I just played through the demo that got released tonight. It was pretty quick to get through, about 30 minutes to play through the whole demo. I'm honestly not completely sold on it. The combat didn't really grab me all that much, the last encounter was interesting compared to the rest of the combat but it still felt a bit dull to me. The frame rate was not locked in the whole time but for the most part seemed to be usually be around 30fps on ps4. I imagine the performance on Xbox one is probably similar. Anyone else have a different opinion about this?

How's the giraffe physics? What's carbuncle's phone number?

Man... contacting summons by phone.. sooner or later we'll start extracting them from PC's.

@xanadu: I agree that was super dull, and really weird. Like, I appreciate what they are trying to do, but man that felt like I was playing Kingdom Hearts 3.

The combat felt bad, like just bad. I was getting flashbacks to FF12 preset combat dullness with how it was just press square. For as badly as the very first demo controlled, at least it was interesting to explore the open world. This was confined, slow, dull, and left a bad taste in my mouth.

Also a dream sequence has got to be one of the worst things to show for a demo. Is how stuff plays in the dream sequence how it works in the actual game? Is that stuff dream zone only? I have no idea! Also I forgot how much I hate the Japanese take on children, particularly the sounds they make when lost and befuddled. So many stupid, unnecessary "gahs" and "huhs?"

I'm very confused as to why this got the green light to be their last big demo to try to sell the game.

Count me in for also thinking the combat was bad. I know comparing it to games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta is ridiculous, but even compared to Kingdom Hearts it seems ridiculously sub-par. I refought the final boss using the pedestal at the end of the area at least half a dozen times and even after pretty much having the boss' attacks memorized the combat never felt good. The dodging is wonky and inconsistent, your attack barely moves you forward which makes closing the distance tough, you can't cancel out of anything which is annoying and the framerate is all over the place. I'd gotten fairly excited for this game (never played the first demo), but this thing just knocked the wind right out of my sails. Also has me really worried about FFVII Remake, which I was already way more excited for than XV. Just make it play like Kingdom Hearts, those games control fine!

I watched it. Despite not owning a console, I am still fairly interested in XV. This was a bizarre demo, the combat did not inspire a lot of confidence.

Also, is it just me or do the special attacks of young Noctis, like the fireworks, just scream 'tech demo'? Like they were trying to show off particle effects and physics.

Because it IS more of a tech demo that happens to be playable. Just let's you mess around with some stuff. Pretty novel approach.

My only complaint is I wish you could fight the Iron Giant, with a full roster and not just Noctis solo, but was cool getting to use magic. Blowing up the barrels with it looks spectacular.

@adequatelyprepared: The entire thing screams tech demo. The random time advancing and weather changing buttons, the buttons to call out summons for a quick driveby, the buttons to turn you into a car or big animal. That said while it was super tech demoey, some of those spell effects really do look nice. Raindrops and Meteorain especially. I'll also echo the sentiment that the combat seems terrible.

Can anyone who played the first demo comment on how similar the combat is? Even in that battle against the Iron Giant it felt like there was some amount of mechanics from the previous demo that weren't in this one. Oh also how many of those little shards are there? I got to like 382 and that still wasn't enough to unlock the gold buttons. Which wouldn't have been a big deal but there is a hidden gold button in the large room up on top of some stuff in the back left corner and I really wanna know what it does.

I don't remember being too hot on the combat in the last demo, but oh man this felt like garbage. I don't think I can handle a 60 hour RPG's worth of that. Like, say what you will about KH's combat being simple and mashy, at least the basic controls were solid. This just felt super floaty and sloppy, right down to the simple act of moving around the areas (unless I missed it, there wasn't even a ledge-grab/mantle).

Also whoever thought that making magic into a grenade that you have to stand completely still while aiming to use is a goddamn monster.

EDIT: Forgot the biggest problem I had with this! "Remember when your dad got you that ball you wanted? But what you really wanted was for him to play with you!"

