I've finished playing up to the end of the demo which wasn't very long; It took me round about 4-5 hours to finish it.
The graphics that got people into this fan game in the first place does live up to its expectations; admittedly, they are excellent including the Pokemon sprites and trainer sprites which are clean and crisp as well as some cool animations in the overworld.
Strangely enough, the graphics were not the aspect that caught my eye; If there is one aspect Phoenix Rising excels at is having a flexible, customizable interface (i.e, menu and battle interface). In battle, there are items that are automated and can be selected by the touch of a key such as when your Pokemon is poisoned and you have a Pecha Berry, a key will show up and allow you to press it if you want to heal your Pokemon of poison, or if you want to capture a Pokemon a key will always be there, so you don't have to select the Bag and go into it every time when you want to use an item. Speaking of catching Pokemon, you can choose whether you want to keep it in your party or send it to the Box. This level of interface is something I haven't seen in other fan games, so I'll give the developers credit in their understanding of user interfaces.
The dialogue is fine; everything has some form of interesting quirk it wants to say, making exploring worthwhile and as for the story...its nice, I guess? The story is a traditional adventure similar to the first Pokemon game (Red and Blue) going around the Hawthorne Region where the player does quests in towns and villages while slowly learning about the region's history. I can't exactly say much in terms of the story since this demo is just setting it up. However, what I can say is that you have control and choice over your adventure during the story; you can choose to keep your Pokemon in their Poke Balls or let them walk around with you. During quests, you can choose to help the bad guys or choose to report something to either of two parties, or you could even do some of the quests in whatever order you want. As for the characters...they are also nice, but somewhat lackluster.
I've never liked hype; Its this psychological train of thought that raises your expectations but when they are not met, you are left disappointed. I usually go into anything with zero expectations so that I don't disappoint myself. Phoenix Rising does somewhat live up to its hype but at the same time it doesn't; apparently, it took 6-9 years for this demo to finally be released and I don't believe it will be worth waiting another 6-9 years for the second demo (then again, who am I to complain since I was waiting for the latest Legends of the Arena demo to be released).
So currently overall, Pokemon Phoenix Rising is a pure, elegant and traditional fan game where you have control over your adventure throughout the Hawthorne Region despite its short length (in the current demo) and, while seemingly promising, short chunk of story and characters. Its worth playing and recommending to play through for the completely customizable interface and having control over your adventure, even though its story and characters is nothing to write home about and you'll end up wanting them to have more meat on their bones.