Is FFXIV worth playing for the story? Part 2

Is Final Fantasy XIV worth playing for the story? For some yes, for other no, in this story I share my thoughts on the question after 400 hours of playing this year. This video is a follow up to the first video I made about FFXIV. This will probably be my last video on this game at least for a while, it's been such an amazing and fun time playing this game on twitch this year, and even though I am done, I will always remember my time with it, thanks for following along, I will be moving on to other games now.
Twitch: / genjigearlive

[@genjigearlive]

Thank you all so much for watching my videos about this game over the last year, it's been such a blast. I really want you all to keep watching my videos but I know that many of you simply won't if it's not about something that interests you, which is absolutely fine. If that is the case, it is actually more helpful for me if you unsubscribe so KZbin will eventually stop showing my content to FFXIV players and start showing it to people who are interesting in the new content I will be making. If you want to chat sometime about this game or even argue with me and tell me why I am wrong you are free to drop by on twitch anytime and chat, I am happy to talk about things you may disagree with. www.twitch.tv/genjigearlive

[@Infeston]

Hey, You said in your video that the people who still find FFXIV’s story amazing should explain their reasoning in the comments, so i wanted to do that: But first I still want to agree with a lot of your overall criticisms. I also think the game could be a lot more difficult (the best would be if you could adjust between easy, normal or hard difficulty) and I also agree with you that there sometimes too many filler moments, which in my opinion definitely could be shortened. Also I have to agree that it is not very good that a lot of the story and dialogue isn’t voice acted and you have to read a lot. I propably can look past that, because I always played RPGs and most of the early RPGS (Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire, Earthbound) had amazing stories, which most of the time were only dialogue boxes and reading. And I am a big fan of RPGs. All the early FF games also weren’t voice acted and I also liked them a lot. Even though I don’t agree that the FFXIV story is bad, I can still agree that the „storytelling“ of FFXIV can be bad a lot of times. I personally separate the storytelling from the story. So if someone would claim that FFXIVs storytelling is bad, i honestly wouldn’t disagree. But in my opinion this doesn’t mean that the overall story is bad. I feel even some of filler parts could be more interesting if they were simply presented in a different way. For example, by using different camera angles, using more dynamic character movements, full face shots and adding voice acting to a lot of the scenes. I also simply love how the FFXIV team fleshed out the world and the story and also how the characters behave in the rules which the world set for them. I have seen too many movies, books or games, where the character suddenly do stuff, which doesn’t make sense in the rules of the world, which makes the whole setting unbelievable for me. And this can be pretty fatal in an MMO, where different players „live in“. But now back to why I still think that the FFXIV story is amazing: 1. I personally love the silent protagonist and especially in MMOs with character creation, you are able to „insert“ yourself into your character or make your own backstory for you character. I feel it wouldn’t make sense for your own created character to have a set personality and even worsen your immersion in the end. I feel they did a good job in integrating your character into the story without forcing a certain personality on your character. 2. I personally only started to love the game at the end of Stormblood/beginning of Shadowbringers. But looking back I appreciate Stormblood a lot more, because of its worldbuilding and accuracy towards real revolutionary movements. I liked it a lot because it showed that revolutions don’t simply happen, because people are fed up with stuff. It showed that for real revolutions, you need a lot diplomacy and talking to people. And I liked that they depicted this in the story, because a lot of other games focus too much on the battles and cool fights if they want to depict revolutions. 3. I loved the philosophical questions and themes which are depicted in Shadowbringers and Endwalker and I also loved how they were depicted. I don’t want to go into spoiler-territory, so i try to be vague. But Shadowbringers and Endwalker in my opinion dealt very wonderfully with topics like „Depression“, „Hope“, „Loss“ and the overall „finite nature of life“. And even though people say that „Shadowbringers“ is the best expansion, Endwalker resonated with me the most. 4. I love the characters and the character development. Too many games in my opinion design their characters very one-sided. You have quirky characters, but also serious characters which all have their own struggles. 5. The villains are relateable. I also don’t want to spoil, so I won’t continue. But if you ever played games or watched movies with a likeable villains, you propably know what I am talking about. Sometimes you simply need a guy you just WANT to HATE and KILL in a game. But this game is not it. I think FFXIV does a good job in making its villains relateable and making you symphathize with them, even though you have to fight them. 6. The worldbuilding is mostly consistent. Like in every story, there are always plotholes. But FFXIV often has a satisfying explanation for how things work in the world. 7. The depiction of politics and diplomacy is very good for a videogame. I think the game is very good at portraying different positions and not making one side „more right“ or „more wrong“ than the other. It still is often clear that you are the good guy, but I know a lot of other games who do a worse job at this and depict one side as completely evil and the other side as perfectly good. 8. Overall the game was an amazing journey for me. It felt like a road trip with you and the boys (the scions), where you went through with them together and in the end tried to find meaning and purpose in the depths of despair. I am personally not a depressive person, never had to deal with depression and had a good life. Still a lot of the stuff I experienced made me feel stuff and also reflect on myself, which might not necessarily be possible if you for example stream the game and people are watching your reactions. Also I think everything 100% depends on how much you immerse yourself with the game. I already wrote too much, but I could write a lot more. But I don’t want people to take longer to read my post, than watching the original video. In short: Good about the story: Characters, Character development, worldbuilding, interesting villains, consistent writing inside the world boundaries, silent protagonist, good depiction of existential philosophical topics, realistic depiction of diplomacy, interesting side characters Bad about the story: Not necessarily a bad story, but bad storytelling (mostly through text without voice acting using only one camera perspective), too much filler, sometimes too much overexplaining Sorry for the long post. I hope it helps some of you.

