I never had a chance to play Duscae and I've actually managed to avoid most of the media for the game so far as I wanted to go into the final game relatively free of expectations. I haven't played a full FF game in a looooong time, mostly because none of the modern iterations have captured my interest.
That being said, I buckled and got the Platinum Demo. I played through it this morning, and I gotta' say... I really, really hope this isn't representative of the final game. I know people define the term "demo" in different ways, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this was primarily a tech demo.
Because if it is actually demonstrative of the final game, I am seriously disappointed. I've watched the videos in this post about what can be done with the fighting system, but in my playthrough, I literally just held O. I think I might have switched weapons once, because I realized the hammer only took 3 hits to kill the 100th damn nightmare thing instead of 20 that the sword took, which means I could move on from just holding O again. The Iron Giant was... better, I guess. Although I missed with my fire spell (which I could only use once, I guess?), and did the warp attack thing a few times, but then couldn't do again for some reason? I was confused as hell with the combat system and just ended up pressing O until the Giant died.
The rest of the demo felt like a big, 3D Mario level. It was platforming, plain and simple. Exploration took forever because you moved like a sloth, and the only reward were crystals that I'm assuming will have a purpose in the final game. I tried the circle things on the ground, which... uhhh... did something. Maybe turned it into nighttime? Set off a timer for.... something? I can understand generally avoiding too much hand holding in a final game, but a demo shouldn't leave you this clueless of the world around you. Was there a tutorial somewhere that I missed?
I literally laughed out loud when it asked the "Do you want to order the full game now?" question at the end. I could not fathom how someone could play that demo and think, "DAMN! I have to order this right now!"
Again, I didn't play Duscae, so maybe if you played that and this demo they compliment each other so you can put together a solid picture of what the final game will look like. But going by just this demo, I am far from impressed.
That being said, I'm genuinely happy for everyone else that seemed to enjoy this.