Final Fantasy XIV is a game that has me very excited. It truly has been awhile since a game has caught my attention like this game has. In all honesty, I did not play the original version of XIV. It was only one day at work that I seen a Final Fantasy XIV "reboot." I started to read up on articles, search for what little videos were available, and review why the old version was not highly thought of.
Why am I so excited? I am not quite sure! I am indeed an MMORPG fan. I played World of Warcraft off and on for a few years, but never truly got deeply involved. I did play Final Fantasy XI on the Playstation 2, which was an amazing experience, however a very hard game to master. I also tried the newest Star wars online developed by Bioware, however good, not what i expected in the long run and quickly lost my interest. I also tried Rift for a brief period of time, but again failed to really grab my attention. Played Guild Wars 2 and stuck with it for about a month and moved on to other things. I also played Everquest Online Adventures for the Playstation 2. I really liked that game, but other games were taking priority in my teen years.
Something just feels right with this game. Ever since I played the Phase 2 beta, graphics, flow of quests, story, are all highlights to this game. The battle system may not be super deep, based on my early level experiences, but it does get the job done by being fast and filled with graphical flare; It all gels together to make this outstanding package.
It seems Square-Enix has learned from their past mistakes. It is no secret, the first Final Fantasy XIV version was critically bashed by many, but loved by an elite few. You get a sense of feeling that a lot of sweat, blood, and tears went into this reboot. Square-Enix has made is public that if this game fails the company is in a very bad state. This is a unique situation, they are not only looking for this to be a blockbuster, but they need this to be a block buster. The developers have fine tuned a lot of aspects of this game to make it work. They seem to have truly listened to their community feedback. When put under pressure amazing things can be done, game development would be no exception to this!
The community is passionate when it comes to its players, old and new. Yes, there are a select few that feel it isn't an improvement and it will inevitably fail, which they are entitled to their opinion, but majority of the community feel very positive about the new reboot. In the end the community makes or breaks this game -- any game for that matter. If based on the community alone I feel Final Fantasy XIV is in very good hands.
Something that I have never attempted before is streaming a game while I play. This is one game I am highly thinking of doing, sharing my experience over Twitch TV. Maybe no one will watch? Maybe a few will? Who knows? I think it would be a great game to try this out with. Seems like a popular thing to do so why not give it a shot? Hopefully I will stream both versions when I play, PC and or Ps3.
Well, as you may very clearly tell. I am excited for this game. I want this game to succeed in any way, shape, or form. Even if it does fail, the time I have spent with it in the beta has already created some awesome memories.
Come on August 24th! You cannot come fast enough!