Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (PlayStation 3)
Developer/Publisher: Square Enix
Released: August 27th, 2013
Final Fantasy XIV had been addled with some problems from the beginning and every iteration of the Online series of the popular franchise had been a crushing defeat. This was their way to actually regain some of the prestige that their offline predecessors had gained and that I, as a fan of the series, was madly in love with.
With that said, that’s why yours truly wanted to really get into it despite the handicap of server closings, errors in staying connected to established servers and so forth. Collectively, I was able to put in a decent amount of time but I didn’t want to stress this review further by taking longer than I already had. My review is a stress test of the controls, the story and the multiple zones in which I played, the graphics, the sound and the reasons why — despite the impossible server issues at the start — you should give Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn a shot.
We’re all friends again, right? I got that all prefaced out for a damn good reason and that’s so you couldn’t responsibly ignore it. When you review a game of any kind, the whole experience needs to be taken into account and it’s in those moments that you think “What would I warn my friends about? What would I get excited to tell them?” I found myself excited and yet hesitant on so many fronts with this game that I knew it was going to be an interesting go for sure.
Once I actually stepped into the game, I saw that the races were all named just as you would’ve expected from any other venture into the Final Fantasy lore. Let’s face it, they should’ve dropped “Final” from this series a long time ago because they’ve undergone so many changes, races, stories and more lore that differentiates from the original story that it’s just a wonder we’re all still here. How do people hold onto any one lore without getting confused? Here are the crazy names of the playable races: Miqo’te, lovely little humans with cat ears and tails; Lalafell, which are like Kewpie dolls with elven ears and the ability to grow facial hair if they wanted to; the Hyur, aka, Human. That’s all this is. Human; Elezen, as close to a lithe, wispy beared elven race as you can get in Final Fantasy; and the Roegadyn, which are tribes that come from the sea, muscular and unflinching in their resolve.
I bet you can guess which one I picked, can’t you?
Since I was new to Eorzea which resides in the world of Hydaelyn — and try to keep up with all these ridiculous names I’m going to throw at you. I feel like I should give everyone a phonetic guide just to help a little — I was relying heavily on my previous MMO experience. I had played pretty much every MMO out there to date that had a massive release here in the States and even some of the ones that had a small splash over on our shores. Having spent about six years on and off within World of Warcraft, Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst, Lord of the Rings Online, and quite a few others, this was the only MMO that I hadn’t really stepped into. I had heard of it’s complications and wasn’t looking to frustrate myself moreso than most MMOs already frustrated me. Once I heard of Square Enix developing ‘A Realm Reborn’, I found my interest piqued and I wanted to find out just what they could have done that would draw up interest to the degrees it had.
My first step into the game was with a tall, brutish looking Roegadyn beauty who would take on Pugilism, one of the several over-the-top named classes such as Gladiators, Lancers, Archers and Marauders within the Disciples of War category. You could also dip yourself into the Disciples of Magic, since they split those two up and make sure you’re well aware of just how different those two disciplines can be. With Arcanists, Conjurers and Thaumaturges — yes, that’s a damn class name in this game — rounding the roster for the magic users, I decided that I’d just keep myself strictly using my fists and brute strength. It’s my thing, you know? I was also told that I’d have the ability to give myself a secondary class if I had wanted to, which appealed to me and I’m sure most other people since I knew I wouldn’t have a single problem with being a Fight Club-loving Dragoon.
Now, let me really step aside from this entire descriptive and explain to you that I can’t fathom any damn reason why you need to make an overly complex opening area in any MMO without a reasonable map. I tried the opening areas for the Pugilists, which was Ul’dah, and I found my way around that one easily. Within several hours I had leveled up my beautiful brawling beast of a Roegadyn to level 10, had opened up Hunting Logs for extra XP and had stepped into story instances without much complication. Since Ul’dah and Thanalan (Like I said, I’m sorry about these ridiculous names.) were laid out pretty straight-forward and I was used to navigating other MMOS, I didn’t have an issue there. Once the server had torn me away from playing further there on that character, I started elsewhere and decided to give the Lancer a chance. This, my friends, is where things get a bit ranty.
Who in the bloody hell designed the map layout for Gridania?! Seriously, I could have filled books with my Twitter rampages over the amount of times I got lost between New Gridania, Old Gridania, and the dozens of Shrouds that you had to dip in and out of to actually get to the slight enemies you’d have to slay, or those corn-maze sons of bitches who would make you come running back after murdering a few ladybugs or whatever. Someone in New Gridania would tell you they would need a few dozen of something from some Shroud that was lost in a tangle of woven paths and broken pathways and then you would have to lean heavily on that map in order to find your way back.
