I’m not that crazy about MMORPGs. It’s not the genre itself,
but the fact that you have to pay money to play them. True enough, every game
costs money to play (aside from things like Rock, Paper, Scissors and playing
Tic-Tac-Toe in the dirt with a rock), but MMORPGs usually charge a monthly fee
in addition to the money you initially spend to take the game from the store or
download it. Companies that charge players to play their games are basically
doing so to run an ever developing game, one which will require server
maintenance and constant patching. So in other words, it makes sense for
companies to charge for playing something like an online RPG.
This would be all well and good if you were going to be
playing the game… well… forever, but if you’re like me, you can’t stick to just
one game for that long. I find it hard to justify paying a subscription fee for
a game that I’m not going to be playing as heavily a month or two down the
road. Thank goodness for the ability to cancel subscriptions, right? (More on
that in a bit.)
The first MMORPG that I ever played was Final Fantasy XI.
When the game was first released, I had no intention of buying it. The fact
that a main, numbered series title in the Final Fantasy franchise was
online-only and required a subscription fee just turned me off completely.
Then, one day while hanging out with a friend of mine, that friend of mine had
another friend that had the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XI. He told me
he’d sell it to me for about $5, so I bought it – if for nothing else but to
actually own every main series FF game (as you all know, I’m something of a
completist). For about a week, I kept the game on my shelf, debating on whether
I should pony up the cash necessary to start playing it.
I decided to take the plunge and tell SquareEnix that I
would pay them $12.99 per month to play the game.
Once I got in, I’ve gotta say that the game was pretty
well-done. The graphics, art direction, music – all the stuff that you’d expect
from an “alright” Final Fantasy title were all there… save for an involving
story.
FFXI’s story wasn’t terrible, it just didn’t grip me like
previous games had, since it was an actual
role-playing game. You didn’t play as
a character, you were the character,
something that I wasn’t accustomed to as a fan of the series since Final
Fantasy IV. Regardless, I found the game to be pretty fun until I hit the point
when a party was necessary to progress.
FFXI used a combat system which is probably familiar to most
MMORPG players, but was new to me at the time: Class-based. This means that
whatever character you decide to play as, you take a certain role in combat.
For me, I had chosen a “fighter” character (your typical sword and shield user),
so that meant that I was what everybody called “the tank.”
For the longest time, I had no earthly idea what people were
talking about, but once I figured out that a tank’s job in combat was to
primarily take damage while other people did the damage dealing, I was good to
go. The problem was, I didn’t “go” for long. FFXI’s leveling system was
extremely slow (therefore, extremely boring) and I just didn’t want to take all
that time to get to the experience level that most other FFXI players were at and probably
had been for around 2 years at that point.
I canceled my subscription after about 2 months of play.
Since then, I’ve gotten into other MMORPGs that have gone
the “free-to-play” (or F2P) route such as Star Trek Online, DC Universe and
Dungeons & Dragons Online, and I swore off subscription-based games
completely.
That is, until Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
I never bought into the original FFXIV. Along with my
swearing off of subscriptions, I had heard that the game was basically crap and
that players weren’t happy with the final product, so I pretty much stayed
away. But it still killed me that there was another Final Fantasy title that I
probably wouldn’t buy.
After a short time, SquareEnix announced that they would be
completely updating and overhauling FFXIV. I didn’t care. I still wasn’t going to buy the
game. It wasn’t until a week after the game’s release (and re-getting into
FFXII on a PS2 emulator) that I decided to check out the new version. I looked
up some videos, and while I can’t say that I was “blown away,” the game
actually did look like a lot of fun (and the leveling system was much faster).
So just like with FFXI, I took the plunge once again and decided to pay
SquareEnix a monthly fee to at least check the game out.
NOW the quasi-review starts!
Story: 6
I’m not going to go into the details of FFXIV’s story, as it’s not the greatest in the world. Basically, a cataclysmic event hits the land of Eorzea, causing things to change throughout the world. This is pretty much SquareEnix using an in-game excuse to change problems that players initially had with the game. It’s pretty clever, but it’s also kind of funny when you read into it. I’m sure that to players who played the original version, it’s even funnier. There are some pretty standard RPG tropes like an evil empire and such, but I think that sometimes the story seems to get in the way of the player just going out and building their character up, as I find even myself skipping through lines of dialogue while trying to get the next quest going. This is something that I never had to do with all the previous FFs.
I’m not going to go into the details of FFXIV’s story, as it’s not the greatest in the world. Basically, a cataclysmic event hits the land of Eorzea, causing things to change throughout the world. This is pretty much SquareEnix using an in-game excuse to change problems that players initially had with the game. It’s pretty clever, but it’s also kind of funny when you read into it. I’m sure that to players who played the original version, it’s even funnier. There are some pretty standard RPG tropes like an evil empire and such, but I think that sometimes the story seems to get in the way of the player just going out and building their character up, as I find even myself skipping through lines of dialogue while trying to get the next quest going. This is something that I never had to do with all the previous FFs.
