I played the first demo a long time ago, then continued the same file in this second demo. I'm loving the new artwork, and I absolutely love all the new music. They just seem so much more... atmospheric. It's amazing. (More notes on what the music tended to... do to me in the spoiler below).
Anyway, I did a single run without going back and changing routes (other than simple curiosity, but I always went back to my original route). I tried going for an Alice-centric route. I was also trying to get close to Patchouli but I was more
, I basically ignored Reimu until
, and I would be nice to Flandre and
. MAJOR spoilers coming up, because it explains my ending:
Spoiler:
I got bitten by Flandre, couldn't push her off, went to Reimu, killed her, and then got killed by Yukari. Goddammit. All that just so happened to be right after I was wondering if there could be a bad ending, too. Imma go back to the choices when she bites you and see what happens with different combinations. But I went the "BLAST HER OFF" route out of curiosity (before I got the game over above), and I went up until the screen turned black and white. I went back to my original file after that so there'd be no spoilers.
Anyway, as I said before, I loved the music. The Gensokyo Five scene made me laugh like crazy, but the background music was what sent me over the edge. It was, simply put, abso-freaking-lutely hilarious. The "romance" music also worked extremely well for the Koakuma and Patchouli scene. I ended up whispering for Koa to kiss her, and the music added up to the perfect "d'awwwww" scene.
Of course, some of the music, as well as the scenes, ended up scaring me to death. Namely the whole Flandre biting scene. I got there at 4AM in the morning in the complete dark and with a headset with fairly loud volume. I'm scared pretty easily, but when it got to that scene with the music, I was practically pissing myself. And then when Marisa went insane with the dreams and then went and killed Reimu, I nearly lost it. And then that Game Over... God, dude, I'll admit, I wasn't particularly impressed with most of the music in the first demo, but in this demo, my opinion has changed DRASTICALLY. You've managed to make me fell sympathy with a lot of tracked, and you made me feel freaking scared with some of the tracks.
I'm wondering if it's a problem that I got too close to Flandre... I remember there being a choice whether or not to even try to get her to go out more. Maybe I shoulda picked no just to avoid Flandre altogether, but I was afraid that she'd end up throwing a fit and killing me for not being with her often. =P Of course, I haven't explored any other routes during the biting scene, mainly because it was 4AM and I didn't want to get another Game Over that would potentially give me more nightmares. XD
I'm really liking this. The story is really good, the art and music really work well together and set the atmosphere, and the game already has a lot of polish. I'll be looking forward to more demos in the future. =)
I might try restarting the game from the beginning if I don't find a solution to the... situation I explained. You said there were a lot of changes since the beginning, anyway, so I'll try to explore a few more things. =P
EDIT: More spoilers since I finished the demo, so yeah.
Spoiler:
Took the BLAST HER OFF route this time. Glad to see Sakuya save the day, I didn't make it there last night when I saw the screen change to black and white. =P
The cooking challenge was pretty cool. I like all the Iron Chef references, lol. I picked Alice as a partner, but apparently I failed at choosing the right combinations for the meal cuz Mystia and Reimu won instead.
And of course, the final advice for the second demo. Turned out exactly how I expected... friends with Reimu, pretty close to Patchouli, on good terms with Flandre, and closest to Alice. Will there be another demo before the final release, or is this it for now?
Oh, and really unexpected appearance by Byakuren. I wonder how that's gonna turn out, as well as the whole "rivalry" issue that's hinted at. Sounds like it'll be interesting...
Oh, and will there be more bad endings? I don't know why, but it seems somewhat tough to die other than have Flandre bite you. Maybe a little more challenge should be here. =P
Well, that's it. I'll be eagerly looking forward to the next demo, or the final release, depending on what it ends up being. =)