Square Enix’s The DioField Chronicle is 2022’s sleeper RPG hit

polygon.com:

Some friends and I have a saying about video games: “Less talk-y, more do-y.” It’s an extremely broad (and sometimes refutable) criticism aimed at the fact that, more often than not, video games are better when they let their gameplay speak for them. The DioField Chronicle is the latest champion of this sentiment.

Released last week, The DioField Chronicle is yet another in Square Enix’s wealth of 2022 releases. Billed as a tactical RPG, it eschews the turn-based grid combat of a Fire Emblem, XCOM, or Final Fantasy Tactics, opting instead for real-time battles on freeform maps. As Oli Welsh pointed out in August, it plays sort of like a MOBA. My own playthrough unfolded like an A-Team training montage as I swapped between party members, activating their respective special abilities while those of their teammates cooled down.

I fully expect DioField to go down as one of 2022’s “hidden gems,” and that’s OK. It’s not the boldest tactical RPG, and it’s not trying to be. Its dialogue is sparse, its plot points contrived, and any semblance of emotional gravitas is thrown out the window in favor of shoving me toward the next battle with a surprise horde of zombies. And herein lies DioField’s greatest strength: It gets to the point.

In March, I wrote about my disappointment with Triangle Strategy, a game that could have been truly great if it had only gotten out of its own way. Its turn-based battles and base-building strategy systems were excellent, and they led to some fantastic emergent storytelling. But they were separated by monotonous, overwrought cutscenes about political subterfuge and geopolitical strife, some of which took longer than 20 minutes to finish. By the time each exploration or combat scenario rolled around,