I have wanted to get back into Final Fantasy XIV for quite some time. I am a massive fan of everything it offers, from the art direction to the scope of the world and adventures that are held within it. I love the way that it handles narrative within the MMO format, and the massive range of locations to visit. I really, really love the music (I went to a FFXIV symphony and everything), and just generally the very Final Fantasy design of it.
But – and it’s a big but – Final Fantasy XIV is a MMO, and MMOs do demand a time commitment, both in terms of the raw hours you plug into it, and the frequency with which you need to play. Take a big break from an MMO, and it just becomes progressively more difficult to step back into.
I tried to get back into FFXIV once when I first picked up the ROG Xbox Ally. The device handled the game just lovely, but I’m not a frequent PC player, and so at some point I put the device down, took a long break, and just… let my subscription slip again.
I am, however, a frequent Nintendo Switch 2 player. By that I mean “daily”. And so now, with the game’s little icon sitting right there on my Switch 2 home screen, I’ve been logging in for at least a little playtime every day. I’ve already made significantly more progress than I did on the ROG.
Final Fantasy XIV plays just lovely on Switch 2, to start with that important point. The console’s screen is just large enough to be able to handle the very busy interface (it’s an MMO, it’s necessary) without distracting from the core action when you want to watch the fireworks. The game’s visual engine is just now ever-so-slightly showing its age with relatively primitive character models and textures – it has been going for something like 13 years at this point – but the art direction is still as stunning as ever, and I’ve loved revisiting my favourite parts of the world from my first playthrough.
Speaking of, I have started a totally fresh character and save file (I wouldn’t even be able to track down my original avatar from a decade ago, if she still exists on servers somewhere, even if I wanted to. I can’t remember my username, password, or the email address it was attached to). I love how it’s possible to play through all the base game and early expansions with NPCs, and not rely on parties of humans for the various dungeons. If you’ve ever played a FFXIV dungeon before, you’ll know that human allies tend to… well, race through it. One of the few unpleasant memories I have from my first playthrough of Final Fantasy XIV was getting to the very final dungeon of the base game and basically missing the whole thing (and being left behind) because I was trying to follow the story. The conclusion to literally dozens of hours of play.
Now, thanks to NPCs, you can enjoy most of the many expansions and all the stories within them at your own pace. And enjoy the typically excellent music, enemy layouts and dungeon design without feeling rushed, too. I even took time to take screenshots, which is one of my favourite ways to log my adventures in this game.
There is a downside, though. Because Square Enix wants to funnel players into the later expansions where, from their perspective, all the value to the players is, they’ve taken steps to streamline the earlier parts of the game, meaning that you accumulate experience points much (much) faster, and have to do far (far) fewer quests along the way. I have been exclusively undertaking the main quest line, with no side quests, let alone grinding, and my avatar is more than twice the minimum recommended level for any given quest or boss battle.
I understand why they did this, because otherwise it would be a truly intimidating, overwhelming task for a completely new player to get up to the newer expansions, but it means that those same players don’t get to spend enough time in parts of the world to really enjoy their contribution to the whole. The major cities are fine, but you’ll fly through little town areas where previously you’d spend a gaming session or two completing all the side quests. They’re barely blips and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments now, which really messes with the pacing for what was previously a truly wonderfully paced game that slowly walked you from one wonder to the next.
I don’t necessarily know what the solution is there, though if it were possible, I would have appreciated the option to toggle whether I wanted the accelerating levelling on or not.
Still, that’s my only gripe. The only other minor issue is that, when it comes to the chat, the Switch’s virtual keyboard doesn’t exactly allow for the same typing speed as a proper keyboard. I don’t even know if it’s possible to connect a Bluetooth keyboard to the Switch 2, as I haven’t tried yet, but even if it were possible, that would significantly undermine the portability of the experience. Currently I haven’t been social enough in FFXIV to require the chat function much, but I can see that becoming an issue later on in the game.
Those are only minor quibbles, obviously, set against a game that is hundreds upon hundreds of hours in scope, and now in an extremely portable and accessible format. FFXIV is a hobby all by itself, and now I can embrace and indulge it in full.
