Opinion: Final Fantasy Episode Duscae

I’ve been a fan of Final Fantasy for as far back as I can remember. It has been a favorite series of mine for a very long time. Despite the fact that the newer entries (XIII and its sequels) felt like a departure from the norm, I still hold out hope that FF can return to its former glory. Having said that, how does the demo for FFXV stack up for me? Lets see!

Episode Duscae opens with the whimsy that one comes to expect from the series. The hallmark of great music is very apparent right off the bat. The initial loading time is a bit long, but that is to be expected with a demo/unfinished product.

The characters are very emo/goth in their appearance but do not seem to have the brooding attitude you would expect from the look. All four have a distinct personality and I found myself actually liking them even though their aesthetic was a bit ridiculous to me.

The world is large and fairly well designed. There seems to be a bit of roughness to the graphics that I suspect could be due to the fact that it may not be fully optimized for the XBOX ONE platform just yet, but it doesn’t seem to detract from the beauty of the game. There are a few places where you have to walk around some mountainous terrain which feels like an artificial barrier forcing you to “take the long way”, though never quite seemed extreme or problematic.

SquareEnix has abandoned the menu driven turned based combat that has been dominant in the series for a system more akin to Kingdom Hearts. This is a great idea on paper, but the execution of it seems a bit off. Combat is nowhere near as responsive as what it is in the KH games. There is a weird system in place that has different types of attack and the appropriate weapon will materialize in the character’s hand when that attack is executed. It seems that the combat favors more deliberate button pressing vs button spamming, so you’ll want to time your strikes for maximum effect.

Leveling up is a bit strange. Instead of acquiring levels the standard was, characters stockpile experience and only when use a campground is the experience applied to your characters. So if you spend a long time out in the field you could possibly gain several levels when you camp. This happened to me several times in the game.

There did not seem to be much magic to use in the demo. There was only one time near the end of the demo where you had access to an eidolon after completing a mission to find it. No spoiler here, you’ll have to find that out for yourself, but it is fantastic and a truly breathtaking moment.

As far as missions go, the demo isn’t packed with much in the way of variety. This demo seems very focused on showcasing the massive world and the combat system, as well as introducing the characters. The experience is pretty light on story also. It feels much more like a tech demo than a story driven piece.

All in all this demo got my attention. I am eager to see what the full game has to offer when it is released. Hopefully they will flesh out the combat a little bit more, but seeing how this game has been in development for almost a decade, the systems probably won’t change much between now and launch.

The demo is available now on XBOX ONE and PS4.