Poll: What Do You Think of the Final Fantasy 16 PS5 Demo?

I haven’t played it yet because I had to work but does the combat play like Kingdom Hearts anyone? Should be right up my alley if so since I’m a big KH fan!

How big is the download size for the demo?

Not playing it, it's my most anticipated game of the year and I don't wanna spoil it for my self until it's out. The game releases in less than a fortnight I'm patient

Already preordered to will wait for the full game. Too busy with Zelda and SF6 at min.

I didn't play it all the way through and skipped all the cutscenes as I didn't want too much of it spoiled. However, I wanted to get a feel for the combat. And I can safely say now that it was even better than I would have thought from the gameplay we've seen. Even more hyped now.

Balrog and Anivia in the background chilling

I’ve stayed away from it tbh… I have the game pre-ordered and am looking forward to playing it but I got many, MANY other backlog fish to fry until I have the whole game at my fingertips. Glad most everyone else seem to be enjoying it though.

It win me over enough to buy, the combat and the level structure really is still the low points but the story, characters and music did enough for me to push it over the line.
The combat definitely isn’t as bad as I feared and there is some satisfying parts for sure.
But too many qte’s and the interface is busy as hell.
(I think the dev certainly achieved their goal it does feels like a roller coaster, but at times almost feels on rails.)
Hopefully the next mainline game will bring back playable party members too🙏

On the fence about the game so will certainly dl and play later today. Thought TotK would get me through summer but the lack of a progression/exp points system makes it hard for me to want to do much more other than main story missions at this point and I’ve got only 1 of the 4 phenomena left.

Looking forward to playing it later tonight.

@BusyOlf it's 18.6 gb

Kinda’ wish I hadn’t played it. Really enjoyed it, thought it was superb. Now I have to wait until release and it has made that a lot worse now.

Playing it now and loving it

I played for a bit and really like what I played. Looks great, soundtrack is awesome, fighting is a lot better than I expected. Skipped cutscenes so cant say very much about the story. Some minor technical issues in performance mode but not much, will probably be fixed quickly.

So it will probably be a very awesome game 😀

Best opening in video game I played since god of war 2018. I can wait until June 22

Good gravy it's glorious this wait till the 22nd is gonna be tough 💪 😅 thank god I'm pulling in mad overtime than my vacation starts totally gonna play through this game twice 😆😆😆😆

I will play it as I’m on the fence. Great to have the opportunity to try it.

@Voltan many thanks brother, may the fires of Ifrit aid you in your hour of need!

Demo was great but it’s not a day one title for me. Think I can hold off until the PC release, as long as it’s not AMD sponsored with trash RT.

Woke up and saw it dropped overnight. I’m at work today so I just used the app to get it to download on my console. Might give it a try when I get home if I get the chance. Truth be told I’ve not been the biggest fan of modern Final Fantasy games. XII was the last decent one to me and even that I didn’t think was so great. Still this looks interesting enough to give it a shot. Don’t see how it can be much worse than XV at least

I really like the game, but there are some things that made me disappointed.
The frame rate dips a looot when you're in a open field.
Motion blur is dialed to 11, and there's no option to lower it or remove it.
Japanese lip sync is horrible to a point where it looks like you're watching one of those old Mexican soap operas dubbed. I know the game was made for English audio, but they should've synched it for Japanese (like other jrpgs do, including all other FF's since 12)

Gonna skip demo and go to full game.

I'm going to wait for the full game, but a friend of mine is saying the performance mode is really bad, and a few on here have mentiondd it aswell which is a little concerning. Look forward to the full game!

It's fantastic but it needs a motion blur toggle. The motion blur is way too heavy handed. Made me wanna puke.

@Athrum The dips are barely noticeable.

@get2sammyb They need to add a motion blur toggle though. It's like vaseline when you move the camera.

I’ve never played a final fantasy game in my 30 years of gaming. Think I’m alone tbh.
I might try the demo to see what the fuss is about

Still in the middle of playing it but I'm enjoying it so far. My only concern so far is that the game is pretty dark, I mean literally, even with the brightness maxed.

It was unexpected - deep lore, world building of FF with Nier Automata like combat and transitions. Fingers crossed the story lives up to the mechanics.

@NeonDint ahhhh I’m with you on that, I don’t cuss myself but a little cussing here and there in games is ok, but overly cursing almost every sentence or after every word… makes me feel uncomfortable lol

Haven't had a chance to play it yet and I'm out at the moment. Can anyone tell me if there's much exploration or is it just combat?

I'm on the fence about the game so decided to give the demo a go. I just finished it a little while ago and quite surprised how little you actually play the demo, at least for the first half. I think in the first hour, aside from the 'learn how to fight' training section all I did was watch cutscenes and walk/run from point A to point B.
I'm all for engrossing stories and quality cutscenes but was expecting a bit more idea how it actually plays from a demo.
It did pick up though and it got me a little intrigued in the story but it didn't do enough to get me off the fence.

Won't be playing it as I already know how much I want to play it, and prefer waiting for the full game.

Thank the good lord above this game is only 2 weeks away.

Won't play it since I plan to buy the game anyway. If I start it now I'd have to wait 10 days til I can continue

@danzoEX theyre British, we swear all the time 😂

Really enjoyed it. I was going to wait but not sure I can now.

