Final Fantasy XV: Platinum Demo Thread

It wasn't really a gameplay demo as much as it was just a tech demo. Shows off lightning, scale, a couple summons, environments, and weather.

Then they give you a little battle at the end and a chance to scale the tower using warp strike, which was a neat touch. Hitting the enemy below from the highest point I could get to would stun the enemy and deal 7.5x damage warping from the top all the way to the enemy. I'd assume that there's a way to abuse the mid warp stuff too.

Combat was kinda underwhelming and unresponsive still, and the camera seems worse. Good thing i'm used to a claw grip cause changing weapons mid-combo is a PITA. The UI is really minimal, but at the same time it's super bland. I feel like there's a way to make minimal-styled menus but still have them look good. This is just flat.
 
I played the demo! My impressions:

- Graphically speaking, it's a little step up from FF XIII, specially the textures! It feels good the fact that wood really seem like wood!
- On the other hand, framerate is below par. It's NOT smooth. Actually, I don't think it's even close to 30 fps.
- Combat is... nice. Like some users, I had some problems getting used to the "attack is O, defending is Square", but I think it's just a matter of getting used to.
- Responsivenes is ok, but I would much prefered it to be little quicker. It feels like... Fifa 14 and older ones.
- At least the combat is better than FF XII to my taste. The camera is panned out, having better angles than FF Type-0. Might be a problem because of the size of the game
- It's a little fun ride. To me, it was a positive experience overall.
 
I'm so glad I'm at a point in my life now where the simple pleasures of gaming aren't ruined by meaningless details derived from some inexplicable need to be critical about everything and the constant, pointless search for perfection that doesn't exist.

I enjoyed the demo for what it was, a brief lighthearted romp through a tiny section of a vast world that I can't wait to explore in full.
 
Played the demo and enjoyed it, the only thing I really didn't like, is spells taking up weapon slots, they should make the weapon wheel (not sure what it's actually called) separate from the spells, felt really limiting having them take up a weapon slots and vice versa.
The combat in general could do with a bit of work overall though, just felt too slow and clunky, but maybe a lot of that was just due to the weapons available.
 
Y2Kev said:
I'll get the real version on ps4k
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Seriously, when playing this the image quality looked so bad that I am convinced there has to be a PS4K version. Looking at this image quality really makes me feel like it's a joke they'd release it like this.

I'm typically not like this with games and graphics, but there's no reason why this should look noticeably worse than the PS4 version of FF14. This just doesn't look good to me. I looked at the crystal formation near the little pond in the starting area and it looked like I was looking through Vaseline covered glasses: completely off putting.
 
aramanKain said:
I'm so glad I'm at a point in my life now where the simple pleasures of gaming aren't ruined by meaningless details derived from some inexplicable need to be critical about everything and the constant, pointless search for perfection that doesn't exist.

I enjoyed the demo for what it was, a brief lighthearted romp through a tiny section of a vast world that I can't wait to explore in full.
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That's quite the generalization you're making there.
 
Acquiescence said:
I'm playing through it at the moment. Two things...

This is straight up Kingdom Hearts, not FF.

The graphics... this demo isn't meant to be representative of the final product visually is it? It looks decidely unimpressive, and that's putting it politely.
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I have the same feeling about the graphics, from a company that is supposed to excel in this area, it looked.... rough. Actually it doesn't look much better than XIII. Even Carbuncle looks crap. I don't class myself as a graphics whore either.
 
Shirakani said:
Any Soulsborne players here try to dodge the Iron Knight as if it were a Souls game just on pure gut instinct to 'having to fight something very muchedly biggers than you'?

I know I did, and kept reverting to that mindset... I had to TELL myself look this is a fucking SQUEENIX product, alright? Its a press A to Awesome product, not a 'git gud' product!...
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Square Enix can be make frame perfect dodging and good combat systems. Just play Lightning Returns. Kingdom Hearts also has a great fun responsive system. I don't know why then this game's system is so poor.
 
aramanKain said:
I'm so glad I'm at a point in my life now where the simple pleasures of gaming aren't ruined by meaningless details derived from some inexplicable need to be critical about everything and the constant, pointless search for perfection that doesn't exist.

I enjoyed the demo for what it was, a brief lighthearted romp through a tiny section of a vast world that I can't wait to explore in full.
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Passive aggressive much?
 
Jennipeg said:
I have the same feeling about the graphics, from a company that is supposed to excel in this area, it looked.... rough. Actually it doesn't look much better than XIII. Even Carbuncle looks crap. I don't class myself as a graphics whore either.
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I always thought the in game graphics in FF were bad-average. Cgi's a different story

The game looks like it could potentially be amazing visually, but right now it looks like I'm playing it on medium settings with not even the lowest tier of AA . I'll wait for the PC version if it comes
 
Exentryk said:
Episode Duscae had an ability called Knightsguard that let you heal completely the damage your took, if you timed a button press right after taking a hit. That ability was kind of a patch for this battle system. Without it, this system is really really poor.

But thinking about it, I think Episode Duscae 2.0 was a little more responsive than this demo. It's been some time since I played it though, so might be mis-remembering.

