FINAL FANTASY XIV A Realm Reborn BETA -phase 3- on PC with ultra graphic settings: First Impressions...
I have played the game till a bit more than level 10 and I've laid out a few points to explain a bit more about the game itself.
Graphics:
The graphics may be good but they are not THAT incredible. I may be keeping in mind my experience with Guild Wars 2 and Crysis 3 in ultra graphic settings, but I don't find those graphics exceptional. Anyway, graphics are far from what's most important in a game.
Payment:
To play Final Fantasy XIV, you will have to pay for the game (30 dollars or 20 pounds for the pre-order) + a monthly subscription fee of approximately 13 dollars a month.
There are also some long term plans in discussion.
This will be the thing that will stop people from playing this. A lot of people (including me) hate pay monthly games. Even WoW is slowly dying out.
Combat Gameplay: official alpha footage hereThe combat itself is very old school. With a WoW system, which means a quick skill bar for skills and potions. The combat interface is still quite buggy and actually starting a fight with an enemy is not always easy to do as when you move, you cannot select targets (well you can but it's near impossible).
There is an absence of combos and the gameplay itself really isn't innovative. Click the target then press 1,2,3, and 4, press 5 when that bar gets low and repeat over and over.
Quests: official alpha footage here
The quests go by two types (like in all games): either story quests or optionnal quests. Note that there is near NO difference between them and don't expect some massive animations as in the small amount of cutscenes there are, there are no voices... maybe it's because it's still in beta, maybe not. In any case, the quests are very traditionnal with basic quests -> go kill that monster 10 times or -> go deliver that package to that person on the other side of town.
Dynamic Events: (A.K.A. "Fate") official developer video available here
Apart from the fact that this is completely ripped off from guild Wars 2's system (which works extremely well), there hasn't been much information on how exactly the system works (if it actually adapts to the number of players in the event or not for example). But here too, there is much room for improvement as they are all pretty much the same. Monsters appear in a small zone with 30 players, they get killed near instantly every time they spawn and the event ends when a certain amount has been killed.
Character Creation: official alpha footage here
I will however congratulate them on the character creation which is quick, simple and really nice to do. (well it IS FF art)
Equipments:
In terms of equipment, I won't lie to you, you don't have much choice, you can not customize equipment (not for the moment anyways), and when you're in the same class as someone of the same level, you will have the same appearance... which can be... troubling.
General Gameplay:
By "general" gameplay, I mean how well the exploration is made, well, on the contrary of GW who focused a lot on making you explore, this game has some pretty bad exploration mechanics. To that I must add that yes, you may be able to jump, but there are still too many areas where you are blocked by an invisible wall. This is not normal! make everywhere accessible already!
Grouping mechanics:
Once again, there are some good things about FF XIV, and one of them is the grouping mechanic which will allow you to unlock stat bonuses when you're in a party and progressively charge up a limit break bar that will let you unleash deadly attacks.
Guilds:
Now there are guilds, however, those can only be created when you are level 25, so either Square Enix has a lot of faith put in beta testers or they really don't want you to create one. From what I understand there is a system similar to that of Guild Wars 2 that lets you gain some kind of guild points when you do specific events to then use to boost your powers.
Chocobos: The chocobo being the trademark of final fantasy, you would expect for them to be present in the game. Well, they are, but they really had to complicate things. So, there are three chocobo types: the first one is the rented one, so you rent a chocobo for a certain amount of gil per minute. There is however a problem with this as it seems as soon as you are hit, the chocobo disappears... The second one is a chocobo that will stick to a fixed path from a certain point to the other, but he will be invulnerable, you will be able to dismount when you want, but the chocobo will disappear as soon as you do.
As for the third type, from a certain point in the game, you will be able to obtain your own chocobo. There are different races and there is a chocobo breeding system.
There will *apparently* also be other mounts available.
Class Organisation:
You can have any class you want and can unlock all classes on one character. This can be interesting, even though a limitation would have seemed more appropriate to me. However, there is one thing I will not forgive: having to change weapon and all your equipment to change class is... just awful. When you change class, your level will ALSO change meaning that you will lose ALL equipment that does not correspond either to class or to your new level. Each class has a set of skills that can be used by other classes. So, for example leveling up a conjurer will have you obtain cure (which is immensely useful) for your (for example) archer.
Also, you could note that jobs count as classes, so when you equip a carpenter tool, your class will change from archer to carpenter. Yes. It's true.
Animation:
Well the animations themselves are not that bad, the skill effects are good looking and when you walk it doesn't look like you're floating or anything, so I guess it's fine, regardless of the tiny bugs in the game.
Skills: Each class comes with its own skills, which you will aquire once you reach a certain level, there is however no skill point system so no leveling up your favorite skills or anything...
Attributes/ Stats:
Like in all games you'll win attribute points to spend each time you level up from level 10 onwards.
Note that there are also Stats for crafting purposes like "control" or "gathering".
Other remarks:
I will say this now, having a game where you need to wait 20 seconds to disconnect is more than annoying
To resume this, I can safely say that for the moment, FF XIV is not a game that rivals with current MMORPGs. It still needs much more improvement and it isn't worth wasting money into.
However, it has potential and with all the bugs cleared out, with an optimisation of the gameplay, and a bit more innovative touches here and there, the game can eventually become quite good. Final Fantasy's charm will do the rest to bring all fans worldwide to play it.
