For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO from DokiDoki Groove Works and Square Enix.
The Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO is a timed demo. as players, we only get to play for three hours. before i started playing i had no idea why we seemed to be arbitrarily limited, but now i've played it i can see why they did it. the game's pace changes depending on what happens. at the beginning, there's a focus on community and the town you live in. you get to meet many of the people, get to interact with them and learn about them. there's an engagement reveal between two of your friends. for my first hour and twenty minutes, the game is just normal life in a village with some tutorials.
This means what comes next has more of an impact because very quickly village life as we know it is gone and so are our friends. as the sadness takes over things slow down and there's a time skip to when the grief has passed enough for us start moving on. with this desire to move forward, the pace of the game increases and in the last 30 minutes of this demo, or so, we're introduced to town building and set off on two quests. so the 3 hour limit doesn't act as much of a restriction as it provides a push forward.
On PS4, Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO looks and sounds fantastic. when the village gets attacked, the fire effects look almost too good against the pixel art world. when we're in battle, some effects look simple and effective and then there's the Rage Attacks which go over the top by enrobing the characters in a Super Saiyan light. Sun light and moon light look, much like the fire, too realistic in this pixel world. The music was also very nice. there wasn't a theme that disappointed me.
Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO is well worth trying out. having now played it, i'm much more interested in the full game, it's world, and it's story. 3 hours may seem like a long time but it went quite quickly as i played it. at no point did i feel bored or that the game was taking it's time. But for those looking for a more action orientated RPG i can see why it may come across as slow or even old fashioned.
