From November 14th up until December 9th, dearest Squeenix decided to hold what was evidently a most strategic marketing campaign for their most recent Final Fantasy XIII installment, Lightning Returns, which was released in Japan late November and is scheduled to be released in the U.S. and Europe by February next year. They managed to carve up a nice little niche for Lightning to crash in the world of Eorzea and, by some clever plot manipulation, have it show us a glimpse of what Lightning’s journey was going to be about in the upcoming release while still preserving the integrity of our beloved Eorzean lore and the players’ immersion into FFXIV. At least, so I believed. Everyone seemed to spare no effort giving their two cents and a scoff-to-go on the matter but in the end we all went and played through the campaign!
The campaign comprised of four individual quests spanning the entirety of Lightning’s appearance in Eorzea. Each started at a later date and had a higher initiation level and all four would reward us pieces of the full outfit of either Lightning for female characters or Snow for male characters. An extra perk was that, by completing the first quest, we were given access to Lightning’s or Snow’s hairstyles later on when the aesthetician feature is implemented on the 17th of December as part of the major patch designated FFXIV 2.1: A Realm Awoken. I cannot wait for Snow’s hairstyle! It’ll look epic with my paladin armor <3 which will hopefully be a full Gallant armor by then!
We didn’t have the time or a stable enough connection to start playing until the later half of the campaign as I was busy at the time with work, home and the studio and wifey with midterms and essays. Nevertheless, with the help of my trusty brother in law and his all-powerful, all-too-adorable Falafel, we managed to beat all four quests in a couple days, which would’ve taken even less time under more forgiving circumstances. That is to say there was nothing challenging about it whatsoever. You basically camped at spots around the world where particular F.A.T.E.s spawned that had Lightning randomly show up, save the day from evil FFXIII mecha mobs, look melodramatically into the distance and stroll right off in the crowds of paparazzi-players moshpitting at a chance to take a screenshot with her like the fangirls we all are.
By the end of it, we got some appealing and equally useless LVL13 (go figure) gear sets, including weapons for all six battle classes, some of whose names happened to be the FFXIII characters’ first weapons in the game so that was pretty neat.
In the end, I sympathize with some players’ complaint that “if Squeenix had the time to do a Lightning cameo in FXIV:ARR they could’ve solved the more pressing issues we have with the actual game” but here’s the thing: they already are! It has been almost 3 months since the official launch of FFXIV 2.0: ARR and so far we’ve had THREE events (Bomb king, Halloween & Lightning Strikes) and an upcoming major patch before the month is over! One event for every month! Do you realize how much work that is in an MMO? They promised you your sort feature and PVP arena and guess what? SO BLOODY MUCH MORE! If I were you I’d do less complaining and more campaigning ‘cause after 2.1 you’ll have a whole lot more to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment