Ok, i've finished the demo, took me about an hour an 10 minutes, becuase i wanted to really get a feel for the game. I think i have enough of an idea now to give my impressions on the demo.
The premise of the game, the story, the characters etc, seem very interesting. Baldur seems very much the stereotypical strong, silent, honour driven hero, but there is definately something about him that makes him seem appealing. the character designs are also quite good, although at times can border on the generic. In terms of the way the characters are presented in the game, however, there are a number of serious issues. For example, the hair on the characters is almost laughable at times, and the shooting animation on Baldaur is god awful, as it seems like his arms have absolutely no connection to his body, and are simply just mechanical utensils that aim and fire whilst the character remains absolutely static. the texture detail on the armour at times makes it painfully clear that the majority of the effort went into the facial animations as well.
The voice acting isnt bad, the script isnt bad, but there are times when the two seriously fail to gel together. One key example is when you meet Freya for the first time, and she speaks in a manner that you would expect based on the mythology and her social status in the game. So far so good. However, when she speaks the line that goes something like "come on, we dont want to keep them waiting", and the way it is spoken in that context feels like (in my experience at least) a jarring colloquialism that doesnt fit in with the approach the story seems to want to take. This is also apparent with much of the soldiers dialogue. The music, however, in stark contrast to the dialogue, is very atmospheric and does its job excellently. Notably the ressurection music is very cool, but ill come back to the ressurection aspect later.
My biggest issue with the presentation, is that it seemed like i'd done it all before, last year with a little game called Mass Effect. the whole presentation, from the cutscenes, to the HUD, to the menus and character designs, all seem to be a rip practically straight from ME. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, but Too Human doesnt do it as well as Mass Effect. There are numerous times when the framerate does not know what it wants to do, and it all feels like a wasted potential to expand upon something brilliant. There is no involvement with the cutscenes, so it appears as though about the only influence you have on your character is the choice you make at the beginning for the class, and how you choose to level your character up. Perhaps i am asking too much, but this feels like a game where being "Too Human", you would allow the player to shape the human aspects of the character. Ther is, however, no loading that i saw, which is a nice feature. Of course, i didnt see any elevators either...
The environments range from stunning to "meh". There are times that you will walk into a room and be floored by the detail and effort put into the architecture and decor. There are other times when it pulls you straight out of the game with invisible walls popping up all over the place. You cant jump on top of areas that look interesting to see them close up, you cant jump over certain areas to get closer to the environments, and its tragic because there are some fantastic looking things that will never be revealed in detail. Perhaps this is the previous 10 years showing through, when invisible walls were prevelant and acceptable because there was little that could be done about them on old hardware.
I dont want to talk too much about the levelling aspect, because ive only seen very little of what is undoubtedly a vast area of the game, but what i saw seems very promising. it seems simple enough, get skill points, get experience, upgrade character. It works well because, although you have no influence on your characters behaviour, you have absolute influence on how they fight. The loot as well also seems to be well executed, and appears to be in a similar vein to to WOW style loot.
The combat is fairly simple. Its practically a twin stick shooter at times with the controls, but dont be fooled, there is some depth to it. The juggles can be a lot of fun to use, and if you can overlook the horrid shooting animation, the gun attacks are great to mix in too. There are also a number of enemy specific attacks, such as climbing on a golem, that add a little variety to the usual combat you would expect to encounter.
The problem? There is NO risk-reward balance at all. If you die, you are simply revived and thrown straight back into battle. You could argue some of the battles are supposed to be like puzzles, but even games like shadow of the colossus, that had puzzle battles as the whole premise of the game, had penalty for death. Annoyingly, you cant even skip through the revival process and get straight back to the action. Maybe that is the punishment for dying...
Overall, there is fun to be had. If you are willing to overlook the flaws, then this could be a fantastic game for you. However, the flaws at times can be pretty gaping, so definately go in to the game prepared and with an open mind.
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