For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Back to the Dawn, from developers Metal Head Games.
Back to the Dawn is a style of RPG that i'm not familiar with so it having a demo is welcomed. going into this demo, i didn't know what the expect other than that it would take place in a prison and that there's some sort of "relationship" mechanic.
i'll admit that i came away from this demo not wanting to go and get the game. in this long video, essentially one day had passed. the pace was very slow and whilst i had no issues with the setting of the game, the things we had to do seemed a little boring. i also felt that there was little guidance,. for me, someone who has little to no experience of this style of RPG, i would've welcomed as much help and hints as possible. with no way to change the difficulty, i feel that Back to the Dawn isn't best for new comers. i don't know how much longer this demo was, nor do i know if this demo had cut any story from the start of the game. very little information is given that this is actually a demo. a final example of how the game could do better with messaging is the options. there is a color blind toggle but no information or examples on what the changes are.
the art and the music were great. i would've liked a little more animation from the characters though. it did feel like stuff was happening but the characters weren't animating it. an example in the hospital is that on screen it says one character is using the intercom to talk to us, but looking at them it looks like they're doing nothing. the same applies to when characters talk, it didn't look like their in-game models were actually talking. there's such a high level of detail in the characters and art style that meant that this was more noticeable than expected.