Visuals: 8
For an online game, FFXIV is pretty to look at. In fact, it’s the best looking one I’ve seen yet. The fact that the game was designed to be played from multiple platforms (PS3 & PC) on the same servers means that some of the graphics have been toned down to accommodate the aging PS3 hardware. That being said, it’s still an online game, so the graphics for FFXIV aren’t going to look as good as XIII or the upcoming XV, anyway. A good deal of graphics processing goes into putting tons of fully animated avatars on the screen at once, thus contributing to the lower quality of the graphics.
For an online game, FFXIV is pretty to look at. In fact, it’s the best looking one I’ve seen yet. The fact that the game was designed to be played from multiple platforms (PS3 & PC) on the same servers means that some of the graphics have been toned down to accommodate the aging PS3 hardware. That being said, it’s still an online game, so the graphics for FFXIV aren’t going to look as good as XIII or the upcoming XV, anyway. A good deal of graphics processing goes into putting tons of fully animated avatars on the screen at once, thus contributing to the lower quality of the graphics.
Sound: 9
Uematsu is back! A lot of old Final Fantasy musical flourishes are back that have been missing post-XII, so from an auditory standpoint, fans should be rather pleased. At one point, even the battle music from the first FF game makes an appearance! Pretty much all the music and themes you would expect from a Final Fantasy game are all here, which is something I can’t say about FFXIII (which had a good score, regardless) and probably won’t be able to say about XV once it's released.
Uematsu is back! A lot of old Final Fantasy musical flourishes are back that have been missing post-XII, so from an auditory standpoint, fans should be rather pleased. At one point, even the battle music from the first FF game makes an appearance! Pretty much all the music and themes you would expect from a Final Fantasy game are all here, which is something I can’t say about FFXIII (which had a good score, regardless) and probably won’t be able to say about XV once it's released.
 |
| My main character, based off the protagonist in a story I'm writing. |
Gameplay: 7
FFXIV is your standard MMORPG. You basically run around doing “fetch quests” for NPCs and grind for experience points while moving through the lackluster story. Even the main HUD for FFXIV is nearly identical to other MMORPGs. To some, this may seem as though FFXIV is a retread of something they’ve already played. Indeed, the concepts and design aspects of FFXIV are exactly the same as something like Star Trek Online, as I had absolutely no problems while figuring out the various controls. Honestly though, I don’t know how developers would go about designing MMORPGs any differently at this point; this seems to be the standard simply because it works, though it does add a lot of monotony to the genre as a whole.
FFXIV is your standard MMORPG. You basically run around doing “fetch quests” for NPCs and grind for experience points while moving through the lackluster story. Even the main HUD for FFXIV is nearly identical to other MMORPGs. To some, this may seem as though FFXIV is a retread of something they’ve already played. Indeed, the concepts and design aspects of FFXIV are exactly the same as something like Star Trek Online, as I had absolutely no problems while figuring out the various controls. Honestly though, I don’t know how developers would go about designing MMORPGs any differently at this point; this seems to be the standard simply because it works, though it does add a lot of monotony to the genre as a whole.
One thing that I particularly enjoy is how the game eases
you into playing with other people throughout Eorzea. There are training
instances (a multiplayer session that occurs when enough people have queued up
the event) that show you how the course of battle flows for each player related
to your specific job. By this point, I already knew how combat worked in this
type of game, but for new players, this can be an absolute blessing. Also,
helpful popups appear after every new aspect of the game becomes available, so
you won’t be wondering how to use your defense buffs right in the middle of
battle or how to craft materia to socket into your armor. You absolutely have
to pay attention to these popups to make yourself effective, though.
Fortunately, the tutorials given are evenly spaced throughout the game and
never really seem to overwhelm the player with too much information too soon.
So why should you play Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn if
it’s pretty much the same as most MMORPGs you can play for free? Really, it all
boils down to personal preference and where you want to spend virtual-time. The
fact that I have sold my soul to the devil twice for Final Fantasy is enough to
show that I’m a fan of the series, so I personally like playing around in that
world. So if you’re a Final Fantasy nut, then this is the online game for you
and is worth your hard-earned money every month. If not, and you just like
playing a game with your friends and building stronger characters together,
then definitely go for one of the free games. There are tons out there that operate
exactly like FFXIV and cost absolutely nothing.
Final Score: 7.5 (See, not EVERY game is "super awesome" in
the eyes of The Inner Dorkdom!)
-Josh
Logo image taken from Google Images. Screenshot made by me.