Back in 2015, when Heavensward was about to come out, I embarked on my FFXIV journey. "It's great!", a couple of friends told me.
Technical issues aside, as I ran the game in a notebook that could barely sustain 20fps, I found ARR to leave much to be desired - the story and characters were painfully dry, and scenes just dragged on, and on, and on, with nothing interesting to say - understandable, given the context of the development, but I can only excuse so much.
Fast forward to August 2021, where I decide to go back where I left of, around patch 2.1, and make all the way to the end of Shadowbringers in time for the release of Endwalker. And full glad am I that I did it.
Endwalker is an emotional rollercoaster, that is faithful to the long-lost spirit of classic Final Fantasy, as helmed by Sakaguchi. It's full of sentimentality, emotion, personal themes and yes, a bit of cheesiness. As I reached the end, I found myself hesitating for a couple seconds to click the conclude button in the last quest.
Final Fantasy XIV is a terribly imperfect story, and much of its woes come from being an MMO. Endless fillers, bloated quests, pointlessly huge overworlds that lead to pointless wandering around... even now I have this nagging feeling that FF14 would be a 10/10 in my heart if you removed all of the MMO fat. This feeling will probably never leave, as I will think back on this story and wish I could replay it like I do so many of my favorites - but I doubt I'll have it in me to deal with all those quests ever again.
And make no mistake, Endwalker's first half moves at a never-before-seen pace that truly made me feel like I was playing a single-player JRPG, but it quickly reminded me that yes, this is an MMO, and yes I will have to deal with this painfully annoying filler that has no bearing in the story. Not to mention a needlessly long narrative arc that was more due to faulty writing rather than MMO structure.
Is it a masterpiece in storytelling? No, definitely not. If I wanted to, I could list a number of issues in the writing. But it pales in comparison to the love put into it, to its absurdly satisfying thematic cohesion, to the sincerity and emotion the writers poured into this story, as flawed and imperfect and bloated as it is.
This has a MASSIVE barrier of entry - A Realm Reborn alone is enough to dissuade most folks - but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it was worth it.
Technical issues aside, as I ran the game in a notebook that could barely sustain 20fps, I found ARR to leave much to be desired - the story and characters were painfully dry, and scenes just dragged on, and on, and on, with nothing interesting to say - understandable, given the context of the development, but I can only excuse so much.
Fast forward to August 2021, where I decide to go back where I left of, around patch 2.1, and make all the way to the end of Shadowbringers in time for the release of Endwalker. And full glad am I that I did it.
Endwalker is an emotional rollercoaster, that is faithful to the long-lost spirit of classic Final Fantasy, as helmed by Sakaguchi. It's full of sentimentality, emotion, personal themes and yes, a bit of cheesiness. As I reached the end, I found myself hesitating for a couple seconds to click the conclude button in the last quest.
Final Fantasy XIV is a terribly imperfect story, and much of its woes come from being an MMO. Endless fillers, bloated quests, pointlessly huge overworlds that lead to pointless wandering around... even now I have this nagging feeling that FF14 would be a 10/10 in my heart if you removed all of the MMO fat. This feeling will probably never leave, as I will think back on this story and wish I could replay it like I do so many of my favorites - but I doubt I'll have it in me to deal with all those quests ever again.
And make no mistake, Endwalker's first half moves at a never-before-seen pace that truly made me feel like I was playing a single-player JRPG, but it quickly reminded me that yes, this is an MMO, and yes I will have to deal with this painfully annoying filler that has no bearing in the story. Not to mention a needlessly long narrative arc that was more due to faulty writing rather than MMO structure.
Is it a masterpiece in storytelling? No, definitely not. If I wanted to, I could list a number of issues in the writing. But it pales in comparison to the love put into it, to its absurdly satisfying thematic cohesion, to the sincerity and emotion the writers poured into this story, as flawed and imperfect and bloated as it is.
This has a MASSIVE barrier of entry - A Realm Reborn alone is enough to dissuade most folks - but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it was worth it.