I didn't like that demo at all, its so sluggish. I don't really see the point demoing that section, cause this seems to be a very limited, separate part of the game, which I don't think works for a demo where it should probably show what most of the game is.

@atwa: I haven't been following FFXV much, but on the stream I just watched for it, they mentioned the content in the demo isn't even actually in the final game.

It is absolutely a tech demo and not content that will be in the final game, SE have said as much to people who played the demo before the public release. It's apparently meant to show off the look of the final game and some mechanics. They sure could communicate this better, though.

Combat is also greatly simplified over what was in Episode Duscae. Which makes it a weird demo, but it's SE, so that's somewhat expected.

Man, I hated it...like everything about it. I'm also super looking forward to this game, ugh.

I'm not the type of person that cares that much about frame-rate or resolution but the performance was awful. I know that stuff gets fixed late (Hitman retail was so much better than the Beta performance-wise) but it doesn't make me feel good about the final product. I've never liked Kingdom Hearts combat and this feels like that.

Really? Well that makes sense. It feels very throwaway.

As someone that hasn't really followed the Final Fantasy franchise too closely, I appreciate the move to having combat in the world rather than hunting through menus. But I wish the combat felt more responsive and varied. The flaws became painfully obvious at the boss, it just feels like it's lacking something. That being said, if the word on the final game is good once it's out, it might be something worth looking at. I don't think the demo swayed me in any direction really, but I didn't hate it, so that's something at least.

Really odd sounding demo. Hopefully they look at it on GB, on PC over here.

I feel like dodging should be mapped to circle and attacking should be on square. It also feels really strange to hold the button instead of tapping it to attack. Maybe with two separate attack buttons for medium and light attacks would make the combat more involved. This can't be all there is to the combat system, right? I haven't kept up with the game all that much but i guess with more stuff implemented the combat wouldn't feel so simple.

SE is almost Nintendo-like in their weirdness. Haven't tried it yet, doesn't sound like I'm missing much tbh.

Man, what in theeee fuck did i just play? So this is basically kingdom hearts now? The whole demo made no sense at all, didn't teach you anything about the combat and then you fight a big knight thing and pretty much figure out how to play on your own. I was thinking well ok, this sucks but at least i'll get to see the real game and then the demo ended smh.

Maybe i'm in the minority but as a huge final fantasy fan in the PS1 era I have no idea who this game is supposed to be for, my guess is kingdom hearts fans? (which i wasn't into at all since i'm not into disney and was grown when that shit dropped).

Man i just hate that i can't even enjoy final fantasy games anymore, they used to be the games i'd buy without thinking twice but after 13 i may never play one again. Well the MMO didn't seem to bad

@saft you only hold the button to block i think, but i found that that didn't work and tapping it right when the guy attacked did. Attacking was just mashing O for me.

With this being the first thing i've played of FFXV i'm not really sure what I was meant to get out of the demo. Is there some deep and hidden meaning to the 4 areas that somehow fills in the backstory? Does it highlight a fairly unimpressive lighting and weather system? I collected a bunch of gems, should I go back and get more? If so why?

Aside from the frameyness and overly contrasted lighting the game looked pretty good and controlled... ok, I guess. But i'm not really sure what this sets up for the full game or why I got to name the Carbuncle at the end? I'm kinda confused about the whole thing, but I'm here reading about the game now, so there's that.

after playing the demo..... it just really made me think that this game really needs a PC version, if only for a better frame rate, cuz it's not that great on ps4.

As a big turn-based Final Fantasy fan I absolutely hated everything about it. The game has weird hazy sort of glow look to it with jaggies on all the edges that I found very distracting, character movement doesn't feels right there's a short dely like in the Witcher 3 pre-patch. Lastly the one note combat is incredibly bland and boring hold attack until enemy dies hold dodge to avoid rinse repeat, there's no elegant way in changing targets for crowd control and the cameras too close giving no peripheral vision to avoid attacks. The only difference changing weapon makes is having a slightly longer wind up animation in each attack, magic has been reduced to a Gear of War grenade.

