Maximillian Dood got to play past the intended time (several hours). EDIT: He also called it a "bad" demo/showcase because you got tutorial dumped as you were put into chapter 4, so assuming 1-3 are very story heavy then chapter 4 is when you are in the Highwind and can explore. But you got so much to go through before you could start exploring, so he would have been very upset if he only had 45 minutes. He got /End edit
Big positive for me is that Max confirmed that really the only things that show on the map when you move towards it on the Highwind for the first time are queensblood, the quest board, some fights and fast travel points. You have to explore to mark things (like he encountered a special mob, not on the map, died, still not on map, but tested running into it then running away, and then it marked). You can take quests and the places are then tagged on the map, but most content is hidden until you find it. Big pluss for me since I don't really like the "tower" mechanic where you travel to a tower, see all interactables then just go to X places marked and move on. I like the "ohh what's over there?" feeling. On his stream now he looked at the Famitsu video and showed that as they fly over areas, there are tons of things on the ground that are not shown, from fights, quests, treasures, events, etc.
Don't like that he says that Chadly has been replaces by Mai who is even more annoying. He says you find something and up pops Mai to explain. Hopefully this can be adjusted.
VR missions have maps!
The map showed that an island should be at the NE, but wasn't there when he traveled there. Assume that since it is just a build of the game and not a demo, that they removed some key parts (Knights). Couldn't land and go into Midgar either.
Can tame chocobos and they are on the Highwind (massive stalls there) and they are tied to unlocking more races on the Golden Saucer.