@danzoEX @NeonDint I don't mind cursing, sometimes it just fits, but I don't like English cursers in other settings. "Deadwood", while a great show, took like an entire season to get used to it. I prefer when they make up the cursing like "frak" in Battlestar Galactica and "spark" in Xenoblade.

But I haven't; played it yet, so we'll see if it bothers me or not. British accents make most things tolerable. 🤷‍♂️

Still downloading it, maybe it's done already. I'll play it after dinner 😃

@tallythwack makes sense 🤣

@BearsEatBeets you get a battle demo after completing the actual demo

@NeonDint haven’t played it yet but F bombs in a Final Fantasy?! I don’t mind curing in games where it feels appropriate for the setting like a Grand Theft Auto game or something of that nature… is this Square-Enix trying to appeal to angsty teens by being “more mature”? Cursing for the sake of cursing adds nothing to the game. I’ll judge it for myself once I play the demo though to decide if I feel it works within the game or if it feels completely out of place which is what I’m honestly expecting

@Hurblyburbly To be clear, this game is a drastic departure from the typical Final Fantasy game, so love it or hate it, its not really representative of the franchise as a whole.

I tried to get past my knee jerk reaction of hating it because its an action RPG now, so I watched videos and trailers trying to psych myself up, and other than the summons, it doesn't look all that good. Sure there are lots of pollys, but it just looks bland. Maybe the demo will change my mind; but I am not at all excited for this, and will probably wait until I can find a used copy for cheap.

@danzoEX I did see that option appear when I finished and I will give that a go later as the combat you do play seemed enjoyable enough.
Not convinced on the giant entity (forgotten the name) battles though.

@thedevilsjester
Cheers for the insight.
I’ll have a look but not sure it’s my bag tbh.

@jmac1686 Yeah that was the one thing I noticed that looked bad so hopefully they give us a motion blur toggle and a damage numbers option.

@Athrum The audio ISN'T synced for Japanese dub? That's... odd coming from Square Enix of all companies.

Will probably buy the game now, if only just for Torgal.

@Nepp67 I know that the game was first made with English in mind. The script was supposedly written in English first. But yeah as you said, it is quite odd, specially after them boasting in how they used AI to generate the English lip sync for FF7R.

@BusyOlf just over 18GB

It sold me on the game, enough said.

I probably won't have a chance to play it in the near-term, but my question for all of those of you that have tried it or will be trying it, particularly fellow skeptics about if it's actually an RPG or just another action adventure is....after trying it, how does it line up? Is it as "this is not an RPG at all" as everything to date has made it appear, or did they present it badly and it's an RPG after all?

@BusyOlf 18 GB

Im going in blind.

@NeonDint Thanks for posting this. I already was not happy about the damage numbers popping up all over the place in the bits of overly busy combat I saw; if foul language abounds, I don't need to waste my time with this (which is great, as my backlog is pretty nuts, despite getting through a chunk of it over the past few years).

Jeez, cutscene, cutscene, 2 steps forward, cutscene. Haven't we moved past this by now.

Loved what I've played so far confirmed I'll be buying day one.

@danzoEX
Haven’t tried it yet but this is really disappointing to me. When the devs said an M rating let them use the F bomb every once in awhile I assumed it’d be every once in awhile. Might be a bit much for me especially in a house with lots of younger kids.

I liked it a lot. It really clicked with me. I pre-ordered right after finishing the demo. The combat is certainly a departure from classic ff games, but it's leaps and bounds better than what we got in the last mainline ff.

Ah... i shouldn't have played it.
I knew i was gonna like it and i did. Now the wait is gonna be worse.

All your motherf**king base are belong to motherf**king us, motherf**ka!

@Mattock1987 Oh man... puppy Torgal destroyed me. Way too cute.

Wasn't sure about that intro but then it knocked it out of the park, really excited to play it, first PlayStation game of the generation I expect to like.

I’ve not finished it but it’s quite underwhelming so far. I’m sure there will be more to the combat later but even got bored of it during the tutorial. Terrible voice acting. Far too many sections on rails. All of that said, I’ll almost certainly still play the full game to completion.

I was on the fence about the game before this but from the first hour of it at least, it’s turned me off. Kind of dull TBH.

@ApostateMage Oh dear.

Is it bad, or is it Frey bad?

Game is bonkers. easily gonna end up in the first place in a lot of people's GOTY list.

It's perfect, absolutely perfect, down to the last minute detail.

The gameplay is so fun and I can't wait to see how much it opens up with more abilities and such. It's like Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry and the Witcher combined and I love it so so much.

@Nepp67 This one is in a kind of weird situation like that: far as I can tell from various interviews, the English localisation team heavily worked over the raw translation from the original JP script, and then the EN script was pretty much back-translated into Japanese, or at least the original script heavily revised based on the EN version, and the English voicework was used as the basis for character animations, lip-syncing etc.

While I can't stand most English JRPG voicetracks, this one, like FF XII, evidently had a competent voice director who repeatedly reminded the cast that they weren't dubbing a shounen anime.

Why do people get so worked up about swearing? It's so bizzare. It's not exactly new to Final Fantasy either, Barret and Cid swore like troopers.

@jmac1686 oh good in tought it was me getting old or my TV been bad. It really is bad though but probably the only thing I have to say bad about in the demo

People complaining about being too dark.
Check if your TVs have Shadow Detail sliders, and pump them up until acceptable. Newer TV all have this option.

