This review will mainly be concerning A Realm Reborn, and not Final Fantasy XIV as a whole; just want to get that out of the way off the bat.
It cannot be understated what an absolute success story that Final Fantasy XIV has been for Square Enix. It is at once, an underdog story into an absolute titan of the modern gaming landscape, essentially one of a select few, and dwindling crowd of MMORPGs, and of them, it is barely a competition of which one is on top. And all of this came after one of the worst conceivable launches of a game in history. I think in many ways, we forget how devastating the initial launch of Final Fantasy’s second go at the genre truly was. A boring, poorly controlling slog of a grindfest that alongside an ongoing disdain of the franchise at the time through games like XIII and general internet reactionary thought of “weird japanese games” this once historic franchise was at its arguable lowest point.
A Realm Reborn, in many regards, is a miracle game. While indeed, reusing what they could salvage from the original release, this was a from the ground up start from scratch. A game that is essentially putting together a last ditch effort to make something worthwhile from some truly rotten ingredients. All in a very strict schedule of just a couple of years, including the ending of the original game that becomes the basis for the entirety of the rest of XIV. And miraculously, it succeeded, and would only continue to succeed more and more. A new expansion is on the horizon this year, and after its wildly popular conclusion to its decade long story, it feels like a celebration to truly appreciate how far it has come.
All of this is well and good. And with that context, it becomes a lot easier to appreciate what A Realm Reborn is. That being said, as anyone can attest to who has played it; it is a tough pill to swallow. While XIV is an incredibly fun game when you’re going through dungeons, testing out job classes, and fighting bosses; this game is about as rough as it can get. Much of the meat of the game’s main campaign is about as basic as it can get, following mostly boring fetch quests that even now the team is still weeding out, a decade after the fact. Dialogue that you at some point realize you can just skip and understand what is going on just fine, and a distinct lack of polish, and many points where it feels like you aren’t doing much of anything, it certainly lacks a lot of the luster that the future expansions have seemingly been able to boast.
That said, when you do get the opportunity to actually participate in this game, by golly is it a lot of fun. I’m not particularly familiar with the genre, but XIV is such a social game, and trying out the different classes and running the many dungeons the game has to offer is a treat. Even this early on, Masayoshi Soken, the game’s composer is already a highlight of the game. Making some of the best compositions in a series that might just be the crown jewel of video game soundtracks, with not just beautiful fantastical pieces, but a wide variety of musical styles, genres, and tones. This matches well with the game’s gorgeous art direction which, while at times feeling bland, are laboured over with such attention to detail and weird little quirks that make them instantly recognizable. And the game does get to end on an incredible note, with a final confrontation that feels as epic as something like this could be leading up to. After doing shit like having to search for wine ingredients, having a satisfying final confrontation with a big ass weapon is satisfying, and well earned.
But that is not the end of A Realm Reborn, oh no, there is an entire post game, about the length of the regular campaign waiting for you. Somehow the post game suffers almost the exact same cycle that the base game does, with a particularly grueling first half being a section of game that even with my understanding of the game’s creation, I still cannot defend, even with some fun trials. But after a while, you can tell the reigns are in control. Literally the instant you fight one of the game’s bosses, the game is in full swing, and it starts to get going, and it is really good, ending yet again, on another fantastic climax. Leading up to the next expansion, and where XIV truly becomes what it is today. While I have only just barely started Heavensward yet at the time of writing this, you can notice the difference in quality almost immediately, and it has me jazzed. But this is not that story, at least not yet.
A Realm Reborn, is a mess, the best part of the game I experienced was a reworked solo boss fight that only got put in as of late 2021; nearly an entire decade after its initial launch. It is boring, clunky, very bloated and was even more so on its release, and yet in spite of all of that, it does work, it is compelling. While I have pretty close to no desire to return to it, as I’m sure many of XIV’s playbase would agree with, it needs to be celebrated for what it is. A momentous turn around of a true failure of a game. There is an argument to be had that XIV might be on the same level of success as VII is at, and that simply would not be possible if A Realm Reborn was truly the sum of its worst parts. I think it helps that this, along with two other expansions that are essentially full games, just are free to play, with almost little to no strings attached to the offer as well, making that initial tough sell, a lot easier to swallow when you aren’t paying a dime for it. And there is a reason they even can do that, it's because the team behind the game isn’t just confident, but they very obviously love what this game has become. This is the definitive modern gaming underdog story, and while not perfect, playing this with a friend and dicking about MSQ is something I wouldn’t trade for the world. Heavensward is almost certainly going to blow my socks off, but for now. Yeah. I guess I do like XIV, you weird little game you.
