aramdomgamer

[aramdomgamer]

Final Fantasy XIV Online - Poking the bear.

If you were to ask me what would be the ideal tone and world I would like out of a Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy XIV is the best answer I could give, both on the surface and diving deep into the game is everything I could want out of one, which also makes it frustrating that the game and its expansions never reach the peak of its quality consistently, but overall is still a pretty good game despite it all, and now I’ll proceed to make a fool of myself with this spoiler heavy ramble on the game.

I’ll keep updating this “review” as I continue through Shadowbringers and whenever I get to Endwalker, or if I missed something I wanted to say about the previous points, not like anyone is going to read this.

· Quests

The quests from the main scenario are generally pretty good, ranging from just simple dialogue quests to build up to the next part, dungeons, killing enemies, the boss fights themselves, etc. for the most part that retains a generally good pacing. The more important side quests plus the raid/trials scenarios are all also pretty good. The main problem is the rest of it all, there isn’t any real incentive to go out of your way to complete the less important tier of side quests in the game, the only motivator that there exists in the intrinsic one of seeing if any of them has a neat mini storyline or fleshes out the world which is a gamble, very few have a decent reward, and is not a viable way to level up anything, there is very little reason to not just do a main scenario quests where you just talk to people for 300k experience, compared to a more involved smaller side quest that will only give you like 10k or something, so is easy to just spend your time ignoring those and just focusing on the story.

· Combat

The combat shines in the game when you are playing with other people, the notion of this being a single player Final Fantasy first and an MMO second is shattered somewhat by the fact that most combat scenarios in the overworld are pretty simplistic, and again not worth the time because of the very low amount of experience that you get from them relative to quests, combat is at its most fun during either the custom fights you get in single player instances, FATEs with other people, dungeons, etc. anything multiplayer really. Is not a particularly difficult game during most of the main and side scenarios, besides some specific exceptions, but it does remain pretty engaging regardless, if anything the more difficult optional stuff is more annoying because it pretty much requires for you to learn the fight before even attempting it, more apparent if you join much later into the game, where every strategy and guide for savage or extreme fights already exist and is expected for you to be well aware of it to not waste the time of others, is just something I find less fun than the more intuitive to learn as you play normal bosses and the like from the main scenario. base raids, and trials. The combat proper is learning to either tank, deal damage, or heal, is essentially breaking up the party composition and strategy across each player, and as long as everyone knows what they are doing is pretty smooth sailing, the action combat is simple to learn, but it leans itself well to situations akin to a bullet hell in the more intense boss fights with the AoE attacks, which is all pretty fun.

· Music

The soundtrack of Final Fantasy XIV is pretty solid, I can only say there is a couple of tracks that get ear grating, a small percentage that I don’t care about or find forgettable, while a great percentage of it ranges from solid to pretty good tracks, and another small percentage of them being pretty excellent, for such a big score across essentially 5 games, that is pretty good, even if I’m only at the start of Shadowbringers, on the whole I would say that the best collection of tracks from the whole package is the A Realm Reborn portion of it. The other expansions have their stand outs of course, like Dragonsong being my favorite main theme song of the game, and the Tsukuyomi fight from Stormblood being the only fight that transitions super well between 3 themes with different tones and genres without feeling jarring, not such the case with Shiva or Leviathan.

· Story and characters

Something that I’ll expand a bit more in the general impressions of each expansion, the size of XIV can be both a blessing and a curse with its story developments, is both a grand world and tale, but one that can also be rather limited when it does more traditional storytelling from a JRPG where it can fall flat if you compare what it does in 100 hours to a much shorter one that can tell a similar idea in much less time.

The best story point of XIV as a whole, and its biggest thematic point that works well in the mold of an MMORPG, is the message of unity, across the expansions you are tasked with doing a lot of very small quests for people, either to gain favor with them, prepare for a bigger event and such, this works well with the grinder aspects and much slower pace of this type of game compared to a smaller RPG, because it merges well that slow journey up to a bigger goal in the story, the three major cities of A Realm Reborn, Coerthas, the Azzim Steppe, Ala Mhigo, these showcases some of the best portions of gameplay and story of XIV for me and that sense of unity.

The characters are weird, on the surface, a lot of them are pretty good from a writing standpoint or at least are fun to have around, but is also weird how little some of them get despite being prominent across those hundreds of hours of main story.