@KaijuKaiser Right? So much to look forward to with 7 round the corner and heavy rumors for a remake of 9 too. 7 is special to me so I have a bias towards it and will probably prefer it in the end but 16 is shaping up to be something really special.

I just got to the Stillwind swamps and that music is absolutely gorgeous. This game is phenomenal. Controls are so smooth and responsive. The dialogue is so damn good. I loved running around listening to the NPCs and finding items. To think this is just the prologue

@KaijuKaiser The first section was terribly wooden though I’ll concede that it did improve towards the end of the demo.

Having finished it now I think the eikon battles are the real low point. Perhaps they’ll be better later on in the game. The combat seems serviceable overall, the music is definitely good and the world seems very interesting.

A 9 remake would be incredible if we get it.

@Keyblade-Dan Same here.

Gonna hold off and wait for the full release.

I kind of wish I didn't play the demo as it will make the wait that much longer. The story music and this new world is so perfect. <3

@awp69 I'm 45 minutes in and I feel like I have walked, and watched cutscenes. I got to do a training section that was more informational than fun. This really is not selling me on this at all.

@NEStalgia You'll be happy to know I made it over an hour in and just deleted the demo. I basically just watched cutscenes for an hour, rolled my eyes and ended my suffering. Now, I'm not going to take anything away from the rest of the fine folks here that love it, but man, this ain't for me. I'm not here to watch movies, I'm here to play games. I'm going to go shed some tears in the kingdom now.

@SplooshDmg Part of me wants to say "oof", and part of me wants to say "so you mean it's a traditional FF after all?" 😂

Really though it either sounds like it's terrible or a bad demo. Considering squares tradition of bad demos except dqxi maybe we still just know nothing at all about it..... Still.... Oof 😣

@NEStalgia It goes back to our age old discussion. I find reading engaging, movies I do not. I literally don't watch TV/movies, outside of the very occasional anime series, and even then I can only tolerate it with an episode at a time because I eventually just get bored and wander off. So, no. Traditional FF games involved a whole lot of reading, not gazing into the screen literally doing not a single thing. I miss reading in games. I could draw more comparison to X or XIII from what I played than any other entry, and imo, X and XIII are basically the worst mainline entries. I think hardware advancements have in so many ways just absolutely ravaged the things in games I actually enjoy.

The demo is obviously the very opening of the game. But it's like, I finally got control of Clive then took two steps forward. Cutscene. It's even more obnoxious than something like TLOU.

Weird. Also the cutscenes I know it's the beginning but even some cinematic games even the ones that people can say are the main progenitors had walking and cutscenes balanced for specific segments not so many cutscenes for the smallest of things, the necessary ones of character moments work but the small unnecessary ones just transitioning between enemies sure but some just after the log or certain cutscene to cutscene parts felt like too many, they don't need to be cutscenes it's just silly. Way too many.

Like it starts fine enough, the in-between moments of character closeness tension were ok but seemed odd for the beginning of the game. The tone was strange it works but I don't know. Is it worse than say Binary Domain's angle of Japanese making a western style game of the action and tension not that game was weirder in tone but still I don't know.

The combat seemed fine enough for what it did have for the tutorials. FF games going real time in different ways has been interesting to see from spin-offs to main line entries or a balance of turn based/real time in FF7 Remake.

It seemed light on combos and that's fine I expect it to be then complex but it had enough shown to be flexible for players to just 3 hit or do within reason of I assume past games or just if wanting some depth if they feel like it and that works.

For a casual western appealing audience targeting (while having some core FF aspects to it of course) game kind of impression of Game of Thrones inspiration of all fantasy things to be inspired by that was popular of course it seems fine. Never seen Game of Thrones nor do I care to but I guess it gives off the vibe well.

The characters act fine. The dialogue is British and I enjoy a British dub but yeah some points were eh.

The graphics are hmm. The throne up close was just weirdly loser quality in 1 scene. But from a distance and other camera shots it looked fine. The character detail is fine but from a distance you almost thought they didn't have much detail to their faces. The clothes looked good all the time didn't have issues with them. I don't expect Japanese games to do so they aren't going western higher detail of character faces (they don't need to be either I'm fine with just enough not hyper detailed even besides lighting/shine/water and so on aspects) but even the beards looked pretty weak I feel Capcom or others have likely done better on their western characters more but for Square's efforts it's pretty good still.

I forget FF games have the accessories, brace or whatever then armour which I don't know why I expected armour in this game I just did.

@dancingstar93 I'm happy that the english voice acting is well done in this demo so far. No adult sounds like they have the voice 15 year old or sound out of place like Judgement for example.

This demo has absolutely made me fall in love with this game. Only issues I see as of right now is the pointless QTEs. They are so slow that it makes me think, "Why are QTEs in this game?" They should be at the speed of Yakuza's if they're trying to implement QTEs into gameplay.

Well I stand with foot firmly in mouth. I didn’t think I would like the game at all, based on trailers and gameplay videos, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed what I’ve played of the demo so far. I’m surprised to say that I want to play the full game now! Enjoying the combat, story (and voice acting), lightning-fast load times (i.e., none!), and overall tone of the game—feels very Final Fantasy! My only issue so far is that, as others have said, it needs a motion blur toggle; swinging the camera around during play is giving me a headache. Other than that, I’m sold! Probably not a day one, but definitely excited to play it down the road sometime soon. By the power of the crystals (or something)!

