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A Realm Reborn: Final
Fantasy XIV |
Upon its initial release three years ago,
Final Fantasy XIV was one of the biggest blunders that Square Enix ever had. The game was so bad that Square felt it was necessary to post announcements apologizing for the poor service to their fans. The game was virtually unplayable.
Like
Final Fantasy XI,
Final Fantasy XIV is an MMORPG centered around the style of universe that a Final Fantasy game would offer. Like many other MMORPGs, the game requires a paid subscription to play it. So, you can imagine how pissed off people were when the services they had already subscribed for were not being provided very well.
For three years, Square Enix worked to make this game function. I suppose too much money had gone into it to give up on their disaster of a game.
Their work definitely shows here. I still have a lot of complaints about the re-released version
A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV, but it's still overall a good game.
I will start with the good first. The first thing about this game you will notice is how grand everything is. The landscapes, cities, forests, etc. look phenomenal. Though I do think that
Final Fantasy XIII does look better, the levels in this game are much more interesting. Unlike
Final Fantasy XIII, the whole game is not following a single road until you get to where you're supposed to go. In fact, it's quite the opposite. If you haven't been in an area before, you will never know what to expect. You will never know what you will find. You will never know what is going to happen.
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I found myself using the first person
view often to take in the sights |
This world is massive. You can spend hours exploring one area. Not only that, but you can spend hours hunting, mining, fishing, or fighting in one area. There are three major city states in the game, each containing at least 8 large areas. I say 'at least' because despite all of the hours I have put into this game, I still have not seen all of this world. It's really that massive. I think it's not only impressive, but it also contributes to the overall experience.
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I happened to spot a random hawk
flying over Camp Dragonhead in
Coerthas |
Despite the vast size of the world in this game, the level design is very detailed as well. Amongst the very detailed design of plants, monsters, and even blades of tall grass, the world comes to life well. Even if you are just standing still, something small is always happening. Whether it is a hawk flying by or plants rustling in the wind, this world is one of the best I've seen. This is quite contrary to
White Knight Chronicles where I found the size of the levels to be impressive; I found the graphical quality of the levels to be impressive; but, I always felt that the levels felt... empty. The levels in
A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV never feel empty. In fact, this is probably the first RPG I've ever played where the desert levels weren't boring. Thanalan is a very interesting level and I was pleasantly surprised. Even the backgrounds are interesting.
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| I don't know what I'm looking at right now but it looks cool |
Each city-state is very unique and well-defined. It would have been really easy for them to make the desert level, the forest level, the mountain level, etc. But, instead, they are more defined by combat arts and trading. For instance, Limsa Lominsa is defined by more water type trades like fishing and such. A lot of the enemies are more based off of historical pirates. Ul'dah prides itself on Gladiators and mining. And, Gridania is more based on gathering and archers (woodland kinds of trades). Of course, each of these city-states have much more to offer than that. However, I think these are the things that define them best.
Before you start the game, you actually get to choose what city-state you want to start the story in. I think this is really cool because this way the story won't play out exactly the same twice if you decide to play it again. It also allows you to play a large part of the game in the city state that you enjoy the most. For instance, I started the game in Ul'dah but, if I had known more about the locations beforehand, I probably would have started the game in Limsa Lominsa because I find that city state more interesting.
Well, enough about the environments. How about the most important thing. How is the gameplay in this game? Well, for MMORPG standards, it's very good. It plays a lot like some of the best MMORPGs to date. This is the first time that I've played an MMORPG on console (PS3). It seems that Square is also rather unsure of how well you can play the game with the controller so, if you have a keyboard and mouse, go ahead and plug them in. You can play this game with a keyboard and mouse on your PS3 much like if you were playing it on PC. I decided to keep playing the game with a controller anyways since I didn't really have a good way of setting up a small desk in front of my television.
Playing this game with a controller can be awkward at times. Instead of clicking on icons to perform actions, you use button combinations. The button combinations method can be very effective most of the time. Though, some of the time, I found myself pressing the wrong button combination in a pinch (I was usually mixing up the L2 and R2 commands) You may say this is because I can't tell left from right. I suppose that could be true but I think a lot of my issue was how the icons were visually portrayed on the screen. They had the right idea having 4 diamonds for each of the different combinations (L2 + directional buttons, L2 + x, circle, square, triangle, and then the same but R2 instead of L2). If the settings allowed me to, I probably would have swapped the locations of the R2 + directional diamond and L2 plus x, circle, square, triangle diamond. That's just me though. I wish there was a way I could have swapped them in the settings...
