I love demos. I think they’re a great way to promote a game ahead of time and allow players to get a glimpse of how things work prior to release. There are games coming out in the next few months that look really appealing, so I decided to check out their demos. (And you can, too!) Amongst a group of JRPGs, an adventure/restaurant sim, and otome games, which ones look interesting to you?

Silent Hope

• Price: $39.99 USD (currently on sale for $35.99 until October 10th)
• Developer: Marvelous
• Publisher: XSEED Games
• Release Date: October 3, 2023

In the world of Silent Hope, a king sealed away his people’s ability to speak and threw himself into the Abyss after a calamity caused everyone to turn on each other. His daughter sealed herself inside a crystal made of her own tears, and has remained there…until now. Enough time has passed for these events to be forgotten, but now seven “rays of hope” – seven heroes – have emerged from the Abyss to aid the Princess.

A base camp is set up just above the entry to the Abyss; the Princess wants the seven heroes to go into the Abyss to find answers. The Abyss’ layout changes every time you enter. Combat is action based, and it works differently for each hero according to their weapon and class.

Each “stratum” of the Abyss has multiple floors on the shorter side. The Princess makes commentary on events as you reach certain points. As you make your way through the Abyss, you’ll defeat swarms of enemies, and learn and upgrade your hero’s class-based skills. (The seven heroes level up separately.) Enemies may drop materials, or you may find some by foraging. There are also different recipes for you to find.

When you return to the Base Camp, there are multiple stations that transform raw materials to use to craft better equipment, and you can plant crops and request byproducts from livestock. Most jobs take time, and the other six heroes will complete these tasks while you are in the Abyss. I love the Story of Seasons cow (and the dungeon’s Wooly from Rune Factory).

The demo allows you to play through the end of the “First Layer” of the Abyss, and you can continue your save in the full version of the game. Character levels are capped at level 10 for the demo. I had fun with it, and you should be sure to check it out!

Dave the Diver

• Price: $19.99
• Developer: MINTROCKET
• Publisher: NEXON
• Release Date: October 26, 2023 (demo available until the 25th?)

Dave’s friend calls him and tells him to come see him about a sushi business. Once there, you dive right into the ocean and catch some fish. You have to keep track of your oxygen consumption, and you’re given a knife to protect yourself from any hostile fishies.

The terrain is said to change each time you dive. Besides fish, there are also materials such as wood and ores for you to gather. Dave can only dive during the day – once in the morning and once in the afternoon – as he has to help with ingredient prep and serving customers at the sushi bar at night.

Before opening for business, you have to register which sushi items you want to sell on the menu, and manage your ingredient stock. Once you’ve gotten everything ready and open for business, you have to pour drinks for customers, replenish the wasabi stock, and wait for the sushi chef to make meals then deliver them to customers.

I like what I’ve seen so far – I’d already heard great things about Dave the Diver before playing the demo on Switch. There’s fish-catching, restaurant management/decorating, requests, social media management, boss battles, and more. They don’t need to “fish” for compliments, because this seems like a reel real…“catch”! 🐠😉

Knight vs Giant: The Broken Excalibur

• Price: $19.99
• Developer: Gambir Studio
• Publisher: PQube
• Release Date: October 5, 2023

Knight vs Giant: The Broken Excalibur opens with a voiced animated scene narrated by Merlin. He says that the Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur were killed by the Void Giant they accidentally unleashed from the Holy Grail. With them gone, there’s not really anyone left to protect Camelot. So Merlin casts a spell to send the Void Giant back to the Astral Dimension. But something goes wrong, and Camelot ends up transported there with it… 😱

Merlin decides to use his apparent skill for necromancy, bringing King Arthur back to life. I like the dialogue so far – I got some chuckles out of it. Anyways, the Void Giant’s soul was broken into pieces as a consequence of the spell, so Arthur has to defeat every piece before they can safely return Camelot to its proper place.

This is an action roguelite with procedurally generated dungeons. The action-based combat is pretty fast paced. Excalibur was broken when Arthur died, so Arthur needs help with his equipment. That’s where the statues of his knights come in; they may be dead, but their spirits live on inside of statues. You can choose some of the Knights’ fighting styles to use, mixing and matching one weapon and one skill. In the field, their statues provide you with different buffs (which disappear upon defeat).

Camelot’s citizens can also help Arthur once you’ve found and rescued them from the areas surrounding the kingdom. When they return, they provide useful services such as permanently upgrading the Knights’ weapons for you. You’ll gradually update the kingdom and Excalibur’s abilities as you play. I like the mixture of combat and kingdom management!

Star Ocean: The Second Story R

• Price: $49.99
• Developer: Gemdrops
• Publisher: Square Enix
• Release Date: November 2, 2023

My first Star Ocean games were on the PSP, and I’m happy to see these games on Switch. First Departure R was released on Switch back in 2019 (currently on sale for $8.39 USD until September 26th), and now THE SECOND STORY R is coming out in November!

The demo is limited to 3 hours of play time, with a level cap (12). There are 3 difficulty modes. You can choose between English and Japanese voice acting for the fully voiced event scenes – and they used the same cast from the original game! Players can choose to play as one of two protagonists, with different perspectives and recruitable characters for each choice. Progress from the demo can be transferred to the full version of the game.