The Scions can have it pretty bad as much as I like the group. The best written character in the game is Alisaie is the only one with significant character conflict plus having stuff to do in the story across every expansion, Bahamut in Realm Reborn, her moments in the post patches storyline of Heavensward, a main figure of Stormblood, and her character struggles continue up in what I played Shadowbringers, she is the only character that continues to grow across the entire thing. Lyse comes in second, having some conflict and build up in bits of A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward, and outright being a main character in the events of Stormblood, funnily enough I guess both Alisaie and Lyse share having a lot of confidence issues and self-loathing across their character stories, just their personalities being pretty different from each other, and being better at resolving matters through just fights. Alphinaud’s big character arc is being the main character of Heavensward and that is handled pretty well. As for the rest, Urianger has a small arc with Alisaie during Heavensward, Thancred does things, sometimes, Papalymo serves a story beat purpose that leads into Stormblood, and Y’shtola does some things, also helps with being a plot device in Stormblood, but her character doesn’t amount to much else than being the very likeable snarky mage so far, I’m hoping Shadowbringers improves her, Thancred and Urianger to some extent, but is not really a patch up or a justifier for them not having much of character in the rest of the expansions, even if Heavensward gets away with it thanks to the set up from A Realm Reborn.

The characters specific to each expansion fare better, they aren’t overly complex but given the structure of the expansions and the fact that they are going to be really important for that storyline alone, they do well to have a start and end, fulfill their purpose rather well, and get enough development to be memorable.

· A Realm Reborn

Considered the part that drags and the biggest hurdle of the game by many, is something that I find to be really enjoyable, is a pretty simple adventure, but is really well executed simple adventure, is not complex but it does well by being a good point that builds the world, the characters and the like, you do the more weird fantasy stuff in this as well, like a haunted mansion, or fighting sirens in a coast on the way to getting fuel for your ship, is a very classic JRPG troupe filled adventure, a bit reminiscent of Dragon Quest, but that is a positive for me so no complaints from me there, a good first half of it is a very cheery story while dealing with primals, then after the attack of the Waking Sands, it gets a tad more somber while still remaining optimistic, and we get our main character for the storyline Cid, the more fleshed out part of A Realm Reborn character wise, and after that is one of my favorite sequences in the game, Coerthas and Garuda, in most of A Realm Reborn, you help out cities that are already united and nice to you from the get go, but Coerthas is an area that is not very friendly and closed off from the rest, and that is why it’s so good, you do all these fetching and help out to uncover some cults problems and the like until the city is nicer to you, embodying that message of unity, and one of the main reasons why Heavensward is a good follow up to this. The game after that is a really good climax, Mor Dhona is a great final area and all the music attached to it sell the feel of the finale, and the Praetorium itself remains one of the best sequences in the game, even if not that practical to replay. Putting story aside for one moment, the gameplay of A Realm Reborn is probably the most consistently good part of the game, partly to its advantage being the beginning of it all, it builds up the mounts and flying pretty flawlessly, the sizes of each area gives enough breathing room without being excessive, and for an MMORPG is the one storyline that requires you to do the MMO part the most, having the most amount of dungeons and trials in the main scenario, also has the more intricate dungeon design, which turns into mostly linear corridors, to sometimes a literal line later on, they aren’t anything amazing but have more going on than the rest of the expansions, I guess it was done in a way to streamline multiple runs through it, but it definitely hurts that first impression from the later ones. The only real negative with A Realm Reborn is the quests from patch 2.1 and 2.2, they are such a drag to do, especially after the exhilarating finale, is a part of the game where that slow pace doesn’t really work, but 2.3 and on is all really good again, plus the Crystal Tower is an amazing raid, Coils of Bahamut is kind of neat, but it has some bullshit fights. Overall is a pretty good first part of the XIV experience, with only one real sticking point of being a flat out bad segment.

