The Impact Factor

Returning to the Fantasy of Game Demos

Perspectives

Abstract: Video game demos were a huge part of my childhood. Demos fulfilled a dual purpose. Demos introduced me to new games that I wanted to add to my collection. They also provided their own standalone micro gaming experiences. Video game demos have mostly faded away, however. Square Enix is bringing back the demo in a fantastic way, with Episode Duscae and Platinum Demo for Final Fantasy XV. I hope this phenomenon becomes a trend and we see more demos coming out soon.

Video game demos hold a special place in my heart. A PlayStation demo disk was one of my favorite experiences on the PS1. Before you click away, hear me out. Game demos were a bedrock of my childhood gaming. They contained the new, the exciting, and the unreleased. It was hard scraping together enough money to buy new games as a 9 year old. Even more than that, it was excruciating trying to decide if a new game would be worth it. Sure, I read reviews in gaming magazines. Sure, I listened to my friends to see what they had been playing. But being on a shoestring budget meant that the next game I bought was a serious commitment. A several month commitment at least. Demo disks solved that problem and more. Demos were also experiences onto themselves—‘micro’ games for those in need. As a kid I was in desperate need. Trust me.

My parents' staunch refusal to buy me a video game console meant that when I bought my PS1 in 1998 it represented years of saving my money. It was a gargantuan ask for a kid who spent money faster than he could get it. Bubble gum and trading cards were my vices. But I put my head down and saved the $180 or so it took to buy my PS1 and one game, Crash Bandicoot 2. It was months before I had saved enough to buy a second game. For anyone who has played it, you’ll know that Crash 2 isn’t a particularly long game. So I used game demos to fill my time.

Thankfully, my PS1 came with a one-month subscription to PlayStation Underground. Underground is a now defunct video game magazine that spotlighted PlayStation games and news. Its biggest claim to fame, at least in my book, was the demo disks. Each issue came with a disk that contained several demos for upcoming games. My disks, so titled because I only ended up with two or three, were good ones. They had demos for Tomb Raider, Brave Fencer Musashi, Parappa the Rapper, and Bloody Roar among others. I played the living hell out of those disks. Over and over again. Hours at a time over the span of months. Even though most demos were short, they gave me so much.

If one image could sum up my childhood...
(P.S. I owned this disk.)

On one hand, demos sold me on games that I later added to my collection (Tomb Raider). On the other, they were self-contained games themselves. Brave Fencer Musashi, in particular, worked start to finish to not only spotlight the full game’s mechanics but also act as a worthy standalone experience. A well-designed demo was transportative. A well-designed demo worked synergistically as a 30-minute long game and interactive trailer for a much bigger experience. I also enjoyed demos for the breadth of experiences they presented to me. Parappa the Rapper, a rhythm game, is a genre I would have never considered until I played through the demo (roughly 100 times over). Demos rounded out my gaming time. Whenever I had finished a game, I would pop back in a demo disk and mess around with old favorites. Demos feel like an old friend.

Is Brave Fencer Musashi a good game? I don't know.
The demo sure was.

Demos are an old friend that doesn’t come around too often anymore, though. For the most part, video game demos have mostly faded away. There are a myriad of reasons why and no single one tells the full story. Perhaps it was the rise of smaller indies titles or the huge mass of gaming content on the web. I do not have the time, nor impetus really, to more fully speculate as to why this has happened. Needless to say, though, it has. Demos are few and far between.

What ‘demos’ we do get are often multiplayer-centric betas for upcoming games. We’ve seen the number of betas rising over the past few years. This month we’re getting a Battleborne beta. Next month we’re getting an Overwatch beta. The DOOM beta is currently running. At their best, betas can give a similar experience to the ones I had with demo disks. They introduce you to something new and unreleased, and familiarize the player with the game’s mechanics. Something is lost when the beta is just a multiplayer mode or two, however. You lose that self-contained game experience like that one I had with Brave Fencer Musashi. You can’t look past that the demo is just an ad, a taste of the goods to get you hooked for when the final product releases. They are not something you can, or would even want to, go back to. I’m thrilled we are getting more opportunities to play snippets of upcoming games, and I know I’ll play the heck out of both Battleborn’s and Overwatch’s betas, but they don’t quite hit all the right notes.

Battle of the betas.

Thankfully, it looks like Japan (or more specifically, Square Enix) is looking to bring back demos in a significant way. Final Fantasy XV is a game that’s been in development for a literal eternity, i.e. about ten years now. As one might expect for a game that’s taken nearly a decade to come out, a lot of resources have been put into making FFXV a game people care about. It has taken many forms: an anime prequel, a feature length motion picture, a free-to-play mobile pinball game, and demos. The first of which was Episode Duscae. Given to players who ordered the Day 1 edition of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, Episode Duscae allowed you to explore a huge open area snipped from FFXV. You’re given a few simple objectives to accomplish, but the meat of the demo experiencing the gameplay you (should) have when the final game launches in September. You can explore, you can grind to level up, you can summon, you can fight impossibly hard monsters. Episode Duscae also served as a beta of sorts, since Square Enix used it to gauge fan concerns. Heck, they even updated Episode Duscae to reflect how they are addressing players’ issues. Crazy.

 

Episode Duscae was a great introduction to Final Fantasy XV. 

Square Enix did not stop there. Announced at their huge Uncovered FFXV event last week, and released the day after, Platinum Demo Final Fantasy XV was a second demo for the game. Platinum Demo was a little different than Episode Duscae, though, and in a way that caught my attention. Platinum Demo was a new, standalone experience. The content within the Platinum Demo would not be included in the final retail release of Final Fantasy XV. It is an experience that was designed to be exactly what I viewed demos as when I was a child: a self-contained, albeit small, game. A title that introduced you to the universe, but was also its own thing. I’ve seen a few demos like this pop up recently, like Bravely Second’s Ballad of the Three Cavaliers demo. It’s a phenomenon I would be more than happy to see be made into a trend.

 

You won't see this in Final Fantasy XV. At least not in the same way.

The thing is, Platinum Demo was a pretty stellar experience. I came away impressed with the demo’s design after my roughly 30 minute playthrough. Platinum Demo retools the various systems that will be in Final Fantasy XV and presents them in a through the looking glass-styled dream. Though short, the demo covers what I imagine are all the basics to playing Final Fantasy XV. You’re taught about combat—the switching between weapons, light and heavy weapons, combos, thrown items, dodge rolling, targeting, warping. You’re taught about exploration—jumping, activating trigger switches to open new pathways, tangible rewards for scouring the open world. You’re taught about how FFXV play with scale—you’re pitted against large monsters, groups of monsters, huge open environments. And Platinum Demo accomplishes all of this while still being a set in the main character’s childhood dream. Playing Platinum Demo would have been one of my childhood dreams. It is self-contained, it is edifying, and it got me re-excited for the game it’s selling to me. What more could I ask?

Platinum Demo does a great job at being a great demo.

It looks like we may be in store for more demos in the future, too. While writing this piece, Team Ninja announced that their new Onimusha­-Dark Souls hybrid game Nioh would have a demo out at the end of this month. I hope the demos keep coming. Demos, like Platinum Demo Final Fantasy XV, bring me back to my childhood. They remind me of the wealth of joy I derived from the smallest of experiences. Let’s hope game demos stay underground no longer. I want to return to the fantasy.

(In the meantime, you can check out my full playthrough of Platinum Demo Final Fantasy XV below.)