I commented in a news article about it. I think I need a second try at it but here are my thoughts, omitting narrative as there is non here. I had hopes for it due to the writers, as in not Japanese basically, nothing on Japanese writers but they tend to dwell on the whole 'friendship' thing a lot of late.
So, firstly, I think it looks good if not everything is too small and UI interface is a little odd. In the menu, brown background with gold as text is nice and stylised but terrible for reading. The main character's HP bar I didn't even realise was a HP bar. :P These issues can be fixed with settings.
Demo itself, being just plonked into a very leveled, multiple magic, multiple item character instead of a lower level to learn stuff I don't think was the best. We should have been given a small story mission to do, instead of 5 MMORPG quests essentially but it did give a good basis for the game.
Gameplay, this was actually quite fun, whizzing around with the PARKOUR!, and switching stances was quite unique and I enjoyed that.
But then comes my biggest issue, the controls. I'm not sure if they tested enough or there were options to personalise your controls as I never went into the settings however... copied from the news post:
"...Your right hand is doing everything it feels like. I'm meant to press O to do the PARKOUR! but then also try to press R2 to shoot/attack, then hold R1 to switch magics, which is selected by the right analogue stick, which is also the lock on button. Left had meanwhile is holding movement. They need to switch the selecting of magicks to left analogue stick and it wouldn't feel so awkard."
Selecting your magic is not left analogue stick, it's that in nearly every other game that has a wheel selection. Having the lock on on R3 not L3 is just awkward. Your left thumb is on the stick all the time so why are we being made to use our right to change magic?
I suggested later if they move selecting magicks to left stick, lock on to L3, made R2 PARKOUR! and then had the magic variations as Square, Triangle and Circle (X still jump) then the controls would be perfect. You can switch between types of fire of that magic on the fly instead of painfully switching between them as you need them.
It also told you that you can switch magic by pressing R1 and L1 together, what it didn't tell you is you can also switch magicks by pressing the left and right arrows, that healing was the down arrow. etc.
Overall, I will pick this up in a sale but with those controls, I can tell I'm mostly going to be annoyed. :P
Hmm, pie.
