After recently securing a spot in the Final Fantasy: A Realm Reborn closed beta for PS3 last week and enjoying it thoroughly I've had to rethink a few things which I'll get to later but first a quick overview of what I've seen so far.
On the surface FFXIV:ARR (well that just sounds silly) seems like any number of other MMOs we've had paraded in front of us in some desperate, self-flagellating attempt to somehow dethrone Blizzard from their throne and in a lot of ways it is, in others it really shines. FFXIV:ARR (which I will now be saying aloud phonetically as Fixavar) really doesn't innovate in any huge Earth shattering way what it does do is get a lot of little elements right that just make it a damn enjoyable game that, good endgame contented provided, is well on it's way to being digital crack for those who do decide to jump in.
First and foremost is "how does it control?". Other console MMOs like DC Universe online have had pretty limited controls. When it comes to a real time combat system relying on hotkeys a controller is just limited when compared to a mouse and keyboard (they have slightly less buttons you see). Fixavar addresses this issue nicely. Holding L2 or R2 in conjunction with any of the action buttons or directional buttons grants access to a set of hotkeys. Hold R1 and press any of those 8 buttons and it will switch to another loadout of easily accessible hotkeyed actions. So that's 8 combinations of 16 hotkeys all readily available. It might be a bit finicky at first but it just takes a little getting used to.
There were six available classes in phase 3 of the beta. The gladiator (shield and sword), the marauder (two handed weapons for heavy damage), the pugilist (usually the "monk", fistfighters), the archer, the thaumaturge (mage) and the conjurer (priest). The fun thing about Fixavar is how the game's class system works. You do not level up your characters in this game, instead you level up your class and can change to a new class whenever you want and can access certain abilities from your old class in your new one. It's a nice touch for people struggling to balance a group, every player can have more than one role avaiable to them. This switching of classes is encouraged by the games mechanics themselves. The jobs, special classes, can only be attained by having level 30 in one class and 15 in another. The game also has crafting jobs for people to follow up in. I was playing a level 16 thaumaturge who was a level 5 pugilist and a level 1 weaver.
The game's FATE system is one of the funnest aspects of the gameplay. Random encounters in the world that need to be tackled by any adventurers in the immediate area. The game also features crystals (it is a Final Fantasy game afterall). These can be used to cast Return to your home or Teleport to any crystals you have attuned to. The game also provides rentable chocobos for anyone level 10 or higher.
Thematically it's pure Final Fantasy bliss. Chocobos. Moogles, crystals, weird hair, materia and a damn beautiful score. It looks amazing, but FF games have been pushing those boundaries since VIII. I quite liked the diminutive, cutesy Lalafell. There was a really interesting plot I had begun to scratch the surface of and some really fun writing. It really brings FF back to it's glory days with it's balance of epic, fantasy storytelling and just straight up entertaining writing. That being said there is a lot of collect or kill x number of y, but it's a MMORPG, it's par for the course really.
And all of this from a broken, unsellable game from Squeenix, the original FFXIV. This was a classy move on their part. Yeah you could argue that they shouldn't have released a shitty game in the first place, but they did. Giving it away for free while they remade the game entirely from the ground up was a good move. They made the best of a bad situation. The point I'm making is if a company screws up and tries to make good on that, at least throw them a bone... Or an xbone, yep I'm going there. Look I'm not saying we should all run out and buy an Xbone or anything, it's still a creepy pervert that cost 100 bucks more than it's competitor that doesn't watch you while you're sleeping, monitoring your heart rate. But MS did back down on their practices that were pissing people off and we really should let the PR disaster go. It's really not cool to hold those things against them. A company can make things right and it's good to acknowledge when they do. Fighting against shitty practices is good, it shows companies that we won't stand for being mistreated. Still fighting after they back down shows them that we just love to complain and discourages them from ever actually backing down on a bad decision. What's the point if we're never, ever going to let it go? That being said, if MS could stop telling us how awesome Xbone would have been if we the consumer had just kept our mouths shut it would be really nice. The general tone of "Fine, if you insist" rayher than "Hey we're sorry" isn't going to help them win back any of their lost flock.