WOW. Just finished the demo. Honestly... I'm blown away. The climax.... WTF??? It's Game of Thrones meets Devil May Cry meets Final Fantasy. Truly superb voice acting and writing. Incredible action set-pieces. Graphics and atmosphere are exquisite. What a package! I can't wait to pick up where I left off in the full game. Holy moly!

That prologue is brutal. Preordered right away

It's so good. Refreshing to see a company with this polished of a game and this much confidence. It's going to crush when reviews roll in.

@jmac1686 100% agree

Combat feels brain dead so far. Small enemies don't fight back to the point where you don't even have to use the dodge. Larger enemies and bosses are damage sponges that only seem to serve the purpose of showcasing the stagger mechanic, which makes the only enemies in the demo who actually fight back...not fight back, so you can continue mindlessly wailing on them in peace. In fact, I'm just gonna say it. Combat is better in Forespoken. So far I'm not sold on this.

How on earth are all these people saying they love this game demo when most of it was just video, and the little bit of gameplay wasn't even that great and it certainly isn't no god of war ,very disappointed

Ain't playing the demo, but a physical copy is already preordered.
To all people complaining that it's not stable 60fps, what did you expect? It's a Japaneese developed game, and they are known for not using all CPU cores, it's probably just pegging (overloading) 1-2 cores with rest of 'em idle, because it doesn't look that intensive on the GPU part.

@SplooshDmg You look like a Switch/Zelda fanboy coming here just to bash FF XVI.
It was known all along what this game is about. They said multiple times 15 hours of cut scenes.
We get it, you don't like heavy stories, don't need 5 comments about it.
People are already sold on the game through the demo (look at the poll), you ain't convincing many to not buy it.

@Powerplay94 I've seen that, but honestly I don't think they will improve it much. Look at Elden Ring, same issue.
Japaneese developers have a problem with multithreading, they can't seem to balance the load across all CPU cores, and that creates bottlenecks.
Will play it anyway, as I did with Elden Ring, and will love it for sure.
People are running with this "but not stable 60 fps" just to discredit the game, but that didn't stop people from buying ER, as it won't for this.

I was completely blown away. I didn't have any hype for this game based of the videos I watched, however when I played the demo, that completely changed. The music, story, gameplay, I loved it all! I went from waiting for a discount, to preordering the digital deluxe edition.

@Deemo37 it really isn't that much I noticed 2 or 3,its men talk ,men talk like that ,if you don't like it play kirby or something 😂

@SplooshDmg you don't watch movies ,never watched spartacus,never watched the godfather,never watched the thing ,I find that hard to believe ,its a story driven game ,I personally thought it was fantastic ,very game of thrones, which I adored ,although you've probably not watched it.

@Sil_Am No where am I trying to convince anyone to not buy it. I literally said don't let my feelings try to take away from anyone who loved it. Maybe you would like that comment better in the form of a cutscene. Perhaps reading isn't your forte.

@tallythwack I've literally never seen The Godfather, or Goodfellas, or Scarface, or Schindler's List, you name it, I ain't seen it. I just don't have a particularly long attention span, actual medical condition. So if my hands aren't busy, or I'm not reading, I have a difficult time paying attention to things. When cutscenes are too frequent or run too long at a time, I just can't stay focused on the game. I love stories, I just sort of need them presented in a format that's not quite a movie. And again, I'm not trying to take anything away from anyone else.

I wasn't sold on the game, but I tried the demo and confirmed it, which is part of what the demo is for. Which is a shame to me because I've been playing this franchise since I was a child. But it's evolved into something that truly just isn't for me now. Oh, well, such is life.

@tallythwack
Okay then I’ll give it a shot. The previous commenter made it sound like much more.

@jmac1686 For sure, had to quit out if it tbh

@SplooshDmg I value and respect your opinion.Thank you for your honest take that isn't just drinking the kool aid.

Sorry it was a burn but, hey at least you didn't spend any money.

Who put its rubbish 😂😂

@Sil_Am You're bashing people here who played the demo with an honest opinion? And then you said i'm not even going to play it I am already sold.

You're a jerk is what you are

@Paulcassidy873 Because This is the realm of the cult of squeenix.

@Deemo37 nah mate ,its nothing like gta for example ,I saw the other guys comment and he makes it sound like its every other word ,I understand with you having young children, it would be a concern,more violent than any other ff game though,I found the swearing in forspoken weird ,she swears like a lime st prostitute

@Cordyceps Ahh you know, it's alright. I mean, I'm glad I was able to try the demo, because SE is cool in that regard and actually still offers proper demos. If anything I was able to kill the curiosity, but if anything at least people are excited about FF again. I'll take that for what it is.

@Cordyceps How can anybody prove they played it? Anyway it seems like you guys want this so much to fail, but you'll be proven wrong by the time reviews are live.
Same on Gematsu, people are writing whole essays on how bad the game is, when it looks like an objectively great game, but maybe not perfect.
And too many cutscenes? Then it's perfect for the PlayStation audience. We will be in heaven.

I'm in the same boat that I gave it a whirl just out of morbid curiosity for a series I. Used to love you know like going to a funeral.

Told myself if it's nothing but cut things i'm out so I don't really know what's up. I didn't last long.

