Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Play Diary #1 - Reminiscence

   Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn..What can I say about this game that hasn’t been said befo—IT’S BRILLIANT, AMAZING, AWESOME, EPIC, EXTRAORDINARY, BEAUTIFUL!

…and I’m unable to play it at the time being. Recurrent connection issues keep me from my beautiful Eorzea and I am left with anguish and a case of severe withdrawals, which I choose to combat by incessantly talking about the game. As such, the following is a symptom of said withdrawals.

<Previous Experience>

   I have played FFXIV back when it was first released with my wife, It was a GREAT MMORPG; there were so many things to do, the script was brilliantly eloquent, the characters themselves were well-rounded, the graphics gorgeous, the ease of changing classes and the ease of using macros served to extend the game’s shelf life by a tenfold, but –and there always must be "buts" since we’re human beings, the imperfect species who looove to perfect themselves-- The game was a bit...slow for my taste. The latency in between clicking a command and having the character actually execute it was ridiculous, it took ages to confirm a mining action and after 6 seconds the character equips the pickaxe, another 3 seconds’ go at the little "mini game", and another 4 seconds to actually acquire the items mined. Rinse and repeat a couple times over and you'd grow sick of it and would just want to battle for a change of pace, at which time you'll encounter yet another testing set of tediousness while fighting monsters...and to top it all, our beloved country has a love for insufferably high latency (the ping hits 1000 quite commonly) so it was basically a living hell of lag. Nonetheless, I really loved the game. It was intended for average connections and higher, so half the lag was on my part, not Square’s. The other half, however, was definitely Square’s.

   I haven't played the game that deeply, only reached level 22 with two classes, so there might have been more issues along the way. Anyway, fans of the game have explicitly expressed their displeasure with what Square-Enix have offered in FFXIV, which I was slightly against. You see, no MMORPG in the world starts off perfectly, there has to be a lack of content at first, and along the way or out of reports and complaints, the game expands. But what happened happened, all we can do is roll with it and bear through the whining.

My character Cheese Kun the cutest thing ever!!!

<A Realm Reborn>

   The game's servers were shut down around 2012. Square-Enix ended the journey of great beauty and fantasy with a heartbreaking movie that only leaves you bawling in the corner and gouging your eyes out from exposure to too much epicness and sadness at the same time. ONLY great minds can come up with something as…divine as that. The cinematics, the music, the lyrics, the graphics and what was told through the whole movie were too great to put into words. Each note, each line, each word and each action conveyed so much, which left me and my lovely wife at great despair and regret not having gotten far enough into the game, especially with her being a great Final Fantasy fan for quite a long time.

   Few weeks later, they released the same movie with an extended ending, a rather positive one: a glimpse of the new journey that will take place upon the lands of Eorzea. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn was then born, donning its beauty, greatness and divinity. With the many commercials and little teasers here and there, Square-Enix managed to show us a glimpse of what's been changed and added and it was utterly beautiful.

<beta testing>

 The Closed Beta testing divided into four phases, two phases for the PC, a third for the PS3, then a fourth for both the PC and PS3 (The game will be released on the PS4 in 2014 later on).

   When the third phase started for the PS3, I was lucky enough to get into it by simply wishing it after seeing the screenshots of people testing it. I thanked the lord, nature or whatever great force holds us all together in this lovely barbaric yet beautiful universe, downloaded the game and once it was done downloading my great wife flashed me a beautiful smile as she heard the title screen music rolling ever so gently into our ears. We sat together for the Beta Testing of our favorite MMORPG.

   I started the game and was formally inducted by my beloved Cheese-kun (My character) greeting me with a happy wave with his chubby little Lalafell arms-- HE'S SO CUTE!!! (Even cuter how Word corrects Lalafell as Falafel...) 

Anyway, I wanted to try the character creation, specifically the male Miqo’te, since I’d most likely start fresh with a Miqo’te. It was not for the ears or fluffy tail, mind you! They just look awesome with their high jumps and little tattoos under their eyes and, now that I've been playing for a while and have tried all races, they turned out to have the best standing/running posture by far. Anyway, I was rather content with the character creation, but not completely satisfied. I was hoping to see even more, although with moderate customizing you'll still be able to pull off a unique look. But having tried Phantasy Star Online 2's character creation, I have to say Sega set the highest bar in character creation. Nevertheless, it was great and more than enough. For Zell fans, for instance, it was nice to have a smaller version of his tattoo and choose either side of the face to have it on.

   Eventually I decided to forego the creation process and revert back to little Cheese-kun because of what I read about your levels and items not being transferred to the full version when it came out, so started my testing with him.

   The opening sequence was lovely. I started at Ul'dah, the extravagant Arabian capitol of gold and ore! While a soft country-like version of “Answers” was playing in the background ever-tingling, I went into the city where I first tried the controls and movement mechanics.

   I was surprised at how light the characters have become, you didn't feel any…any kind of force trying to move the character, as if it was made out of massless paper, which wasn't a negative thing per se, but personally I love to feel like I'm one with the character, something like the Monster Hunter movement mechanics.

   Then, I pressed the triangle button which showed me an overload of cuteness as my little Lalafell jumped as high as he could, so i kept jumping and noticed that the jump button is not pressure-sensitive like in most games.  Whether you tapped or held it, the character would jump the same height, which was also...not negative nor was it positive, but as a matter of preference, I didn't like the weightlessness of it. Still, it didn't hinder anything.

  So, we then had to go meet Momodi, one of our favorite characters back then, with her sassy remarks and endearing Aussie accent. We were a little bit disappointed to find the dialogue was more dumbed-down than the usually lauded Final Fantasy eloquence and deep characterization. You might feel a slight negative vibe from me, but the fact is it was a beta test and we were required to point out the kinks for the game to improve.

   So after learning about quests and such, I rushed outside to gawk at the spectacle that is Eorzea and test the battle system. So there I was in the field, holding my sword and shield, looking at the huge sky and hills far away and I was in awe. It was just so beautiful.

   So I roamed a bit and faced my first "ant". The fight lasted only 4 seconds-- FOUR SECONDS! That’s the time it used to take me to just issue a command in FFXIV 1.0. The battle system was beyond epic. It was fast-pace and colorful with great effects and sounds, with all the limitless things you could do, it was a HUGE improvement. I couldn't help but applaud the Sqeenix team specifically for the new battle system, seeing as it had been my biggest issue in FFXIV 1.0 and it was completely fixed, with no room for errors. There is always room for improvement though, that's the art in gaming and life.

   So then I just continued ahead, meeting all the beta testers along with the new NPCs. It was beautiful beyond words.

   I did have some issues with the PS3 UI as I wasn't used to playing an MMORPG with a controller. It was a rather tricky yet exciting new experience for me. Again, it was neither negative nor positive, just a matter of getting used to something new.

   I can't put all of my experience into words; I did what I could do. There was so much more to the game, but I didn't go beyond the main city, trying not to get too deep and spoil the story for myself, so my whole impression was just of roaming around the breathtaking landscapes of Thanalan. I'm sure some beta testers have gone way further ahead.

   The ease and beauty Square-Enix put into the game is remarkable. Now that I've played and explored a fair amount of the full game I will be blogging about it regularly. Excellent work, Square-Enix. You did great! Otsukaresama!