Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn-A game that knows what it is.

darkrain21

Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn- A game that knows what it is.

Final Fantasy XIV Came out coming on 3 years ago, to a wide range of criticism and devotion from fans and reviewers alike. 2010 was supposed to be a big step for the beloved Final Fantasy series, by releasing 2 numbered FF games in the same year, one being the follow up to Squares long running Final Fantasy XI. In 2010 Final Fantasy XIII was released to many a meh critique, tho XIII wasn't a huge success it managed to capture some of Final Fantasy's charm in its characters, environments, and general mood. Critics and fans both said it wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad ether. The PS3 version came with a code to get access to the Final Fantasy XIV beta on ps3 a code that would soon be forgotten and tossed aside like a letter of resentment because the ps3 beta never was to happen.

When beta started on the PC, they started invites out slow...very slow. Soon they picked up momentum and as giveaways started to open the doors to the beta people started to feel that this "beta" felt more like an alpha. Still this didn't stop the devotion of fans as XIV was promising some truly great things. Bringing difficult group challenges back to the mmo landscape, a easy way to make one character be all that you want it to be, crafting and gathering like no other game before it, and graphics...graphics so astonishing that you would think next gen came early. At last the final beta weekend, and sadly almost nothing has changed from the buggy, laggy, and all around dull experience that the first betas were. We will not falter says the FF community, its an mmo any bugs will be quick to be sorted out and the game will live up to the name. The time for launch happens we get a poorly done UI, questing that bordered on the non exsistant and lag soooo much lag with both server and ui, and an optimization so bad that even the best computers have a difficult time running the game. With reviews lower than dirge of Cerberus and a general outcry from the mmo crowd of dislike the game seemed like it would fall on the back burner and just be forgotten by all except for the dedicated few....

Square though would not allow this to happen. They accepted that XIV was not the success they planed nor was it even the game that they planed. The lead Director steps down a new director is chosen Yoshi-P! A man that has seemingly devoted his life to The Final Fantasy games, a man that is not afraid to say Yes world of warcraft did do this and now we are to. A man that would usher in something that is un-heard of in the MMO landscape a rebirth of a game. When square could have just pushed it into the F2P corner and let the fire slowly fizzle and burn itself out, they decided they would feed it till it was a roaring Inferno. And after patches slowly started to bring life into XIV, the announcement that not only would the game be getting a overhaul on mechanics, but it would be getting an engine over haul as well.

Interest was peaked but skepticism was at an all time high. With a screen shot here and there and a title known only as 2.0 things stayed quite and patches continued to roll out with big changes. Finally an announcement that the game would get a new sub title A realm Reborn. Soon after XIV held a huge in game event were the story lead to a final massive confrontation with the empire and as servers were shut down the End of an Era trailer was released and it brought what every new mmo gets...hype.

Skip ahead half a year and we are now in the final sprint before ARR is officially out. With beta phase 3 over and Phase 4/Open Beta right on the horizon the game has had more than 1 Million beta sign ups, and even tho still in beta has been getting large amounts of praise. Both being tested on PC and PS3 with a PS4 version on its way (all cross platform) the game is running better than many games do at launch. With its hype also comes the same old, It wont make it, its going to fail, its a wow clone, all these are said about almost every mmo before they come out, so why does it matter that they are being said about this game?

1. The game has already seen failure, and if there is one thing square doesn't like is failure. They will strive to make sure that the game is a success. They arnt shooting to de-throne wow or reinvent the wheel. They are striving to make a quality game that people are going to enjoy.

2.It wont go Free to Play so if people don't like subscription games then this isnt the one for you. Squares first MMO Final Fantasy XI is going on 13 years old and still holds strong its Sub based system. Why because square isnt trying to make a quick buck off this game. They don't mind that a sub system isn't as quick to profit because that's not the sole purpose of redoing XIV.

3. A World of Warcraft clone? This phrase needs to be looked at again, a clone is an exact copy of something, that would mean that all the way down to the basic code everything is the same. Square wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel it was using the wheel to make a damn fine experience. Yoshi-P didnt hide this fact he even said he has his people spend alot of time in Wow, GW2, Rift and many other games. FFXIV ARR may not bring anything "new" to the table but that doesn't mean its a bad game.

We as a community (the mmo community) need to stop and ask our selves, Why. The FPS community doesn't make a big fuss over innovation look at the Call of Duty series, 1 comes out every single year at around the same exact time. Ive played all of them and in reality absolutely nothing about them is different in terms of game-play, but the crowed keeps buying them and enjoying them. Then they get a truly new and amazing product, just look at whats on the horizon for FPS, Division, Destiny, and Titan Fall (non of these are out yet so opinion subject to change) these games look amazing and they look new and its awesome and you hear people saying its awesome. With the mmo crowed we need to stop and ask ourselves why cant we just enjoy our games with the way they play, why does every single mmo need something new. Why cant an MMO just use a play style that is fun and proven and give us a new experience in terms of content story and community. To this im happy ARR is going with a older system as this proves to me the Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn is a game that knows exactly what it is. Its a theme-park MMO running off old yet proven systems, with personal tweaks, and its only purpose is to entertain. And in the end isnt that why we play games... to be entertained?