Topic: What's the best demo you've ever played?

We all have our favorite games, but what about game demos? What's some of your favorite demos that you've played?
(And yes, a demo from your favorite game does count)

Some of my favorite demos are the "one blast demo" from antonblast, the Mindwave kickstarter demo, and the yoshi's wooly world demo I played at a best buy many years ago.

Does the Astro Bot taster that you get with the PSVR disc count? I'm not sure off the top of my head whether that's marketed as a demo or not, but that made an impression more than any other demo I can remember. Aided by the fact it's the best thing on the disc that you get with your new VR kit, perhaps, but nevertheless, nothing else is springing to mind right now.

Hmm.
Demos that I played that I went on to buy in the era of the Switch - Kirby And The Forgotten Land, Trials of Mana remake, Princess Peach Showtime! Mario Vs. Donkey Kong. The first 2 were going to be bought regardless, but the demos helped sway the purchase for the latter 2.

Going way back, as Demos were never really a big thing for me pre Switch, there was a demo disc for the Gamecube around 2002, which was a rare occurence, as I don't think there were more than maybe 2-3 demo gamecube disc games for the public? They were not like the PS1/PS2, which plastered every magazine with them.

Anyway, it had Sonic Heroes, Billy Hatcher, Soul Caliber 2 w/Link, and Splinter Cell. I played that disc again and again!

Has anyone really liked a demo, but then NOT liked the actual game and regretted the purchase?
I enjoyed the demo for Yoshi Crafted World very much, but did not end up keeping the game when I got it, sadly. I love Yoshi, but I found it overwhelming with the constant going back to levels to find things and the sheer amount of different bits to collect.

Final Fantasy XI beta disc for Xbox 360 that came with an issue of Official Xbox Magazine.

It helped me come to the decision that the game wasn't for me.

I remember the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo being pretty great. I can’t remember all that was on it, but I believe it had the opening section with snake. I used to love the demo disks that came with magazines.

The recent Ys X: Nordics demo was really impressive, containing almost three entire chapters and clocking in at around 5-10 hours. Depending on the player, the demo for Ys X alone might be longer than most of the earlier Ys games and with how many mechanics it needed to introduce, I'm glad Falcom was willing to include so much of them in the demo.

Not sure about absolute favorite but the Dragon Quest series often has really well done demos. I also really liked the Sea of Stars demo.

Interesting question. I can't think of any, but I can think of the opposite where the full game was better than the demo. Sonic Frontiers for example had an atrocious demo.

Not sure about "best demo", but I find demos are generally about as good as you can expect these days — largely representative of the final product, with a substantial amount of content, and often the ability of carry over progress to the main game. I think Square Enix in particular have been good at doing this.

This is a really interesting question, and one I was struggling to answer until @FishyS mentioned Sea of Stars. In the demo I was wowed by the overall presentation, the exploration, and the battle system. However, when I played the actual game I found that there wasn't much more to it than what I'd seen in the demo, and I especially wasn't keen on the story/dialogue/characters.

Edit: Metroid Prime Hunters demo on the DS deserves mention as really showcasing the power of the touch screen at that point in time.

@Buizel Yes, I appreciate when they do this! The carrying over of data. Square Enix did a good job with it for Trials of Mana. I wish that Nintendo put this into some of their demos, though I can't grumble too much! Getting through 5 levels again on Mario Vs. Donkey Kong doesn't take a lot of time. :0)

The PlayStation 1 demo of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace felt really awesome. The music and atmosphere was just perfect. The complete game was also really cool. I should replay it.

Surely only 1 answer here.... MGS2 tanker demo!

I quite enjoyed the Dragon Quest XI S Demo on Switch. I got pretty far in it to till my original Switch got stolen. When I got my new Switch I promptly re-downloaded the demo but sadly I had to start all over again so I just deleted it.

I also enjoyed alot of the PSone Demo discs that came with issues of OPM here in the US. I remember that's how I was introduced to games like MGS and a few others that names escape me now.

Unicorn Overlord had a particularly good demo last year that let you play through the tutorial and gave you the run of the first continent for five hours, plus you got to finish the last battle you started before the time ran out. All up, I was playing it for just over eight hours.

You can tell that a developer has a lot of faith in their game when they give you that much of a go at it.

Sega Saturn Magazine in the UK had the whole first disc of Panzer Dragoon Saga as a demo CD. That was pretty awesome....

@Mana_Knight I remember that demo disc. It also had Viewtiful Joe, which is one of my favorite demos and favorite games ever.

But I'll give the top spot to Asura's Wrath. It was kind of like watching an over-the-top anime, with some quick gameplay sections and QTEs. Really enjoyed it, but ultimately decided I didn't need a whole game of it.

My all time favourite demo was for Sensible Soccer on Mega CD. It came stuck to a cover of Mega Power magazine. It was the entire game but time was limited to 45 seconds per half. I couldn't believe it, I felt like I'd struck gold. I used to rattle through full seasons in one sitting.
I found these pics of it online.

@judaspete
Ah, yes. I knew there was another game, but couldn't remember what.
I have no idea where that disc came from now. It feels too grand for a magazine freebie, but I can't be sure. Thinking about it more, I think someone on the TGN forums might have kindly sent it to me, as they knew I was a big Sonic fan and was so excited for Heroes. Not sure where he got it though!

I first played the Octopath Traveler games when they were both demos, and I thought both were fantastic (the demo for the first game sold me on it). Also, I really liked the demo for FAST Racing League on the Wii quite a bit - I think I actually ran out of chances to play it. I ended up getting both of the FAST games that came after on the Wii U and the Switch.

@Mana_Knight That disc came packed in with Gamecubes for a while. There might have been another way to get it, but that's how I got mine.