Overall, the game still prioritises animation too much. It doesn't care for player responsiveness. It's probably best to not expect much from this game's combat.
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Yes!!

That was it. The game prioritizes animation way too much. When in other games it was made more important for player to feel swift and accurate in their actions while sacrificing detailed animation on the character's torso and limbs, FFXV took the opposite route of making every little character animation executed, fighting and taking precedence over player input every so often. For instance, the little attack withdrawal Noctis makes after pressing the O button once to attack once. That stupid animation makes it Noctis reset the combo, destroying the pace of the combo and disabling any sort of control over the timing of your next strike. It forces player to either stop, or hold the button for the next attack to occur. If I press O once, stop briefly, Noctis does this animation, I press O, it just keeps doing that animation. Fuck that shit. Or if I'm lucky, it does skip the animation, but it performs the same "first" strike animation rather than the next one, because apparently the combo has reset and I started a new one. Like god fucking dammit, why does it have to be like that? The crappy weapon deck system is already gone, why keep part of the element in the game!!?

Are the developers too busy making the graphics and techs and animations and forget making good, smooth, responsive gameplay? I seriously wander about this. Have anyone in the gameplay department ever play KH2FM, Oath in Felghana, Tales of Graces f, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, Bloodborne or other great ARPG before?
 
aramanKain said:
I'm so glad I'm at a point in my life now where the simple pleasures of gaming aren't ruined by meaningless details derived from some inexplicable need to be critical about everything and the constant, pointless search for perfection that doesn't exist.

I enjoyed the demo for what it was, a brief lighthearted romp through a tiny section of a vast world that I can't wait to explore in full.
Click to expand...

Honestly it's not bad. FPS wasn't "atrocious" either.. Or maybe it was and I just didn't care
 
Hold on. You telling that one moment in time, ONE MOMENT IN TIME, people were actually excited about FF again during the event is already over?

Flames to dust.
Lovers to friends.
 
oti xero said:
Hold on. You telling that one moment in time, ONE MOMENT IN TIME, people were actually excited about FF again during the event is already over?

Flames to dust.
Lovers to friends.
Click to expand...

I'd still be high as hell off all those announcements if it weren't for the quality of the demo...
 
Dark_castle said:
Yes!!

That was it. The game prioritizes animation way too much. When in other games it was made more important for player to feel swift and accurate in their actions while sacrificing detailed animation on the character's torso and limbs, FFXV took the opposite route of making every little character animation executed, fighting and taking precedence over player input every so often. For instance, the little attack withdrawal Noctis makes after pressing the O button once to attack once. That stupid animation makes it Noctis reset the combo, destroying the pace of the combo and disabling any sort of control over the timing of your next strike. It forces player to either stop, or hold the button for the next attack to occur. If I press O once, stop briefly, Noctis does this animation, I press O, it just keeps doing that animation. Fuck that shit. Or if I'm lucky, it does skip the animation, but it performs the same "first" strike animation rather than the next one, because apparently the combo has reset and I started a new one. Like god fucking dammit, why does it have to be like that? The crappy weapon deck system is already gone, why keep part of the element in the game!!?
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I was really hoping that they'd have addressed all the issues with the system. Regardless, the full game should have the Knightsguard ability, making it at least bearable.
 
QaaQer said:
Passive aggressive much?
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I think it's disappointment and frustration coming through. I empathise 100% with what that person said. Sometimes taking a few steps back from something you're excited about can make it 100x more enjoyable. Countless people forget that and go in wearing hype blinkers, and end up disappointed. Watching it happen is frustrating.

For the record: i havent played the demo yet, so don't actually know how flawed/solid it is. I'm going home right now to play it.
 
Exentryk said:
Episode Duscae had an ability called Knightsguard that let you heal completely the damage your took, if you timed a button press right after taking a hit. That ability was kind of a patch for this battle system. Without it, this system is really really poor.

But thinking about it, I think Episode Duscae 2.0 was a little more responsive than this demo. It's been some time since I played it though, so might be mis-remembering.

Overall, the game still prioritises animation too much. It doesn't care for player responsiveness. It's probably best to not expect much from this game's combat.
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Something like a recovery mechanic as you mentioned would fit in the current system or they could make the dodge an actual dodge. Either way this system needs at least one skill based mechanic.

Frankly the more I play the Platinum Demo the more I feel this is just a convoluted way to present a 1-character ATB system without menus and therefore less choices/depth.
 
That was it?

Uh... Well... I am glad it wasnt a pack in for something. Couldnt really get a feel for anything other then maybe its not the mos technically sound thing ever. Framerate is hit and miss and the IQ is pretty bad. Cant tell if 900p still or using some vasaline filter
 
This is my first time playing a XV Demo... And Wow, after playing Witcher 3 and XCX.... this is disappointment, it feels like a rpg for dummies or something, i think that the good times of Square rpgs are done.
 
deriks said:
Kingdom Hearts fans will be glad with this

Great demo
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Really? That's great to hear. I'm a fan of Final Fantasy but KH is my favorite RPG series, and one of the main reasons for that is the combat.

A big part of why I was so excited for Versus, now XV was because it was going to be similar to KH.

