Ben-DutkaSo after the mega-huge "Uncovered" event , we now have a confirmed launch date for Final Fantasy XV .
And surprise! We got another demo, too. And as opposed to last year's Episode Duscae (of which Square Enix released two versions ), this one – dubbed the Platinum Demo – is supposed to show off the game's completed graphics and finished combat and magic systems.
It's a pretty hefty 3.8GB download but it'll only take you about a half-hour to complete, or maybe more like 45 minutes if you're trying to explore everywhere. At the end of the demo, you can name the Carbuncle Summon – if you don't like the default name, you can change it – and you're asked if you'd like to order FFXV right then. I'm wondering how many people hit "yes" based on what they played… It's an excellent feature and one more demos really need to have, especially when we're talking about a super high-profile title like this one. Square Enix has a lofty sales goal of 10 million , so they're going to have to pull out all the marketing stops. And besides, as the game won't be here until September 30, it's a good idea to get players to pre-order now, lest the memory of the demo wanes over time.
Do you think there was enough in this particular demo to convince most players of a purchase? Do you think the quality was high enough? Do you think we were given a very, let's say, representative sampling of what the final product will be like? One could argue that as we traverse a child-like dreamscape and roam about with Noctis as a young boy (we use squeaky hammers and toy swords as weapons), it's a little…left of center. It has the atmosphere of a Kingdom Hearts as opposed to an epic, open-world action/RPG where a team of adults travels a huge fantastical world, slaying all manner of crazy demons. So, this demo isn't really indicative of the general design or structure, which some may find off-putting.
What's your take? Has playing this demo convinced you, one way or the other? Or are you still on the fence? If you haven't downloaded it and you don't intend to, but you'd like to see some of it, here's a walkthrough:
I've been to busy to turn on my PS4 let alone turn it on to download a demo.
Don't waste time on this demo bro.
That's awesome.
While battling the boss, I find myself unable to dodge a few times because the controls felt unresponsive and I think things might be chaotic if there's a battle with a massive enemy or multiple enemies.
I thought there was too much going on battling only one boss.
That aside, the combat is pretty fun and simple, just what you would expect from a Nomura game.
The game is nothing like a GOTY, but I'll still get it.
I mean, even though FF has lost some JRPG elements, the story is still intriguing.
Last edited by Snaaaake on 4/1/2016 10:36:53 PM
The Duscae demo had the same damn problem
The controls are unresponsive because the basic movement mechanic is severely flawed and clunky.
The flaws aren't game-breaking, but it might get annoying, hell, can you imagine fighting Adamantoise with clunky controls?
Reason for SE's continuous' decline is going from "Not making a great JRPG" to "Not making a great game".
Now I don't hate the demo, I enjoyed it, but if the final product is going to be similar, expect a score of 70-80% on Metacritic.
And that is well well below FF's standard.
Last edited by Snaaaake on 4/2/2016 12:21:35 AM
I played through the short demo just a bit ago.
The demo did two things for me.
It made me aware of how mechanically and technically challenged it is in it's current state. This extends through just about every aspect I can think of.
It also made me feel a good amount of heartfelt soul in the experience. And in that it makes it feel compelling by way of the emotion. I still feel a unique S-E Final Fantasy feeling about it, despite playing so very differently.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 4/1/2016 10:47:12 PM
"The demo did two things for me.
It made me aware of how mechanically and technically challenged it is in it's current state. This extends through just about every aspect I can think of."
YUP.
I had the same feeling too, it's nothing like JRPG but the little fangirl in me was screaming IT'S FF!!
It's kind of at the dead last bottom list of things I want to do on my PS4 to be honest with you, I'm hearing such bad things about it.
Also, as a man slow to anger, I'm beginning to get there as I am bombarded all day long with emails and texts and delusional fanboys to buy this game or die for crimes against humanity. There's something very uniquely wrong here about how it is being rolled out and nobody notices it but me.
I was bored. I get it was meant to teach us the controls, but that's kind of lame for a demo. Maybe they should have tried to get us interested in the game…
It was more tech-demo than game.
The demo went out of it's way to try and impress you with it's rendering engine.
In some ways it shows some strengths but because it can't seem to do anything at a consistent pace it doesn't impress.
Just by running around in empty scenes had the frame-rate chugging at around 20-25fps.
They were probably better off choosing a middle-ware engine like UE or CryEngine.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 4/2/2016 1:00:33 AM
This not only convinced me but cemented my choice of prioritize Persona 5 over this crap, damn the combat it's so bad, really you people want FFVII combat to be like this too?.