Demo didn't impress me one bit. For a game that's been in development this long, I expected it to run, and look better than this. Pretty embarrassing stuff. Uncharted 4 really puts this to shame. Combat is really lame. Spacing feels weird, combat feels unsatisfying.

It Just reminded me that we need to hear from those geniuses over at Persona Team soon

I haven't played it yet. But I'm not a fan of the game not being turned based combat. I'll give this a fair chance. I didn't like the other demo. So I'm not expecting much from this tech demo either.

I kinda had no idea what was going on. Why am I collecting jems? Are the day/night/weather panels important for something? I mean I get that it was a dream sequence but... Also that frame rate tho...

I'm guessing the majority here didn't see the reveal show, they explained that it wasn't part of the game, just a little teaser where the sole purpose is to unlock the carbuncle summon

not that I'm defending it, pretty sure this loses them sales in the long run, square make some mad decisions

I never knew Levelord got a job at Square-Enix!

Not gonna lie, it kinda killed a lot of the interest I had in the game. I know it's just a demo and everything, but that combat just seemed pretty boring. Who knows, maybe I'll like the final game more.

Through out the demo I was feeling pretty disappointed, until that final boss that's when it all started to click for me. It stopped feeling like kingdom hearts and it took on its own identity... At least for me.

I think the demo was a colossal failure. The purpose of a demo is generally to (1) give a player a general sense of what the game is about and (2) knowing what the game is about, get the player excited about the game. This failed on both accounts.

First, it did a really poor job of explaining itself. Why am I a kid? Why am I collecting coins gems? Why am I stepping on these plates to change the weather (which has no effect) or the time of day (which also has no effect)? The whole thing came across as more of a tech demo than an actual slice of gameplay.. Coming away from it, I still have no idea about the general plot, world, characters, or base systems of the game. It felt inscrutable, and it's hard to get excited about something inscrutable.

Secondly, assuming that things like the graphics, camera and combat are more or less in final form for a game coming out in September, the demo failed to get me excited at all. Just the opposite, in fact. I am less likely to buy the game now than I was prior to playing the demo. The combat feels really shallow and the camera follows the character too closely both in and out of combat. I will also say that although the graphics are "nice" in an objective sense, in a subjective sense I was expecting a great deal more. The game barely looks better than FFXIII, and in some areas worse (some of the textures are pretty rough and there were noticeable jaggies on a lot of edges).

Bad. Just bad all around. I really think Sqeenix needs to consider handing FF off to an entirely different team if they want it to survive (and by different team I mean an entirely different team. Between this and FFXIII it feels like there is too much creative inbreeding going on. Get rid of the directors, systems designers, graphics people, artists, the whole lot).

Movement felt clunky, and it really hit me how boring the character looks with his all-black everything while seeing him run around a fun Levelord map. Combat only got vaguely interesting when you get the warp, but even then it wasn't particularly exciting (or smooth (or fun)). Aiming magic was just... bad.

I did have fun collecting those stone things and driving around the car you get from silver plates. The father/son stuff seems like it could be sweet. Hopefully they can manage conveying the more personal stuff like that while also delivering satisfyingly big on the weird pseudo-future-kingdom-war thing.

Not a great demo. Carbuckle was cute though.

I had a good time. I can't tell if the new controls are better or not though, coming from Episode Duscae.

@saft: Attack actually was mapped to square in the first demo, no idea why they changed it. They also changed blocking from the L1 button, but it was way easier to time/tap it when you didn't have to take your finger off the attack button to press it, unlike this new demo (it looks like they have something else mapped to L1/R1 now, but pressing those buttons didn't seem to do anything?).

Has there ever been a good RPG demo? Seems like an impossible task and overall a lose-lose prospect for Square. For me, I'm not gonna miss a mainline FF (especially one 10 years in the making) but they should try to convince people on the fence w/ a good game. I've always avoided RPG demoes because they seem utterly pointless. These games demand 40-80 hours and take many hours to reveal themselves, wtf is a 30 minute demo going to accomplish except confuse the shit outta people?