I know that may suck for fans of older Final Fantasy games but this is great news for me.
 
Graphics look average, particles look amazing though.

I had fun finding the crystals.

For some reason my keyboard to enter the name for the animal was in japanese
 
Fun tech demo. It was clear that this is really just that: an interactive tech demo to show what kind of elements you can expect from the main game a little bit. I hope people won't get the wrong idea and think this is what the game is gonna be like.

I liked it, not sure where all the hate is coming from. The exploration was pretty good, finding all the crystals was fun. The battlesystem has been highly simplified for this demo but it works in context of the setting. My main issues are the same as with the Duscae demo: iffy framerate, IQ and a wonky camera. This demo simply serves as a showcase for the lighting and weather systems. And you got to play as various animals, which was fun, the car physics weren't great but hey you got to be a car, that's pretty good right? I liked it for what it was.
 
I will not start off a comparison between this demo and Duscae because I didn't played it, so I'm completely "clean" of any bias toward the different improvements the game had since then. So I'll just give you, as a potential customer that wants to try a demo in anticipation of the full game, my opinion on why this demo is not designed like a good demo :

- It puts you in the shoes of a young Noctis, not an adult. If I'm a customer that never saw any gameplay or trailer before, it makes me believe the game is all about kid Noctis, when 95% of the demo you just run around and play with toy swords and hammers. I feel this demo is not really representative of the real game.

- It teaches you to do basic combat during 95% of the demo to just throw you against a giant monster kinda boss fight out of the sudden for the remaining 5%. The gap of learning how to master a more complex combat system in just a few minutes, on top of making it very hard (because boss fight) is just bad game tutorial design. They should have introduce you to more and more difficult enemies as you go along, teaching you how to warp, warp dodge correctly, counter attack, etc in order to smooth the final encounter for the player. Now it's just doing the opposite.

- Did I mention that you play only Noctis all along? If they would have made a good demo representative out of the final game, they should have introduce me to party management. Even if it was part of a dream sequence, why not doing so with Noctis child's friends or I don't know, any other AI character ? That could have give me a glimpse of how to appreciate the full game at least.

- They really should have improved frame rate and image quality. Although some section of the demo are good looking, I'm actually fearing for the final game, but I'll refrain to do so because we all know that real optimization only comes near release.

- Give me a trailer representative of the final game at the end of the demo! I think they wanted me more to let me know about the free carbuncle summon than selling me on the real game.

- I respect their decision on combat, but why didn't they introduce us to the 2 combat modes yet? You know, the ones they said would be oriented to casual and the other one to the hardcore audience? I think that this omission could have really made the demo target those type of gamers instead of giving us the same mix between "press circle to attack" vs "hold circle to auto-attack".

In short, if their goal was once again to let core FF fans knows about their improvements, I'm saying that it's partially done right. But for the people where it's their first taste on the game, I think they really missed the mark.
 
HeartlessNobody213 said:
Really? That's great to hear. I'm a fan of Final Fantasy but KH is my favorite RPG series, and one of the main reasons for that is the combat.

A big part of why I was so excited for Versus, now XV was because it was going to be similar to KH.

I know that may suck for fans of older Final Fantasy games but this is great news for me.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't play at all like Kingdom Hearts.
 
Just played and it definitely doesn't sell/serve the game well. It felt like a boring KH copycat... With PS2-era average gameplay.
I still have my copy preordered but damn that was terrible.
 
I don't think any KH fans should take any hope from the really weird way this demo has drawn comparison to KH.

It's an accidental similarity and doesn't really contain any of the positive connotations that "being like KH" implies.

Unless the love of KH comes purely from being an anime child who slogs through magical shadow villains in an oversized European-style room.
 
I mean... that segment could have been an interesting side piece in the actual game, but I don't know about having this be the way to get any kind of sneak preview of the game at this point if you didn't get Duscae (which I don't even think you can redeem anymore).

I can completely understand if this demo pushed people away at this point (and no, saying "well, the final release version of FFXV that I dreamt up in my head will be totally better and fix everything, pls stay" is not going to cut it).
 
Seems 1080p to me. But with poor AA and Vaseline filter or something (FXAA?).

IQ wasn't that horrendous, nor was framerate (should be OK at launch).

Edit: definitely 1080p and a noticeable jump over duscae 2.0 for me.
 
Just finished the demo. I think Noctis's movement and the camera could be more fluid. Sometime it feels a bit tanky. And I can't comment on the new battle mechanics, as the demo does a pretty poor job to explain anything when you gain control of Adult Noctis lol
 
Particles are great though. And the lighting at dark for the city looks pretty cool too.

ffxvdemoscreenshot2015dsj2.png
ffxvdemoscreenshot201ndsnh.png
ffxvdemoscreenshot201posmb.png
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I liked it, but it's true that sometimes it got really dark and I couldn't see where Noctis was.

Duscae 2.0 didn't have these problems so I guess it won't be in the final version.

Weapon-switching is cool. I like how these spells Noctis was using were like a young kid's interpretation of Meteo and Flare.

And Emoji-speaking Carbuncle was too cute.
 
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