It's like a tech demo since you don't really play it. More if the same - Squeenix jerking themselves off as usual, look at how great we are we have a PS5 Exclusive! that you know sucks in performance mode and causes nausea with motion blur.

Cute dog though.

@Sil_Am " How can anybody prove they played it"

Really?

You're dismissed, have a nice life.

@Cordyceps You sound like a soured Nintendo, Xbox fanboy, and you'll cry when this game is at 95 on metacritic.

@SplooshDmg You've already written 10 comments on how you don't like the game. At this point you ain't convincing anybody that you don't have an agenda here.

@Sil_Am And you've already written two comments about how my reasonable, yet ill feelings on a game you like upsets you, so I guess your agenda is being mad. That's fine, really.

More importantly, how was this article posted 4 minutes into the future? (I know it's a site glitch). Anyway, I still haven't had a chance to play it. Is there much exploration or NPC interaction?

FF16 or Diablo 4.....I don't know which one to go for

Cutscene heavy

@LetsPatchItOut Wow, this comment raises my hyped level even further. For me NieR:Automata easily has the most rewarding combat system of every game I ever played. I really hope it will be like that one and not too much like DMC5 which a lot of people said before (don't like that game/system at all, way too chaotic).

@God_of_War_ If I were you I'd play FF16 first and then sell it/trade it for Diablo. Diablo is way more popular, which means there will be tons of cheap second handed copies on the market in a few months time.

@NEStalgia Theres like 3 or swears in the demo. People complaining about bad language....sorry that's just bizarre to me. I mean if it was every two sentences i would understand, because then the script would suck, but this game, at least in the early hours has a decent script, nowhere close to Forspoken.

Strong Poll results! I'll definitely download and try it.. once my PS5 has returned to a solid state after melting this week.

@Darude84 I imagine the combat evolves as the game goes on (I haven't tried the "eikonic challenge" that's available after finishing the demo yet) but in this early section it's very much closer to an RPG than a pure action game.
It does reward a well timed use of the dodge button though.

Hands down, GOTY. Makes a mockery of the 5 minute wonder that was new Zelda.

@KaijuKaiser don't confuse vocal minority with a lot of people. I learned that 1st hand with Pokemon who more than deserves the negativity it would have in threads lmao. Anybody with eyes can see the reception to the game has been positive, overwhelmingly so after the demo

I just want a good old turn based Final Fantasy with a romantic story, great music, and a happy ending. If I wanted Devil May Cry, I would just play Devil May Cry instead of a DMC wannabe. It may be a great game but I just don't like the direction of modern Final Fantasy games. Too much focus on graphics, action, grim dark stories with unhappy ending, and too little focus on what made Sakaguchi games so amazing. I just want to sit in bar as Laguna and listen to Julia playing Eye on Me or watch Rinoa sitting in Squalls lap with Eyes on me playing in the background. Or see Zidane return and surprise dagger after a year and see dagger running for him and embrace him with tears in her eyes. So memorable and indelible. 😊

I feel like the particular section of the game in the demo perhaps wasn't the best part of the game to show off as a demo since as others have said it is a bit cut scene heavy. For the purposes of a demo people want to get a feel for how the game plays and having to sit and wait for ages until you can do anything meaningful will make people lose patience. I do also understand why it is the section that it is though, mainly because that at the start of the game is where tutorials on how to play the game are and also so that story progress can carry over to the full release.
What I would say though is it if you finish the segment of the demo the Eikonic Challenge mode that unlocks has far more actual gameplay in it and gives you a better feel of the gameplay overall. If you are able to stick though to the end of the demo it's well worth having a look at if you're on the fence.

After the first 5 mins of staring into the fire and if the guy didn't put it out pretty sure you'd still be staring into it with your "special" plot armour on. Got to look different to hsow youre the main character. Told to hurry up twice and get my act together at least once. No jump up ledges that's automatic. Character devoid of personality apparently your name is clive from help screens but they call you wyvern. Rigid movement that felt the world worked around you... theme park ride style. It was so dull I almost fell asleep long boring cutscenes. Yeah I might try it again ... has to get better. Whole game couldn't be that bad

I've not finished it yet but ive really enjoyed what i've played so far. I thought the opening bit with phoenix lacked the need for much user input so was a little bland, but otherwise i'm enjoying the story and the combat is enjoyable (though the Malboro was a little too damage spongy for my liking). So far, so good and i can't wait to play the full game. Clive's mum is clearly a wrong 'un

I did notice some frame drops in performance mode - but assume this is an early build - and it will be tightened up by release

The game is so clearly inspired by Game of Thrones and im very excited to see where it leads. I definitely didnt feel the game was too cutscene heavy. And this is the prologue so there always will be extra story exposition to frame the rest of the game

I played and loved it! I liked it so much, I downloaded DMC 5, because I read that they are similar, in style.

Some people in the comments seem to not understand how RPGs work and particularly their opening hours! But glad to see the overwhelming majority showing love and support, the game is excellent so far.

