The DioField Chronicle from Square Enix offers fresh combat, but stale conversations abound in its demo for Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and Windows PC.
It used to be that tactical role-playing games were an esoteric and underrepresented genre that existed mainly in the 16-bit past. Not so now, thanks in large part to Square Enix, which these days loves nothing more than to place low- to medium-budget bets on every niche nook and cranny enjoyed by its fandom and represented in its back catalog. Earlier this year, the publisher released Triangle Strategy with Nintendo. In November, it will publish a remaster of the classic Tactics Ogre. Sandwiched between them, on Sept. 22, comes The DioField Chronicle, an unheralded, humble, and curious diversion from the genre orthodoxy.
In contrast to those other two games, and other genre stalwarts like Fire Emblem, The DioField Chronicle dispenses with a movement grid, and with turns. This is a loose, free-flowing, mildly hectic game that plays out in real time. You field a squad of four units and control them rather like the hero units in a real-time strategy game or a MOBA. You point and click to move them around the battlefield and flick restlessly from one unit to the next, commanding to use their abilities, heal, or get out of trouble, always with one wary eye on what’s happening on the rest of the field.
The underlying mechanics and mathematics might be similar to those of a turn-based tactical RPG, but the feel is very different. This is not a game of chess in which you carefully plot and optimize your every move. It is a game of multitasking and quick, on-the-fly prioritization. One thing hasn’t changed, though: Placement is everything.