Dragon Age 2 had a good demo, it was better than the actual game tbh. Final fantasy 7 had a good demo, basically the entire first level and made me end up buying the game after having no experience with RPG's or Final Fantasy at the time.

@teddie: When you push L1 and R1 at the same it brings up a bunch of swords around Noctis, which does... something. I dunno.

Final Fantasy X also had a great demo. I wasn't going to buy X until I played that demo. Ended up being one of my all time favorite FF games.

The Demo was so great, i cant wait for the Release

Combat felt like a sluggish, clunky and more dull version of Kingdom Hearts. Framerate was kinda ugh as well. Since Square explained that none of the content in the demo is actually relevant for the final game, I'm kinda wondering what's the point. Came away with the same perspective I had going in - waiting until reviews, but not expecting much.

I really enjoyed the game. The combat seems much improved over what Duscae was trying to do. I'm so much more confident of this game than I was a year ago.

Typical anime nonsense with really slow combat that didn't feel engaging at all. Also the framerate is pretty bad.

It's pretty much a playable tech demo, with all the time of the day and weather changes, things to break and push down, transformations into cars and animals, etc. I know this was a teaser but I don't think the setting of this demo and the way it played was the best way to sell the game to someone. The early part felt like a poor attempt at doing an old school 3D platformer with all that jumping around collecting floating gems. On the combat part I'm kind of conflicted but not completely bothered by it, even though a children fighting with toys seems like a really bad way to sell someone on that style of combat. Also, I didn't get to make summons with my phone, I feel like I missed some stuff based on what other people said.

Visually it looks really nice but it could use some anti-aliasing.

In the end it didn't make me more or less interested in the final game, but the only part I actually liked was the final part when he transformed into a grown-up and had a real fight.

I've been curious about XV and I still am. I've enjoyed some JRPGs and FF games from the SNES era, I'm not a JRPG nor a Final Fantasy guy but I could see myself playing XV if it proves to be any good.

@teddie: Huh, that's really strange. Sounds like they've made some questionable decisions with this new version. Was the combat in the first demo as simplistic as it is in this one? I mean more stuff will probably get introduced to the battle system as you progresses through the game, at least i hope so because i really want to like it.

Weird how the game reminded me of a 3d platformer with a bad jump. Like there is not enough airtime and forward momentum to actually feel good about jumping around. I could see those collectables being their strange method to guide the player around in the open-world. That seems like a Japanese solution from a dev that generally doesn't make those kind of games. 'What if the player gets lost and frustrated before they see the pretty cutscene?'

Performance was rough, graphics were worse than FF13 apart from some particle effects . so many jaggies and painful contrast. Transforming to a beast showed how static the maps are. You're telling me that this animal that includes rocks crumbling in his attack animation can't bring a lawnchair to fall? Transforming also caused a lot of wall clipping.

Combat felt underwhelming. Smaller enemies will die if you hold circle, Dodge is not very reliable against bosses and the roll dodge seems pretty useless when you can warp away as well. I guess there's room for some stagger combo's which might be interesting. Jumping in with a sword and changing to the hammer seemed useful.

Meteorain and raindrop looked pretty. Not a fan of magic grenades though.

Overall it was disappointing.

It's a tech demo, pretty cool in that regard. How many games let you drive around cars into blocks inside that one Unreal Tournament level? It's impossible to evaluate since it's a tech demo; but that September release date looks sketchy to say the least.

I named Carbuncle "Dumbass"

It seems like a weird demo to release to the public. All the "walk on this switch to check out our lighting/weather tech" and "look at these cool monster models" with a dash of "now find out how the cars will feel!" was super strange. I don't understand what the glowing crystals were for? I found the combat pretty monotonous and I wish the buttons were in different places to allow faster/easier switching between dodge mode and combat mode, but I like the idea behind it and I think a big group of monsters with lots of different attacks could be fun in the full game. The warp mechanic is neat but I'm not entirely sure why it exists outside of "get out of combat immediately". I think the graphics are nice, but the frame rate is pure ass. I don't know, its a strange thing overall.