When someone mentions strategy or the tactical RPG genre, they usually conjure up visions of turn-based combat that takes place on the network. Sure, there are exceptions, but battlefields are like games ghoul tacticsAnd the Final Fantasy TacticsAnd the DisgayaAnd the fire emblemwith its planes divided directly into rows and columns, it came to define the genre. Dewfield Chronicle Looking forward to break free from this cracked prison. Developed by Square Enix and Lancarse (known as Shin Megami Tensei: A Strange Journey) which was published earlier, Dewfield Chronicle It brings a new sense of strategic combat, even if what happens between battles is undeveloped.
Dewfield Chronicle It takes place on Dewfield Island, located off the coast of the mainland referred to as “the Continent”. Two warring factions, the Schoevian Empire and the Rowetale Alliance, have been fighting for years, and are now at a stalemate. Both pay attention to Deufeld, rich in jade, the fuel of modern magic. Sudden unwanted attention from the continent wreaks havoc on Deufeld’s balance of power as games of intrigue unfold between local rivals and foreign interlopers.
Players control Andrias. Andreas, formerly a servant of a young prince of the Duffield family, has been a mercenary ever since. Through the game’s early events, he and three other main characters—Andreas’ close friend Frederet, a wayward knight named Escarion, and a young noblewoman named and Genesis—come together to form the mercenary company Blue Foxes. Players experience the turmoil of Diofield through their eyes, along with plenty of internal drama between the group’s different characters as the band grows in size and reputation.
The narrative seems almost impenetrable at first. There are so many made-up words and unfamiliar proper names thrown in, and the few political intrigue at play seem to have a tangible impact on the lives of these characters. Throughout the game, many story events are communicated through monologues from an unseen narrator between battles rather than being seen or received through the characters’ eyes, making them seem somewhat impersonal.
However, over time, the story proved to be interesting. It makes players guess who is manipulating whom as loyalties and ideals clash. It is all wrapped in a certain irony as it exposes the corruption of one community institution after another even as the integrity of Blue Foxes itself struggles under the weight of its growing size and influence.
For fans of the SRPG genre, the story of the game will remind us Final Fantasy TacticsAnd the ghoul tacticsAnd the fire emblem. For mainstream audiences, the TV series will likely be the touchstone Game of thronesWhich seems to be a comparison, Square Enix tends to hire the show’s composers, Ramin Djawadi and Brandon Campbell, to score the game. Djawadi and Campbell do accurate work that fits the narration and can be easily listened to for hours at a time.
Dewfield Chronicle It throws turn-based network combat in favor of the “real-time tactical battle” system. This looks quite new but should feel familiar to anyone who has played a game in the MOBA genre like league of legends or defense of the first. The combat takes place in real time, although time stops while commands are given. Players control a group of four characters, giving them system as they battle against enemy forces, alternating between auto-attack and activation skills. The strategic elements aren’t all about strong positioning (although attacking from behind does increase “ambush” damage, and players will want to learn how to pull enemies away from large groups and gun turrets). Instead, most of the strategic energy of players in combat is directed towards synergy as they try to use their units’ skills to maximize DPS, AOA attacks, timed buffs, and refresh rates.
Speaking as someone who wasn’t particularly good at MOBA, Dewfield Chronicle I posed a little in the way of the challenge. I could practically walk through the fights with normal difficulty while yielding only a few setbacks, which I suffered mainly because of minor mental lapses and not because I had a difficult opponent. Players can increase the game speed to 1.5x or 2x the norm, which increases the difficulty proportionally as it requires players to make decisions faster. However, I found this an unsatisfactory challenge as it relies on frenetic activity rather than more literal tactics or more ferocious enemies. Also, when playing on the PlayStation 5, the increased speed highlights the limitations of the console-based control system, in which players use shoulder buttons to scroll through characters one by one or otherwise find them amidst the chaos on the map using an analog stick-controlled pointer. But he talks about the strong fundamentals of Dewfield ChronicleI never got bored and kept finding fights that even tens of hours into the game.
Between bouts of bloodshed, players can freely roam the halls of the Blue Foxes’ team home, Elm Camp. Here, players can make Andrias talk to other characters, do side quests, buy items, and upgrade skills and weapons. At first, it seems to be comparable to Dragon Age: InquisitionSkyhold or Fire Emblem: Three HousesDer Garreg Mach, but players will quickly learn that it lacks the depth or character of those other rules.
Conversations between characters are not interactive, and there is no system of personal bonding. Instead, each conversation is like a side request that results in resources to fund unit upgrades or unlocks an optional battle that, upon completion, will provide resources to fund unit upgrades. Conversations are entirely linear and are only nominally optional (side chats and questions are the only way to get paid for promotions). Elm Camp is, physically, more than a few rooms and dark corridors, and the upgrade and storage functions can be accessed from a menu at the start of the battle. Thus, having the base feels like an antique party, as if the designers planned to do more with it at first but then ran out of time or money, but only after they got to the point where it would be too costly to remove it entirely.
However, while the basic aspect of the game is undeveloped, the combat is the core Dewfield Chronicle It is a breath of fresh air. Combined with a story steeped in intrigue and drama, Dewfield Chronicle Fans of the genre are likely to please with the possibility of charting a new path for it in the future.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Diofield Chronicle will go on sale September 22 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Windows PC. Reviewed on PlayStation 5 with a review code provided by the publisher.
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