· Heavensward

This is where I really start poking the bear, before getting into the story, which is actually quite good. The areas of Heavensward don’t really work for me, from a design standpoint, they are way too bloated in verticality and expansiveness, that is definitely designed to showcase flying mounts, but you don’t get to the flying until much later into each area, so the walking is pretty excruciating at times, especially given the placement of aether currents, which is the collectible needed for both flying and a faster speed mount, since your compass for them doesn’t take in account the verticality of the areas, and the fact that when the world doesn’t have FATEs going on or maybe you ignored the sidequests because the extrinsic rewards are pretty poor, it means there isn’t much to do in these super huge areas, so the size of them is painful to go through, A Realm Reborn also has the exploration issue, but that gets circumvented thanks to the more compact level design. The saving grace of it all is supposed to be the first big journey you take to meet Hraesvelgr, and for the duration of it, it kind of works, yes I’m not having as much fun going through these areas but the promise of that meeting with an ancient dragon is enough of a motivator, going through the Dravanian Forelands, Somh Al, and the like, it all has a great mystical feel to it, even the annoying venture with the Moggles I can brush off for that build up, climbing the Zenith backed up with the beautiful melody of the Dragonsong it all works super well, but then the meeting is pretty anti-climactic for the general story progression, there was some character development in between the journey, which is nice, but the pay-off of the whole ordeal falls really flat at the moment it matters the most, the story revelations you would get from the same character doesn’t even happen until subsequent visits, where you have fast travel and the whole aspect of the journey build up and adventure is already gone, and the proper pay-off to the character doesn’t happen until the post patch quests, which has the actual ending of Heavensward, that is really the most disappointing aspect of the story pacing, even if it all gets resolved well at one point or another.

Now onto the main story itself, that is quite good overall, you have a typical set up of a war between “humans” and dragons, some classism, church bad, people bad, but is all executed really well, this all takes place in the main city of Ishgard, which Coerthas is part of, so from A Realm Reborn you already have a good connection with them because is the city you built up a relationship from 0, and the best way to follow up that thread here. Aymeric, Estinien, Ysayle, and Haurchefant, are pretty good characters, Nidhogg is a pretty good antagonist, something I appreciate from XIV is that, while it tries to paint some of the villains in a nicer light, it gives you enough reason to just wanting to beat the shit out of them, like I’m supposed to feel a bit bad for Nidhogg, doesn’t really work for me, but he does enough awful things in the game for it to please any camp when it comes to the character, which is awesome, and the moment you do get to fight him is among the finest moments in the game, one that I’ll admit gave me chills playing it. That is the proper ending to the game, the Knights of the Round are kind of a worse Gaius, and there doesn’t really feel like there is any finality to it like it does with A Realm Reborn, it literally takes away the resolution out of you to enjoy the rest in the post patches.

The post patches of Heavensward are the tighter part of XIV’s tale in a lot of ways, it has the proper ending to the story, and it sets up part of Shadowbringers and Stormblood quite well, to a detriment for both in some ways, and it all pretty memorable, definitely ends it on a high note, the Void Ark storyline is fantastic, while the Alexander Raid has a neat story, but not as well realized gameplay segments.

· Stormblood

This is the part where I start to feel that when people rank the expansions of XIV, I assume they are just ranking the story scripts as if we are in a visual novel and don’t take in account much of the proper gameplay sequences, because the thing Stormblood has above Heavensward, and in part A Realm Reborn, is the gameplay. Areas are not as bloated as the ones from the previous expansion, not as combat as ARR, but the layout is a lot better, with more logical placements of Aether currents, some dungeons have a bit of obstacles or gimmicks that masks the linearity better, and it consistently has super fun bosses with a lot of AoE attacks in quick successions, has some of the more interesting single player instances, with an adequate use of gimmicks, and it has the bigger number of climactic set pieces across the XIV experience, Ala Mhigo, Tsukuyomi, Doma Castle, the Burn, Ghimlyt Dark, Shinryu, the fights with Zenos, the moments where you play as other characters, are all amazing. The underwater ability, while not used as much, it gives such a nice change of pace to the exploration in some parts of the story, the swim towards the underwater city is such a cool moment.

The story is still quite good, but with some weird omissions and annoyances, where Heavensward has some pacing problems but still delivers what is supposed to with a great sequence, Stormblood has a really good pace, but has some underwritten parts and a very strong disruption from Shadowbringers that bring it down.

The journey of liberating Doma and Ala Mhigo once again makes what I like the most about the game shine, slowly building relationships with people tormented by the Empire is such a great context for the gameplay loop of XIV, and the sequences it all culminates in is rather excellent, the invasion to Doma Castle, is a very short cutscene, but thinking about how you brought all those people together to your cause through all the quests you did put a much heavier emphasis due to the lengths you went for that, backed up by a great personal story of Lyse and Hien, really great characters, it also helps that Yotsuyu and Zenos are so over the top as antagonists that makes the whole experience of retaking those lands all the sweeter.

