The worldbuilding-heavy base for my favorite stories ever told.
I am probably more passionate about ARR than your average fan of this game, as it tends to be pretty widely disliked to some degree, but I honestly do like it, even apart from its significance to the greater story of FFXIV.
I really enjoy the world presented here more than the story it's telling and the characters you're spending time with. Every city, zone, race and faction are established in sometimes painstaking detail, and it provides so much for future stories to work with. Because of its extensive structure, I am intimately familiar with the mechanics of this fantastical world in a way that I’m not with others. It makes for a wonderful framework of options when making new storylines and characters.
That being said, this game is truly extensive, and demands a level of patience and attention that can get exhausting in long play sessions. This is massively alleviated by its MMO structure, allowing you to explore a plethora of supplementary side content to break up the somewhat tedious structure of ARR. It is still a massive undertaking, and tends to shake off newcomers who come to the game hearing about its stellar expansion storylines.
The story itself is rather standard for an FF game: There is an evil empire, a stoic and imposing villain in Gaius van Baelsar, a motley crew of powerful people to aid you on your quest to topple them, and a dark and sinister evil lurking underneath it all. One would be forgiven food not expecting much from the main cast of allies, as they are unfortunately pretty lackluster in ARR. None of their personalities or designs stand out, something that would be remedied almost immediately in the following expansions. The voice work isn’t particularly strong either, which isn’t a huge issue as they’re entirely replaced going forward.
As far as gameplay goes, it’s difficult to talk about this in a segmented way considering how much has been changed and improved over time, but in its current state, the lvl1-50 stages of ARR are a bit slow, but provide a good basis for those new to tab-target MMOs. With the recent restructuring of the dungeons and trials of ARR, it almost acts as a longform tutorial at times, slowly rolling out mechanics that will be combined and subverted later.
I have a deep level of nostalgia for the early moments of this game, and I’m never personally bothered by slow-burn storytelling. As dense and slow as ARR can be at times, I find it to be kind of novel in a strange way. It’s far from my preferred way that this game delivers its narrative, but I have a deep appreciation for how much it informs the outstanding stories to come.
I am probably more passionate about ARR than your average fan of this game, as it tends to be pretty widely disliked to some degree, but I honestly do like it, even apart from its significance to the greater story of FFXIV.
I really enjoy the world presented here more than the story it's telling and the characters you're spending time with. Every city, zone, race and faction are established in sometimes painstaking detail, and it provides so much for future stories to work with. Because of its extensive structure, I am intimately familiar with the mechanics of this fantastical world in a way that I’m not with others. It makes for a wonderful framework of options when making new storylines and characters.
That being said, this game is truly extensive, and demands a level of patience and attention that can get exhausting in long play sessions. This is massively alleviated by its MMO structure, allowing you to explore a plethora of supplementary side content to break up the somewhat tedious structure of ARR. It is still a massive undertaking, and tends to shake off newcomers who come to the game hearing about its stellar expansion storylines.
The story itself is rather standard for an FF game: There is an evil empire, a stoic and imposing villain in Gaius van Baelsar, a motley crew of powerful people to aid you on your quest to topple them, and a dark and sinister evil lurking underneath it all. One would be forgiven food not expecting much from the main cast of allies, as they are unfortunately pretty lackluster in ARR. None of their personalities or designs stand out, something that would be remedied almost immediately in the following expansions. The voice work isn’t particularly strong either, which isn’t a huge issue as they’re entirely replaced going forward.
As far as gameplay goes, it’s difficult to talk about this in a segmented way considering how much has been changed and improved over time, but in its current state, the lvl1-50 stages of ARR are a bit slow, but provide a good basis for those new to tab-target MMOs. With the recent restructuring of the dungeons and trials of ARR, it almost acts as a longform tutorial at times, slowly rolling out mechanics that will be combined and subverted later.
I have a deep level of nostalgia for the early moments of this game, and I’m never personally bothered by slow-burn storytelling. As dense and slow as ARR can be at times, I find it to be kind of novel in a strange way. It’s far from my preferred way that this game delivers its narrative, but I have a deep appreciation for how much it informs the outstanding stories to come.