Ys X First Playthrough: Chapter 3 (via demo + full release)
1Just when I was beginning to think Falcom forgot the demo was supposed to be a demo, I found the end of it.
Chapter 3 is where the stakes get real, Adol and Karja face an adversary they aren't ready for, and Adol finds himself in quite the predicament that we're not sure how he's going to get out of.
The demo ends right before what looks to be possibly the toughest boss battle yet - and it indeed is... and it's really not at all a good or enjoyable one. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to involve the break mechanic, which you'd think would mean it would go faster - but also surprisingly, the boss has an annoying attack that makes it almost cycle-based anyway because you pretty much can't attack it for half a minute. Really bad way to pick up right after the demo ends...
We also find out within the non-demo remainder of the chapter that rescuing the rest of the townsfolk of Carnac is not nearly as interesting as the first one. I was thinking each and every one was going to be a unique experience, but nope - aside from the first, the others are the same so far, which seems extremely disappointing and boring. How many things did Falcom phone in on this game? I hope at least a few of them will still be unique...
One pleasant surprise is that saves transferring over between the demo and the full game Just Worked even through Proton. The only thing that didn't transfer was configuration, which I suspect is pretty common for Steam cloud sync, given that you may be syncing between different machines that warrant different settings.
00:00 - Start of Chapter 3
4:04:44 - End-of-demo thoughts
4:17:18 - Remainder of Chapter 3