Hello to anybody who might not be up to speed on what I was doing before now. tl;dr, I'm a player who played as early as 1.0 beta, played 1.0 for a while, played ARR beta, played ARR on and off, starting over multiple times with various people who could never all commit to playing static together at the same time, and I've finally decided to just do this whole thing myself. So last year I had started attempting to basically solo Final Fantasy XIV, and I had gotten through all of ARR (not the first time I'd done that), and part of the 2.x content. I'd never pushed farther than that in the past because I had always been so sad about a lack of friends or loved ones who were willing to play alongside me, and after having been burned by several strangers while I attempted to learn mechanics I had what basically felt like minor PTSD about playing with people I don't know (still struggling with it every time I need to do a raid). But theoretically, XIV has always been a game that hypothetically should be something I would otherwise love, and every time I've tried I've loved quite a lot about it, but memories of past experiences always prevented me from pushing forward.
This is now the farthest I have ever been. In all of the years of XIV being active, never once have I gotten up to the point of even one single expansion (Heavensward). Tonight, I have finally reached that point. I've temporarily exited the game right after the 2.x post-credits sequence just to write this blog.
It was not my intention to take a year-long break. Sometimes you just financially can't quite handle another month of a subscription, and then life gets in the way and you forget about it for a while. Thankfully, I retained a lot of muscle memory of how I was playing. Which is good, because every time I've come back to this game after a long break, I've forgotten how to do everything, which necessitated a need in my brain to start all over again. But not this time. Still felt pretty good about it.
Actually, what had encouraged me to play XIV again was the announcement of the cross-platform publishing of "Fantasian", of all things. See, "Fantasian" had been a Mistwalker-produced game by "Final Fantasy" creator Hironobu Sakaguchi which had been stuck on Apple Arcade for the last three years. When it first launched, I even bought an Apple TV just to play it and only it. We'd long heard that "Fantasian" may be coming to other platforms, but were unsure of the details. That is, until this past week's Nintendo Direct, where we learned for certain that the "Fantasian" multi platform port not only was real, but that Square Enix was the publisher, meaning that Sakaguchi's relationship with SE had definitely improved since he left the company 20 years ago. In fact, the only reason why the relationship seems as bright and hopeful as it is is shockingly thanks to "Final Fantasy XIV" and Naoki Yoshida. A few years back, Sakaguchi had found himself overjoyed playing "XIV" because it turns out the game is just that good. The man really turned himself into a fiend. I often wondered if he ever had time to do any real work as a game developer anymore, but then again, he's done some of the most incredible things a game producer can do in one's lifetime, so time off to play a video game that makes him happy (especially one that celebrates such a large chunk of his life's work) is probably well-earned. Since then, Sakaguchi had become acquainted with Yoshi-P, and seemingly the two of them became fast friends. As time went on, you could see the two of them hanging out and talking quite a bit, followed by Sakaguchi spending more time with other old heads who still remained at SE to this day, like Yoshinori Kitase. I remember thinking for a long time that surely this had to all be leading up to something. Would Sakaguchi do some sort of work--even if it was just in a freelance/contractor position--for a quest line in "FFXIV" or something? Things seemed to be going far too well for it to all lead to nothing. And then the "Fantasian" announcement happened. And not only that, but Sakaguchi himself says that this happened largely thanks to his working friendship with Yoshi-P. Together, they were able to make this happen. Sakaguchi and Square Enix are working together again, and "Fantasian" finally gets to live on multiple platforms where everybody can finally play it. The thought of it all made me so happy that, believe it or not, this would influence me to think that there was something really, truly special about "XIV" if it's so good that it can mend Sakaguchi's relationship with SE and bring them back to work together again.
Thus, here I am, giving "Final Fantasy XIV" another shot. Because "Fantasian" is getting published by Square Enix, and that it only happened because Sakaguchi loved "XIV" so much that he befriended Yoshi-P, and now we're here. I know that's a long-winded description of events, but it's truly the reason why I've returned in 2024. "XIV" must simply be that special and important.
