E3 Interview: Final Fantasy XIV
Back in the days before WoW, I spent a brief six-or-so months in the colorful world of Vana’diel. It was a nice place to visit. The Chocobo riding was fun. The game certainly had its charm. And the extensive job list and main job/sub job system, inspired by series favorites Final Fantasy III and Tactics, made for a wide variety of play styles. At the same time it was a grind heavy, repetitive, confusing, and altogether plodding mess at times. I even think there was some kind of story in there, but finding out how to access the story line was an exercise in futility, requiring me to follow never-ending quest chains that didn’t really account to much. In the end, every segment required partying up with complete strangers and hoping they weren’t all sodding idiots.
Eight years later, the release of Square Enix’s next entry in the Final Fantasy MMO space is almost ready for launch. Final Fantasy XIV, in true Final Fantasy style, shares little-to-nothing with it’s predecessor. Aside from some familiar character models, everything — right down to the class names all the way up to the very world itself — has been changed, modified, and (we hope) refined for first-time and seasoned Final Fantasy MMO players alike. While not everyone is going to enjoy all of the changes (ie. they’ve radically changed the job system from the first game, to my despair) the game looks like a much needed step up from XI in all departments. Better graphics, better combat, streamlined interface, streamlined job system, and much more. In addition to getting some hands on time with the beta build of the game, Matthew Hilton from SE’s Community Team talked to us about some of the finer details of FFXIV.
Final Fantasy XIV interview and walkthrough:
Look for more info on Final Fantasy XIV to come to light as we get closer and closer to the PC release date on September 30th, 2010 and September 22nd, 2010 for those who preorder the collector’s edition. No exact release date has been given for the PS3 version other than sometime in 2011. And for the 360, the odds of it coming out on that platform any time soon do not look good at all.
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THE CRIB NOTES:
FINAL FANTASY XIV
DEVELOPER: SQUARE ENIX
PUBLISHER: SQUARE ENIX
WHEN’S IT COMING OUT: PC – Sept. 22nd/30th (CE/Rg), PS3 – 2011
WHERE’S IT GOING: PC, PS3
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