They are making World of Final Fantasy which looks like Ni No Ku Ni and is turn based…no sound for that. I was already convinced for XV years ago. I'm positive this will be the best FF yet and best selling.
I would be extremely shocked if it outsold FFVII.
Or X or VIII for that matter.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 4/2/2016 2:11:42 AM
I don't think its 1080p. Image quality seemed too soft.
For a demo that is used as a show piece to sell you on the full game, literally because it asks, it's in an alarmingly rough state.
its got a cute little uni-cat-rabbit though.
Probably turns into a fearsome beast at some point in the game… to save your life.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 4/2/2016 2:07:17 AM
I'm pretty sure that was a carbuncle.
Yeah , it s a carbuncle . When you can choose to name it , it s the default one .
Well, I know I won't get it back when square enix decided to mess with their old fans. After playing, it made me glad I'm not buying anymore games from square enix. Combat was not what I wanted. If I wanted This combat, there's kingdom hearts which probably has a better system. For a game in development for that long, graphics doesn't seem to be where it should be. Then I turned into a car and an animal and thought "what the he'll is this?". I couldn't even finish the demo and just deleted it after playing.
Kingdom Hearts III better not be this crappy, that's all I have to say.
Yes it was so damn Disney the demo, with the toy car and animal morphing(wich made the combat even more clunky) made me dislike the Demo, at the end there's a serious battle but still the awful combat remained, I was never fan of KH so I don't know if those game also had crap combat, but I'm not gonna waste a buck on a FF with this kind of gameplay.
What I loved about the demo was just how charming it was. It relieved my biggest fear in showing that Final Fantasy XV is not just this DArk-Serious game, but it can also allow for fun. I had a great time exploring the areas and testing the mechanics, Also I love Carbuncle! It's great to seethat not all XV's sumons will be grand titans.
As for being a demo which pitches the sale of the game, that was Duscae, I see this merely as a presentation of the games physics. Trying out vehicles, building block towers falling and even animal abilities… This isn't a demo which is going to win over any newcomers, it's really a presentation for the fans. Duscdae was the demo to give players a sesne of the core gameplay this was just a little treat and I hope we play as young Noct in the main game at some point 🙂
Honestly, if you we're not won over by Duscae or the content of the uncovered event, I wouldn't bother with the game. Me, I'm pumped! I love what S-E is doing with the Universe and for picking up the remains of vxXIII & finally making it into something rather than abbandoing it. As far it betraying FF's roots in being an Action-RPG, I really don't care, the most important thing for me is that Final Fantasy needs to feel like an adventure, which this game is presenting jsut as well as previous FF's. Pre-Ordered the Deluxe Edition.
I would be more excited for a 12 remaster or even a 13 collection since I only bothered with the first one.As for XV I'll get it from a bargain bin in a year or two, it did look pretty though.
Yeah.. Its good that you didn't play past ff13, lol.
First off 30 minute demo my butt. It took me longer to download the game then to play it. It took me like 15 minutes to beat the demo. All i have to say is damn this is shorter then MGS 5: Ground Zero. Though at least we didnt have to pay for this demo. With all that being said im still getting FF XV day one.
That's because anything with Hideo Kojima is worth paying for regardless of the length.
I played the demo. Interesting, but not what I was expecting. It felt more like a kingdom Hearts game. I hope the game is better and does not include the dream world which I think was corny in my opinion. I expected a more serious approach with yeah some jokes but no "toy story"/"ant-man world" level.
Last edited by TheOldOne on 4/2/2016 12:19:08 PM
i wasnt too impressed with demo. controls are clunky af. graphics werent anything amazing as it looked like a remastered ps3 game. maybe theyll have cool cgi scenes. but that might be it.
i kept thinking to myself this feels and looks like kingdom hearts.
im giving the demo benefit of the doubt that its intentionally watered, diluted, and filtered down to feel and look like that.
Even the father of Final Fantasy himself said he questioned whether SE was taking this franchise in the right direction. Just funny how that had more of an influence on them considering taking Final Fantasy back to its roots than millions of the upset fanbase that helped this franchise get to where it even is today.
Must be some code of honor in the Japanese culture.
I noticed how they squashed most of what Sakaguchi said when they mentioned that meeting. The next iteration has no core spin-off soul to stick to since this game wasn't supposed to be a real FF to begin with so we will see if they see the light.