On the plus side, you are not confined to the sixteen commands on the screen. Like in other MMORPGs, you can perform actions by bringing up the pause menu, journal, whatever and selecting them from there. However, this takes a long time and is completely stupid to do in combat. However, the game also allows you to swap between different sets of button combinations. For instance, L2 + triangle may do one thing in your first set but it may do another thing in your next set. This is pretty convenient and the game gives you eight of these to customize as you choose. I really think this is well done, especially considering that I never thought that an MMORPG would even be playable with a controller.
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I couldn't even begin to tell you what is happening in this
mob |
The social part of the game is very well done. Party matching is easy and, often times, automatic when a party is required to perform a certain quest. The only time it doesn't do this is for FATE quests. FATE quests are basically spontaneous instances where a battle happens for whatever reason while you're wandering about. These are really cool because you can fight them with anyone regardless of if they are in your party or not. Also, there is no limit to how many people can participate in one FATE. In fact, the screen can get pretty hectic from all of the magic spells and shit being thrown. Not only that, but depending on the fate, the city guard/town watch, will also help you out adding even more to the mayhem.
Speaking of which, the city guard is about the most interactive I have ever seen them in a game. You'll approach a town and, of course, the guards will be watching the gate. However, if a monster or something gets too close to the gate, the guard will attack and kill it, just like that. It's a pretty small thing but I think that it's pretty cool that even as minor of NPCs as the city guard actually do something in this game.
So, I guess at that, I will start to talk about what I didn't like about this game. I guess I'll start with the combat. The combat is often tedious. When you change fighting classes (which is actually a really good aspect of this game) it doesn't feel that different to playing another class. Now, granted, I only played two fighting classes (pugilist/monk and lancer) so maybe there is a bit more variety when you play a spell casting or tank class, but I was rather disappointed in the lack of variety there. From the outset, I felt like there was so much variety but when I found that the lancer and monk classes are really similar in the way they're played, I was thoroughly disappointed. Not only that, but the strategy hardly ever changes. Enemies are enemies are enemies. Regardless of humans (or Hyur, whatever) dragons, mice, or ladybugs (yes, ladybugs), the fights basically play out the same. Don't get hit by area-based attacks and try to attack from the flank or the rear when you can. In party based quests, the matchmaker puts you in a party where you play as the typical MMORPG role (based on your fighting class). They pick two players that focus on damage, one player to act as a tank, and one player to focus on healing. It's tedious. It's obvious. We've all used this strategy a million times before. And, I don't even play MMORPGs very much! Party quests were getting pretty stale after awhile. The only variability was between boss battles which, even those, got tedious. Most of them it's just: Kill add ons, then kill main boss. We've done this... many times. However, there was one that I played where the boss casts doom on you all the time and you had to get on a glowing platform before the timer went to zero. That was a good boss battle! It was tough as shit but it was different. It was a great breath of fresh air! Other than that, the only other variety in this game's fighting are the summon battles. The Ifrit and Titan fights are very different (I didn't play far enough to do any of the other fights).
The story is next to nil in this game. It may be unfair of me to pick on that as just about every MMORPG has a very sad attempt at a story line. In fact, just about every MMORPG plays out the same in this regard. You talk to people who have exclamation points or speech bubbles above their heads. Then you do what they say whether it's kill enemies that have kill markers above their heads, collect objects that have markers above them, or talk to more people with markers above their heads. It gets pretty repetitive. You never have to read dialogue boxes in order to complete these quests since the game holds your hand through the whole game. It's pretty damn boring! When is someone going to make an RPG where you actually have to pay attention? Because, quite frankly, I haven't seen a game in years where you don't get directed in the right direction all the time. Even in games that are supposed to take place in old times, it seems like your map has a built-in GPS. I know that all of these assists in RPGs nowadays are for getting a wider audience but, can't someone make a game that's more for us hardcore RPG players, please?
