I got a chance to play the 7R demo at PAX AUS, I wrote up my impressions in this twitter thread so I'll just repost them here.
Okay firstly it was a good demo, it was the same demo from E3 so there wasn't any new content in it. I played it on a PS4 Pro, the framerate looked to be unlocked because sometimes it'd look 45 FPS and other times it'd drop to sub 30, like 25 FPS, it wasn't a stable 30 FPS. It's an old demo by this point so these FPS issues can still be ironed out by release. The AA implementation however was really poor, aliasing was distracting and way more noticable compared to even XV on base PS4, especially on hair, it looks to be a TAA solution but poor.
IQ was sometimes smeary which indicates it's using a dynamic resolution, if so it's likely 900p-1080p dynamic res. Again old build so this can change. Texture quality varied, some looked lower res than others, like the mako reactor itself when up close looked very low res. That's mainly performance and visual quality which is pretty mixed and is really the main downsides of the demo, the gameplay was good, the control scheme was a bit weird at first and the lack of a jump button was noticable, hoping we can remap buttons in the final game.
I tried both holding Square to attack and tapping Square to attack, the Shina Soldiers and Monodrive's both died in 3-4 hits, holding attack in this build did a 3 hit attack string while tapping did a 5 hit attack string, holding attack was enough to kill them with 3 hits. Holding has a DPS advantage over tapping, btw later footage of newer 7R builds indicate more hits to a string get added to the hold to attack string. Outside of battle regardless of if you tap or hold attack Cloud will only swing once, attack strings are only in combat.
Outside of combat at least in this build only Cloud could be used, Cloud can only run, sprint on R2, interact button on Triangle, or attack on Square once at a time when outside of combat, you cannot use dodge rolls or other manual combat actions when outside of combat. Barret in combat is much slower than Cloud and deals less damage than he does comparatively, his dodge roll is very slow compared to Cloud who has a fast dodge roll, I tried using the spells Aero, Thunder, Blizzard and Fire just to see them, their effects are pretty basic
ATB fills up very fast, sometimes my muscle memory would tap X instead of Square and each time I did I always had an ATB full and ended up using Braver from the command menu. While sprint is R2 outside of combat it isn't during combat, it's also for party menu commands. I never manually targetted anything, there is an automatic lock-on so when you press attack it will essentially "zone in" towards the locked on target automatically, the abilities also do this so I only had to focus on doing attacks without locking on manually.
There was 20 Potions, 5 Ethers and 2 Elixirs in the item inventory by default, I picked up 1 Phoenix Down and 6 Potions along the way, since ATB fills up so fast I never had to worry about not being able to use a Potion because it cost 1 ATB bar, fills up in like 2 seconds.
While it was an English demo it had Japanese voice acting in this version, there was no option to choose on the title between JP and ENG VA in the demo so it's likely it was purposely done to just be Japanese, the full game will obviously let you choose and has more dubs. The demo was only 15-20 mins when taking my time, if the demo is anything to go by then regular enemies will be a breeze with enemies dying in a few hits, while bosses have a ton of HP and will take a while unless you stagger them, hopefully they aren't all damage sponges.
It was a good demo and it leaves me hopeful for the Remake, but there is performance issues that need ironing out. My thoughts from the trailer were confirmed by the demo in that FF7R does feel like a mix of XV, Type-0, elements of Dissidia and FF13's Stagger bar thrown in.
