Great list I wish I still had the ffxv demo

There was an official Flash demo for 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors on Aksys' website back around the game's release. It spanned the first escape room and featured a slightly different beginning where Akane appears from the very beginning instead of Junpei being alone like the actual game; Akane's early appearance allows for some unique dialogue when interacting with objects in the room. The room's puzzles are otherwise completely identical to the main game, down to lock combinations. Really cool little piece of promo material honestly

@FranKle
Thanks! I also wish I didn’t back down from buying the Type-0 remaster to get that demo but alas, I guess we’ll get better luck when this gen gets some decent emulator going for it. Thanks!

@Lynxelot
That is so obscure I really appreciate you typing it out in such detail, I will be adding it to the list.

I messed up that first paragraph, add the last thanks to the end of the other message

I know you already have FFXV on here but would you count the platinum demo too? It has areas that aren't even in the final game and a weird little dream story.

Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire 's demo would also definitely apply.

Sorry for so many comments in a row, I also just remembered the FF13 demo that came out more than six months before the final game with the japanese advent children blu-ray. The events are mostly the same, but the visuals and combat are a lot less refined, much like the episode duscae demo for XV. The most interesting thing about it to me is that according to the developers it was the first extended playable version of the game to exist despite releasing the same year as the final game. In their own words it was what the team needed to actually realise a unified vision for what the game would look and play like, seeing what the assets they'd been working on would actually look like in practice.

@PalapaSlaps
I used Episode Duscae because it had a better frame of reference to compare the final release to, but I can add Platinum too. No worries about the comments, feel free to comment whenever you think of something for the list. I’ll be adding those other recommendations.

@Limp_Mantis no prob! It played a factor in me trying the game originally so I couldn't forget, ha.

Another demo that comes to mind is one that I'd gotten a physical copy of not long ago, that being Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team. There was a store kiosk demo with its own slightly altered 'demo' logo and a condensed version of the intro sequence, with the player playing as a Pikachu by default with a Charmander partner -- no personality quiz to determine your starter. You immediately help Caterpie in the first mission with no story pretense given, and all post-mission dialogue is truncated (at least from the first two story missions). The formation of your rescue team is also presumed and the team is pre-named as I recall. The core gameplay is identical, down to the tutorials all being the same. However, the 10-minute time limit on the demo makes it next to impossible to get past the third dungeon. I seem to remember recruitment not being possible in the demo and there being no opportunities given to explore the hub town, so it's possible that the game is more altered in gameplay than I thought rather than just the writing being shortened or removed. I don't believe further research has been done on this one, sadly.

Another demo from my youth was the Kellogg's PC demo disc for Spider-Man (2000) you could get from cereal box promotions. That one's got the full first three levels of the game playable in full with no gameplay alterations; however, there are a number of interesting little cosmetic details unique to it and even a small fix. As the demo was released in an effort to promote the Spider-Man movie that wasn't yet out when the game first released, some promo materials were added in. Billboards had the movie's logo plastered onto them (or product placement like "got milk?" if not that), and Spidey's suit texture was altered in gameplay to look much closer to the Raimi suit. The demo also has a splash screen showing the cover artwork for the movie, with an screen advertising the movie's tie-in game once the demo gameplay is finished. The beginning of each level is missing the comic book cover artwork that preceded them in the full release, and the intro FMV along with Stan Lee's opening narration are both removed too. The main menu also only allows the player to select "New Game"/"Options"/"Quit", with the various bonus options like Training and the Gallery being unselectable. After doing a little bit of research on this one, it seems that in-engine cutscenes have been fixed to run at 30 FPS in the demo; they were originally programmed to work at 25 FPS in the full game and thus didn't work properly. This would suggest that a couple weird cutscene-gameplay-transition quirks from other releases would have been fixed in this version alone... if it allowed you to play past the third level, that is.

@Lynxelot
Added both. The tidbit about Spider-Man cutscenes not being broken in the demo is pretty interesting, makes me wonder why devs didn’t bother fixing it.