First impressions - PS5 Demo & new Showcase

[shadonic]

Since this is most likely not getting a Demo on this Platform i want to share some first impressions of the Game based on the PS5 Demo which was released on the 12th of January (Regional timing).

First of, the Demo is quite big (26,5GB). Probably most of that Data will be able to be restored with the Full Game release to avoid re-loading it completely again, but i'm not sure about that.

The Demo offers 3 Modes

Tutorial : (You will learn Basic movements and combat combinations fighting against a Wooden Dummy Doll)
Story Mode : (Throws you into a random Mission during the Story, in this case rescuing Townspeople from a Goblin ambush, including a Boss at the End)
Quest Mode : This Mode offers Quests next to the Story which can be completed in either a pre-made Groups with NPCs or Online with a Hub at hand where you can meet with Friends to start Quests or do Quests with Randoms using the Matchmaking System. Feels a bit like the Gathering Hub from Monster Hunter.


The Tutorial doesn't really need much of an introduction. You learn your Basics there.

The Story Mode is the first real glimpse of the Game.
You Will take control of Gran (The Stories Protagonist).
Gran will assume position of leader in the Group atuomatically, so you can play only as him, while your Party is being AI controlled.
The Menu gives the Option to edit your Group, so i assume you will also be able to control other Characters, but during the Demos Story Mission you could only control Gran.
The Quest at Hand is simple, go in, beat up the Goblins, save the Townsfolk.
While you're at that you can also explore the Island.
There are various things to see here, destructible Objects, different kinds of Chests with Loot scattered around the Place (some of which require you to collect crystals in a certain amount of time to unlock them), Mimics hidden as destructible Objects, Item Pick-ups and a Summon Stone which will make you fight a Group of stronger enemies led by a mid-Boss like Enemy Wyvern.

Your Task for the Mission is to defeat Groups of Goblins and rescue the Townsfolk leading up to an area where you will encounter a Boss Goblin fight which will summon smaller Goblins throughout the Fight.

After the Fight the Story Mode is completed and that's it for now.


The Quest Mode of the Demon puts you in a Town like Hub, where you can invite Friends, change your Characters and also sort out your Equipment.
If you have played a bit of Monster Hunter in your past, this will not be new to you.
There is a Quest Clerk offering you 3 Quests during the Demo.
1. Fight a Horde of Enemies in an Arena like Field
2. Fight a Boss (Easy Difficulty)
3. Fight a Boss (Normal Difficulty)
You have access to 11 different Characters to pick from in the Quest Mode, which are :
Gran, Katalina, Rackam, Io, Charlotta, Ghandagoza, Narmaya, Lancelot, Siegfried, Yodahra (which i played) and Zeta.

Equipment and Sigils can be set up to improve your Power. Certain Power thresholds are required for the Quest Mode.
Equipment is basically your Weapon while Sigils are improvements to various aspects like Crit Hit rates, HP, Cooldowns etc.

Quests have various tasks that can be fulfilled to increase the Ranking, like clearing the Quests in a certain amount of time, using certain items etc.
The Demo isn't really rewarding you with items yet, the only reward you get is a Chest for participating in the quest mode which will be able to be used in the full game release.

You also have a ranking based on player participation at the end screen, scoring each player based on their distribution during the fight.


Combat feels smooth. You have 2 types of Attacks (Regular and heavy), which can be paired together. Heavy Attacks can be charged to break shielded enemies defense.
During the Demo you have 4 skills that will be assigned to the R1 shoulder button + one of the 4 main Buttons (O, X, Square and Triangle).
For the sake of comparising it another Game, take Tales of Arise for example.
Both games are very similar in how the layout the way how you control your Character, the only difference here being, is that Combat is quicker and more Fluid, while also a bit more hectic.
There is a system in place that let's you increase the effect of your equipped skills by using regular attacks on the enemies first.
Aside from that there are Link attacks with group memebers as the break bar fills on enemies aswell a chain link action bar, which can be used solo or chained together with party members to lead into a strong group attack if all of your party members use it.