Even if you read all of the speech bubbles and watch all of the cutscenes (which I did), the story is uninspired, unoriginal, and not worth your time. If you play this game, go ahead and skip all of the cutscenes and blow through the speech bubbles. There's no reason to care. I don't think I've seen such little thought put into the plot of a Final Fantasy game since the first one. Not only that, but since you have your own custom character, the custom character will awkwardly lumber through the story elements of the game. If someone asks your character a question, your character will either nod, shake their head, or mouth words as the screen fades to black. I know it would be a lot to voice act all of the cutscenes in the different voices offered but, couldn't they have a cutscene voice that your character has just for cutscenes? It makes the cutscenes hilariously bad, at times, because of the awkward emotes that are jammed in to make the scene move along. In fact, I'm waiting for a custom character based game that puts some effort into this aspect. Every one of these games does this. When will they evolve? In fact, now that I think about it, in this regard, the older games were a huge leg up because they didn't have to worry about voice acting. They just gave your custom character voice bubbles and had blanks in various speech bubbles in the game that get filled in with your custom character's name. When the best custom character plot involvement (with voice acting) that I've seen in a game is
Tony Hawk's Underground 2, the whole gaming industry needs to do better...
There is kind of a cool feature that was added in the latest patch where you (or you and your guild) can buy your own house. The only thing is, I fail to see the purpose in this. It doesn't get you anywhere except a wallet without any Gil in it. It's a cool little gimmicky thing but it has no functional purpose. I have no reason to waste my money on something like that. When the
White Knight Chronicles games allowed you to have your own town, it was really cool because you could have the townspeople mine, farm, etc and get you access to special items through the town's shop. That was a useful gimmick. Buying a house in
A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV just seems like a waste to me.
I like how you get your own personal Chocobo in this game for both riding and fighting but, you have to play a long time in order to get it. The reason why this is a big deal is because running around everywhere on foot is a pain in the ass! There's a teleport feature but it costs Gil in order to use it. At the beginning of the game, the Gil cost to teleport is just too much compared to what you make. I wish you could get the Chocobo earlier in the game.
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Um...sir...could you get your Chocobo
off of the table? Please? |
Speaking of the Chocobos, if you're not in an urban area, you can bring your Chocobo anywhere. This includes civilian homes and taverns. You think they would have had someone to stop you from riding your Chocobo through the front door. It would be pretty harmful for business if everyone was getting their ale spilled because a Chocobo comes in every five minutes and knocks everything over. Actually, when I had my Chocobo spawned for combat, I managed to get my Chocobo to stand on one of the tables.....lolz
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HELP! THE RAMP IS TRYING TO
EAT ME!!!! |
So, despite fixing this game for three years, it still has it's fair share of glitches. I'm not sure if it's a lag in the game or the network but in larger battles, such as FATEs with lots of participants, combat move execution can be incredibly delayed or, worse yet, the delay will cause you to get hurt by an area attack even if you were well outside the area long before the area attack was executed. This is pretty frustrating. You learn quick to just get out of areas as soon as they show up because you will have no idea how much the game is going to lag. I also got stuck a couple of times in a wall or a ramp and had no choice but to teleport back to my home point and run all the way back to whatever the hell I was doing. It's pretty annoying but I've definitely seen worse in other games.
More hilariously, the contact between where you stand and the ground is really lazily done. This isn't so noticeable on most terrains. However, I was climbing through the mountains in Upper La Noscea and found it rather obvious that I was not touching the ground.
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| Is this when I become a demi-god? |
I would expect that they would be able to do a little better than this. I mean, this isn't even close. There is not a single part of my feet on the ground.
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| I'm walking on air! |
I actually saw this same phenomenon again when I jumped down from a ten story tower Why did I jump down from a ten story tower? Well, it was faster than going down the stairs and you never die when jumping from high heights. It just decreases your HP to 1 and you wait for it to regenerate back to full. Anyways, I was jumping from a tall tower and happened to land on a light fixture hanging from the ceiling. Of course, there was no way I would be able to do this twice so I made the most of it and decided to sit on the light fixture in a way that is physically not possible. Oh boy...
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| Just chillin' |
I suppose that the last complaint I have about this game seems like something hardly worth talking about but I think it's worth talking about in this case.
The clothing.
Oh God, the clothing.
