So, FFXIV was released today and my Amazon preorder came right on time (for once). The first thing I noticed was that the box that arrived from Amazon was pretty fucking big. When I opened it, I learned that's because the box containing the game is equally pretty fucking big. Observe:

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Forgive me, my desktop is a little messy at the moment. I put a DS game next to it as a size reference.

For how big the box is, there's not a whole lot of stuff in it. Inside the box is a DVD case containing the game disc and a documentary that I'll probably forget to ever watch, as well as codes for a free in-game item, a buddy pass to allow a friend to download and play FFXIV free for a month (who wants mine?) and a code to get a "Right of Passage," which is basically just a certificate that says "Look at me, I'm a huge nerd and this is my nerd name in Eorzea." Yes, this means I already put my code in.

Other than what was stuffed in the DVD case, the box just has a "travel journal" and a Security Token. The travel journal is just a blank book that has a few pages of concept art. The paper is thick and of good quality, and it's overall a very pretty book. I don't think I'm going to write in it for precisely that reason. The security token is a little battery-powered device that you can connect to a keychain or something, that when you press a button, you're given a randomly-generated 6-digit number. By linking your security token to your Square Enix account, you can make it so that you must have the number on the security token in order to be able to log in, which helps prevent people from getting their accounts hacked.

So anyway, I installed the game and loaded up the patcher... Which is a very shitty proprietary torrent client that Square Enix must have spent about 20 minutes making one night because it's slow as shit regardless of your connection settings. Attempting to download a 450 MB patch at a maximum of 2 KB/s is not very fun. Luckily, I stumbled on a forum where some guy downloaded the patch and created a direct download link via Megaupload, and included instructions on how to make it bypass the shitty FFXIV patcher. It took about an hour, but the patch was finally at 95%...And then my internet disconnected. Yay, for starting back at 0%!

Anyway, I finally got the game patched up and ready to play. I created my FFXIV account using their Square Enix Account Management System, which somehow feels even MORE user unfriendly than the PlayOnline shit they used in XI... But, once all that was done, I went back to the game and logged in. Success!

Similar to FFXI, character creation has you selecting your race, starting Job, and home nation (there's three and it determines your starting location). Unlike FFXI though, character customization has gone through the roof with a vast number of skin tones, hair colours, body and face shapes, and even eye colour that can be selected. This is much improved since in FFXI, you could pick body size and a hairstyle.. one of two different colours only! Here's what I ended up with:

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So then anyway, once you start playing, you're instantly thrust into a fully voice-acted cutscene, like you'd expect from pretty much any of the Final Fantasy games. I was pretty excited at this point despite my initial hardships, because what I had experienced, despite feeling a bit cliche, seemed interesting enough. Then, right after the initial cutscenes, I've heard nothing more of the story or the two NPCs introduced by it. I'm hoping to bump into whatever I need to do to trigger the next story sequence fairly soon, but onto the Armoury and battle system!

The Armoury system is a variation of the traditional Job system, in which your job is determined by what type of weapon you're currently equipped with. Equip a staff and you'll become a Conjurer, while wearing a sword will mad you a Gladiator, and so forth. As you kill monsters, you'll gain skill points in that particular Job, which will increase your Rank level in that job. Once you reach a high enough Rank level, you'll learn new spells, skills, etc. You also get experience points to raise your Physical Level, which then gives you stat points to distribute as you please to your character.

Anyway, you have a list of commands called your Action Bar. Setting skills to your Action Bar requires Action Points, which increase as you level up. Almost every ability that you acquire can be set to your Action Bar regardless of what Job you're currently using, so this method allows you to customize your character and what they're capable of using.

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In battle, you have a bar called the Stamina Bar, which sorta replaces the traditional ATB. Every action you take uses up a certain chunk of this bar, and it's constantly filling up. In that regard, it's similar to FFXIII's battle system, only without a stupid Auto-battle to play the game for you.

I'm tired of writing though. I'll review the game after I've played it for a while. Damn kids. Off my lawn.

Always related: sexy koreans.

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	zippdementia - September 23, 2010 (01:00 PM) Looks like you do a lot of hitting things in the rear.
	espiga - September 23, 2010 (05:00 PM) I like to give them my Spirit Dart from behind.