A combination of being ill and nothing coming out this week means I'm having to review a free demo, available now on the PS4 and XBONE. It was either this, or a review of Max: The Game. It's a horrible game where you have to play as a detestable freak called Max who's been struck by an unexpected, non-terminal, yet incredibly annoying illness. He can only think straight if he's either lying down or high on a cocktail of drugs that should probably kill him, and if he doesn't drink water constantly then his throat seizes up so he can barely talk. If he stands up without taking drugs then he breaks into a hot sweat and promptly collapses.
Thankfully I've now recovered to the point where I can drag myself to the computer and have just enough time to gargle about a game I played during one of my many drug highs before collapsing on my keybo;aquithnjf@
Sorry, forgot to take my pills.
I decided the Final Fantasy XV demo would be a good game to play whilst slightly delirious because then I might be able to comprehend what's going on. 'Final Fantasy' is like 'Metal Gear' in that I don't really like it, but I respect it. The graphics are always great, the gameplay usually solid, and...well, we don't talk about anything else. I cannot get enough of Final Fantasy X's turn-based combat, but I'll admit I played the game with a book at hand (and even then, I only borrowed it from my friend for about a week). Whenever there was a cutscene, I would mute the TV and read a book instead. You may think this is the equivalent of watching Game Of Thrones and skipping everything except the sex, but I personally think it's the equivalent of skipping everything except the sex whilst watching porn. Stop moaning about how your wife left you! Just order a pizza so you can hook up with the delivery guy!
But what also makes Final Fantasy like Metal Gear is that despite how stupid the writing often is, the whole thing takes itself so seriously. Wakka using a ball as a weapon? Totally legit. Yuna becoming a pop-star in X-2 (not to be confused with XII)? No-one bats an eyelid. Snow having a magic trench-coat that makes his fists stronger than swords? Yup. And whenever I looked up from my book, I would laugh as everyone's spouting important-sounding exposition whilst the camera zooms in on their butts. And for some reason no-one is cold when just looking at Rikku's outfit makes me shiver. You really can't help but admire this stuff.
So I was somewhat disappointed that the dully titled Platinum Demo keeps things mostly sane, though it still has a rabbit/dragon creature who guides you through a dreamland whilst communicating via text-message PILLS! WHERE ARE MY PILLS!?
You play as Noctis, who I've been told is one of the protagonists of Final Fantasy XV. Here he's a little boy having a dream he can't wake up from, guided by creature - who, Wikipedia informs me, shows up in the previous games. I thought a demo was supposed to introduce this world to you yet making you want to find out more? Thus far, this just makes me confused; as though I'm playing an add-on for the final game rather than an intro.
So whilst the plot is almost non-existent, the gameplay is where we're being introduced to elements that'll turn up in the main game. It's no longer turn-based, or even pseudo-turn-based. Instead it's a hack-and slasher where you equip or un-equip various weapons and abilities.
The combat's OK. I like how you can switch weapons in a button-press and use the switch for combos. But there's no way to lock onto enemies, and so you also can't cycle through them. This is annoying since enemies have a habit of surrounding you and spanking you from behind. The camera isn't very good, so expect to get cheap-shotted several time. Oh, and the block function only blocks ahead so if an enemy is behind you then all you can do is dodge-roll out of the way...if you can even see them. And you'll probably roll straight into another enemy.
This whole demo is just a Kingdom Hearts knock-off. Hack and slash combat? Playing as a kid? Fighting nightmare creatures from another dimension? Starting off using child-like weapons? There's even a section where you get shrunk and have to climb up a table, which is just like the Alice In Wonderland section from Kingdom Hearts.
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In fact, the demo also serves as an extended tribute to Alice In Wonderland for...some reason. It doesn't really take this influence anywhere, it just says: "You've heard of this story? Welp, here it is again!" In fact, the same goes with it's evocation of Kingdom Hearts. Square Enix; if you really must re-cycle your old ideas - please re-cycle the combat from FFX. I miss the days when turn-based combat was actually 100% turn-based.
So what else is there? When you're not fighting ridiculously easy enemies, you collect crystals. They're like the studs from the LEGO games in that they're lying around in rows, but you can also find some hidden around. And if you collect all the crystals then...nothing happens. The crystals unlock metals plates that if you stand on, they give you a bonus. Sometimes they give you a special item, sometimes they let you ride a vehicle for a bit, turn into a monster for a bit, or else do basic things like change the weather. Only right in the last fight does it give you the ability to heal up.
Why doesn't all this happen during combat? When you kill enemies, I expected them to drop crystals. Why not? There's no need to fight any enemies otherwise. The combat isn't really that fun, so I'm happy to just run away from random encounters. Maybe in the full game killing people will give you XP, but if items and abilities now come from crystals then what's the point? Why has Final Fantasy turned into a Banjo-Kazooie game?
I get that this is probably to address the common complaint from Final Fantasy XIII; that the game is just one big corridor that you walk down, waiting for a random encounter to show up. But this is still traversing a linear area. You're just running round in circles trying to pick stuff up in the process. You're not actually exploring or delving into the world. Again; it's a Banjo-Kazooie game.
Speaking of the N64, I can usually rely on the Final Fantasy games to deliver the best graphics currently available, but this demo is an exception. The textures are low resolution, there's a surprising amount of aliasing, and the frame-rate chugged whenever anything strenuous occurred such as walking forwards. Despite all this, the demo still took over an hour to download...which was longer than the actual playtime.
Also, the music is pretty terrible. There's a section in Paris that plays the most stereotypical Parisian themed music you can think of, and there's another section featuring music that sounds almost exactly like the orgy music from the film Conan The Barbarian. Yes, because when I'm playing as a child exploring an innocent landscape; I want to be reminded of a Roman-style orgy with James Earl Jones turning into a snake.
But, at the end of the day, I can't really complain. Square Enix didn't have to make this demo. They could have just given us the first ten mins of FFXV, or just tried to hype us up with gameplay trailers. This is a brand new game that they've released for free just to get us excited. And if nothing else it's given me something to distract myself from my raging near-death state.
Though...maybe you should make sure your game doesn't suck first before trying to build an entire franchise around just one game. A movie? A TV show? A comic series? You must be really confident that the game's good. Or maybe the game sucks and you're just trying to compensate. I don't know. I don't care. WHERE ARE MY PILLS?!