[@nurddiii]

It’s about to get spicy in here ⚡️⚡️⚡️

[@natebroadus8474]

I respect that you gave it a fair shot, and it just wasn't your thing. As for why I love it, I love that while the MSQ is the Warrior of Light's story, the side content--like raids and tribal quests--are more about other people. Werlyt is more about Gaius than me; the Vanu Vanu is like Westside Story with bird people 😂; the Loporrit questline is more about them finding a purpose again. I love stories that find a way to be personal and dramatically heavy. However, sometimes I need an escape into something more whimsical; FFXIV's story gives me both. You get levity and brevity, and I deeply appreciate that. As someone who grew up an avid book reader, the non-voiced parts don't bother me. That's how I always used to play my RPGs (Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Lufia, Etc.). Still, I'm an old school gamer, so it's not that jarring to me.😅 In the end, it's the lessons I took from the story that made me fall in love with it. I do like the dramatic moments, but it's the little moments, like the soup scene in Garlemald, or bringing back Ga Bu after he was tempered, Jullus sharing buuz with Zero, or even goofy ass Hildibrand--that's what makes the game for me.🙂 I love how Endwalker puts Answers, the theme of ARR into context. I love seeing the story of the Ascians take shape across all the expansions. Mostly, I loved seeing the characters grow. I hated Alphinaud in ARR, he was just a spoiled little know-it-all to me--from Heavensward on, he became a trusted friend. I felt like at the conclusion of Endwalker, it was a journey I'm so glad I took--not for all the big stuff, but for all the little things. It's the little things that make life worth living (I still get choked up thinking of Jullus and the soup😆).

[@genjigearlive]

Thank you for sharing your experience, it helps me to understand what I appreciate more when I hear what others appreciated that didn’t stand out for me. There is nothing wrong with liking this story and it’s been eye opening for me to try and pinpoint the ways the game let me down a bit, not to tear the game down but to further understand myself. Thanks for the comment!

[@natebroadus8474]

@@genjigearlive yeah, there is no story that is universally loved. I know people who consider War & Peace boring, and Tolstoy is one of the greatest writers that ever lived. It may never be your thing. It took JoCat 10k hours of playing before he fell in love with the game. I think he even made a video about it. Still, Final Fantasy will never stop making single player games, so if FFXIV isn't it for you, there will be other Final Fantasy games to enjoy. I like the fair assessment, so I plan to stick around to see what other games you play.

[@Infeston]

@@natebroadus8474 Haha. I found it funny that you said the same thing about RPGs and having to read a lot like I said. Propably a lot of us oldschool JRPG fans don't mind reading long block of texts. Breath of Fire was one of my first JRPGs.

