Yay the demo is finally out!! Here are my extended thoughts on it (warning they're long!), but my TL;DR is that it's absolutely fantastic and worth at least checking out the demo for sure. Despite some people saying otherwise it is a lot like Persona and if you like it or just good JRPGs then this would probably be right up your alley

SpoilerThe demo covers at least a couple hours worth of content, easily more if you explore side things. You start at the beginning of the actual game and data will carry over into the full game. Fair warning though the demo abruptly ends without warning the second time you beat the boss of the demo dungeon, and you can't carry on from there, you have to start all over. It's really dumb and they could have easily let you keep playing without advancing the story anymore so be careful. With that note out of the way-

First off it looks GORGEOUS. Seriously on a technical level this is quite possibly the best looking Vita game yet. As soon as the badass intro started playing I was stunned. And it looks good no matter what part of the game it is, the wonderful cut scenes, conversations whether they be 2D or 3D, battle or the dungeon. It all looks great. And on top of that the art style is wonderful, the colors are bright and vibrant and give off a lovely neon feel. The weapon and character designs are simply awesome, as it much of the tech. And theres some really good animation and cool sailor moon type transformations for you and the heroines which are a treat each time (and also skippable if you're not a fan)

And it doesn't just look great either, it feels great at least on the Vita version. The FPS is very high and completely solid, never experienced any drops. Loading times are next to non existent, you jump straight into battle and straight out without any of it which is what helps make the game feel great and fluid

The soundtrack is worth mentioning aswell. It's got heavy electronic themes with some pop style thrown in. The music and sound effects are clear and crisp and very catchy. The VA and dialog can be a bit cheesy at times but never to the point of being overly bad, it just might not be what you initially expect

Although it's hard to be definitive about story considering it's just the demo what little is there seems to be interesting. The lore is quite fleshed out and seems to combine magic and technology well. Basically you're a gifted person capable of using a form of whats best described as magic to defeat monsters which are somehow created from mankinds desires.

Although its too early to see if they're well developed the characters all showed unique interesting traits and personalities right away so there's some promise. Even the main character you play as seems to be somewhat of his own character with his own motivations despite the fact you can pick some of your dialog choices. I'm curious as to how this will be fleshed out in the full game

Gameplay Ill split into two sections, in dungeon and out of dungeon, of which it seems its up to you how much time youll dedicate to each

Out of dungeons youll be in a island city town which you navigate by selecting where you want to go. Theres numerous different places like a item shop, dorm where you can change equipment and save or a training ground where you can revisit dungeons for exp, or the academy. Each day it seems you can spend time with 3 people, usually these will be certain females who go to the same academy. But theres also a handful of males you can spend time with and sometimes other types of events happen or happen in different places, but none of those other types were in the demo from what I gathered. Once you've gone through your allotted amount of people you can either go home and rest, go to a dungeon, or advance the story to get more

During these events you can select dialog options, if you select something the other character likes theyll be happy and your bond will grow deeper and vica verca. These bonds are very important because they influence your star children, which are essentially allies who help you in battle of MANY different kinds of classes. They're created by "classmating" with one of your female allies which is a magical ritual where you hold hands and think loving thoughts creating a new star child, with the main indicator of how strong itll be is how close you are to said friend. It's cute and fun but it's almost a little too innocent, fading to black almost immediately

You select one of your classmates and a selection of star children to go with you into a dungeon. Dungeons are randomly generated and change each time you revisit them. Theres items traps and other things both good and bad along with monsters you can see and choose whether to engage. One weird note is that the floor is very blurry and seems low res, it may be patched out later. Also the star children and heroine have trouble following close behind you though it doesn't really matter because monsters don't notice them and they never get so far away so as to not show up in battle

Once you're in battle you may be at an advantage or disadvantage depending on how you approached the enemy in the dungeon. There are elemental affinities with a rock paper scissors type deal except a little more complex and with 7 elements in play and also position based weakness (EG most monsters are weak from behind, normal from the sites and strong from the front. The same applies to you). The gameplay revolves around you+a heroine and up to 3 teams of 3 star children each taking advantage of these facts while trying not to have the same happen to you. You also get rewarded if you do attack from a side where they're strong \ through increased EXP and money after battle, it's a risk reward system.

Thats not to mention many other features like star children's class combinations opening up special attacks or boosting certain attacks, or combining to form mechs or dual team attack/defense bonuses and a lot more. Theres a TON of depth here and it's impossible to cover it all without writing a short novel, but I expect it to get very challenging later on even if it never reaches this level in the demo

However the game itself does a VERY good job of explaining everything to you without overloading you. There's a tutorial for almost everything that you can go back and read at any time. There's also tons of quality of life settings like an auto battle, being able to rewind dialog and hear it again, skipping cut scenes if desired, auto slaying monsters far weaker than you and much more. Additionally you can go back and rewatch any cutscene or read detailed info on any monster you've encountered so far info on events and etc. You can save almost anywhere which is perfect for a handeld game

One last thing worth mentioning is there seems to be some form of inter connectivity with other players as you can classmate with them at a certain spot and it hinted that more multiplayer esque features would be there in the full game. Also the demo froze on me once and I lost a few minutes of progress which was frustrating but it could have been a fluke

So my conclusion is that the demo is amazing and my expectations were blown away. If it's any indication of the quality in the full game then I highly suggest keeping an eye on Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars because it very well may be a fantastic JRPG