It’s hard to be in the MMO space and not feel at least a little bit of the gravitational pull of Final Fantasy XIV. Its comeback story is legendary, people rave about it, the community is held up as a largely positive group of cosplayers, and it’s provided a refuge for people fleeing more frustrating venues.
I felt that pull plenty of times and have played a whole lot of FFXIV over the past five or so years, getting all the way through Stormblood and starting over my journey at least twice. And while I’ve come to the (slow) realization that this title isn’t for me personally, there’s plenty that I do appreciate about the game. So in the spirit of fair praise, I wanted to share some of those positive observations.
The Final Fantasy nostalgia vibes are strong
The Final Fantasy franchise wasn’t all I lived for back in the day, but I did enjoy losing myself in the very first game on the NES and then Final Fantasies 7 through 10 on the first two PlayStation consoles. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that FFXIV would hit that nostalgic chord in me, especially considering that the team seems devoted to drawing from many of the previous titles as inspiration points for the MMO.
When I’m feeling like I want a strong dose of cozy gaming nostalgia, there’s almost no better place in the modern gaming scene than to hop up on FFXIV’s chocobos and go exploring this colorful world of moogles and limit breaks.
The community is helpful and nurturing
The testimonies are true:Â FFXIVÂ does boast one of the better MMO communities online. The free companies are tight-knit, and there’s impressive support to “sprouts” (newer or newly returning players) who can ask a well-stocked advice channel for guidance. I don’t want to give this community a complete pass — it’s certainly not perfect for reasons best suited for a less positive column — but I’ll say that the social scene was one of the more powerful incentives to sticking around that I experienced.
There’s a great reuse of older zones
In most MMOs, the journey through zones tends to be very linear, and when you finally depart a place, you can expect to never see it again. Not so with FFXIV, which continually repurposes older regions for story beats. I was deeply impressed how many times I’d go back to an old familiar region because the narrative demanded it. It felt like a very good use of the space.
The dungeon finder is well-populated
Some people grouse how much FFXIV sends players into dungeons along the journey, but I honestly didn’t mind because the dungeon finder worked wonderfully. There’s a lot of incentive given for high-level players to rerun lower-level dungeons (with scaling tech happening in the background), and that meant that even latecomers like myself weren’t left waiting for hours for a queue to pop.
As a bonus, I noticed that there was more chatter and good vibes during these dungeon runs, especially at the end when players could hand commendations out to each other.
The music is incredible
One thing that I can take with me wherever I game is FFXIV’s incredible soundtrack. It’s one of the best in the business, with loads of catchy earworms and immersive melodies. Cities often get day and night themes, and Final Fantasy fans will catch plenty of callbacks to previous entries in the score. Patch over patch, this OST keeps building, and if you haven’t listened through it, it’s to your shame.
There’s great freedom of class-swapping
While FFXIV may not let you do a lot to customize any particular job, it is unparalleled in the MMORPG market for allowing you to freely swap your main combat class at any time. This means you don’t have to roll up a dozen or so alts to experience all of the jobs; you can conceivably have them all on the same character.
It’s not afraid to experiment with quirky ideas
As a big Blue Mage fan from the single-player Final Fantasy titles, I would’ve loved to have seen this introduced as a standard job. But since that was too difficult to balance and figure out, at least Square Enix implemented it as a “limited job” with its own content path. That’s the sort of thing this game does from time to time, taking a really odd idea like island sanctuaries or the golden saucer and running with it.
There’s a huge amount of personality behind the races
Talk to any average FFXIV player about their preferred race and the race they hate, and then sit back and enjoy a lengthy TED talk on the subject. People are incredibly passionate about these races and the personalities ascribed to them, so picking one is often tied very closely to your own inner makeup. That’s a good sign of well-designed character options right there.
It can get absurdly silly at times
While I certainly do not claim to get Japanese humor, I am a refined consumer of absurdism, puns, and overall silliness. I’m glad to say that this MMO has plenty of all three, sometimes getting so goofy that you feel that the devs are pulling your leg. And they probably are, but the playerbase seems to love it and beg for more.
It’s dedicated to pumping out quality content on a continual basis
No maintenance mode for FFXIV — many years into this title, Square Enix is still dedicated to pumping out high-quality content drops and the occasional expansion. This does so much to keep interest and excitement over this title alive, especially in comparison to some other MMORPGs that are seeing content droughts or lackluster patches. This effort broadcasts to everyone that FFXIV has quite the future ahead of it.
Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”