The story begins with a girl named Rena entering the “Sacred Forest” near her village. It’s usually a safe place, but recently animals have turned into aggressive monsters – and one finds her there! Thankfully the other protagonist, Claude, jumps in and saves the day. What a hero! Or as Rena believes him to be: THE Hero.

Claude rejects their theory that he’s the hero from the prophecy. But of course he has to demonstrate his heroic qualities even more by saving Rena when she’s kidnapped by a friend who isn’t acting right. Together, they figure out what’s behind the person’s uncharacteristic behavior, and think it’s related to the catastrophe plaguing the lands. Claude agrees to look into things while he works on his own quest, and Rena goes with him.

As you travel, you’ll encounter monsters and fight them in real-time action combat. You directly control one character, and decide what strategy the others will use under AI control. Even as someone who usually prefers turn-based combat I enjoy these battles. I love the silly expressions characters get when they’re hit, and there’s a neat feature that allows you to summon past Star Ocean characters!

As far as the story goes, there will be multiple character endings influenced by your friendship levels with other characters. That makes things even more interesting! I love the voice acting in the story events, and Motoi Sakuraba’s work on the soundtrack is phenomenal as usual. They even updated the character portraits for the game, which are gorgeous in my opinion. Between the artistic direction, the combat, and having fun with the different talents and crafting, I’m looking forward to jumping into this “ocean” soon.

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince

• Price: $59.99 (digital & physical)
• Developer/Publisher: Square Enix
• Release Date: December 1, 2023 (demo available on NA/EU eShops only)

Ah, Dragon Quest. I first started playing these games on the DS, and have always been a fan of the turn-based battles, memorable music, and often hilarious monster names. Now Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is set for a release in a few months, and you can play the demo beforehand to transfer some progress to the full game!

You play as Psaro, a prince cursed to be unable to harm monsters. Monsters come to his current location to find him, but thankfully a villager saves the day. They tell you that to protect yourself, you need to become a Monster Wrangler. From what I understood, Psaro also wants revenge against his father for some reason, and to get his attention you must win some Monster Mega Brawls with your team.

Leaving the village, you have to battle monsters with the one given to you after a “personality quiz.” You can try to “scout” monsters you fight, and each monster on your team contributes a percentage towards being able to capture the wild one you want. Failing to scout can either irritate the enemies or anger them, with anger meaning you can’t try to scout again. Successfully scouting will end the battle.

You’re allowed to have 4 monsters in your main party, and another 4 in your reserves. The rest are sent to the monster depot. Unfortunately, you can’t control which moves your monsters use in battle. The only control you have is over the battle style, asking your monsters to use strategies like “show no mercy” or “focus on healing.”

When you level up your monsters, sometimes they’ll get talent points, which you can use to teach them new abilities. In between scouting for new talent and winning in the arena, you can synthesize your monsters together to get better ones. The parent monsters disappear, but their offspring inherits some of their talents and skill points. I really like that we can choose which result we want between the parents’ offspring options.

Completing the demo allows you to transfer all of the monsters you’ve collected so far, although their levels, skills, and attributes may not transfer? The save data will also reward you with a “Wrangler’s Bundle” in the main game.

The following game series is rated M!

Hana Awase New Moon Demos

• Price: $36.29 each (currently on sale for $32.66 until October 26th)
• Developer: dramatic create
• Publisher: HuneX
• Release Date: October 26, 2023

The Hana Awase stories are split into four different games, and therefore four different demos. They include Japanese voice acting, and different theme songs/animated openings for each version. Content-wise, the game includes a combination of otome and a hanafuda card game. (Incidentally, Nintendo started out selling hanafuda decks in the late 1880s before becoming the video game behemoth they are today.)

Each demo seems to have completely different storylines using the same characters. (Himeutsugi’s is unavailable on Western eShops for some reason, but is accessible via the Japanese eShop.) The main character, Mikoto, enjoys playing “Hana Utsushi.” But there’s another version called “Hana Awase,” which has the player fighting corrupted creatures known as the Decayed in life-or-death battles.

Females act as the “Minamo,” or “maidens who pour their water [/power] into [male] Channelers” to wield the hanafuda cards in battle. Mikoto is apparently meant to be the “Senki,” or some sort of supreme Minamo? Meanwhile, the love interests are more skilled Channelers known as “Kaei.”

I don’t know if I fully understood how the cards worked together, but they simplify it for you so you only have to choose which hand you want to play. I kind of wish they explained the cards more, but I still enjoyed the gameplay. Maybe a glossary could have been helpful?

When you have a group of cards that form a special combination, you use it to attack your opponent and deplete their HP. You can choose to attack normally, or use “Koikoi,” where you chain multiple card combinations to rack up points. However, if you reach a point where there are no possible combinations, you lose all of those potential points. If you manage your hands correctly and win, you earn points to put towards Mikoto’s stats; I really like the uniqueness of the cards and stat raising!

Mikoto seems like a good main character – from what I saw, she’s willing to stand up for herself and others. As far as the love interests go, although the demos are on the shorter side, I’m interested in seeing more from them too. I think I’ll like Mizuchi (intimidating but kind) and Himeutsugi (seems nice) the best.

As a cold, duty-oriented character, Iroha seems like one I could like depending on character development. Utsutsu is mysterious, and Karakurenai isn’t my favorite based on my first impression (he’s a brash pervert), but I’m willing to see where his character goes. Find out if romance is “in the cards” for Mikoto when these games come out next month!