@Kevw2006 ideally the people complaining about cutscenes shouldve watched the pre launch show. Evidently they didn't and it shows. But not everyone watches that stuff so it's understandable, so the next best thing would've been for sites to better report what the demo offered. Cause yoshi p specifically says the prologue portion of the demo would be cutscene heavy cause it's the literal prologue to get people into the story. And he mentions the eikon challenge for people to get an actual feel of the gameplay hours after the prologue which is limited in almost every game imaginable

I told myself I would hold off for full game... later, "download just to see how it looks"... then, "just run around for a FPS test"

A few hrs later I was still playing 😅🤣🤦‍♂️

Love it so far. I made a 4 day weekend for launch with personal days - I was buying it regardless. But now I really cant wait - this looks to be EPIC!

@Judal27 I didn't even need to watch anything beforehand, as soon as I read that progress carries over into the main game I knew exactly what I was getting and it was going to be a cut scene heavy intro to the game. I was always going to pre-order it anyway but the demo gave me everything I needed to seal the deal.

So I haven't played it but I watched some gameplay of it, and...hmm...it seems...well...not what I expected given all the hype.

I haven't really been watching much of coverage for this over the past years/months. But, other than a lot of cutscenes and some spectacle-driven fights, the whole game looks empty and extremely linear.

Plus, there is something about the environments that don't seem right:

it's like the characters are too small to the scale compared to everything else. (Empty) Castle hallways look needless long and extremely tall.

Other than zero load times, I don't really see where this game required PS5 (other than the aforementioned spectacle set pieces between wandering around "meh" environments).

It's not even like you can just explore the entire world at your leisure, so while I am sure it's great to select your next place on the map and instantly be there, it's not as if the game would be impossible to have loading time.

But, again, this is solely based on just watching the gameplay for a bit and not actually playing the game.

Overall it's good. Performance during traversal has lots of drops unfortunately. Even when you're in smaller environments like the castle. Graphical fidelity is nice but not mind blowing.

They basically stole the combat from Ys 8/9.
Which is fine because I love Ys.Thankfully combat is usually a solid 60fps. I do find it jarring when those 30fps cinematic dodges/strikes interrupt 60fps combat though. I also think the game is a bit too easy. And no I'm not using any of the trinkets.

I am annoyed that this game uses dubtitles and not proper subtitles for those of us using the Japanese language track. Very annoying to hear one thing and read something very different.

All that said I'm still looking forward to it!

@GamingFan4Lyf I agree. This game could easily be done on a PC without an SSD or on Series X. Nothing about it is unique.

Played it and yeah can see it being my game of the generation

@Cordyceps That motion blur in 30fps mode hurt my eyes. I tried it because performance mode is so unstable but nope! 30fps mode was worse.

@tabris95 that's one of my issues. The game is way too easy. And I'm not seeing how it plays like DMC as people are saying. It plays more like Ys 8.

@KundaliniRising333 It's so weird. I haven't noticed any motion blur, or ghosting. I also haven't noticed any frame drops, but maybe VRR helps or I haven't travel far enough in the demo.

The only thing i liked in this demo is the dodge thingy, i can confirm frame rate isn't great, read here about ghosting/motion blur issues, i find this also to be true.

Finished the demo today, very good. Deserves the hype. Currently Zelda is my GOTY, but this could quite well overtake that. The music, gameplay, graphics. All very clean and very well done. I just hope the story is amazing.

Looking forward to picking up FF16 on early release next Thursday!

This…game…CLAPS!!! Loved everything about the demo. Being that this is a Final Fantasy game, it is unsurprising that this could be the greatest soundtrack of all time. It’s epic.

Not bothering with this one but fair play to those that do. FF is a classic franchise nowadays, I just yearn for the old turn based days ..

Absolute cracker. Can't wait for the game!

@viktorcode I have VRR and noticed the drops from 60 down to 50fps quite often. Are you playing on performance mode? The fidelity mode seems to maintain 30fps though.

I've just finished the demo and I honestly quite liked it. The story is intriguing, VA is pretty good (no yank accents) and it has a certain charm in places like old JRPGs. Even the combat was not bad and I felt in control of what actions I wanted to perform instead of just mashing buttons. The music, as ever in Final Fantasy games, was majestic.

Those eikon battles can get in the bin, though.

I went into the demo determined to hate the game thinking it would be another mediocre SE game. Was I ever wrong! I was so blown away by the demo that by the time it was over I went and pre-ordered it!

@Sakai For me the performance was flawless!

I've not completed it yet, but it's a good short film so far. From a graphical and world-building perspective, it's very impressive. But from the point of view of being a demo? In the first ten minutes, I held the triangle button down on the controller for a minute or two, then pushed forwards on the left stick for 10-20 seconds at a time. I'm not certain who thought giving the player such brief control/agency was a good idea. I'd rather it just give me the cut-scenes straight for ten minutes, then hit me with the gameplay. I'm not knocking the achievement by any means, I'm just a little intrigued by the choices regarding player interaction in the demo.

Its garbage, I will cancel my preorder

Combat was kind of disappointing. Could give a toss about it not being turn based but even the bigger enemies just felt like punching bags. I’m not some FromSoft fanboy who needs everything to be insanely difficult but found myself just simply bored during the morbol fight. In a demo meant to make me want to purchase the game it’s concerning that combat of all things was that dull. Still not decided on purchase might just wait for reviews to see how combat progresses later on in the game.