I wanted to touch upon a few thoughts regarding the 2.x content before I move onto Heavensward (in fact on my other monitor my character is standing directly in front of the quest to begin Heavensward as I write this).
I've seen at least two former "World of Warcraft" players say they were always warned that "ARR" and the 2.x content were a real slog and that "Heavensward" is where it finally gets good, only for them to play it for themselves and wonder what people were talking about because they found "ARR" and onward to be legitimately entertaining. I wonder if that's simply because the content is so wildly different from "WoW" that, in personal opinion, it's actually really easy to outdo "WoW" straight out the gate as far as story and engaging content and play styles are concerned. I say this as someone who has played quite a bit of "WoW" myself. It's easy to get sucked into "WoW" because it just keeps feeding you chains of content that you just blow through, and paying attention to what NPCs are telling you isn't particularly important to being able to play the game. Even in 1.0, "XIV" easily had the upperhand in this regard (though I know the vast majority will disagree at least in the gameplay department at that time in the game's history).
But for me, I tend to agree with the general consensus. My brain REALLY struggled to grasp the concepts characters were talking about for most of "ARR", and the forced attempts at ye olde tyme speech often made characters (and even the actors that played them) sound like they were just saying words with no feelings behind them. Mind you, actually, by the time I got halfway through 2.x content, I finally felt like I was starting to gel just a little bit with what was going on. Actually, I'm sure I'm not alone here, but the loss of Moenbryda really upset me, not just because it's always sad to lose a character you really like, but because she was genuinely the first character that I felt like was written like a normal damn person with emotions and speech that made sense. For that reason, she was really likable, and that wasn't hard because everybody else up until that point in time felt like blocks of wood.
But in all seriousness, by the end of the 2.x content, the writing had really stepped its game up. I finally started to feel something. The writing right at the end was actually compelling, and cool f'ing stuff was finally happening. Definitely felt things for Raubahn the most, who was finally reacting to things the way I would expect somebody in his shoes to be reacting. It's also hard to go HAM on dudes when you only have one arm, but here's a guy who did it. What a boss.
Although I stated my aversion to playing raids with other players because I'm terrified of getting shouted at for not knowing how to do things because I'm doing them for the first time, I was really impressed with the Crystal Tower content solely for it's huge dumps of "Final Fantasy III" references. Every time old "III" music started playing, it tricked me into feeling something, even while I was getting myself killed constantly in raids like the sprout I am. So it's true that I was feeling a constant state of stress and panic, but also that final boss music from "FFIII" had just kicked in so I wasn't completely unhappy being there.
I am only just now about to fire up "Heavensward", but actually, I have purchased every single expansion up until this point. I just keep buying them and then sitting on them for years upon years on end. This is true, too, of the upcoming "Dawntrail". I had tried to deny it for the last couple years, but it's starting to look more and more obvious that Square Enix may in fact be doing something new with "Final Fantasy IX", whether that is in fact a remake or something else entirely. And "IX" is easily, hands down, my absolute favorite entry in the mainline single-player series. So, obviously, I was ready to throw money at a preorder of the expansion to get all of the bonus "FFIX" stuff. To me, it was worth it. I already have my wind-up Zidane following my character around all the time, and I don't plan on switching him out for another minion anytime soon. It'll probably be another couple years before I ever even see any of the "Dawntrail" stuff with my own two eyes. I don't see how I can possibly catch up with any quickness. But I'll be ready for it eventually.
I think that's it for now (and the Lodestone only lets you publish up to 10,000 characters in a blog anyway, and I'm quickly approaching that limit). I'm about to go back over to my other monitor now and finally begin "Heavensward" after all these years. Really looking forward to the narrative finally going to the places I need it to go to keep me holding on.
Thanks for reading. Hope you guys have a blast in "Dawntrail" soon.
