My impressions of the demo;
Goddamn this thing is polished. It opened with a difficulty selection (4 levels of difficulty), and then kicked off with a narration by Stewart, on a story book page. Very well done. It also masks a loading screen, which is nice. Once that's done, it launches into a full blown cut scene. My initial impression is that the story is very prominent. Also, the game looks bloody good, with a nice color palette and gorgeous character models. The rain is outstanding, doesn't seem to just be a screen filter.
Once I actually got into the game, it certainly gave me the impression that the developers had been playing a lot of god of war. It does, however, feel slightly sluggish at times, like the game is struggling to keep up. I didn't notice any tearing, so this could be vsync making the game feel this way. It didn't happen often enough for me to care.
I got my first sub weapon, daggers of course. The enemies drop them, and also experience too, which is nice. This is definitely the tutorial I'm playing. However, the presentation as a whole is downright great. There are little hand drawn animations in the upgrade menu, with a pencil drawing of how the move you just bought will look in game. Its all very well done.
Soon as that was over, a larger enemy jumped me, and I had to mash a button (yay!) to get free, which will certainly get old fast. There is a block + dash mechanic in place, similar to Ninja Gaiden, rather than using the right analogue stick. This boss battle quickly grew tiresome, though I suspect it is because the character is underpowered at this time. I ended the fight by tricking the enemy to jump onto a spike (which was kinda cool, I actually had to time it right in order to get it to work, so its my fault the battle went on for as long as it did
Fight over, and a cut scene went and happened. This drew the first part of the demo to a close, and started a loading screen for the next part of the demo.
Interlude - The music in this game is your standard "fantasy epic", which is nice and all, but I was hoping for more classic themes. They are definitely there, but in more of the form of a leitmotif, little touches that remind you of the older titles.
Right, back to the game. There was another cut scene, and I found myself in a forest, with a horse that looks like the bastard child of Epona and Raiden from MK... Cut scenes can be skipped, by the way.
So, I found myself on a horse, battling evil. That didn't last long, I was thrown off and into another combat scene. I'm getting the distinct impression that this is a linear game, though that could just be due to the fact that this forest looks suspiciously like a corridor... Back to the combat. It seems extremely dynamic, and far more timing based, which makes for interesting fights. Imagine if you stuck EBA (yes, elite beat agents) into Ninja Gaiden, and you have a fair idea of how the QTE's work. Rings get smaller, when they overlap, hit a button to do something cool. Oh, there are invisible walls in this battle too. Its still a tutorial, teaching me to counter now. Once that's over, its back to the horse riding.
Ugh, got knocked off again, and its back to the combat. Nice that the enemies wait their turn while you use the conveniently placed healing fountain. Once that fight is over, its back to the horses, but only a cut scene. Again, its all very well done. No QTE's in the cinemas, which is nice.
And, with that Cut Scene, the demo is over. All in all, its a solid game. Hopefully the final game is a lot less linear than the demo showed it to be. It was literally the tutorial, and the demo ended with Gabriel truly setting off on his quest, which shows me that the game truly starts after the demo ends, which is both nice and annoying. But I suppose that this was the best area to turn into a demo, as it was fairly self contained, and it does a good job of setting up the story and gameplay. There was about 15 minutes of cut scenes in total, and I played for about 45 minutes, so the ratio is fairly good.
Any questions?
