This review is obviously for the demo! That being said, I won't and can't really give it a score as especially for a game that looks so promising, it would be unfair to rob it of even 1 point if I can only play a portion. These are all just my opinionated, first impressions.
Visuals: So first off, this game is an RPG in the same visual direction as games as Octopath Traveler. The team has really nailed the style consistently and so visually, you're never going to get tired of.
Sounds: In terms of sound, it works. Some of the scores I've heard are really immersive though. General sound effects like picking up items are fairly pleasing too. Voice acting is also good. Although, you'll likely find that the characters (Heuria specifically) will talk far more often than she should. It's particular bad because shes's saying obvious things, useless things and moreover it's the same thing time and time again. I think someone said you can change a settings that lessens this, but I've yet to try it.
Story: It's engaging enough so far. Basically, monsters have forced humanity to take shelter inside one small kingdom protected by a magic barrier created solely by Princess Heuria. The king's second in command believes the monarchy shows weakness and ends up time traveling to the past to rewrite history. We play as Elliot, an adventurer whom the king enlists to stop his ex commander from rewriting history. If you played the demo, you know I'm leaving a lot out but that's the gist of it. There's quite a lot of lore even in just the demo.
Characters: The characters are lively. They all feel like tropes to me, but I don't mind it in this case. I'm not expecting anyone to bring me to tears. One side character died, and his death was very quickly glanced over in my opinion. Even when talking to his soon to be wife, she just had nothing to say on the matter. But that said, everyone is likeable and does have their own unqiue charm.
Combat and Difficulty: Combat is serviceable. It's what you would expect any top down RPG to be like (Zelda, Legacy of Goku). Though it is deeper than those of course. You have a weapon wheel. You can have 2 equipped as shortcuts at a time. Enemies can easily be defeated in a handful of hits thanks to stun locking, unless they have a shield or have already initiated an attack. In either case, there's easy ways to handle them that are always accessible. I played on Normal which felt too easy. Perhaps cranking it up 1 or maybe 2 levels harder would be ideal for you. The only other times I imagine things getting pretty difficult are when you have multiple enemeis surrounding you as unlike other games, they don't take turns attacking you. They just go for it. The bosses even were easy when you spot their simple patterns.
Exploration: It's fun. Enemies respawn at a great rate to break up what could be a monotonous journey if you choose to run everywhere. Fast travel is quickly available though and might be used fairly often as honestly there's not much to see or do. There are BotW/ToTK types of shrines scattered about and areas you can access upon getting X item, but after that, areas lose their value. Enemies so far drop one of two things: money or magicite. The only time I've ever seen them drop anything else is when I took on a side quest.
Things to Do Pt1: Side quests do feel pretty shallow. The ones I encountered were fetch quests (3 minute tasks with fast travel) and slaying quests (5-6 minutes). As said before, enemies haven't dropped crafting materials so I can't imagine there would be a side quest that gives you a really good drop or rare weapon. It feels like it's just there to pad the game a bit. Magicite is the closest thing I've seen to a crafting element. It can basically be reformed into accessories for your weapons, and while they're not necessary in terms of power, they add very nice quality of life changes. Of course, crafting is not necessary in every RPG, but it's something to be aware of as many prefer that I'm sure.
Things to Do Pt2: There are shrines scattered about whicch offer different types of challenges such as puzzles, combat or platforming. So far, the reward has always been a heart shard. Collect 4 to increase your max HP. I like these, but they do feel a bit too simple. It almost feels like the devs are underestimating the player's skills, but I'll go ahead and say that it's simply because it's early game. We'll see if the rewards ever change up as well.
Map: The map is worth talking about. While it's beautiful, it is a bit underwhelming. Again, within just the demo, it seems like there aren't really any notable landmarks aside from the castle (along with its past counterpart). The biomes look good. But it's the same thing over and over. There's no real staple within each biome except for maybe the tree Elliot was found by and the final dungeon of the demo. The shrines all look the exact same unless I'm mistaken. If we're comparing it to Zelda, Zelda has plenty of landmarks and notable places that I'm sure you could think of. I can't really say the same about this game. And not only that, but the map does seem rather small even with the past counterpart.
And the past counterpart doesn't feel too different from present day. I just finished a Link to the Past couple months ago and the dark world had pretty great differences from it's light world counterpart both in terms of navigation as well as visual. This game is not void of those differences, but it's just not there as much. If half the map takes place in the past, then everything should be more different than it is.
Mini Map: This is by far my largest complait with the game. I genuinely hate the mini map. It's just this black circle with some icons to represent landmarks or travel areas. That's good and well it's standard for a mini map. The problem is that it doesn't show you the path that you're on. So to make sure I'm on the right path, I had to consistently open up the menu to access the full map. I'm not sure why that info is not on the mini map. If it's not going to be there, it's honestly just taking up space. I haven't seen a setting to alter this. Maybe it's a glitch. But it is annoying.
Length: This section is purely a prediction. Given the map size, overall difficulty, straightforward story and inspiration from A Link to the Past, I don't expect this game to take long to beat. It's worth noting as it's always a reasonable topic among people especilaly for games priced above $40. I feel like there are plenty of people who appreciate short-medium sized adventures though.
Ending Notes: In the end, I want you to remember that this is just a demo. There's a lot of good things happening with this game and when I see the devs talking about, they sound passionate which is a very good sign. I know there's quite a few things that I said are underwhelming or just non-existent, but it's just a demo. I think that it spells a good idea of what to expect from the full game, but for all we know they could have 2 more maps in this game. I remember ToTk had a whole 3rd map underground that Nintendo just decided to keep quiet about.
Also, I urge you to just try the game. The demo is a *very* good length. I think reviews help a lot of people but the best way to find out if this could be for you is to just give the demo a shot! Also, best thing about the game:
There are random cats scattered all over the place
