| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 4 | 7.00 |
| Overall | 7.00 |
|
FFXIV A Realm Reborn is the second attempt by Square at FFXIV, the first ending in a massive failure. So much so they trashed the game completely and almost started from scratch creating ARR which got favorable reviews. It is also one of the most console accessible MMOs out there. Tie that with the Final Fantasy brand and FFXIV became the first modern MMO I have ever played. Since this is my first MMO in years (only played SW Galaxies before) this review is going to be a review on the genre as a whole as much as it is for FFXIV. I can't judge FFXIV on how good an MMO it is since I have no other games to judge off of. From what I read though FFXIV follows the patterns started by WoW closely so it should not be that different an experience. The reason I wanted to play is mainly the large open world and that promise of being able to create your own character and build it in this massive world based community. Those first few hours exploring the gorgeous worlds created by Square is magical. Choosing which class you will start off in feels like a momentous decision, this is who you will be for many hours to come. From warriors to mages to cooks and even fighting monks, the classes in FFXIV are quite varied. There is a great armor switching system which allows you to nearly instantly change classes (with certain restrictions in dungeons) with the push of a button, this makes mastering multiple classes easy. I chose a Gladiator cause I have a thing for big dudes with swords, growing up on Arnold movies does that to you. But the main reason I chose that class is because it was a tank, see the classes in an MMO are mostly for show, the main categories are simply tank, healer and DPS (damage dealers). This is where the game loses it's magic of openess and freedom to create your own character. As a tank I need to play by tank rules, everyone else expects you to play by tank rules and you need to play by them or the team dies. This creates a system where the player needs to know before hand what they are going up against before trying it out. If you don't and get your team killed everyone will hate you. This game basically forces you to play one way, so when I enter a new dungeon I explain it is my first time playing that dungeon and usually someone will tell me exactly what to do and I proceed to do that. There is no room for exploring the combat system or coming up with new strategies, the best strategy has been found already and everyone follows it. So the tank absorbs the damage, the healer heals and the DPS guys kill the enemies. Every situation, every team has this exact same setup. While this ensures a role for everyone and that all roles work together as one, it also eliminates one of the elements of gameplay I enjoy most, the freedom to approach situations MY WAY. This is a core problem of MMOs as a whole so I don't know if I should trash FFXIV for it. Despite me wishing the system had far more freedom I cannot deny that dungeons were still very exciting and demanded extreme attention at times. High level play requires a mastery of all your commands, buffs and team work that few kinds of games ever reach. Sadly it takes over a hundred hours to ever get to that high level play, the rest of the time you will be doing busy work. Work is the absolute best way to describe what most of the missions and side activities are. Nearly every story quest involves going someplace and either fighting a ton of enemies or simply pressing X at the next destination. It is a massive world of fetch quests and generic kill missions. There are almost no attempts at any gameplay deviation, no mini games, nothing that really breaks the very simplistic MMO rules. Crafting classes need to spend hours basically hammering the X button over and over to collect objects. Could this have been done as a fun mini game instead, of course it could have but I almost wonder if MMO players would be against that because then they would actually have to pay attention, or they wouldn’t be able to create a macro to do it for them. The entire design of this game seems against the idea of interesting gameplay; I have a feeling MMOs in general have this same design. By keeping things simple it makes all activities move quicker which leads to reaching the prize at the end quicker; whether that be exp, money or some new skill. As I spent hours upon hours leveling up I wondered why was I so into this. These same "quests" in any other game would be so bad I would quit the game (ok probably not because I am a gaming masochist). Why would I do something I don’t enjoy over and over, why would anyone do that? I started thinking, isn't that what a job is to many people. Why do people have jobs, well it is for the reward at the end of the week. The reward of leveling up, of reaching that next tier of high level content, to be able to join your higher level friends on tougher missions; that is the prize and you will do mundane tasks like a job just to get there. I must say the formula MMOs use to hook players and keep them playing is rather well thought out. I noticed that since FFXIV is