I understand that this world has its own aesthetics for what clothes should look like and all of that but...this is just ridiculous. Time and time again I find myself looking like an idiot because certain equipment is better than others. Sure, I could keep wearing the clothes that don't look stupid but, I want to make myself as strong as possible so when I obtain articles of clothing that have better attributes, I equip them. The thing is, I would understand if these stupid looking clothes were low-level equipment but some of the clothes I got were even at level 35, even level 40 (level 50 is the highest level you can obtain for a particular character class in this game). Some of the most notable outfits that I had acquired were:
A purple peasant outfit,
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| Why is the default color purple? |
A dumb looking helmet,
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| Yes sir! I will protect my head, sir! |
Whatever this is supposed to be,
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| I wax my chest daily |
Underwear?
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| How does this raise my defense more than actual pants? |
Yellow, to the elbow, hobo gloves,
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| Fuck! Would someone get me some pants? My legs are cold! |
Oh, and when I decided to try some weaving, it stripped me to my actual underwear because the equipment level of my clothes were too high compared to my level 1 weaver skill.
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| Hey there, handsome. ;) |
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| Time to make my own clothes! |
A yellow eye-patch! Are you fucking serious!?
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| It matches my gloves... |
PANTS! PANTS! PANTS!
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| Just when I was getting used to the speedo... |
Wait, what? What kind of pants are those?
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| I think you mixed up genders? |
How is this better than any of the equipment I had the first 40 levels? I can't
see anything!
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| hahahaha...hahahahaha...hahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha |
Last but not least...
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| For the holidays, I decided to be Santa killing people with a spear...without pants. |
Yes, I know that you can dye your clothes if they are a ridiculous color (*cough* yellow eye-patch *ahem*). But, the dyes are relatively expensive. Some of the dyes cost around 500 Gil a piece! Sheesh... I just don't really feel like spending the money to change the colors of some of these clothes. You know what? I shouldn't have to spend the money to change the colors of my clothes because they decided that the default color of an eye patch is yellow. That's just stupid! And yes, I know you can make your head gear invisible. Whatever. There's one thing for certain. No amount of dye is going to change how ridiculous the speedo/underpants look...
Proper attire aside, this game is still pretty good. If you like MMORPGs, it's probably worth trying the 30 day trial. You gotta pay for the game initially but I feel that you get your money's worth during those 30 days. It looks good and the combat is fun for awhile. I'm pretty on the fence about whether I will buy a subscription now that my 30 day trial is up. I think that if they had some sort of sale/discount that I would. But full price of twelve to fourteen dollars per month is not really worth it to me. Although it's probably one of the best MMORPG experiences I have had, MMORPGs do consume a lot of your time because of the limited number of days you have to play them. You basically feel obligated to play them every chance you get. The thing is, it might be worth the money if it was breathtaking in more instances than the environment and scenery. It kills me because this game has a lot of potential to be great. Yes, I know that the
A Realm Reborn release has won awards but I just really think that this game could be more than what it is now. If the right changes are made, it could go down as one of the best games of all time! But since Square has its moneymaker up and running, I don't think we'll see this realized. Maybe in the future,
if they improve some of these issues, I will pick this game up again. Until then, I will have to pass.
Thanks for reading, guys. I know this was a long one but there was a lot to say.
PS: If you play this game on the Behemoth server (or perhaps other servers, not sure) I managed to play middleman by selling chicken eggs. Yes, chicken eggs. It seems that the people who own chickens in this world are greedy little bastards and sell eggs for outrageous amounts of money. Right next to the market board/summoning bell in every major town there is a miscellany/ingredients vendor. They all sell chicken eggs for 5 Gil a piece. So, I would buy 99 chicken eggs from this NPC vendor for 495 Gil and then put them up for sale on the market for 12 Gil a piece (1,188 Gil). This seems like a huge price hike but the next lowest seller would be selling them for like 24 Gil a piece or something like that. After taxes, I was still making quite a profit for every 99 chicken eggs sold (they have to buy the whole set). When I figured this out, I would sell a set of 99 chicken eggs at least once a day. I think one day I sold 5 sets of chicken eggs within the day. The profit margin doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up (and it
is more than double what I'm paying for them). I was basically paying for my teleportation fees and then some from this middleman operation I had going on. Just a little tip for you
Final Fantasy XIV players out there if you want to make a quick Gil.
Once again, thanks for reading. Until next time...
All screenshots taken by me
Cover image: http://www.leetenigmablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Final_Fantasy_XIV_A_Realm_Reborn_box_cover.jpg
.png)