@KaijuKaiser yeah but I was unfortunate enough to buy the wrong game in Valkyrie Elysium 🤦🏻‍♂️

@Synthatron_Prime so the combat is like Ys? If so, I'm happy and may well play it, as I detested the combat in FF7, it ruined the game for me. Not had time to get to the demo yet

I thought it was technically excellent. It felt like a proper PS5 experience. And overall, super enjoyable - a lot of cut scenes though and I wanted to actually play the game a lot more. The combat was solid; not as chaotic as it looks on the trailers but I was desperate for some kind of dodge/roll (eg soulsborne/FF7 remake), I hope there is more variety in the combat a bit.

Not sure if I liked the darker tone of it entirely: it’s fine but I think prefer FF7 etc

But I played for two hours straight and was just engrossed the whole time, and I think I will buy it once I have saved enough.

@Gubba Yeah. Reminds me of Ys8 and how you could switch companions on the fly. In FF16's case you're switching eidolons instead of companions. Plus the frame perfect dodge and parry mechanics.

It's dull and unimaginative. The director has literally just tried to make his own version of a witcher/game of thrones hyrbid. The characters are flat, boring and golems. The voice acting sounds like it was from an english drama college. The art design is poor, every armour and weapon is painfullly uninspired. Final Fantasy died a long time ago. This new thing should really be rebranded something else. The last game was the same.

Really enjoyed it and now can't wait to play the full game! The story has me gripped. I also kind of enjoyed the swearing, very british indeed and I can relate! haha.

It's great. I'm thrilled. I like that it's GoT-inspired. Best graphics of any vidya to date isn't bad either

As usual the same old "intelligent" comments complaining about story, voice acting, performance, "art design", characters, colours, movement, flashes, you name it... so many words to say that you do not like the game or you cannot afford it, hahaha.. you do not seem "intelligent nor discerning", you seem like the same old whiner, lol.., as for me, I like it, it runs smoothly with my HDMI 2.1 capable tellies, I was expecting a combat a la Forspoken, but still good. I hope that it'll come with a 120Hz mode...

After XIII and XV (and to some extent VII remake) i was worried about XVI… the demo proved me otherwise, the full action combat its really entertaining and the characters won me over. I’m sold

Ok I played it and its Final Fantasy with a little GoT flavor. Biblical demo, game of the year material

@NEStalgia I'm sure it's an RPG but there's little to no build up in the demo. The brief fight sequences don't pose any challenge. I'm sure it will be great

didnt like it at all just donest feel like a final fantasy game to me at all

I've played the demo and I must admit it was totally engrossing. I made the mistake of playing late evening and then like 2-3hrs had passed. Honest thoughts, there were a lot of cuts scenes, which I thought actually introduced the main characters rather well and provided details regarding dominants, mother crystal etc..The quality was great and flowed well into the actual gameplay. So that's it with the story. Graphics wise, this was a hard one to judge. The character models were good and the combat was smooth, no glitches or jank when fighting multiple enemies and the 4-5 what I would call big enemies. They were modelled good and had different combat move sets. The lighting particle effects for the player and enemy combat was good. Next combat. The combat is smooth and straightforward. You can use flame and a dash as well as a 4 hack and slash combo. You can jump as well and side step/ dodge. I dont think there is a parry. One thing to note, I couldnt roll? However in the fighting tutorial the opposition knight could roll. Things to think about. No bugs in gameplay. Only issue which is being really picky is at each cutscene, it would load and be bright and then about 5 secs later it would darken. That maybe to do with my settings. The eikon fight seemed a bit messy and the character models on one of them was blocky. Overall it was a great demo, which showcased the game and was impressed with the story. Would I buy the game on day one, yes if someone gave me £60, so I could support the devs on day one. But, I've got a big backlog and not a lot of time. Anyone who hasn't played the demo I would recommend it.

@BusyOlf about 18GB

Played it and enjoyed it. Combat was meh, I expect it'll get more in depth and I have to try out the challenge mode that's now unlocked.

Also love the comments from people who haven't played the demo slamming people who have and weren't blown away. Geez chill. Most of the negative comments are fair and someone's opinion. Which is the point of the poll. I've not seen anyone really bashing the game only being honest and saying not for me. They don't stop you (or want to stop you) being hyped.

Relax.

Well...I'm not totally sold to be honest. This is my first Final Fantasy game ever and I expected something very convincing. The combat is my biggest concern as I found it too easy and boring. A flashy numbers and effects are quiet distracting but I'm sure there'll be an option to turn it off. Graphics...well not too great in my opinion. Everything looked a bit blunt overall. The story looks interesting enough to keep my eyes on this. Overall it was an okay experience for me, keeping in mind I'm not a Final Fantasy fan. I can imagine fans are really enjoyed it

It was pretty good! It's pretty much what I expected watching the trailers! My only complaint is the controls are quite cumbersome (too many button to push and the PS5 controller shape doesn't help) but combat is pretty nice... And as expected the Eikon fight are just meant to be an eye candy/ graphical showcase more that anything, it would've been the same if it was QTE or just a cutscene).

@Jammsbro preach

Real talk i pretty much liked the demo for the most part. However if i were too nit pick i would do away with the QTEs

@Mikey856 Check out Chained Echoes if you want that old school turn based.

Sea of stars is coming out later this year and it's pretty hype for the old school. It'll be on gamepass, too.

The combat had no weight to it and felt so button mashy. I can see how it might eventually open up into something fun for other people but I don't think it's for me.

