Some three years ago, Final Fantasy XIV tried to happen.
It tried.
And you may remember that it kinda fell on its face, to the point where Square was giving
away subscription time for free to those stalwart souls who braved that tumultuous era.
And then they broke the world.
Dropped a moon on it.
Wrecked everything.
Took the entire game down for a period of about nine months, during which they more
or less rebuilt the entire thing - and added that PS3 support they'd talked about however
long ago.
That's all I'm going to say about the troubles of version 1.0, as I wasn't actually there.
But I'm here in Eorzea now, have been for several days (On a Japanese server, thus sidestepping
the much-publicized connection woes others have faced), and I can say: I don't wanna
go home.
I like it here.
And not just because I'm rockin' it Red XIII-style.
So after the world got more or less ruined five years (read: nine months) ago - involving
blowing up a moon and Bahamut going on a tear like he never got to in Chains of Promathia
- Life has kinda returned to normal in Eorzea, for some definition of "Normal."
The three nations are friendly toward each other but fear uprisings from the beast tribes
scattered throughout the lands, as well as the Garlean Imperial forces, who mill about
on the periphery with their magitek weaponry and their gunblades and other elements pulled
from Final Fantasies past.
But that's some high-level stuff.
First and foremost, you've gotta get your feet wet by learning your starting class - which
also determines which chunk of the world you arrive in after creation - by ruthlessly and
violently slaughtering the innocent wildlife outside the city gates, as is standard.
Fortunately, the game lends itself to giving you heaps and piles of EXP, if you're willing
to do a bit of legwork, be it for a quest or filling out the Hunting Log that gives
out massive experience bonuses for tracking down and slaughtering specific species of
monsters.
Generally speaking, much of the content in FFXIV is designed to get you out and exploring,
rather than cooped up in parties like XI's early days.
And with a world this pretty, that's a good thing.
The interface for this PS3 version is designed to be as intuitive as possible, with most
of your commands, attacks and menus available from a customizable system of hotbars accessed
by holding L2 or R2 and pressing a face button.
Playing through XI's PS2 and 360 versions, I could never imagine making those work without
a keyboard, but I can only think of two occasions where I've had to type something outside of
the PS3's standard text-entry window.
And even then, that's just because I had the keyboard hooked up at the time.
Perhaps it's because so much of the content is solo-friendly, even for your squishier
classes like mages and lancers and whatnot.
Larger-scale battles in the field called FATEs - for Full Active Time Event, but it might
as well mean Frantic Ad-Hoc Team Excitement - pit everyone in the general vicinity against
waves upon waves of monsters, or just one really freakin' big one, for mutual benefit
and piles of EXP.
You really only need parties for the instanced raids that pop up later in the storyline,
and even then you don't have to sit and shout for a party and hope there's someone who speaks
your language and has the job you need.
By activating the Duty Finder and selecting the raids you're interested in joining, you
enter a queue to be matched with teammates once the right combination of roles is filled
out.
Once your number's up, you can jump right into the mission from any point in the world,
and once it's over you wind up right where you were.
Immersion-breaking?
Just a bit.
Convenient?
Hells yes.
One of FFXIV ver.
1.0's selling points was a new take on the classic Final Fantasy jobs system, where simply
changing one's weapon changed one's class - and level, for that matter.
This system returns, bolstered by a "Gear Set" system that allows you to change all
your clothes - and your class - in just a couple button presses, and an Armory Chest
that allows you to hold 25 items per gear slot in hammerspace outside your actual inventory.
As in the original version, each crafting and harvesting discipline from Armorer to
Miner to Alchemist is considered its own class, with EXP progression, a guild, and optional
bonus missions called Guildleves just like any of those monster-killing classes.
You'll notice I haven't had much to say against this game, and that's because... well, I haven't
had any issues, really.
Sure, the servers are a bit congested, which can affect largescale events, and once I've
played for some 10 hours at a shot the sound goes all wonky and then completely dies.
But that's about it.
Pretty much everything I've laid my hands on has worked well, the storyline's engaging
(especially by MMORPG standards), and... well, there's a hell of a lot of content here.
So I'm gonna come back a bit later and fill in some of the holes in Part 2, once I've
fiddled with the Materia system and continued to train Level Divisible By Four the All-purpose
Combat Chocobo and put some more levels into fishing and improved my Maelstrom rank and...