Final Fantasy XIV: More Final Fantasy than I Expected

Final Fantasy XIV is a lot closer to a traditional Final Fantasy game than I ever could have imagined. Depending on who you are, that might be a huge surprise. This is an MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online), not a single-player experience like the series is known for. Perhaps the largest difference is the price. It’s free, until you get to the newer content, at which point you’ll have to buy each additional expansion as well as pay a monthly subscription fee. This is pretty standard as far as MMO fans are used to, but for me, and I imagine many Final Fantasy players are concerned, it’s a big change. I would hazard to say that I’m not the only one who’s first MMO was XIV. It being part of the franchise that I love so much makes it far more tempting than World of Warcraft or Runescape. The series has already hooked me. Additionally, the generous free trial makes it hard to resist. At the time of writing this, I’ve completed A Realm Reborn Main Scenario Quest, meaning I have reached the original end to the story. I have not yet started Heavensward, but I have started the pre-Heavensward content (patches 2.1-2.55). I’d like to present my experience so far as a new MMO player and a veteran Final Fantasy fan, and what I learned from it.

It’s worth a brief mention of the monetization of this game, as I have never paid a subscription fee for a game. As I mentioned, it’s free to start, but not just to hook you. Not only is the entire base game free, but so are the first two whole expansions, resulting in dozens of hours without having to pay a dime. As a free trial player who up to this point hasn’t put a penny into this game, I am very impressed by how infrequently I was reminded of my status as a trial player. A Realm Reborn presents a full and complete narrative without anything feeling like it’s missing. The free trial certainly does have limitations, including preventing you from buying housing, creating parties, adding friends, accessing the market board, etc. However, most of these seemed to be the social side of things, which is not what I came to this game hoping for. What I love about Final Fantasy has always been the characters, locations, music, and stories, and all of those are as incredible as ever (sans the characters- we’ll get to that). In terms of content in the free trial, I think there is more than enough for this to have been acceptable even as a full-priced single player game when it first released (Ignoring 1.0 for obvious reasons).

On to my experience with the game itself, and one final reminder that this is my first MMO. It has been my goal for the past year or so to play every mainline game, and since XIV was free, I decided to give it a shot, even though I’m only up to IX in my ordered playthrough. However, the first section of gameplay, maybe up until level 15 or so, was pretty weak in my opinion. This might also be the result of me starting in Gridania, my least favorite of the main cities by far. I’ve never been a fan of tribal-style areas in games, I’m far more partial to the Midgars and Balamb Gardens than the type of settlements seen in Horizon Zero Dawn. Something about the scale, or perhaps my ability to relate them to environments I’ve actually been in, is appealing to me. On top of my distaste for Gridania, I found the combat, story, and quest design to be absolutely mind-numbing for the first several hours. Having just a few abilities in combat makes encounters feel almost pointless. The lack of feedback in combat and slight delay in damage application hurts this much further. All of these are necessary for an MMO, I’m sure, but being that I’m not used to it, I was surprised by how much I hated combat despite my low expectations. The story appears to be nonexistent for this first stretch, as well. Perhaps this is because the player can start in any of the three major cities depending on their starting Job? Either way, most of the characters you meet and things you do seem to be absolutely irrelevant as soon as you finish the immediate fetch-quest. Speaking of quests, There is an utter lack of variety and momentum. Kill this, deliver that. Talk to someone new. Kill this, deliver that. Talk to someone new. Kill this, deliver that. Talk to someone new. Kill this, deliver that. Talk to someone new. Bored yet? Imagine that except for 3-5 hours straight. It was everything I’ve heard MMOs can be at their worst. However, there were still hints of greatness yet to come. 

