kind of game, without hesitation. If you discover the style? You can test the first chapter totally free while waiting for its release on September 22, so get started without too much risk in the adventure!
