The Delfies 2017 #8

Among the many strong titles of 2017 vying for a gamer’s time, there’s always the allure of the persistent games from yesteryear further muddying that choice. It’s not even a case of going and cleaning your backlog of The Witcher 3; I’m referring to the multiplayer games that remain a constant time sink in the gaming landscape. The MOBAs like Dota 2, the shooters like Counterstrike, the card games like Hearthstone, and, of course, the MMORPGs.

While the genre has retreated to more of a niche in the past few years, the behemoths of the MMOs still lurk… and one of them put out an expansion pack in 2017 that I thought was pretty damn good.

Delfies 2017 #8: Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

Genre: MMORPG

Played on: PC, also available on PS4

Final Fantasy 14 has a development history unlike any other title in video games. If a bad game is released, it will usually remain bad, and even if the developers are somehow able to improve the situation it is unlikely to receive the attention of gamers a second time. It doesn’t matter what company you are or the size of your budget; releasing an awful game to abysmal scores and catastrophic results should not ever see the game rise above it to become great.

Still, most developers don’t have the budget or pedigree of Square Enix in order to make their second attempt. Even then, that pedigree isn’t exactly saying much when a trilogy of Final Fantasy 13 titles produced only one good game between them, and there’s a lot I could say negatively about their last ten years of JRPGs. Nonetheless, when the release of FF14 proved disastrous on all fronts, Square Enix decided to double down on the project and do their best to fix it, to the point of remaking the entire game from scratch as a sequel.

By all accounts, Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn should not have been possible. Even reusing assets and concepts from the original release, they effectively built an entire MMORPG from the ground up in just two and a half years. And somehow, that newly released title managed to recapture the goodwill of players who had written off the first, continuing to grow and improve into one of the largest and most successful MMORPGs in history.

The first expansion — Heavensward — continued this steady climb. Just about every facet of the game was improved at some point throughout it, and while there are some aspects that may not reach quite the high moments of the base game, it was nonetheless loved and praised. As such, Stormblood’s announcement as the impending second expansion had plenty to live up to. The placement of it on this list should thus give an indication that it succeeded, at least in my eyes.

But before I can talk about Stormblood, we need to look at the base game and its first expansion a little more. So much of what I can say about Stormblood equates to “more of the same”, which is generally what you want for an expansion pack… but the ways in which it accomplishes this make it so much better than that statement might initially suggest.

When the game was relaunched as A Realm Reborn, Final Fantasy 14 didn’t entirely do away with what had happened previously. It’s frequently referred to as 2.0, with all major story events, history, and character development still being relevant into the new game. The team behind the game didn’t just switch off the game servers and end the world; they made it part of the plot, with the last thing remaining players seeing being this incredible and haunting cutscene. Much of what was before is now just details and flashbacks to the now ended game version, but it still remains crucial.

Afterwards, the events of A Realm Reborn continue to play out, always telling a story and driving the plot forward. The devastation wrought from the destruction in the above conclusion was now five years hence, and its marks were still indelibly left on the world. New plot quests started out slowly, but each additional patch continued to develop it further. The player character is the iconic Warrior of Light, and definitely serves as the hero role in the game, but you aren’t the only competent one in the world.

Yes, you are the one people will turn to when it comes time to slay the big world ending threats. That’s the unfortunate necessity of telling a story in an MMORPG. Nonetheless, the additional NPCs and characters that you meet throughout the game all have their own set of skills, and you’ll often find that they’re just as crucial to moving the plot forward as you are. You might be the hero, but you’re part of a team, and it’d be quite the struggle without that backup in so many ways.

The eventual conclusion of A Realm Reborn’s plot lead straight into Heavensward in rather dramatic fashion. Big events had been brewing and built up to throughout the patch content, and it all capped off in a massive scenario that left many of these characters and allies of yours missing in action. When you went into the new lands of Ishgard for the expansion, you did so stripped of much of your power and allies, and you were forced to strengthen the few you had while making new ones to recover what was lost.

Part of why Final Fantasy 14 resonated so strongly with me was this plot, world building and character development. More than any other MMORPG I’d played before — even the highest points of World of Warcraft — the realm of Eorzea felt like a living, breathing world. The characters mattered to me.

I enjoyed their company and their personalities, as well as how they interacted with one another and my character. I laughed at their antics, worried for their safety, fought hard to save them and in turn be saved by them. On the rare occasion, I mourned for them. Oh yes, I mourned for them as much as I might any dear friend that I lost.

