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I turned on the game, edit my character, and launch the prologue. So far, so good. For some reason all the menus look like a monster hunter rip-off. I know capcom made that to, but it still feels a little out of place. Maybe just some fan service to the fanbase? I don't know, maybe just a coincidence. The controls feel confusing at the start. All the right hand face buttons are either attacks or interactions, and the RI/L1 buttons both bring up even more attacks out of the face buttons when held. The R2 button is grab, so that means that just about all the buttons are combat functions or basic interacting commands. There's a jump button on X so don't worry about that missing. This is actually good as it both confirms its combat focus, and also makes you really pay attention to what your pressing and giving the game a reasonable learning curve that'll carry on for the first couple of levels. There is almost an instant feel that you'll need to practice your combat, and this is a feeling that many games just don't have any more. I've played both demo levels 4 times, and still feel like I have more to learn. The items ironically contrast with the dirverse and amazing combat system. You seem to have a very "bare bones" RPG item system. You get several types of health plants/potions, a stamina booster, a lantern (Needed at night, and it seems that the full version will feature an oil refill system), and (if you find it) a stone for distracting enemies. Really doesn't get too creative, or stray from a very barren RPG feel. This could be a nice way of getting back to simplicity, a fault for the game, or just a demo limitation. Only the full version can tell. In the mean time you can use the items in several ways, like combining them or trading with friends. There is a natural weight system instead of an inventory limit, so the more you carry is the heavier you move. Giving it too friends will be useful, but so is stealing from them. Depends on whether you want to revive them, or allow them to heal off their own supplies and stay in the fight 100%.
The classes in this game are both so much fun. I'm actually almost complaining because of this, as I want them both when I can only have one. There are still 7 others, and I'm already stuck between deciding a rouge archer or a swordsman. The swordsman has light/heavy slashes, shield based attacks and a taunt if you're holding L1, and a set of really great moves like a dodge and thrust sword move if you're holding R1. The Archer has two daggers for his basic attacks, and has a good infantry moves with them like a skull splitting move on its R1 set. The L1 set pulls out the bow and you can choose a basic shot, a full shot (knocks goblins off their feet), a tri-arrow shot, and an artillery angled shot for a group of enemies. Archery is pretty great, and actually feels quite fun unlock most RPGs I've tried bows in. However the drawback (what is with me and these puns?) is that it needs to be a team effort. Thankfully that's what the demo gives you, but I imagine the class would suck if I didn't have a mage and a crazy swordsman by my side.
The graphics are decent. After looking into some other opinions, everyone is either making a fuss over how awesome they are, or how glitchy and sub-par they are. Nobody can make up their mind, and I feel alone on an island that just says "they're good and nothing more". So I guess I don't have much to say past that. Well, I will say that the fire looks amazing and for some reason I feel like there isn't enough blood. The blood is always on character models, not dynamically bleeding or leaving any real impression until you've killed them. The first time I fought the griffin boss, it actually didn't bleed until it died and then it was just everywhere on the character model. It's like one deadly slice soiled its entire body with patches of blood stains and scar stripes. The gore is just unnatural, but this isn't some kind serious complaint. I've also noticed the detail on the bosses is far greater than that on the goblin or small enemies. You just see basic figures with the goblins, like their color and shape/size, but that's about all you'll notice. Either the combat gets too frantic to tell or care, or they simply wont give you a good look at them. The bosses show off amazing detail, like the Lion's face, the Griffon's feathers, or the dragon's "I'm huge, red eyed, and going to burn you like grass" type of powerful look. The sounds are decent, with the pawns (your friends) saying very cheesy and epic hero lines and advice, typical monster sounds, and average battle sounds. The music itself is pretty good, but doesn't leave a huge impact. It's a bit above average, but don't expect too much.
So I'll go on a little more about the pawns. They're far better than I thought they'd be, and they surprised me more than anything else in the demo. For starters, yes they have good AI. They only messed up once, and costed me a restart because they confused me into the wrong direction (long story short, it was a cliff). Apart from that, they are relentless fighters, give advice to the situation, heal you, and sometimes... they're just a little too good. Seriously, the first fight I got into I only killed one guy by pushing him into fire. They mauled everybody else before I could figure out the situation. I was reading how someone else had the same problem, and decided to replay and throw his friends off a cliff so that he could get a good grip on combat by himself. The full game wont have this problem due to full pawn customization. Kind of ironic to find an AI driven squad game to be too good in AI. However some people are questioning boss AI, but they aren't too bad. Because of all this, the difficulty is in question (too easy or too hard?), and it makes the full game even more unpredictable. The worst complaint I have for not only the pawns, but the whole demo, is the pawn's camera mugging. Every time they do or say something special, the camera is stolen from you and pans to a slow motion pawn doing... whatever the game thinks is awesome. It's like if a shooter decided to show you a kill cam every time your friend did something cool, while interrupting your own gameplay. I understand that it's important to know if your pawn wants you to do some team move like holding a goblin for you to hit, but it got really old really fast and destroys the pacing of your own fighting. This is especially the case for the griffon fight, where every minute one steals the camera to ask if you want them to boost you up to the griffon (I still don't know how to accept their invite either). I'll check options again in hope that this can be toggled off, because this is quite annoying. It'd be much better if the pawns only said it, or had a glowing icon for it instead of the camera being robbed from you every time.
Still yet to be seen is how open the game will be, what will the RPG elements look like, how fun are the other classes and skills, and how much general content will we get. Also Capcom doesn't have the best DLC record, and we're wondering if the game will have extra day 1 content that should have been in the game. I think for the most part, this game can't get any less than a 7/10 and has potential to get a strong 9. It's out of 10 range because everyone seems to be picking up their own set of glitches, and each console version has their own tech problems (Xbox gets screen tearing while PS3 gets FPS drop). I haven't noticed so much, but then again if I can tolerate Two worlds 2's problems, then I am probably blind to basic glitches in RPG games. Here's to hoping this game does great, and we receive more action heavy RPG games.
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