I was able to try both the FFXV and Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep~A Fragmentary Passage~ demos at the Tokyo Game Show 2016 today, and here are my thoughts on how both demos played out! Enjoy~

Final Fantasy XV Demo:

STORY:

The demo is the beginning of the game in its entirety with no cut parts, starting from when you start as an older Noctis trying to fight the fire figure sitting on the throne in front of the Insomnia Citadel. It then goes to the actual CG opening, not shown in the 1 hour footage that was released last month, where Noctis is talking to King Regis. Noctis speaks very formally to his father (this is in Japanese), and refers to him as “Your Majesty,” instead of “Dad.” I thought that was an interesting part.

After Noctis leaves, his bros follow him, and then the next scene is Noctis going down the stairs of the Citadel to a car where apparently Cor has prepared for the four bros. King Regis then tells Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto to look over his son, and Noctis brushes it off. He then tells Noctis that “as a citizen of Lucis and as heir to the throne, remember to keep your head high.” Noctis then scoffs at this and says “Okay, okay I get it,” and then tells Drautos “Take care of my father for me.” (LOL THE IRONY).

The next scene is the bros stranded in the desert and pushing the car to Hammerhead. The song “Stand by Me” plays and you can move the car in pretty much any direction (besides backwards), and you can even veer to another side of the road, which pisses off oncoming cars LOL. When you’re pushing the car, you can also change the camera angles so that you can look at all the scenery around you. I personally did not think that the scenery changed THAT much compared to the game footage released last month, but the shrubbery has definitely improved.

After they push the car for a good 2 minutes or so, the title screen comes on and “Stand By Me” plays for a little longer before a loading screen pops up. I personally think that the game takes FOREVER to load, but maybe that’s because I’m impatient haha. You then see the guys at Hammerhead, and this is when Cindy comes and introduces Cid. The car is then placed in the garage, and you’re free to roam around for a bit. You can buy weapons and equip them to your characters, change their clothes, and check out abilities. After you complain to Cindy that the price for the repair is too high, she tells you that you can go on quests to help out Hammerhead with some monster problems. You then can go to the diner and take on quests to get money.

I chose the first quest where you have to get rid of horse-looking monsters. I spent more time exploring than actually doing the quest, and after I finally finished killing the monsters off, I went back to Hammerhead and got paid haha. After, I spent all my cash eating a fancy chicken steak rice dish, which gave all my characters some HP and stat boosts (around 150% boosts, which was pretty significant) for a temporary time.

I then went on the next quest to get rid of the sabertooth monsters, and I didn’t get too far when the time for the demo was up. However, I did see some players next to me take on that quest first, and you go into a shack when the monsters attack, and Prompto protects Noctis by shooting them off of him. Was a pretty cool scene.

GAMEPLAY:

First off, the demo looked like it was running from the original PS4, not the PS4 Pro, either that, or the TV that the demo was running on was definitely not a 4K TV. The button controls when you fight are pretty much the exact same as the Platinum Demo, but I personally liked the Duscae Demo controls more.

However, a significant difference I noticed is that the Duscae command “PARRY” is gone and is replaced by some kind of automatic attack that you can trigger by changing your weapons. I personally really liked the parry attack, but meh whatever. Also, if you want to link up with your bros to do combination attacks, there is a gauge on the left side of the screen where you can activate the combination attack using L1 and choosing who you want to pair up with to issue the attack. Each bro has a different style of attack, and when you choose the bro, he takes center screen and hits the monster before you return back to controlling Noctis.



Blocking is also kind of difficult and distracting because you would be fighting and then suddenly this big BLOCK button pops up in the center of the screen in red, and if you miss the timing, you still get hit. So it’s kind of an eyesore and also hard to see what’s going on because so much is going on now with little control from the player.

Another thing I noticed is that Noctis can dodge roll. I don’t remember being able to dodge roll in Duscae, but correct me if I am wrong! I thought it was interesting because you can actually dodge roll everywhere lol. Also, sprinting uses up stamina, and Noctis gets tired for a little bit before the sprint meter comes back, sort of like how the sprint meter works for Zelda Skyward Sword.

THOUGHTS/IMPRESSIONS:

I really enjoyed the Final Fantasy XV demo and wished I had more time to explore Hammerhead. I feel like Hammerhead alone will take me FOREVER to finish (I’m really slow at completing games), and we were allotted a good 20 minutes to play the game, but even so I barely got as far as the second quest (there were 5 available quests), and this was with a very tight time constraint so I couldn’t explore as freely as I wanted to. All in all, playing the demo just makes the wait for the game even worse since the gameplay is actually really fun, and I want to know more about the characters, the story, and just dive into FFXV wholly.

—–

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep ~ A Fragmentary Passage~

STORY:

You begin the story in an area in front of what looks like Cinderella’s castle where everything is floating in the air. Aqua notes that there are time machine looking things, and every time machine you find you will need to hit it in order to move back time so that the path to Cinderella’s castle is restored.

As Aqua, you venture through the small village in front of Cinderella’s castle that looks to be destroyed as you search for the time pieces. They’re hidden in various places, and after you find all the time pieces, the road to Cinderella’s castle becomes restored and a big heartless battle commences.

After the battle is done, you can proceed to Cinderella’s castle, where you see “Terra” walk down the stairs to greet you. The demo usually ends right at that moment.

GAMEPLAY:

The gameplay is pretty similar to Birth By Sleep, where Aqua has a finishing attack that damages all enemies around you. The most noticeable difference, besides the AMAZING GRAPHICS, is the use of magic. Much like how magic affects the surroundings in FFXV, this same concept is used in KH 0.2. When you use Firaga, fire scorches the surroundings around you and heavily damages the heartless. If you use Blizzaga, the surroundings freeze as well as the heartless you hit. If you hit the heartless while they’re frozen, if they are a weaker level, you usually KO them. However, some stronger heartless are a bit more resistant and it takes a few Blizzagas and hits to kill them. Thundaga is probably my favorite magic attack because it’s super powerful and hilarious. After you use thundaga, all the heartless start spazzing because they’re being electrified by the currents running through them.



The nearby surroundings also look temporarily different. Firaga, as aforementioned, will scorch all nearby areas, Blizzaga will cast an icy film over the area you use it, and thundaga causes electricity to run across the land for a few seconds. After a few seconds though, the magic wears off and the nearby surroundings go back to normal.

Aqua can high jump and do tricks in the air when fighting the heartless. Basically, the game play is very similar to Birth By Sleep. The only major difference is of course, the graphics, which look extremely smooth and beautiful. It almost feels like you’re playing a Kingdom Hearts CG scene because the shadows are so vivid and amazing.

THOUGHTS/IMPRESSIONS:

Birth By Sleep ~ A Fragmentary Passage~ is extremely fun to play and also visually so beautiful. It really sets a high precedent for Kingdom Hearts 3, and the “Kingdom Shader” really makes it look like you’re almost playing a CG scene. I’m not sure how long the KH 0.2 Aqua game will be in terms of length, but it is extremely promising with amazing music, making Kingdom Hearts 2.8 quite possibly one of the best if not the best “Final Mix” games so far.