The most strange omission of the story comes from Y’shtola, she takes a big hit for Lyse in the start of Stormblood, which is the final nail that pushes her to be more proactive about the liberation of Ala Mhigo, another way to just not have Y’shtola grow as a character aside, the fact that this plot point doesn’t have a resolution like a nice reunion after she recovers is bizarre, given this game likes to really make a point about showing and talking about a lot of sequences and ideas, is such a big letdown that the next time we see Y’shtola, she is just there all fine and dandy. There is also the thing of the underwater city not having much impact at all in the story, despite having some important enough side characters there that could have been a fun character moment for Yugiri, despite going through some effort to even visit it, quite strange too, it has one of the highlights of side stories tho, the Hisui and Kurenai storyline is really cute.

The best piece of storytelling in the game comes from the Tsukuyomi fight in the post patches, which is in the middle of the more exhausting parts of storytelling in the game, the post patches of Stormblood is where the dialogue and cutscene length of XIV can start to drag, it wasn’t really a problem in any other moment, and it left really lengthy sequences to very specific moments, like Praetorium or the ending cutscenes, here there is a lot of emphasis on flashbacks and the like for the character of Yotsuyu, which is completely unnecessary, because the fight with Tsukuyomi pretty much explains all that story, and it does it without the need of long dialogue sequences or interruptions, because it makes it works seamlessly into the gameplay, and is about the only part of the story of XIV where it ties a lot of story development through a really good gameplay sequence without interrupting the player, I wish the game was more confident in doing stuff like that, is also non-intrusive in the way of replaying through content, it accommodates the playstyle of the game really well.

The worst part of Stormblood’s story comes from the end of the story patches, and it has a general story element that bothers me a lot in XIV, the refusal to let villains die.

The eyes of Nidhogg are pretty terrible in this regard, it dampens part of the absolutely perfect ending to Heavensward, that they use them again to bring Shinryu at the end of those post patches; Gaius had a fitting end to him in A Realm Reborn, it was yet another incredibly satisfying end to it, but nope he is alive still; Zenos? After the amazing confrontation against him in the Royal Menagerie, and after the cheesy, but heartwarming sequence of Ala Mhigo being liberated to the tune of Measure of his Reach? Still here. Like imagine if Lahabrea and the other ascian you managed to destroy after much sacrifice and lives lost were just like “NOPE, still here” it would be so frustrating, and I get that some of these revivals are meant to have something happen story wise, Gaius is a better guy now, but why not have that with Maxima, he was already a Garlean that broke the mold of being an asshole from the empire, why not give more weight to him as a character than bring Gaius back, even the cool sacrifice and end to Gosetsu and Yotsuyu gets unraveled pretty soon after, even if that did deliver the best story and gameplay sequence of the game.

Now to talk about the end of the post patches in Stormblood, I kind of have to blame Shadowbringers for this, cause how it all starts is kind of clumsy, snipping away Scions to the First, fine, my problem comes from the fact that it robs Stormblood of an ending, you are pretty much taken away during a climax in the Ghimlyt Dark, in the middle of a battle against an Ascian, while trying to help your friends, and I’m just supposed to care about going to the First and do some other things, like no, I want to stick around Ala Mhigo, like is just leaving me hanging in the middle of it all, A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward had a proper enough ending to it all, but Stormblood doesn’t really have one anymore, the Royal Menagerie was an ending, but had to be diminished by that storytelling issue of bringing back the dead, and it bothers me a lot because I really like Stormblood.

I’ll add that it has probably the best extra stories so far, the Ivalice raids are great and have some of the most inventive boss fights in the game, the Omega raid is a better gameplay experience than Alexander, and a cool nostalgia ride as a fan of VI, the Midgardsormr fight is incredible, just like the first fight with him really, the banter between Nero and Cid is great, plus the story bits with Alpha, Vergil, and Midgardsormr were all pretty good, and the arrangement of the theme of the Warrior of Light in the final fight with Vergil is an amazing way to cap off that raid.

· Shadowbringers

To be wrong about this for a later date.

I’ll make a “funny” side comment about the setup of this story, the Crystal Exarch has really shit aim, like is one thing to grab the Scions before the Warrior of Light so many times, going as far as shooting Alphinaud which at the point of the story was in a whole different continent, the fact that he has to explain it as people whose fate is closer to me or something makes everything worse, like it was just the gamey way of grabbing a main set of characters for the next expansion, but with the explanation it all makes less sense, cause the group would have been Alisaie, Estinien, Aymeric, Alphinaud, Lyse, Hien, and some others instead, like as the player we aren’t that much closer to Thancred, or Urianger as the other characters, heck you spend more time bonding with Zenos in its own twisted way, should have nabbed him instead, like I get why the characters we have in ShB, but it shouldn’t have been explained at all.

That’s it for now.

7/10.