On top of all these characters are, of course, the player ones. I’m a writer and a roleplayer at heart, and even if I didn’t partake in as much RP as I have in the past, I still built my characters as much for their own stories as I did for how they played. But it wasn’t just my characters that mattered; the ones my friends made and the stories we threaded through the game’s together truly elevated it more than many such single player games might.

Final Fantasy 14 managed to make me feel like not just a player of the game, but a content resident of the world of Hydaelyn. It’s the kind of comfortable home that you long to find in a video game. For many years in my life, it had been Azeroth that accomplished that, but as the cracks and ennui developed there, my time in Eorzea proved to be a welcome and arguably superior bastion for me.

For all this high praise, the actual gameplay of FF14 doesn’t stand out immensely. Don’t get me wrong; it’s still quite good as far as genre comparisons go, but it is a somewhat typical hotbar-based MMORPG. It plays a bit slower than WoW, but that speed is deliberate as it allows for more precise and telegraphed attacks to respond to.

All the while, the average class will be using a huge variety of hotkeys and rotations that felt far more complex and conditional than other MMOs. It’s possible to just stick to four main buttons in WoW and still be executing your core rotation just fine, but the same cannot be said of FF14 without dramatically sacrificing your potential. Some classes have full rotations of abilities that might take half a minute or more to execute before repeating, and there are lots of buttons off the global cooldown to compound what you have to do.

The main quest line is what will take you through the game’s story. Rather than just being a series of solo quests or adventures though, this will frequently take you through the four-player group dungeons. More importantly, it will often find times where you’re required to take on the real highlight of the game: the trials.

Plenty of games feature dungeons and raids, including FF14. The trials differ in that they are single fights of usually eight players against some of the most spectacular and iconic bosses of the Final Fantasy series. The summons of old are now the Primals of the beast tribes, and defeating them is at the heart of the Warrior of Light’s mission. These fights are among the biggest spectacles of the game, and the higher difficulty varieties of them can be exceptionally challenging.

The dungeons, trials and raids are the bulk of the game’s content alongside the main quest, but there’s still plenty of other things to do that have been added over the years. There’s the fully functioning Triple Triad card game, a fairly in-depth gathering and crafting system with multiple classes, a smattering of PvP modes and other activities. Raids can come in 8 or 24 player varieties, the former of which has a hard mode to tackle.

Still, I’ve yet to talk about one of the stand out aspects of Final Fantasy 14: its presentation.

The first release of the game was a disaster, but even then people couldn’t help but praise how fantastic everything looked. A Realm Reborn only heightened that by creating more spectacular set pieces and areas to explore, leaving Hydaelyn as one of the prettiest game worlds I’ve visited. With every patch and expansion, that just continues to improve, with the set pieces and enemies (the boss fights in particular) looking awe inspiring.

Further, the game features an absolutely incredible soundtrack. Amidst the key songs composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, the lead composer Masayoshi Soken has done an absolutely fantastic job of making the events sound as good as they look. Each Primal fight has its own song that adequately fits the character and encounter. The dungeons have fitting music, the zone tracks are amazingly suitable, and almost every individual moment has music that accompanies it well. Even the examples here showcase so many different styles and genres, and I’m barely even scratching the surface.

All the credit I’m giving Final Fantasy 14 for its presentation is not entirely unique, however, but that is in itself an interesting selling point. While the story and game can hold itself on its own merits, FF14 also has the entirety of the Final Fantasy library to draw from… which it does. Many of the iconic locations, characters, enemies and songs from the decades of series history have made their appearance in this game too, making it something of a “Final Fantasy theme park” for fans to go through and revisit.

But to its credit, this heavy use of what has come before it is rarely used as an excuse to be lazy or complacent. Some enemies are clearly just nods or designs that serve as easter eggs for the observant, but whenever an aspect of an older game enters the story in a more direct case, it will be woven in with the original Final Fantasy 14 plots seamlessly.

The Warring Triad of Final Fantasy 6 was introduced in Heavensward as a stand-alone side plot within the mythos and history of Hydaelyn. The Knights of the Round summon best known from Final Fantasy 7 was a key part of the plot for that expansion, but in a somewhat subtle way. Shinryu, the optional superboss from Final Fantasy 5, is an important story element of Stormblood. More than just “hey guys remember this from an older game”, each little bit of Final Fantasy history that they use is molded into its own way so it fits the larger, newer story.

So with all of this in mind, we finally return to Stormblood. So what does Stormblood add? Well, more of the same. Six new zones to quest through with a winding interconnected story that continues on from where the plot left off. A handful of new and interesting dungeons. Two raids (one 8 player and one 24 player variety) that tell interesting stories that blend classic Final Fantasy games and their stories into this modern title. Two trials against spectacular boss fights, with more to come. All of it looks beautiful, plays solidly, and sounds immaculate.