[@genjigearlive]

So I grew up playing JRPG’s too, I wouldn’t complain that FF6 doesn’t have voice acting, but games that have text boxes are usually a little more brief than FFXIV. I think the problem is there is SO MUCH dialogue that is text, and the accents and localization of Koji Fox is just not super accessible. (Even though I know many love it)

[@Infeston]

@@genjigearlive Yeah. The sheer amount of text to read makes it definitely harder to handle. I personally played the game with subtitles in my native language and japanese audio, so i might not know if some scenes might also come across differently. Maybe some stuff is also localized differently in my mother tongue. But the japanese voice acting was definitely top notch. As far as I know Haurchefaunt for example, is not depicted as perverted as in the japanese localization.

[@ketthefox]

FFXIV is my first and only MMO and my seventh Final Fantasy game and I started to play in 2017 and I think it has the best FF story. I would say FFX is best overall experience, but when it comes to story FFXIV leaves X far behind. You asked why people love this story so much and I think I felt in love with this game because of character/villain you haven't meet yet. He made all the story and world building make sense and he showed me what Eorzea is all about. I love when games do that and not many game have achieved that in such large scale. I agree that there should be more voice acting and more variety in quest structure. It has been improved in ShB and EW and I think it will continue in Dawntrail. My most loved thing in FFXIV is that Endwalker gave context to Answers song all the way from ARR. It's so beautiful how that song first was just a amazing Uematsu song, but after Endwalker I know what it means and it gives me tears every time. Playing just MSQ of FFXIV is only 5% of the game. I think it could be worth it, but you really should experience the rest 95% of the game. There you also find the challenge and difficulty of the game. I would also like if MSQ would be more difficult, but it's super easy to find something difficult content so it doesn't matter that much, like I said, it's only 5% of the game. So to answer your question is FFXIV worth to play just for the story? Is any game worth to experience just 5% of the game? Mayby, but usually not, depends on what you like.

[@genjigearlive]

Thanks for watching and sharing what you like about the game. You are right, people usually play games for more than just the story. I guess I am still figuring out what I am trying to focus on on my KZbin channel, if I am trying to rate game stories, I should probably do more of that, which is why I want to make another video just about games that I think have the best stories. On the other hand, I have just been sharing my journey for the past year basically with FFXIV, now that I have stopped playing it it just leaves me with my thoughts on why I didn't click with the game, I could continue to explore those reasons, because I feel like I am learning a lot about myself about what I like in games, and why I play them, but I am not sure how interesting that is to other people. Either way, I will I figure it out eventually. Thanks for watching!

[@magicslinky9931]

Properly judging FFXIV is really hard because people can't wrap around their heads the idea that an MMO doesn't need to be trash and have proper basic game design. I think people mistakenly conflate the game having no meaningful progression with the game "respecting players' time". With the way this game is designed either Square Enix really respects players' time or not at all. I think it's the not at all portion, because the game doesn't really care about the player. Content is Job agnostic in XIV, which means you can tackle it as anything. This isn't really a system that respects players' time. In XIV not only can you not out gear anything because of the Sync system but you can't out skill anything either, because of how rigid the combat is, the lack of dynamic gameplay, and because the game doesn't care which job you are. Stranger of Paradise is an action RPG that plays similar to the souls series and has a ton of jobs from the Final fantasy saga. Clearly in that game you can't have a massive repertoire of spells while you fight, so Team Ninja decided that, to allow just about every class to be able to defeat anything, if you can repeatedly apply an element an enemy is strong against(but not immune to) the damage they take will gradually increased until you deal regular damage with it. Now THIS respects my time, because I don't need to switch off my Paladin job if I'm facing an enemy that is strong to holy just to deal more damage. Furthermore you can increase the damage they take if you keep hitting them with that element. THIS is a system meant to respect player time, because not only do I get to not stop, I get to play whatever I want. And I also can use the system to my favor to make already strong elements hit harder. So not only does it respect my time, it REWARDS the time I'm putting in to learn the systems in the game. Also the fast travel and job switching system causes more problems than it fixes. But I'd literally spend the entire day talking about why those systems are bad. You can jump in and have fun in many other games.

[@genjigearlive]

These are good points, I actually wanna play Strangers of Paradise now that you explained that resistance system, that is super smart!

[@magicslinky9931]

@@genjigearlive Trust me that's only one of MANY systems that are good about that game. It's a crime how underplayed it is.