Music, The Tracks used in the Game sound very promising and the lead-in from regular exploration into Fights without the theme completely changing, but rather transforming is done very well.

Exploration is a big question mark. So far you're being dropped off on an Island you can explore, which in size is not considered big. See it more like an instanced raid in any basic MMO. I'm not yet sure if there will be bigger areas to explore, but what has been shown in the Demo doesn't feel bad. You get a good amount of running around exploring, finding hidden Chests and jumping around on roofs to get items.

being tired as it's 5:00 a.m. now after downloading and testing the demo, i didn't want to go too much into detail here, but rather point out some things avaiable to the demo on the PS5.

here is a small list of Pros and Cons

Pro :
Combat feels good and can be very rewarding once you get used to it, this is especially shown in the quest mode where you can play with characters which have more advanced skill sets that require you to time your attacks correctly. The Story mode is pretty basic in that regard (atleast what is being shown in the demo at this point)

The scenery and art design generally is very lovely and melts together perfectly with the characters on the screen.

Atleast speaking for the PS5 Demo on performance mode, performance was very good. no stuttering, nothing. it was just a smooth experience and i hope we get the same kind of experience on PC.

Cons :
NPCs just can't shut up during fights. If this isn't your first Action Combat JRPG, you won't be new to this, but they're really taking it to the next level here. to the point where it is even sometimes feeling like a distraction. Just give me an option to reduce combat dialoge by 50% and i'm cool.

Cutscene Dialogs outside of fully animated cutscenes will use a Text backdrop that pretty much takes up 1/4th of your screen. This is ugly and should have never happened. If you've ever played a Visual Novel Game you know what's happening. You have a scene before your eyes with a Text that needs a Backdrop to take up more screen space, making the characters in the scene often get lost behind it. Text with a shadow would've sufficed, no need to take up more space with some ugly Board blocking the 1/2 of the lower screen section.

Too much noise during Fights. Yes, i've mentioned it before, but i'll gladly do it again. i don't need to hear every party members moaning and screaming when using their attacks all the time. it is too much. especially if you play it with japanese voices, it get's too much at a certain point.



All that being said, i'm pretty happy with what the Demo had to show.
It's a Solid JRPG, with an additional Online Mode to keep you going if you decide to continue playing the game aside from the Story Mode.

There are also further Updates planned for the Game to offer more Fights and Characters, but the Story mode is done and the Game is being sold as a complete state. So whatever get's added after that is pretty much just an extra that doesn't involve the main story part of the game.

If you're interested, the Devs/Publisher also released a new showcase of the Game today including a Story/Online Part of the Game aswell as further Informations.

*There is still no Info on if PC will get Pre-Orders/Deluxe Packs
*Crossplay will not be a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0pq9Qoglgs&ab_channel=CygamesEN

I hope this could help you a little bit and sorry i couldn't give you a full on description of everything avaiable, but i'm very sleepy haha.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Thanks for the summary.

[KhatP]

it suck DEMO is not on Steam!!

[HeksevilleHero]

Khat původně napsal:

it suck DEMO is not on Steam!!

I do find it strange, but my guess is they want to prevent people from leaking leftover assets this early on (such as possible files related to Djeeta or the Knickknack Shack)

[LagiaLugia]

Ai party members are useful in battles? I mean are they hitting alot or medium level? Also wish demo on steam could happen.

[shadonic]

LagiaLugia původně napsal:

Ai party members are useful in battles? I mean are they hitting alot or medium level? Also wish demo on steam could happen.

They seem to do pretty well on the story mode, haven't tested it on the quest mode yet.

[HeksevilleHero]

LagiaLugia původně napsal:

Ai party members are useful in battles? I mean are they hitting alot or medium level? Also wish demo on steam could happen.