It cannot be understated what an absolute success story that Final Fantasy XIV has been for Square Enix. It is at once, an underdog story into an absolute titan of the modern gaming landscape, essentially one of a select few, and dwindling crowd of MMORPGs, and of them, it is barely a competition of which one is on top. And all of this came after one of the worst conceivable launches of a game in history. I think in many ways, we forget how devastating the initial launch of Final Fantasy’s second go at the genre truly was. A boring, poorly controlling slog of a grindfest that alongside an ongoing disdain of the franchise at the time through games like XIII and general internet reactionary thought of “weird japanese games” this once historic franchise was at its arguable lowest point.
A Realm Reborn, in many regards, is a miracle game. While indeed, reusing what they could salvage from the original release, this was a from the ground up start from scratch. A game that is essentially putting together a last ditch effort to make something worthwhile from some truly rotten ingredients. All in a very strict schedule of just a couple of years, including the ending of the original game that becomes the basis for the entirety of the rest of XIV. And miraculously, it succeeded, and would only continue to succeed more and more. A new expansion is on the horizon this year, and after its wildly popular conclusion to its decade long story, it feels like a celebration to truly appreciate how far it has come.
All of this is well and good. And with that context, it becomes a lot easier to appreciate what A Realm Reborn is. That being said, as anyone can attest to who has played it; it is a tough pill to swallow. While XIV is an incredibly fun game when you’re going through dungeons, testing out job classes, and fighting bosses; this game is about as rough as it can get. Much of the meat of the game’s main campaign is about as basic as it can get, following mostly boring fetch quests that even now the team is still weeding out, a decade after the fact. Dialogue that you at some point realize you can just skip and understand what is going on just fine, and a distinct lack of polish, and many points where it feels like you aren’t doing much of anything, it certainly lacks a lot of the luster that the future expansions have seemingly been able to boast.
That said, when you do get the opportunity to actually participate in this game, by golly is it a lot of fun. I’m not particularly familiar with the genre, but XIV is such a social game, and trying out the different classes and running the many dungeons the game has to offer is a treat. Even this early on, Masayoshi Soken, the game’s composer is already a highlight of the game. Making some of the best compositions in a series that might just be the crown jewel of video game soundtracks, with not just beautiful fantastical pieces, but a wide variety of musical styles, genres, and tones. This matches well with the game’s gorgeous art direction which, while at times feeling bland, are laboured over with such attention to detail and weird little quirks that make them instantly recognizable. And the game does get to end on an incredible note, with a final confrontation that feels as epic as something like this could be leading up to. After doing shit like having to search for wine ingredients, having a satisfying final confrontation with a big ass weapon is satisfying, and well earned.
But that is not the end of A Realm Reborn, oh no, there is an entire post game, about the length of the regular campaign waiting for you. Somehow the post game suffers almost the exact same cycle that the base game does, with a particularly grueling first half being a section of game that even with my understanding of the game’s creation, I still cannot defend, even with some fun trials. But after a while, you can tell the reigns are in control. Literally the instant you fight one of the game’s bosses, the game is in full swing, and it starts to get going, and it is really good, ending yet again, on another fantastic climax. Leading up to the next expansion, and where XIV truly becomes what it is today. While I have only just barely started Heavensward yet at the time of writing this, you can notice the difference in quality almost immediately, and it has me jazzed. But this is not that story, at least not yet.
A Realm Reborn, is a mess, the best part of the game I experienced was a reworked solo boss fight that only got put in as of late 2021; nearly an entire decade after its initial launch. It is boring, clunky, very bloated and was even more so on its release, and yet in spite of all of that, it does work, it is compelling. While I have pretty close to no desire to return to it, as I’m sure many of XIV’s playbase would agree with, it needs to be celebrated for what it is. A momentous turn around of a true failure of a game. There is an argument to be had that XIV might be on the same level of success as VII is at, and that simply would not be possible if A Realm Reborn was truly the sum of its worst parts. I think it helps that this, along with two other expansions that are essentially full games, just are free to play, with almost little to no strings attached to the offer as well, making that initial tough sell, a lot easier to swallow when you aren’t paying a dime for it. And there is a reason they even can do that, it's because the team behind the game isn’t just confident, but they very obviously love what this game has become. This is the definitive modern gaming underdog story, and while not perfect, playing this with a friend and dicking about MSQ is something I wouldn’t trade for the world. Heavensward is almost certainly going to blow my socks off, but for now. Yeah. I guess I do like XIV, you weird little game you.