a paid subscription service the developers want players to remain playing for longer periods of time. Many of the high level activities have timers on them that limit how much you can loot. Want to find the highest level loot in the best dungeons, can only get one piece a week. Every class takes ages to reach the full potential. I want to dig up treasure maps, they lead to fun treasure hunts, but to do that I must be a level 40 miner. That takes about 30 hours of boring grinding, that is 30 more hours of time taken up so that you stay subscribed. I dont know if that is genius or pure evil, I simply know the strategy works . The strength of MMOs is the community aspect where players have built friendships and nearly live virtual lives. I joined a free company which is basically a guild and I got to see conversations within the group occur on my feed. I basically stayed in the shadows, I am not in this to make new friends but I was amazed at how for some this almost felt like a night with your group of friends. The same core group of people would hop on every night and have conversations and go on raids together. I also saw plenty of disgusting behavior, petty arguments and even some guild politics with some trying to kick out the leader. Nice people can be a godsend in dungeons or be total a-holes, just like in real life you will meet all types of characters. The good thing is that outside of dungeon the game never forces you to ever communicate with others, that said dungeons are the best part of the games so you will need to be social at some point. I found the balance that worked for me and was able to enjoy the community on my terms. I have written a lot about MMO conventions but what about FFXIV in particular. For one it is a gorgeous game with incredible art direction, easily one of the best looking MMOs out there. The world of Eorza is the most true to Final Fantasy looking world I have seen in years as it is far more fantasy than technology; seeing all the new locations and famous FF enemies in beautiful detail was one of my favorite parts of playing. The music is as majestic as you would expect from a FF game. I don’t know how most MMOs handle their storylines so I cannot compare but I found FFXIV to attempt to tell a grand FF level story. Massive CG cutscenes happen rarely but cover the major events of the story. There are plenty of cutscenes involving a good cast of well written NPC characters, exciting moments of action and the usual big bad threat drama. It feels like a Final Fantasy story but told on a grand scale and not on the personal level that most FF games get into with your party members. None of the NPC characters have any real story arc or develop as a character in the same way most party members do in a FF game. Missing that personal aspect means I can’t say FFXIV’s story is as well done as the more traditional FF games. Perhaps it has a better story than most MMOs though, it is exciting at least. FFXIV is one of the most console friendly MMOs available and I must commend Square for the great control setup they have for the PS4. At first all the controls available will be overwhelming, don’t fret, there are tons of tutorial prompts explaining the many gameplay systems and controls. One of the best features of PS4 control is the on screen mouse controlled by the touchpad allowing a traditional way to navigate the screens. The triggers activate the toolbar which turns every face button into a toolbar action. You may switch between 8 preset toolbars by pressing L1 and a face button. Sure it is not as fast as a keyboard but I found the controls to be more than capable of handling every situation. The only thing that was a pain was typing comments which makes having a usb keyboard a key addition if you want to be social. The game runs perfectly, with frame rate drops only when massive groups get into battles. It is amazingly stable, I had only two nights of maintenance and never had any connection issues. I don’t understand how a single player game like Skyrim has so many glitches and yet a game with a million people playing at once runs great. My one month experience with Final Fantasy XIV was one filled with fun, boredom, excitement, more boredom, confusion, but above all the desire to keep playing. While many of the individual gameplay systems disgusted me the total game package was a place I wanted to delve deeper and deeper because at the very end the best gameplay moments await. I enjoyed most dungeon experiences, I had plenty of fun with the PvP component, exploring the world was a joy and the story was compelling enough to drive me to the end. Yet so much of what I played was boring crap that I would normally never want to continuously play, but there I was grinding away performing the same mundane tasks over and over. MMOs are a strange kind of game, ultimately I did enjoy my time with FFXIV but the experience can be so much better. |
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Posted by Dvader Thu, 21 Aug 2014 04:44:53
Thu, 21 Aug 2014 11:22:31
Whats your play time?
Thu, 21 Aug 2014 14:33:12
Over 200 hours including the beta.
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