This is all from just the base game and one major content patch, but like all MMORPGs, it’s never intended to be simply done on release. More is unveiled and doled out in major content patches every three months, and the story is always progressing. For every new development and temporary victory, there’s always more questions to answer and more events to occur.

And boy, do some events occur in Stormblood. Throughout the plot, we visit two areas that have been long hinted at, each existing under the rule of the oppressive Garlean Empire. Each have their own importance to characters both new and old, and we must fight hard to free them. There are ups and downs in the plot, but it’s fairly solid and an enjoyable continuation.

Where it stands out, then, is its villain: Zenos. As stated above, the players fill the role of the Warrior of Light, and we’re the Primal-busting muscle amidst the many characters we work with. The competence of the NPCs is certainly there, but the biggest fights see them fall back on our strength. We’ve always risen to the challenge and fought increasingly tougher foes and scenarios, but we’ve always come out ahead in the end.

Until Stormblood, where Zenos almost effortlessly dismantles us in our first encounter early in the expansion.

Much of the story then becomes about learning of Zenos and his power and methods in order to try and overcome them. Whatever successes we achieve, it’s always under the knowledge that he’ll be there waiting for us to overcome. There are many scenes of Zenos sprinkled throughout the plot, giving us a highlight of his power and cruelty. We’ll butt heads with him in tough encounters on a couple of occasions before the ultimate showdown at the end, and each continually reaffirms what a terrifying foe he is.

But it’s one thing to just make a villain go “Hahaha, I’m stronger than you!” for little reason. The story instead does its best to explore Zenos and his motives. You see glimpses of his personality all throughout, and it’s very clear that he’s not at all interested in the gain of the Empire. He has become so powerful that he longs for a worthy challenge, and sees that potential in the Warrior of Light.

The victories we achieve throughout Stormblood against a much stronger and more numerous Garlean Empire almost feel like they shouldn’t have happened in a real fight… and that’s because it wasn’t a real fight. Zenos didn’t care to lead or command properly, and he routinely just chose not to reinforce or defend the territory under his grasp. None of that mattered to him. He just wanted a true showdown with you, and the concluding fight at the end of the plot absolutely is a fitting showdown that had me grinning in sheer delight at the spectacle and challenge of it all.

Many of the characters in Stormblood that we’ve otherwise been relying on or are used to seeing aren’t always present due to the circumstances of the plot. They all have their own tasks and objectives, and we’ll see them throughout — they’re not entirely absent. Instead, the Warrior of Light’s companions this time around are characters that haven’t had as much growth or development in previous events.

It’s nice to see these characters step up and grow when it matters. The execution isn’t always perfect, but there’s still a very real feeling of focus on the characters and the plot all throughout. Even then… it’s still Zenos who steals the show completely. Other new characters also join the cast as necessary, and I grew to like almost all of them quite a bit.

Just… Zenos. A very interesting character and villain, to be sure.

Even though I’m not currently subscribed to the game and waiting for more content to sink my teeth into after the expansion release, I still think of it frequently and long for the chance to return. I still watch the announcement teasers, the patch trailers, the developer interviews and hints. I’m waiting for the next opportunity to return.

When I first played through the base content available at Stormblood’s launch, it was immediately a contender for my favourite game of the year. The fact that it ended up 8th rather than much higher is less of a testament to its qualities, but more to the way we inevitably perceive MMORPGs over more linear one-and-done titles. It’s rarely enough for an MMO expansion to be good at launch; it has to continue to deliver across its duration, and ultimately be a solid product through a full life span before you can truly judge it as excellent.

But even with all that in mind… I could easily see myself treating Final Fantasy 14 as a standalone JRPG like its predecessors and playing it through as such, from the story’s beginning to its end. There would be lulls throughout, and ups and downs, but the overall quality is extremely high. If it were a typical JRPG, FF14 would rank highly among the best that the series has to offer, especially compared to the other main line titles that Square Enix has released in the last decade or so.

The fact, then, that it’s an MMORPG is both a blessing and a curse to that. Which of those it becomes is largely on how the player feels about the genre… so as a fan of MMORPGs, it’s definitely a blessing to me.

Stormblood was a very good expansion for an already excellent game. It has kept me invested in the world and the story, and I eagerly look forward to seeing how it continues in the coming patches or expansions to follow. That’s ultimately what it boils down to, and why Final Fantasy 14’s newest addition gets a deserved place on this year’s list.

Return to the full Delfies 2017 list