@Muttt same thing is happening on Xbox regarding having anything less than glowing opinions about starfield. I hate that video game discourse is this way. Some people are incapable of nuance and have to lump everyone into either the fanboy or hater categories with no room for reasonable people in between.

Awesome Demo, and Game. I definitely can't wait for the game to come out!!

I don’t have a PS5, so can’t play it. But from streams, looks great.

@BusyOlf
18gb mate

@danzoEX I say it plays more like devil may cry.

Way too many cutscenes, one after another. I was holding triangle to skip within the first 15 mins of the game, which does not bode well for a narrative focused RPG. Waiting to see reviews from everyone except IGN.

Putting aside "FF series" for a moment, I've never seen anything quite like this. The combination of factors make it incredible.

BTW, an advanced combat demo unlocks in the title menu after beating the demo story.

@Nalodart did you play with those time accessory things on? They cause most of the QTEs, they’re to help players not great at action games. Without it you should only get a couple of QTE per boss fight.

@mikeawmids they said it’s because it’s the prologue to the game so it’s story heavy section. I’d play the second section and if you still find it too dialogue heavy might just not be for you.

@RBRTMNZ I think it’s fine to be not into the game, but I also think a lot of negative comments are just to be negative or different.

Someone saying they don’t like the demo is fine, it’s their opinion. There’s nothing wrong with them not liking it.

Someone saying the demo is bad or the combat is bad or whatever.. that’s obviously going to get pushback because the clear consensus is that’s not the case.

I’m not really sure why some people feel the need to say they don’t like a game or aren’t going to buy it anyway, it’s not like it’s an important thing to add to a conversation. Generally if I didn’t like something I would be on the comment section of something that I did. Life is too short to spend time on things we don’t enjoy. Shame the demo didn’t do it for you, but there’s a lot of other games coming out, sure one of those will. Let other people have fun eh?

@Muttt there’s no real point to their post though. They didn’t enjoy it, so what? It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It doesn’t add anything interesting or insightful to the conversation and it’s a waste of their time when they could be having fun talking about something they actually do enjoy. Negative opinions are pretty worthless when something is obviously popular and good, and most of them are just trying to bring others down. Really do you think anyone cares if you didn’t like a demo of a video game? Keep it to yourself.

@Justin113 Let me start by saying I do appreciate your respectful response. I gave a dissenting opinion about Starfield on Purexbox and received a lot of passive aggressive responses so I commend your tone. I also don't enjoy the ***** state of internet discourse, especially regarding video games, but at the same time I feel like my comment is fair. The article asks what we thought of the demo and a gave a response centered on my feelings rather than making a pointed negative statement about the game.

My comment was not intended to offend but rather an attempt to engage. There has been a lot of mystery around the new combat system with games like GoW and DMC thrown around as comparisons. I was excited to try it out because I enjoyed the games it is being compared to. I found a combat system that felt nothing like the weightiness of GoW or the intricate combo system of DMC. It felt more like a Mosou game or Scarlet Nexus, and there is nothing wrong with that, those games are widely enjoyed, but they're just not for me. I wanted to weigh in on this simply to say it's not what I was expecting and then I specifically mentioned that I can kind of see where it's going and that it will likely be fun for other people, and I really hope people who are looking forward to the game enjoy it.

I think a big part of improving the level of video game discourse is to respect other people's preference even if you don't agree with them or if they are not affirming the games you love. I'm sure there are some ***** comments on this article and those have no place but it should be acceptable to register a dissenting opinion in a kind and courteous way.

Enjoy the game!

@Justin113 the first playthrough I had them on (didn’t realise they were on by default on the challenge demo)
But I played the demo a few times to try and fully grasp as much as I can from what it had to offer.
So less QTEs thankfully (still too many for my taste, they are not even hard so feel even more pointless).

After my 3rd playthrough the combat felt better once I took a eikeon away so I was only using 2 not 3 (switching between 3 I didn’t like).

So it was better but still not great for me, but I knew that going in the combat gave too may DMC 5 vibes.
Some parts feel good like parrying with Titan, some part feel bad like having the standard parry on the attack button or torgal and the items being bound to the same button(nothing more frustrating than thinking you are doing the torgal flourish at the end of your combo to find out you wasted a potion 😂), or no sprint etc.

And the rpg elements in this action rpg felt very shallow, as if you could replace exp/ability points with red orbs and the flow of the game generally wouldn’t change much.

But it’s not all bad like I mentioned before the characters, story and music and overall production values(aside from the level/world map structure)are 9-10 and set a new standard for ff games.

It’s just the act of playing the game I’m not a fan of really, it’s tolerable enough but if future ff games follow this type of DMC/rpg lite gameplay with no party members it will be a hard sell for me unless the story is as good as this one seems (which is a tall order)

@danzoEX it's not so similar to KH combat, though there are some similarities, and might take a little time to get used to, but it's more than worth it when you do

@BusyOlf about 10 GB

@Darthmoogle The original FFVII had swearing in by Barret it was just censored out completely also the remake of VII has swearing in. XVI is supposed to be much more of an adult and darker FF though

@KaijuKaiser The new DQ is action based combat and XII most likely be action based too since they are taking DQ in a darker setting

@Synthatron_Prime Sorry, I spoke too soon! Later in the game I saw pretty significant drops, with fire in the castle. So yeah, those drops are quite noticeable, and I hope they will be fixed.