The AI does it's job well. They even save their Skybound Arts for Bosses (unless you set them to use it when you do) which is handy for creating Chain Bursts

[Furia]

PS4 Demo is about 12GB. I guess there's difference in graphic quality. I like the exploration, the movements feel smooth, the combat feel smooth.

I have Tales of Arise on PC and the graphic, combat, and movements didn't feel as smooth. I know the art style is different, but Relink just looks and feels better.

I hope PC runs as smooth as PS4/PS5

[HeksevilleHero]

Furia původně napsal:

PS4 Demo is about 12GB. I guess there's difference in graphic quality.

Yeah, I'd guess things like texture quality would be lower on the PS4 version, so no need to shove full resolution textures in the files.

[Altotas]

shadonic původně napsal:

Too much noise during Fights. Yes, i've mentioned it before, but i'll gladly do it again. i don't need to hear every party members moaning and screaming when using their attacks all the time. it is too much. especially if you play it with japanese voices, it get's too much at a certain point.

Ah, thank you for informing me of this. I hoped for some sort of setting to tone it down, and I know for a fact that this noise will ruin my enjoyment of the game so I guess I'll skip it.

[Stoibs]

Shame you guys didn't like the voice overs, I thought it was pretty neat how they all talk to each other and react, especially in the Quest-mode when you can use any combination of all the characters. All their 'Power Ranger Go!' special moves when doing 4 links in succession was pretty charming

I think my biggest con was just how damn bullet spongey everything is, even trash takes a good beating, but the bosses themselves are just a slog.
The Goblin Chief at the end of the story demo is nothing but 5-8 minutes of just spamming Square and Triangle straight, with the occasional Link and cooldown skills when they are up. The secondary Quest mode part of the demo was even worse with absurd hit point values and you doing chip damage for days.
I did one of them then threw the towel in and uninstalled.

Eh, maybe I missed the memo and entire point of what this game is supposed to be.
I heard this was a 'JRPG' and had a certain set of expectations but I guess it's more of an online/monster hunter thing? I'm completely unfamiliar with the concept, very glad there was a demo though ahead of time instead of being disappointed by a blind buy!

[Visero]

thankyou for giving your thoughts to all of the pc players.

[shadonic]

Stoibs původně napsal:

Shame you guys didn't like the voice overs, I thought it was pretty neat how they all talk to each other and react, especially in the Quest-mode when you can use any combination of all the characters. All their 'Power Ranger Go!' special moves when doing 4 links in succession was pretty charming :reexcited:

I think my biggest con was just how damn bullet spongey everything is, even trash takes a good beating, but the bosses themselves are just a slog.
The Goblin Chief at the end of the story demo is nothing but 5-8 minutes of just spamming Square and Triangle straight, with the occasional Link and cooldown skills when they are up. The secondary Quest mode part of the demo was even worse with absurd hit point values and you doing chip damage for days. :csd2sick:
I did one of them then threw the towel in and uninstalled.

Eh, maybe I missed the memo and entire point of what this game is supposed to be.
I heard this was a 'JRPG' and had a certain set of expectations but I guess it's more of an online/monster hunter thing? I'm completely unfamiliar with the concept, very glad there was a demo though ahead of time instead of being disappointed by a blind buy!

eh, it comes down to personal preferences with certain things. i don't mind npcs or even my character talking during fights, i just wish it would be far less. not a game breaker for me, but if there was the option to only have them talk in certain situations like link attacks, breaks or chains, i'd be totally good with that haha.

can't say much about about enemies and health etc. it's a demo and only shows a certain amount of gameplay at a certain level. if the demo would allow you to overpower the enemies in the story mode, it wouldn't properly display the systems at hand. i'm sure with grinding and everything you'll be able to mow through enemies later on, with more difficult enemies like world bosses to counter that out. but that's speculation on my side.

The Monster Hunter reference is just to give a better understanding how the Hub System works. Otherwise this game has nothing in common with Monster Hunter.