The map, by the way, in Gridania? A three-year-old with the sugar shakes could have developed a cleaner and more intuitive map on a Friendly’s napkin with a dollar store crayon. I’m not even kidding — I was nearly ripping my hair out from how horrific the layouts of those damn maps. I have no idea what kind of sadist figured that they wanted to make such a complex opening city like Gridania, but it was torturous. I attempted Gridania as long as I possibly could before slinking off to start another Pugilist, just so I could get back to the simplicity of design within Ul’dah and Thanalan without feeling like I’m going to piss my pantsuit in rage every single time I bumped into another Shroud I wasn’t supposed to be in.
What does this teach anyone? Leave breadcrumbs, get comfortable with the map system as best as you can and “Attune” yourself to the overly saturated “checkpoint” Aetheryte crystals all over your current city. Why do they give you a dozen of those checkpoint crystals? Probably because they know the damn place is a wreck to navigate and that people were going to throw their keyboards and controllers at some point if they didn’t give you the option to zip from place to place a little easier. I know, personally, I had to rely on “Returning” to the main Aetheryte crystal in order to centralize my locations in Gridania just to find wherever the bloody hell I was supposed to go. Look, Final Fantasy developers, you need to keep your people in the action more than you need to complicate the map system. Get them out of the main towns and into the world, for the love of whatever God you worship up there with all your crystals and cat people.
Once I just went ahead and resorted myself to the fact I was meant to be in the dusty desert town of Ul’dah, I became well-versed in where to go, who to talk to and just what I was supposed to be doing. While dashing from my main quests into the big, beautiful purple webbed locations on my maps that introduced “Fates”, I found that there was this huge and teeming system of incredible real-time events that dozens of people could involve themselves in together. Imagine if you stumbled into a story-based brawl (Guild Wars 2 does a form of this as well and I absolutely loved it.) and the more you contributed to completing the Fate, the more XP you’d receive by the end of it. I found myself addicted to seeking out adventure once I knew I had enough strength behind me to actually be of service to those I was Fatewalking with.
Look, you don’t need me to tell you the graphics are gorgeous, or babble about how the sounds are yanked and ripped from every Square Enix game you’ve ever played so none of this feels new. And you certainly don’t need me to sit here and pander for an hour about how they’ve re-invented the genre of the MMO because that’s not what this is. What I can tell you is that giving me the option to use my PS3 controller in order to maneuver an MMO and doing it as comfortably as they did with A Realm Reborn, was what truly kept me playing it.
I had come from a place, much like when I talked about the console port of Diablo 3, where I had been used to using a mouse and keyboard, and here I was holding my controller and praying that I could manage it. There are dozens of combinations within MMOs with hotkeys, action bars, inventory space, and the like that it would be horrifying for anyone to think about how you can use a controller with any sort of ease — but Square Enix did do a good job with that part. With simple presses of your trigger buttons, you could cycle through your actions that would typically be mapped to buttons across the bottom of your screen on a computer. Snap a few keys and you’re fighting, but within the controller scheme, you pull on the right trigger and do your combinations with the face buttons. Through the beginning levels of the game and tutorial, you find that it becomes second nature.
I have to say though, the manipulation of my fingers while playing A Realm Reborn on a controller made my typical computer MMO fingers ache after hours of playing. If you’re a consistent console gamer, this isn’t going to break your heart whatsoever and you’re going to do just fine. In fact, I found that with the controller, I was able to actually enjoy my surroundings more than I’m used to . Perhaps it’s because I’m a hardcore console gamer that I’m used to this feeling and it felt natural to me instead of having to adjust my view or become acclimated. I just was.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn still needs a bit of tweaking to make sure that every user gets the same experience logging in, building a character, and getting to the server they desire to be on. Honoring giving players a bit more time to get their claws into Eorzea before asking for their hard-earned money on a monthly basis will possibly bring them back into the good graces of those die-hard Final Fantasy fans who really wanted and needed this MMO to exist. I can overlook horribly named characters in a Final Fantasy immersed world if it means I can learn more and more about the lore that the designers set forth. Hell, it’s an MMO — the user experience is the hardest part to ignore when it’s being inhabited by other players named “Ford Explorer” and “Miley McTwerk”; perhaps once the novelty wears off, we’ll see a call back to the actual mythos of Final Fantasy. If Lord of the Rings Online can manage to keep the gold farmers and immaturely-named characters while still cranking out amazing content, there’s no reason Square Enix can’t do the same.
When all is said and done, I enjoyed my time there when I could get there but I can’t say I can actually see myself wanting to give them money monthly just yet. I’m not saying you shouldn’t either, mind you, but I will say that once a few patches come in the next few weeks, it might become the game we need it to be.
Let’s give it a chance to breathe, shall we?
http://www.stealthybox.com
By Candice Shane
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