The Final Fantasy franchise is something that I have been a fan of for years. However, I never got around to playing Final Fantasy XI, the first massively multiplayer online game in the series. At the time, MMORPG’s just did not appeal to me and I always preferred turn based combat like seen in the games prior. This is also one of the reasons why I could not get into Final Fantasy XII as well, which I plan to rectify in the near future.
The initial Final Fantasy XIV release had me intrigued at first, but then it had so many problems after launch that I never ended up playing it. I’ve heard many things about Final fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn over the last year or so, but still was not sure how I would feel about it, since MMORPG’s have never been my forte. I was given a chance to play the last round of the beta for the upcoming release, and I thought I’d give my impressions of my time with the game.
First of all, my first experience when turning on the game wasn’t all that positive, but it was as a result of a questionable login system. The game asks for a Square Enix username and password, which I checked and made sure I had. The login would not work at all and even after recovering and changing the password, it still did not work. I ended up making a new account, but since my primary email, that I use to keep most everything together, was in use, I had to use another one.
After getting through the annoying login problems, I perked up pretty quickly once the opening cutscenes started. As a fan of strong story based games, which the Final Fantasy franchise has long been a master of, I really enjoyed seeing the backstory from the initial Final Fantasy XIV game and how it sets up what is going on in this game. The graphics in the cutscenes are absolutely gorgeous, which is to be expected in a Final Fantasy game.
I was also quite impressed with the in-game graphics as well, especially considering they are able to pull it off, with so many players on screen at one time with many different things going on, without a lot of slowdown. I was playing on the Playstation 3 version, which I knew wouldn’t look as good as the PC version on a top tier gaming computer, but it was still looked beautiful to me.
Following the opening cutscenes it was time for character creation, which is one of the most difficult things for me to do in any customizable RPGs. This is the character that you will be using for the future and you want him or her to look right. They give you five races to choose from in the game, all of which are fairly humanoid based, but are still different enough to make it a tough decision. In the end, I chose to be a Hyur, which is the basic “human” race in the game.
This is followed by the creation of the actual character that you would expect in any MMORPG. While there are many things you can change about the character, there are some options that just don’t give you that many options. I believe that the face type only had four options, while the facial hair, scars, and tattoos section weren’t any better. Hopefully there will be more of these patched in at a future time.
The last thing to do was to choose a class. This is the most vital thing to pick as it will affect your entire future play in the game. In most RPGs I always seem to gravitate to using strong physical based fighters, so I chose to go with the Gladiator class. You also have the opportunity to level up other classes later. There are also jobs that you can unlock later based on the level of certain classes. For instance, my goal is to achieve the Paladin job, which requires a level 30 Gladiator and Level 15 Conjurer. This actually gives players a reason to try and level up multiple classes when they know they can potentially unlock further jobs.
Patrick
August 21, 2013 at 10:16 AMI have been awaiting the release as well. I had purchased V1.0 and after a week, ditched it and never played it again. The original FFXIV was dreadful. Just my opinion, not everyone would agree.
Since i purchased V1.0, i received a BETA key for ARR. I tried it out, and it was a breath of fresh air. ARR just had a better feel and playability. After 7 years of WoW, and stints with RIFT and SWTOR, it was a much needed change. I like the more global cooldown, turn based fighting. The reason is its better on my arms and wrist. I lost count of the amount of times i went to sleep with sore arms, wrists, and fingers from 7 years of button mashing mmo’s and games in general.
I know many WoW and RIFT fanboys already bashed this game. I was hearing it all in the general chat during the open BETA. It is an acquired taste, and hopefully the immature and rude community, although i think is funny some of the time, stays away from FFXIV:ARR because of it. I like the helpful adult community, that is what FFXI was known for, from what i hear i never played it. So far i’ve seen the Free Companies (guilds) looking for just that. I could do without the mentally handicapped bashing and racist remakes in chats on other mmo’s. If you pick up the game, give it time (maybe 90 days to get the goods) and enjoy. Hopefully i’ll see you around on there. looking forward to early access. Thanks for the article
Mark Fajardo
August 21, 2013 at 10:51 AMWe’ll be at the Malboro server. See you in-game this weekend.
