I want to start off by praising the game for how beginner friendly it is in its current form. I haven't played many MMOs (or online/multiplayer games in general) so I was dreading starting this, but I was pleasantly surprised by how the game eases you in. Not a single part of my experience with ARR felt overwhelming or too complicated to handle. Have social anxiety or still unsure of your skills to go into a dungeon with real people? Use Duty Support. Unsure or can’t remember which move comes next in your combo? You get a nifty outline on the next move(s) in your combo. Still new and are afraid/embarrassed to tell people? It’s all good, there’s a little icon next to your name that tells people all they need to know. Can’t remember how to do your job properly? You can replay the tutorials as many times as you want. There are more examples but you get the idea. I’m still shocked at how comfortable I am playing this game.
ARR’s story is, for the most part, non-existent. It is an aggravatingly slow lore dump with some extremely questionable voice acting that only gets going in its final five hours. My fake PS5 cursor hovered over the “skip cutscene” window more times than I could count. I never used it, but I’m a “if the story’s good then fuck everything else” type of gamer so the fact that I even considered skipping some of them should tell you a lot. I’ve yet to see if all of the information that has been shoved down my throat is worth it (like many say it is), but as it stands right now…it’s really rough. This isn’t helped by the insanely bland quest design (I’m the Warrior of Light, why the hell am I delivering uniforms to people, Alphinaud??) but I’m not sure if that’s an MMO problem or specifically a FFXIV: ARR problem.
Why did I keep playing, then? Well, for one, I initially started playing this for trophy purposes only and I was going to get that platinum whether I liked it or not. The second and more significant reason is that I think Square Enix put all sorts of crack in the gameplay loop. The game kind of slowly took over my life in a genuinely scary way. When I wasn’t playing FFXIV, it’s all I could think about. In fact, I’m thinking about playing it right now. The combat’s fun, the exploration is wonderful and the music is great, but those things have never made me this addicted to something. I have no idea why I’m as hooked as I am.
…and that’s that. This review feels incomplete because my journey with FFXIV is incomplete. I initially started playing this with the intention of jumping off after beating ARR, but now I think I’m going to see the whole thing through (or at least until I get bored). The fact that I not only enjoyed playing but am addicted to an MMO, a genre that I’m usually allergic to, is fascinating to me.
ARR’s story is, for the most part, non-existent. It is an aggravatingly slow lore dump with some extremely questionable voice acting that only gets going in its final five hours. My fake PS5 cursor hovered over the “skip cutscene” window more times than I could count. I never used it, but I’m a “if the story’s good then fuck everything else” type of gamer so the fact that I even considered skipping some of them should tell you a lot. I’ve yet to see if all of the information that has been shoved down my throat is worth it (like many say it is), but as it stands right now…it’s really rough. This isn’t helped by the insanely bland quest design (I’m the Warrior of Light, why the hell am I delivering uniforms to people, Alphinaud??) but I’m not sure if that’s an MMO problem or specifically a FFXIV: ARR problem.
Why did I keep playing, then? Well, for one, I initially started playing this for trophy purposes only and I was going to get that platinum whether I liked it or not. The second and more significant reason is that I think Square Enix put all sorts of crack in the gameplay loop. The game kind of slowly took over my life in a genuinely scary way. When I wasn’t playing FFXIV, it’s all I could think about. In fact, I’m thinking about playing it right now. The combat’s fun, the exploration is wonderful and the music is great, but those things have never made me this addicted to something. I have no idea why I’m as hooked as I am.
…and that’s that. This review feels incomplete because my journey with FFXIV is incomplete. I initially started playing this with the intention of jumping off after beating ARR, but now I think I’m going to see the whole thing through (or at least until I get bored). The fact that I not only enjoyed playing but am addicted to an MMO, a genre that I’m usually allergic to, is fascinating to me.