I liked the demo. I mean this with the most praise possible: It feels like a fully realized dream of a Playstation 2 game developer. There are multiple parts of this game that has that PS2 charm to it, but it controls buttery smooth like a modern game would(and thank goodness for that).
Negatives and Positives:
+Art style and environments both have their moments of looking great. It almost crosses into gorgeous territory but there would need to be just a bit more done for it to wow me when driving through the desert listening to the nice music.
-Character dialogue repeated way too much in this demo. I'm assuming there would have been more lines but they simply weren't present. I ended up turning the dialogue volume to zero to experience the ambience of the music and sounds.
+Speaking of music, this game has some great, tranquil exploration tracks. Turn the music level up to 100 and thank me later. The default setting is too low to really experience it. There is one very similar to this and it definitely sets a mood:
The night time track was also incredible when riding around. When someone eventually uploads it on youtube I will share it here.
-The battle music is too distracting and detracts from the greatness of the exploration music due to it starting up even when you're driving past an enemy and they barely spotted you. A part of me feels that they should just remove it(or at least give the option to), and treat the exploration music as just the main track when doing everything, to set a mood.
+The gameplay felt polished and only a slight, slight bit of jank can happen when deploying a vehicle inside of a dungeon. On foot combos were nice and responsive, the bike/tank both controlled really well and at times reminded me of games like Mad Max and Twisted Metal when in combat. The mech felt nice and responsive, not too slow not too fast. Boss fights no matter which way you decided to tackle them, felt fun, responsive, and engaging.
-Exploration(Small Caves) need something better in terms of rewards. The only real cool part of exploring is finding hidden bosses or a chest, but the items in the chest aren't really put into play too much in this demo. Hopefully the full game fixes this.
+The larger dungeons felt better to explore. You can also deploy your vehicles inside of dungeons and it can lead to fun moments.
There are two paths for this game: Either it's going to fall short of being good enough for audiences, or it's going to be that gem that people will be upset they didn't buy when they should have, due to the sequel or studio or Bandai Namco simply moving on. My hope is that BN is looking at this game for what it will make lifetime-wise, and not day 1 sales as a barometer.
The price of this game makes it a rather large uphill battle to convince people to give it a chance. I look forward to reviews and impressions of the main game.