Denzel
August 21, 2013 at 4:14 PMI also played the beta test. I love the little things about this. It feels like the situation where you learn something and realise how little you know. The crafting and job system have so much potential. As already stated, the graphics are beautiful! The grouping system is very easy in expiriences I had, instead of waiting or creating invites, the duty finder creates parties for you, this is likely only to be for certain aspects of the game but it’s a damn good start.
There is a lot to do from the start of the game as mentioned above, I think it is too early to really judge the community but it did feel like the old comradery of FF11 was present, not to the same extent as the gameplay is easier than 11, but this is yet to unfold. I also love the separated Free companies and linkshells. Although free companies were not wholly active in the beta, due to the cost and time frames, they seem to be where the competitive players can associate and rank, whereas linkshells appear to be the social aspect, similar to ff11 for those of you who played, seems to pretty the same, get a shell and you can talk to the people in the shell from anywhere in the game world. I don’t know why, but this sounds very appealing to me, like going to work with the professionals and talking to your personal friend group about it, sounds simple and silly I know, but its difficult to describe why I like the thought, apologies.
Another good aspect is the music, it fits the gameplay perfectly, no explanation required, play and you will be immersed!
There is also a small part of almost every final fantasy game included in this one, a particular favourite of myn is the material converting system associated with the crafting, you build up a “spirit bond” with your armour, when it reaches 100% you convert it to material if you choose to, this can then be crafted into armour/weapons with free slots and I would like to think you can convert this “materiated” (you heard it first here ;) ) armour into even better material, im sure you’ll agree, this will add an enormous amount of variety to crafting system.
Initially, I was worried about the market, comparing to other mmos I have experienced, I initially thought it would be the same as STWOR, I never once used the market, I obtained everything I needed through quests and drops (boring), ff11’s market was very good, very few pieces of equipment were obtain in quests, leading to a very healthy and highly active, player driven market, these are the extremes of what I thought were good and bad in the mmo market system.
What changed my with FF14s initially poor reception is that although you do get a lot/most of your gear through quests, this is only likely for the initial class play through, all else (other jobs) it seems you will need to craft or buy your gear, giving me more than hope, eager anticipation for this game.
There is far more I thought was good to this game, combat being one of them, but I need to mention the 1 thing that gave a negative point for me, although I think the story is pretty engaging, so far, the voice acting made me cringe, badly, it was very cheesy. Not in all places I should point out, but im sure many will agree when I say the flame general from Ul’Dah, this was made worse by the low volume music, please turn the volume up on the cutscenes, it will help engage the scene, not the overacting.
Hope to see you all there for many years!
DeShawn
August 22, 2013 at 6:33 AMI played FFXIV: ARR over the last two phases of beta and must say its come a long way. Honestly I dont really like MMORPGs I hate being forced to team up with other people just to progress as I am typically a loner but playing this changed that. The last MMORPG I played extensively was Ragnarok Online 2. Which was fun but I stopped playing around level 40 something because grinding made the game to tedious to me. I hate having to kill 20 of the same enemy over and over just to move on. In FF XIV: ARR there are grind and errand quests but not as extreme that. Combat was decent, maybe not as quick as your used too but definitely has that old school FF feel to it. I played the game up to Level 15 so I’m not sure if this changes later on. The game is gorgeous to look at. I found myself just staring off at the scenery alot of times especially the sunset. I believe this is a good game to start with especially if you are considering getting into the MMORPG genre. People are generally nice, as I asked a few questions and would instantly get an answer or if someone saw you struggling on a quest, would help you out. I found myself playing the beta for an entire day without realizing it. As soon as the beta was over I felt sad that it was and preordered the game right there. I’m interested to see how far they take it but I definitely think it is worth a look.
matt
August 30, 2013 at 9:13 PMfinal fantasy 14 coulda been a better game if there were no lvl cap …. only means once players get to lvl 50 theres really no point in playing the game … and to add a subscription to this game is gay…. especially when diablo3 is coming out and its 4 free
Mark Fajardo
August 30, 2013 at 9:16 PMThere is an end-game for every MMO and FFXIV is no exception. Once you get to the level cap, that’s when the game opens up.