This review was written before the game released
(Review of the demo)
This game being the largest meme aside, the demo was pretty sick. It pretty much boils down to the combat system, which the snippets from the trailer made look very just "blargh swing beeg sword around and glory kill", when it's surprisingly intricate and cool. I'm not the expert on these sorts of things by any means, but the action/jrpg gameplay fusion is really sweet, and for me scratches a similar sort of itch to something like kingdom hearts. Switching Jobs being something you do as an animation cancel, cool useage of parries and blocking, even a pretty neat little blue mage ability stealing system, it's all pretty damn cool and when it comes together in the demo's one boss fight, which is really good, its a great time.
There's clearly a lot of influence from Nioh here, with it's job switching taking the place of stance switching, the level design, demons souls shortcuts and the bosses. And it actually works.
Of course there's the whole CHAOS thing to address, which is here in spades and is delightfully stupid. Fortunately, when you get some other clothes on your main dude (which you will do in literally 5 minutes) and play for a little bit, it seems a bit less absurd and the style meshes together a bit better. It is still delightfully cheesy and at least somewhat aware about it though, particulary with the bombastic fnal moments of the game's boss fight, where an EDM version of FF1 music is playing over it and it turns a bit into metal gear rising.
Honestly, my main problems with the demo are that your supporting party members feel absolutely worthless and are more of a nuisance in battle (and frankly, dont have much to say in story), and the progression/loot being extremely fast and demanding menuing after basically every battle. That second one has probably been amplified to get more done in the demo, granted, but I dont think i'll be fond of it's loot system regardless, it feels a bit overdone for very minor benefits.
Also, as someone who, frankly, is pretty damn shite at action games, I'm willing to bet one of the mechanics here is utterly busted - such as the ability that prevents you taking hitstun, the animation canclling magic block that gives you MP, etc - that I just can't extract myself. Clearly i think people better than me at this sort of things need to give it a look before any conclusions are made on that though.
Overall, it's a good start, frankly. The trailer might be hilarious, and the game is a bit too, but frankly it doesn't do it justice. If you have a PS5 absolutely check it out. Yes, it's a meme, but there's definetly something cool here, and frankly, the bizzare direction for a retelling of FF1 that's been taken is kinda something worth seeing for yourself, like it or not.
Also, yes, the lines "Chaos." >"No, I am become Chaos, who are you">"We're here to kill chaos" basically happen in that exact order within 30 seconds. Its fantastic.
This game being the largest meme aside, the demo was pretty sick. It pretty much boils down to the combat system, which the snippets from the trailer made look very just "blargh swing beeg sword around and glory kill", when it's surprisingly intricate and cool. I'm not the expert on these sorts of things by any means, but the action/jrpg gameplay fusion is really sweet, and for me scratches a similar sort of itch to something like kingdom hearts. Switching Jobs being something you do as an animation cancel, cool useage of parries and blocking, even a pretty neat little blue mage ability stealing system, it's all pretty damn cool and when it comes together in the demo's one boss fight, which is really good, its a great time.
There's clearly a lot of influence from Nioh here, with it's job switching taking the place of stance switching, the level design, demons souls shortcuts and the bosses. And it actually works.
Of course there's the whole CHAOS thing to address, which is here in spades and is delightfully stupid. Fortunately, when you get some other clothes on your main dude (which you will do in literally 5 minutes) and play for a little bit, it seems a bit less absurd and the style meshes together a bit better. It is still delightfully cheesy and at least somewhat aware about it though, particulary with the bombastic fnal moments of the game's boss fight, where an EDM version of FF1 music is playing over it and it turns a bit into metal gear rising.
Honestly, my main problems with the demo are that your supporting party members feel absolutely worthless and are more of a nuisance in battle (and frankly, dont have much to say in story), and the progression/loot being extremely fast and demanding menuing after basically every battle. That second one has probably been amplified to get more done in the demo, granted, but I dont think i'll be fond of it's loot system regardless, it feels a bit overdone for very minor benefits.
Also, as someone who, frankly, is pretty damn shite at action games, I'm willing to bet one of the mechanics here is utterly busted - such as the ability that prevents you taking hitstun, the animation canclling magic block that gives you MP, etc - that I just can't extract myself. Clearly i think people better than me at this sort of things need to give it a look before any conclusions are made on that though.
Overall, it's a good start, frankly. The trailer might be hilarious, and the game is a bit too, but frankly it doesn't do it justice. If you have a PS5 absolutely check it out. Yes, it's a meme, but there's definetly something cool here, and frankly, the bizzare direction for a retelling of FF1 that's been taken is kinda something worth seeing for yourself, like it or not.
Also, yes, the lines "Chaos." >"No, I am become Chaos, who are you">"We're here to kill chaos" basically happen in that exact order within 30 seconds. Its fantastic.