On the surface FFXIV:ARR (well that just sounds silly) seems like any number of other MMOs we've had paraded in front of us in some desperate, self-flagellating attempt to somehow dethrone Blizzard from their throne and in a lot of ways it is, in others it really shines. FFXIV:ARR (which I will now be saying aloud phonetically as Fixavar) really doesn't innovate in any huge Earth shattering way what it does do is get a lot of little elements right that just make it a damn enjoyable game that, good endgame contented provided, is well on it's way to being digital crack for those who do decide to jump in.
First and foremost is "how does it control?". Other console MMOs like DC Universe online have had pretty limited controls. When it comes to a real time combat system relying on hotkeys a controller is just limited when compared to a mouse and keyboard (they have slightly less buttons you see). Fixavar addresses this issue nicely. Holding L2 or R2 in conjunction with any of the action buttons or directional buttons grants access to a set of hotkeys. Hold R1 and press any of those 8 buttons and it will switch to another loadout of easily accessible hotkeyed actions. So that's 8 combinations of 16 hotkeys all readily available. It might be a bit finicky at first but it just takes a little getting used to.
There were six available classes in phase 3 of the beta. The gladiator (shield and sword), the marauder (two handed weapons for heavy damage), the pugilist (usually the "monk", fistfighters), the archer, the thaumaturge (mage) and the conjurer (priest). The fun thing about Fixavar is how the game's class system works. You do not level up your characters in this game, instead you level up your class and can change to a new class whenever you want and can access certain abilities from your old class in your new one. It's a nice touch for people struggling to balance a group, every player can have more than one role avaiable to them. This switching of classes is encouraged by the games mechanics themselves. The jobs, special classes, can only be attained by having level 30 in one class and 15 in another. The game also has crafting jobs for people to follow up in. I was playing a level 16 thaumaturge who was a level 5 pugilist and a level 1 weaver.
The game's FATE system is one of the funnest aspects of the gameplay. Random encounters in the world that need to be tackled by any adventurers in the immediate area. The game also features crystals (it is a Final Fantasy game afterall). These can be used to cast Return to your home or Teleport to any crystals you have attuned to. The game also provides rentable chocobos for anyone level 10 or higher.
Thematically it's pure Final Fantasy bliss. Chocobos. Moogles, crystals, weird hair, materia and a damn beautiful score. It looks amazing, but FF games have been pushing those boundaries since VIII. I quite liked the diminutive, cutesy Lalafell. There was a really interesting plot I had begun to scratch the surface of and some really fun writing. It really brings FF back to it's glory days with it's balance of epic, fantasy storytelling and just straight up entertaining writing. That being said there is a lot of collect or kill x number of y, but it's a MMORPG, it's par for the course really.
And all of this from a broken, unsellable game from Squeenix, the original FFXIV. This was a classy move on their part. Yeah you could argue that they shouldn't have released a shitty game in the first place, but they did. Giving it away for free while they remade the game entirely from the ground up was a good move. They made the best of a bad situation. The point I'm making is if a company screws up and tries to make good on that, at least throw them a bone... Or an xbone, yep I'm going there. Look I'm not saying we should all run out and buy an Xbone or anything, it's still a creepy pervert that cost 100 bucks more than it's competitor that doesn't watch you while you're sleeping, monitoring your heart rate. But MS did back down on their practices that were pissing people off and we really should let the PR disaster go. It's really not cool to hold those things against them. A company can make things right and it's good to acknowledge when they do. Fighting against shitty practices is good, it shows companies that we won't stand for being mistreated. Still fighting after they back down shows them that we just love to complain and discourages them from ever actually backing down on a bad decision. What's the point if we're never, ever going to let it go? That being said, if MS could stop telling us how awesome Xbone would have been if we the consumer had just kept our mouths shut it would be really nice. The general tone of "Fine, if you insist" rayher than "Hey we're sorry" isn't going to help them win back any of their lost flock.
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