With the Uncovered Final Fantasy XV event there was quite a bit of information divulged and videos shown off to the public. One of those pieces of Fan loving goodness was a new Demo for the game titled Platinum Demo, allowing you to take control of a younger Noctis to explore the game of today and how it’s changed since the Duscae episode quite some time ago.
Story
The Demo centres on Noctis, the protagonist, when he was a young boy and having what seems to be a nightmare of sorts. Though thankfully his father leaves a Carbuncle figure by his bedside which helps him in his dreams, alluding to it actually being a crystal or font of power for the Eidolon. Carbuncle guides you through your dreams to eventually find your safe place and wake up.
Towards the end you will be able to have a glimpse of your older self as you fight an Iron Giant, finally finding your safe place of your father’s car.
The Platinum demo is shorter than the Duscae one as it doesn’t center on combat that much or quests, lasting around 2 hours if you want to explore or a half hour or less if you just follow the signs to the exit.
Changes from Demo to Demo
You can read about the first demo here: http://invisioncommunity.co.uk/2015/03/28/final-fantasy-xv-episode-duscae-preview/
Platinum fancies up a lot of the Graphical interface systems for combat, the health and mana are larger, allowing you to see them more clearly, as well as the weapon wheel being rather big and constantly available during combat. You no longer passively switch between weapons in combat but instead you can press a direction button and you will change to that weapon, in the Platinum demo you only had a sword, Hammer, Greatsword (Old Noctis), fanciful effects like fireworks and finally the Fire spell (Old Noctis).
Fighting is pretty much the same, but a bit more fluid, you hold down Circle to attack, forcing Noctis to close the gap on his own, then press the hammer button to finish off a combo with a smash on the ground. Magic has changed to an actively aimed grenade, leaving you wide open as you try to aim up the shot, hopefully the ability to quick throw is somewhere in the mechanics as this is a risky move when surrounded.
The car mechanics were also shown off allowing you to drive trucks and cars, along with transforming into some of the monsters of the wild. Vehicles drive pretty much as you would expect, the trucks are slow and unwieldy whereas the cars are faster and have better turn rates. The monster transformations seem to be more of a gimmick of the dream rather than a core part of the final release, adding some fun to the Demo.
Overall thoughts and Feelings
The Platinum Demo definitely improves on some of the faults of the Episode Duscae Demo but since it is so short it is hard to say much about them. Showing off driving, actually telling us we can drive our car at some point, a small peek into magic and the new combat system, with an overhauled Armiger to boot. That is all you really get from this Platinum Demo, but it does reinforce the idea that it is near completion with the release date of September 30th.
The changes that were made don’t necessarily make this better or worse than Duscae, again it was too short to really get a feel for it, but I can say it is different. Since this is free for all to download it would be a good idea to try it out for yourself if you never got a chance at Episode Duscae. You can of course continually fight the Iron Giant and try the combat, from the explosive barrels, Fire Spell, Warping, Counters, Aerial combat and more.
