I love good films and things, I like quality. Akira, howls moving castle, and many others. But no, I’m neutral on the aesthetic, it carries nothing for me.
The problem is ---- for many many people the aesthetic carries a lot of positive weight though. so they will take something that’s crap quality and just because it has a certain aesthetic they might love it, like it, or however they feel, they buy it.
FF is interesting, and they are some very interesting things — like that whole crafting as leveling thing is so trippy, the any-class model is wild … these are worthy ideas. it’s, ok. It’s certainly NOT crap.
But the big big success of FF outstrips the quality. It seems to be mostly based on the power the aesthetic has with … kind of a lot of people.
There’s also a ginormous franchise brand label there, too.
Final Fantasy has been around since the early to mid 1980s and has remained strong ever since, putting out game after game after game in its series.
Warcraft started… eh, whenever Orcs and Humans came out, what, probably mid 90s? But only released four games, one of which is this MMO that has… been of questionable quality during the past couple expansions.
FF is naturally going to have quite a strong franchise-based loyalty going for it, and the fact that Yoshi-P has so many throwbacks in XIV to earlier XIV fans means that no matter which of the FF games was your favorite, you will find something in XIV and go “OH NEAT I REMEMBER THIS!”.
Were you one of the few who loved FF8? then you probably squee’d the first time you stepped into the Eden raid. FF4 is your jam? I bet you are antsy for the release of Endwalker. FF6? The Phantom Train is probably your favorite raid boss.
I used to be an avid FFXIV fan, played for 7 years, but with how little content shadowbringers has and how little they seem to care about their long-term players compared to newbies really started to irritate me.
I am not talking about the primal fights. I’m talking about the Praetorium, the Ancient Labyrinth, and the Crystal Tower series. They are full blown raids, and I quit after the Ancient Labyrinth. I had had it.
Funny enough one of the things that turns me off of FFXIV is that it doesn’t look enough like the FF single player games. If it looked anything like the FF7 remake, especially the PS5 update version, I’d be playing it yesterday. Instead it looks a lot more dull and generic-fantasy than the single player games, with relatively weak stylization and less consistent art direction.
I’m not touching New World until Amazon gets the 3090 destroyer crap figured out. My 3080 Ti is basically a 3090 with less VRAM and I don’t feel like gambling a $1200 GPU just to see if I like a new game.
I haven’t read about it causing problems on laptop GPUs, just desktop RTX 3090s and 3080 Ti’s. Doesn’t mean it can’t though, just make sure to research it before trying it.
Ok, Praetorium took me nineteen minutes exactly. People run it nonstop; it’s old world content, so from the time it takes to get the group together, watch the cutscenes, and kill everything, literally took nineteen minutes. Midday on a weekday. I know, because I just ran a bunch of new people through myself, last week Dead serious dude, it is absolutely NOTHING.
Ancient Labyrinth is in the Crystal Tower series, basically one of three wing. Same situation as Praetorium my friend: it’s old world, so people BLAST straight through it to help people out like yourself. I made a run of it last month sometime, I wanted the Demon Plate I was missing (still need my helm!!).
I’d say, the third part of the Tower took as long as running the Plague dungeon in Shadowlands (not counting the story cutscenes they’ve added that ties into the upcoming expansion). Ancient Labyrinth is basically a smash and grab.
Seriously friend, look at them as lower level dungeons, because that’s how fast you’ll go through. You’ll be moving on with the main story in no time, and it’s so worth it for the story and gameplay that follows.
I knew that game was dead in the water as soon as i saw it was a hack and slash “don’t level classes, level weapons” sort of MMO
As far as FF goes. It’s got good and bad. It’s weakest point is that it starts off sooooooo slowly and it just loses people at those critical levels. Its other weak point is its endgame content cycle, it’s endlessly predictable. Grind tomes to get gear over and over. An unchanging system since ARR.
I have complaints about both games but my list of complaints about this game is much longer.
My only real complaints about FF is that the out-of-game community is trash. I’ll take the out-of-game community of this game any day of the decade. And out-of-game means forums, etc.
Dead serious dude, it is absolutely NOTHING.