Indeed. With a dev like SE they shouldn't be having so many issues with clunky responsive controls and frame rates. Those aspects of gameplay, if not polished to perfection or to at least something that feels and plays really well, may turn off those that are still giving this game a chance.
There are obviously people out there that aren't to fond of the action based gameplay but if these control issues aren't polished in the final product, I foresee SE's vision for what they wanted the player to experience falling on its face. It may not be tradition Final Fantasy combat but for heaven's sake actually make what IS there enjoyable.
The last thing you want is for a game that took this long to develop to come out being unplayable because of shoddy frames rates and controls.
Last edited by shadowscorpio on 4/2/2016 5:24:58 PM
Just got done messing around with the first demo. The combat seems likes it's been further simplified in this Platinum demo. WTF?!
It has but I think that's to assure us that this game is aiming at a Kingdom Hearts fanbase since it can't count on a Final Fantasy fan base anymore. At the end we can see how it looks more like the chaotic garbage-nonsense that was in Duscae. I think that will remain intact. The point here seems to say that its so accessible even Americans can play it by just holding down a button. You don't even need to do anything anymore.
My reasoning behind it is that compared to Duscae – this was more of a "tech demo" kind of thing. It really wasn't something planned ahead of time and was just rushed out to give "something" for fans to actually see and play and all.
Get the hype train chugging along and all…
With that said – I still hope Square Enix is listening to just how much optimization of the game they actually have to do here. The frame rate…ugh…the movement – sluggish. I really hope its not like this in the final game.
Okay I just played it, I see the pos and the negs. Mostly I see someone saying "We have a Kingdom Hearts game here, we want that audience to buy it, there's nothing to fear, please come and see."
There's nothing to suggest it's an RPG. I'm considering publishing an unbiased review here if anyone's interested in reading it/slamming me on it.
Based on the downvotes here it will be mostly slamming.I still think they should have stayed with the versus name and kept it as a spinoff . It Doesn't matter though as it will mostly probably outsell the last three games combined.
So then kingdom hearts isnt an RPG?
It's sad that people can't separate truth from opinion anymore.
Bah, don't bog me down with the if..thens. I'm saying there are no indicators of RPG in this demo. I'm confident there will be many in the game. I'm also confident they will be weak, like Kingdom Hearts.
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 4/3/2016 1:43:41 PM
It having Final Fantssy in the title and not being a spin off (i.e explorers or world of final fantasy) was already enough to convince me to buy… but if we weer just goin by that demo (and the one before it) then no.. i wouldnt buy that game as the gameplay is bad and the game itself is boring…… soooo why buy it if i feel that way? Simple its an FF game so i at least expect a good story an the cutscenes Ive seen so far convince me that Ill get that. Ive been known to suffer bad and or boring gameplay for a good story (mass effect).
Lol. Many people glorify Mass Effect. And its not perfect, but the story as you said was the thing that kept me playing the trilogy.
Dammmmmmmmn. I just finished the demo and… THE FRAME rate?!
Five more months, good luck. I'll believe.
This not only convinced me but cemented my choice of prioritize Persona 5 over this crap, damn the combat it's so bad, really you people want FFVII combat to be like this too?.
I would be extremely shocked if it outsold FFVII.
Or X or VIII for that matter.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 4/2/2016 2:11:42 AM
I'm pretty sure that was a carbuncle.
They are making World of Final Fantasy which looks like Ni No Ku Ni and is turn based…no sound for that. I was already convinced for XV years ago. I'm positive this will be the best FF yet and best selling.
Kingdom Hearts III better not be this crappy, that's all I have to say.
Well, I know I won't get it back when square enix decided to mess with their old fans. After playing, it made me glad I'm not buying anymore games from square enix. Combat was not what I wanted. If I wanted This combat, there's kingdom hearts which probably has a better system. For a game in development for that long, graphics doesn't seem to be where it should be. Then I turned into a car and an animal and thought "what the he'll is this?". I couldn't even finish the demo and just deleted it after playing.
Yes it was so damn Disney the demo, with the toy car and animal morphing(wich made the combat even more clunky) made me dislike the Demo, at the end there's a serious battle but still the awful combat remained, I was never fan of KH so I don't know if those game also had crap combat, but I'm not gonna waste a buck on a FF with this kind of gameplay.
I would be more excited for a 12 remaster or even a 13 collection since I only bothered with the first one.As for XV I'll get it from a bargain bin in a year or two, it did look pretty though.