![]() ![]() ![]() This Should Have Been A Single-Player Game The crafting mini-games were okay and the grind to get up some of the supplier jobs could easily grate on some players, but the fact that players aren't ever pinned down to any singular class really helps the game maintain an air of freshness and replayability about it, and that's vital for a subscription-based game. The diversity and openness of the class system is what helps keep the player-character feeling fresh and exposed to true role-playing possibilities, which I really liked. That's not to mention that the crafting and supplying sub-jobs could almost become entirely new games in themselves. In fact, the job diversity and skill branching is almost like an evolved throwback to the “Job System” from Final Fantasy V, where you could master different jobs and eventually cross-breed them to form a whole new class of character. Still, props are due where props are due, and I have to give huge props to Naoki Yoshida for rescuing the game and building a hugely diverse system of complex mechanics into an MMO that I haven't seen the likes of in any other game. This here was probably one of the better gameplay mechanics, or rather, the premise of the mechanic was very engaging and captivating but the gameplay itself revolving around the jobs was mostly mundane and grindy. But again – and this is where this “Pro” borderlines as a “Con” – the lack of focus due to making all these stories revolve around a mute, personality-vacant player-character really diminished the value of the stories the writers were trying to tell. Still, the subplots for each of the main disciplines of war were excellently told and I loved that some of them nearly rivaled the main plot in terms of character development and bringing a resolution to some matters with an apex showdown, sometimes with personal, tragic and interesting developments. I just wish there was a real main character to helm the plot direction so that things felt more compelling, cohesive and personal, as opposed to having generic-created-player-character mute their way through the story events and bring sometimes poignant and interesting scenarios to a screeching halt due to other characters being required to fill in the context of the situation. This borderlines on a con for a reason I'll mention later, but oh boy did the story feel classic Final Fantasy here. One of the other big highlights of the game were the animations – Square's team of animators did a superb job, especially with little things like the running, sprinting and walking, which all looked and felt natural and authentic, which is rare for a lot of MMOs. It's just too bad that the game didn't force more social multiplayer interaction the way they forced the use of emotes in the game. This is also probably one of the few MMOs I've played where emotes aren't actually useless. The designs of the player characters and NPCs were creative enough that it didn't feel like the game was a typical MMO cloning facility when walking around, and that helps a lot with building a feeling of atmosphere for a game like this. I thought the artists did a great job bringing out an idiosyncratic quality relative to the Final Fantasy series that felt right. They aren't necessarily “realistic” looking so much as they are distinctive, especially with the varying armor designs for each of the class types. The character designs are beautiful in the game. I felt like it was an actual adventure having to travel back and forth between each region, and that there was an air of significance attached to the journey because each region had topographical and atmospheric relevance to the story, characters, jobs and quests, which is not an easy thing to achieve in an MMO. Still, I adored the very differently-depicted maps that didn't just come across like theme park locations with fetch-quest rides to pass through. ![]() I felt like there was room to explore and breathe as an explorer, though not quite to the extent of games like Mortal Online or Repopulation. What's more is that there was a nice feeling of space and architectural breath to this game that's rarely captured in other MMOs. Farming could only be done in forested areas – which nicely tied in with the job locations as well – mining could only be done in rocky, barren locales, and fishing areas were available every once in a while at strategically placed but topically correct spots. Each map felt as if it were designed to help bring to life Eorza in a fantastical and yet grounded way. The next best thing in the game was obviously the atmosphere. ![]()
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