Posts tagged rpg

Recently, we have been looking into Final Fantasy XIV, the upcoming MMO from Square-Enix that is set to be the successor to Final Fantasy XI. Unfortunately, we had never even played FFXI so it was hard for us to know much about how their current approach to the MMO genre. Fortunately, we were able to check out a trial subscription.

For lack of better words, FFXI was definitely built around being played on a console. Everything is very menu-based, which is a very jolting difference from a newer game. This makes the game feel very clunky when using a mouse and keyboard, and I ended up finding it much easier to set up a game pad to play with. The UI also lacks lots of feedback elements. It is often difficult to tell when someone is trying to invite you to a party, or trade with you, or even if you’ve completed quest objectives. My best description of how the games play is Everquest 1 + Final Fantasy, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but the genre has moved on from there. Given that this game came out in April of 2003, it is hard to knock Square-Enix. We were fortunate enough to receive quite a few helpful game hints from a long time player (who runs a FFXI blog here) that helped us fight back some of the UI issues and such.

My first impression of the graphics were that this was definitely a mid-era PS2 game. Again, not a bad thing, but the textures and terrian looked pretty dated.  Fortunately, I was able to figure out a registry hack that made the game look much better. The terrian still looks dated, but the characters are much crisper. In many respects, the character models in this game are superior to WoW once you up the resolution. The music is also very good, and very fitting of the scenario.

My biggest complaint about the game is the pace of combat and the fact you have to rest every 2-3 pulls. There is no out of combat regen of HP/MP unless you do the /heal command, and it takes quite a while to regen when you do. This is a fairly hard core approach to regen and controlling the amount of XP you get in a short period, but it is also very boring. I would prefer to have to kill more mobs for equivalent XP but have faster out-of-combat regen. I do not mind the fact that the game is “hard,” and that it takes a long time to do some things, but I don’t like how artificial it feels here.

I think that if I would have played this game in 2003, I would have enjoyed it much more. There are a lot of good things going on here, and the most important thing about the game is that it feels like Final Fantasy. However, I think the genre has moved past the era this game was made in. Fortunately, it appears that Square-Enix realizes this and will be addressing it in their new game. The pre-Alpha reviews and screenshots of Final Fantasy XIV seem to reveal a game that is similar to FFXI, but with faster combat and a more modern interface. As a result, I am highly anticipating FFXIV and am hopeful that good things will come out of it.