by Cloud3514

There are things I really like about Final Fantasy XV, but there are also things I don’t like. Of course, I’m also still getting over the fact that not only does the game actually exist, but that there is a playable demo of it.

Players looking for some sort of hint or preview of the story will be disappointed as the entire story for the demo is that the party’s car has broken down and they are trying to raise the money to have it fixed. Seriously. The demo is clearly here for two reasons. The first is to demonstrate the combat, the second to prove that the game still exists.

I have no problem with the lack of story. I expected it, in fact. After Final Fantasy XIII‘s self-playing combat, Square-Enix needed to put what you’ll be doing for 90% of the time when not watching cutscenes front and center. We can at least safely say that, even if the narrative and characters are bad, the game won’t play itself this time around.

What I am disappointed by, however, is that you really don’t get a feel of any of the characters. In the about three to four hours it takes to finish the demo, the only character building we get is through quick interactions they have in combat, as well as the opening and closing cutscenes. It doesn’t tell anything about who the characters are.

And how is the combat? Well, I have a some mixed feelings on it. When it works, it’s a lot of fun. Noctis’s ability to warp around usually adds a lot of mobility and flash to the game, while his ability to magically switch weapons on the fly give him a large variety of moves to work with. Unsurprisingly, at times, it feels a lot like Kingdom Hearts, which as a fan of that series, I am perfectly OK with.

However, the controls often feel unresponsive and slow, while the placement of the defend and targeting buttons on the left and right bumpers, respectively, is an awkward choice since the triggers do nothing from what I can tell. This probably works fine on the PlayStation 4 version of the game, but with the ergonomics of the Xbox One controller, reversing the triggers and the bumpers would have helped the controls considerably.

Oddly, to target enemies, the right bumper has to be held down. It’s just kind of weird. The targeting goes after whichever enemy you have in the center of the screen until you release the bumper. This works most of the time, but when you are surrounded by a large number of enemies or fast moving enemies, the targetting gets somewhat erratic. This would work considerably better if you didn’t have to release the target before trying to target another enemy. I would often try to change my target by holding the bumper down only for it to just release the target and do nothing.

Noctis equips five weapons. The demo gives him two swords, two spears and a great sword. These can be swapped around freely, meaning that normally he opens his attacks with a regular sword and his combos use another sword, but the option to switch to using a spear or greatsword for combos is there. It’s pretty fun to play around with this to try to optimize, but ultimately, I left the weapons in their default positions and I think it was most efficient that way. It will be interesting to see if the full game has more types of weapons and fighting styles for more options in combat.

The combat does not lend itself well to tight spaces and swarms of enemies. There is a lot of focus on defensive mobility in the combat and taking out one enemy at a time. It gets pretty frustrating when mobility is limited and you can’t warp away to catch your bearings.

On top of this, the game rewards the player with additional experience for winning fights quickly. Not a single time did I get any bonus experience while fighting Goblins, which have a habit of attacking in swarms. It feels somewhat unfair to get no bonus in fights where you have literally no choice but to take a few minutes at a time to fight.

There is a lot to like about Final Fantasy XV‘s combat, but it remains to be seen if it will stay likable or if it will outstay it’s welcome, which is a very large fear I have for it.

This is Cydney, one of two female characters we know of in the game. It should be obvious why some people are worried about how the game handles women.

Visually, the game is stunning. It looks absolutely fantastic and almost photorealistic. I have some personal issues with the visuals, for example, the character designs of the party manage to both blend together and have individual goofyness that I can’t say I like (IE, each character seems to want to outdo each other in how silly their hairstyles are), but it is fantastic on a technical level.

On that same technical level, however, sacrifices clearly had to be made. The anti-aliasing is low, leaving a lot of jagged edges on much of the game’s models. This doesn’t bug me, personally, but I am also the kind of person who immediately turns off anti-aliasing when a PC game isn’t running as well as I’d like.

Furthermore, while I cannot say for the PS4 version, which has the advantage of somewhat more powerful hardware, the framerate for the Xbox One version is inconsistent. Even when just walking along outside of battle, the framerate will dip when there is a lot on screen. There is often significant slowdown in combat. Hopefully Square-Enix can improve the optimization in time for release.

On the audio front, the bits of voice acting in the demo are solid. Each character is distinguishable and the performances are solid. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of it, so this should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but I am hopeful.

Musically, Yoko Shimomura of Kingdom Hearts and Xenoblade Chronicles fame brings her talent to the game. Most of the music is arranged from previous entries in the series, though the combat theme reminds me very strongly of Kingdom Hearts. I like what I’ve heard so far, but, like with the voice acting, there isn’t a lot of it.

Final Fantasy XV has a lot to prove, especially after Final Fantasy XIII. I am hopeful, but there are flaws aparent, even in this small sampling. If Square-Enix takes the reactions to the demo, good and bad, and uses them to fine tune the game, perhaps Final Fantasy can reclaim the prestige it used to carry.

Written by Nerd Bacon