


There’s never a moment when you feel alone, and better yet, never a moment when you want to be. There are the FATEs, diverse public quests that allow you to work with other players to complete a particular goal (you’re rewarded based on contribution) the guild heists, glorified how-to-beat-dungeons tutorials that you complete in groups of four that are actually quite fun and the dungeons themselves. While I initially found the combat system to be a little dull, allowing me to switch between classes and learn skills across them made for a far better gaming experience.Īs has Square Enix’s focus on building communities within the game. Sure, you have to level up from scratch again, but it’s better than spending the whole game regretting the choice you first made, and having to redo a large portion of the game with another character to see if your regret was well-founded. Once you reach Level 10, you can equip different weapons and effectively change your class. Square Enix’s boldest move with A Realm Reborn is allowing players to experience the entire game’s available skills with one character – you’re not locked into being a brutish gladiator forever. The game finds the perfect middle ground between being a good MMO and a good Final Fantasy. That said, when the plot does kick in, it does so in a big way. But it’s the MMO norm, and it’s the concession Square Enix has made to get into the lucrative online gaming business. The ‘deliver this’, ‘kill that’ structure of the missions felt so trivial when compared to, say, Yuna’s journey to defeat Sin in Final Fantasy X.
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That said, it was jarring coming from offline Final Fantasy games to this one. None of the initial quests amounted to more than ‘visit this person’ or ‘touch this crystal’ or ‘kill four ladybugs’, but I was appreciative that the game didn’t force me into a four-hour prologue to learn the mechanics (I’m looking at you, Kingdom Hearts II). It wasn’t long before I was exploring a city, joining a guild and accepting missions. While A Realm Reborn doesn’t exactly start guns-blazing, you take control of your character within minutes of finalising his or her appearance. The most painful thing about the initial Final Fantasy XIV, and the past 10 or so Square Enix releases, is that they take so long to get started. Playing it, I was transported back to a time when Final Fantasy games were a pleasure, when I was motivated to explore the world because I genuinely wanted to discover more, not simply because I wanted to get the whole thing over with (for more of my thoughts on discovering the world of Eorzea, click here). Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is good. Square Enix sought to fix it, which in itself was cause for concern – the last time they tried to fix an underwhelming game, we got Final Fantasy XIII-2, which introduced a new host of problems that were explained away as being “what fans wanted”.īut then, cue the choir and the ray of light piercing through the clouded sky above, Square Enix delivered. Square Enix singled it out for having “greatly damaged” the brand. While the practically on-the-rails Final Fantasy XIII left a bad taste in gamers’ mouths, the original Final Fantasy XIV was the straw that broke the reputation’s back. While previous Final Fantasy games demonstrated the power of marrying addictive gameplay with engaging narratives, the gameplay in this - or last - gen has been a bit subpar. When it comes to Square Enix and Final Fantasy this generation, I’ve worn my heart on my sleeve.