The world is artistically gorgeous. Set aside the fact that this is an online game supporting hundreds of thousands of players at once, and that it released FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. Even despite all of that working against it, XIV has some of the best art direction in the series, and at a scale unseen up to this point. Every area is masterfully designed for appearance and functionality. Enemies are the same way, seeing some of the sprites from the early games as fully rendered 3D models was incredible. Obviously, it’s not “realistic” looking in the first party Sony AAA style, and the graphics have aged in their fidelity, but there is a consistent and excellent art direction here that just works. This is what carried me through the first 15 levels before the game actually got good.

The biggest flaw of XIV is hiding how great it is behind the excruciating start. If the game slowly went from bad to mediocre, I wouldn’t even care. But the dramatic difference in storytelling and gameplay quality is so extreme I can’t even believe I survived the first section. The shift isn’t quick, it’s a slow climb out of the depths of boredom, but it’s a steady one. I’m not sure what the general public’s opinion is on when the story picks up, but for me it was meeting the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Just having some recurring characters with unique personalities and motivations was enough for me to hold on to (Y'shtola, Yda, and Thancred being my favorites as of now). This is also when quests begin to get more interesting, with the introduction of dungeons and trials. I can’t fathom why the devs wouldn’t put a dungeon in the first hour or two, just a taste of what a level could end up being like, even if it was solo for balancing purposes. Dungeon matchmaking is painless and each of them is even more beautifully designed than the main world. Each of the trials is a ton of fun, especially when you’re with a team that holds their own. As I didn’t know the capabilities of other Jobs (classes), it was extremely exciting to see them in action. This is also around the time when my Job started to get enjoyable to play, as I had enough Archer abilities for a simple but enjoyable cycle of crowd control, poison, and damage. The story is still a bit dull until the back half where you start to see where the story is headed, but I was certainly entertained enough to keep going thanks to these improvements.

The music is also as great as ever! Some of these became instant franchise favorites for me, especially Greenwrath. They help establish the tone of areas and emotional moments better than most single-player games, and the sheer number of tracks is staggering. I’ve heard some of the popular tracks from the expansions as well, and it seems like the music will just keep getting better from here.

I’m not sure how sacrosanct the PC version of XIV is, but I played entirely on Playstation 5 with a controller, and I was extremely impressed by how good the controller feels to use. It certainly would have been easier to navigate the menus with a keyboard and mouse, but after an adjustment period I was flying through most of the menus. The touchpad can also be used as a mouse, so if the button controls aren’t working for you that’s an option as well. I think XIV’s devs would have been hard-pressed to come up with a superior system to this one.

Finally, I’d like to touch on what I expect from the future of this game, as I will definitely be playing the expansions. I’m currently on the Patch 5.55 MSQ, which is the pre-Heavensward questline. I’m hopeful for new complex metropolitan areas such as Limsa Lominsa and Ul’dah, perhaps even larger, as well as some areas that go further in the direction of fantasy, as many of the base game areas felt a bit grounded by Final Fantasy standards. Mor Dhona scratched this itch for me, but a few more would be exciting. I’m also hoping the story keeps heading in the direction of more cutscenes with voice acting and a more focused story. I don’t mind more fetch quests if they’re going to progress the narrative. I also think 8 person dungeons would be cool, I don’t think that exists in the base game (although I might be wrong) and I found the 8 person trials to be quite exciting.

Overall, I was extremely impressed by Final Fantasy XIV. It was far more enjoyable than I ever expected, especially as someone who struggles with online games. I found the community friendly, the story and gameplay enjoyable, at least in the latter half, and the world extremely compelling. If what the community says is true, this is the weakest part of the game and the best is yet to come, in which case I am excited to continue on my journey!

What I learned

Some takeaways that I’m hoping to use in my own work:

• Cohesive world design and music can increase immersion tenfold

• Basic combat systems can be enjoyable, but there needs to be some amount of depth to keep the player engaged

• The beginning of a game is often the most important. If you can’t rope a new player in, there’s a high chance that they bow out.

• A lack of recurring characters make it hard to connect emotionally with a game

• Atmosphere is king