The Diofield Chronicle seemed to be another masterpiece of Square Enix after Triangle Strategy, but unfortunately, this is another big slide for this big game company.
The plot of The Diofield Chronicle takes place on a city called Diofield where it is ruled by a family whose leaders are blessed with the Mark of the Blessed, which is like a birthmark shaped like a stone. precious gem. Because this land contains many mysteries as well as hostile geographical position, this place is always in the sights of rival nations. Things gradually became clearer when the king grew old and weak, and the crown prince was assassinated. The crown prince’s best friend will have to stand up to solve the political plots, the dangers that are threatening the existence of the kingdom. It must be said that the game has a pretty good plot with full of twists and turns, but unfortunately the way the game is shown is disappointing. At each beginning of the important stages, we can follow the overview of the land through the pattern of moving chess pieces (quite similar to the opening of the Game Of Throne) this narration is quite good because it help players understand what is happening, things only really go down when it comes to the cutscenes of the characters together. It’s not clear if Square Enix’s motion capture team has just changed blood, but the simulation of the characters’ mouth movements is quite bad, their ability to express their expressions is almost nonexistent. The game’s dub, fortunately, I played for Japanese voice, so everything was pretty good, but the English part couldn’t be praised.
Square Enix is a very safe choice that is according to the safe formula of JRPG games when you will have a base to prepare for battles such as receiving quests, shopping even forging team members. The battles in the game mostly take place in real time with auto-stops so you can make choices about the use of skills this creates thoughts so we can make decisions more precise determination. Similar to the plot, following a formula makes the game have a pretty good opening, but the game can’t make progress in the later stages. Everything goes in a loop until the battle takes out all the enemies and then there’s the possibility of a new wave of enemies appearing and then killing them again to end the level, if they add more changes then the battles This battle did not become boring and lengthy. This monotony also extends through the enemy design as they have almost only two main types of action divided by close range and ranged attacks with variety with only a little upgrade in power and then animation. just changed a little bit. On the side of the characters that we control, things are a bit better with soldier , cavalier, sharpshooter, and magicker. You can recruit many different characters to make your team more diverse. These characters you need to use many different tactics to optimize their ability on the battlefield with melee units to attract enemy fire and then use cavalry to poke the lower ribs. the support of the remaining units. Sounds good, right, but the later inside, the combat system doesn’t develop further. You only have a few more enemies to kill in each battle sometimes we run into a few bosses with long health bars but they are just that, it just takes a little ingenuity to finish. The terrain of the levels is also another matter, although you will be fighting in the city, in the forest, in the swamp, these terrains do not seem to have the slightest impact on the character you are controlling. This makes the arrangement to entice the enemy often become meaningless (And here is the time, the location, the benefits, the people are even).
In general, I am quite disappointed in the quality of The Diofield Chronicle when the game seems to have inherited a lot of ideas and potential from its brother, but again Square Enix failed to take advantage of them.