When I got the news that I'd be playing Final Fantasy XV at PAX East this year, my head started to spin. Was this some sort of elaborate prank Square Enix was playing on the media as a whole? Would my gameplay session end with a swift gunshot to the temple, ensuring my opinion would never hit the light of day? We're talking about a game that has nearly The Last Guardian levels of development weirdness; it's a title that so many of us are looking forward to, yet none of us really know why. The Final Fantasy series has been nothing short of a roller coaster in recent years, what with the combination of two direct XIII sequels that nobody was really asking for and a top-to-bottom re-imagining of a universally panned MMO. Now the gaming world is going to be treated to...an action-RPG? Yeah, definitely strange, but it's a joy to report that Final Fantasy XV, while problematic at times, is every bit as engaging as everyone hoped.

Here's the thing, though: it's unclear whether or not Final Fantasy XV is immersive because of its own merit or due to it being one of the weirdest tales of development hell in recent memory. Was I captivated by the gameplay itself or the spectacle of actually playing what seemed like a minor myth? Whether this question is answered isn't as important as the process of asking, as everyone who purchases a copy of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD will have the opportunity to feel the same way when they play the Final Fantasy XV Episode Duscae demo.

There's a few things you should know before hopping aboard the Final Fantasy XV hype train with googly eyes and a drool bucket. First and foremost, while Episode Duscae reveals a great deal of Square Enix's ambitious sense of scale, even this slice of content shows that Final Fantasy XV still requires some work. While there weren't technical issues on the scale of launch-week Assassin's Creed Unity, the development team clearly has to ensure that XV's massive open areas aren't marred by frequent framerate drops. Chalk this next statement up to a personal opinion, but this seems like a 2016 game. Second, Episode Duscae details the events that occur after Noctis and his merry band of thieves suffer automotive trouble. Long story short, the gang needs money, so they attempt to track down a Behemoth (literally exactly what it sounds like) in order to kill it for a reward. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my Final Fantasy XV demo took place under some frankly bizarre conditions. I played an hour of XV with no feeling in my thumb and my right hand wrapped up in a splint due to a freak injury before the show. While I enjoy the more action-focused direction of the new combat system, I was clearly not in position to experience it at its fullest potential. There was definitely one bright side to these strange conditions: no one looked at me strangely when I shoved Caesar salad into my face like someone who just learned how a fork works.

In short, Final Fantasy XV's combat feels similar to that of Dragon Age: Inquisition with a few obvious tweaks. Players hold the square button to unleash standard attacks using one of Noctis' magically summoned weapons of ultimate doom (Author's Note: This should totally be the name of XV's weapons), while the L1 button places Noctis into a defensive mode in which he can dodge and parry incoming attacks. Charge-warps can take players from one side of the battle to another with a simple press of the X button; this close arrangement between the attack and warp commands proved to be the most difficult aspect of playing Final Fantasy XV with 1.5 hands. Now, if it sounds like XV is going to be an overpowered romp with Bayonetta-level speed, think again. Every one of Noctis' actions chips away at an ominous MP bar which, when depleted, can render Noctis essentially useless. Do you save your MP to unleash one of a handful of effective, but high cost special attacks, or do you try and do as much damage as possible before warping away? The constant mental balance that ensues from this constant MP monitoring is what's going to separate the good players from the bad; are you the type of player who can plan on the fly, or are you simply going to passively react to your enemies? Being able to implement a strategy in a fast-paced environment is entirely different from the plodding, but engaging world of turn-based combat. How in the name of all things bro-adtrip (see what I did there?) can the Final Fantasy series go back to being turn-based after this? Sure, it's a franchise that has constantly changed, but this combat system makes Final Fantasy XV feel more like a reboot than a numbered sequel.

Episode Duscae's sandbox is large, brimming with life, and loaded with distractions. I played a full fifteen minutes as a yak-slaughtering maniac before coming to the realization that there was no conceivable way to fight everything before a Square Enix PR person delivered a soul-crushing shoulder tap. Still, it's nearly impossible to envision someone blasting through Final Fantasy XV; it's too damn easy to fool around with new combat techniques during optional daytime battles or forced encounters under the dangerous night sky. I wanted to see and do everything to the point where I didn't even find that silly Behemoth I was supposed to be looking for. The staple of a good open-world game is that it creates an alternate realm in which the player daydreams about escaping into. If my time with Episode Duscae is any indication, this is going to be the mega-title that crushes everyone's backlog completion dreams (some day Divinity: Original Sin, someday).

Final Fantasy XV is the type of game, much like Shovel Knight, where I had to ruminate for a while before completely comprehending what makes it great. The critic in me desperately wanted to find something to chastise it for, some fatal flaw in the demo that proves that we should be worried. Aside from technical issues that will likely be fixed before launch (let's face it: the Final Fantasy series cannot afford to have XV become its Resident Evil 5), Episode Duscae shows that good things do come to those who wait. Then again, finally playing Final Fantasy XV is still so strange to think about. What if it never actually happened? What if this preview is the definitive proof that my sanity has fully gone the way of the dodo? Nah, Final Fantasy XV is coming for your life, and it's going to steal it with reckless abandon.