[@Kyzar90]

First

[@genjigearlive]

lol

[@JelaniWood]

I will say this though. There is no wasted lore in this game. So all those fetch quests all those NPCs you think you'll never see again, they do come back and play a role later or a reference later. So even the busy work has a point. Eventually. In this game does a great job of tying up those loose ends and making those seemingly menial things pay off at some point. And this is what I tell people about the game when it comes to the story

[@genjigearlive]

People say this a lot but I think this is a big fundamental misunderstanding, just because they reuse an NPC later that was apart of a fetch quest earlier, doesn’t mean that initial fetch quest was vital and needed to be there. This is a case of water being a mile wide and a foot deep, vs a mile deep and a foot wide. This is what I am really talking about when I am saying main story content is some times filler, it should be left to side quests most of the time rather than taking up hours of mandatory gameplay that has very little to do with the overall story arch. I’m fine with smaller stories sprinkled in, but when it’s done again and again formulaically with beast tribe after beast tribe, it just gets a little too long winded. There are many examples of this, but the biggest one I point to is the wine fetch quest before the Titan fight. There is literally hours of wandering around the map talking to NPC’s who aren’t important to the story at all. It seems almost like they are all included to pad game time in the same horrible ways Blizzard has done in the past, I don’t think FFXIV is as bad of a culprit here but I don’t think we shouldn't pretend it’s don’t this perfectly just because they reference NPC’s from meaningless quests you did in ARR. There are of course exceptions though, Elidibus, Estenien, and other main characters.

[@Infeston]

@@genjigearlive Yeah. This quest. The funny thing is that this wine quest was especially designed to be this tedious and is also a nod to classic "MMO gameplay". The game even mocks this quest later in Shadowbringers in a certain scene, because how ridiculously tedious this quest was. As far as I know this is a slight nod to classic "MMO quest design" where you need to collect 10 bear pelts for some random dude, which is just boring gameplay most of the time. Maybe this is another quest which propably resonates more with people who are used to playing MMOs. But I agree that this quest propably could be removed. On the other hand, as weird as it sounds, I liked this quest, even though it was kinda tedious.

[@genjigearlive]

Right, I think it's fair and fine even to enjoy these quests, but that's kind of my point that I mentioned in the video, if you are bought into the world, you love the characters the story and you have a tolerance for these style of quests, then this is all a highlight vs a drag. That's why I spent extra time in Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3, FFIX, FFVII, Skies of Arcadia, just wondering around and doing every side quest. I just loved those games, and if these side quests were in the main story it wouldn't bother me, but I would understand that for some people this would turn them off because it is just "filler". I think this is mostly an issue when comparing MMO's vs Single player games. While MMO's do a unique thing, their stories are never truly the focus because the world is more set up for your individual player story and interaction with community vs the actually story of the game. FFXIV does a better job than most, but it's just not done as well as other FF's or other single player RPG's do in my opinion. @Infeston

[@Infeston]

@@genjigearlive Yeah I think it sadly also has to do with the MMO genre overall. Because those games have to handle a massive amount of players, you sadly can't design it the same way like single player games. Also because people identify with their character and grow attached to their character. MMO stories often have to be never-ending stories, because they are designed to be played consistently. Whereas some stories can have an open ending (like Cyberpunk), where it is open for interpretation what happens next, in FFXIV you will always experience the "the morning after the ending", which also often de-mystifies an open ending. In Cyberpunk it is left open for interpretation what happens with the city and the people living in it after the ending. You can't have a cyberpunk ending in an MMO, because an MMO story needs to continue constantly. You can never leave it open what happens after ending, because players experience what happens the morning after the events. So the medium MMO already kinda limits the way the story can be told, which sadly makes an ending like cyberpunk impossible (for obvious reasons) but on the other hand opens up other possibilities.

[@genjigearlive]

Yeah this is a good point, I think that’s something I really like in stories. Like good endings that leave you with something to chew on, but you’re right MMO’s, even if they wrap a story up have the next day they have to portray because of the genre. That’s an interesting point

[@jameslitz9819]

looking forward to the eventual "Returning to FFXIV" video that will undoubtedly drop when Dawntrail starts hyping up 🤐

[@genjigearlive]

lol don’t hold your breath ;)

[@RiogaRivera]

Keep milking 🐄 communitys 👍keep the good job

[@genjigearlive]

Thanks! Will do!

[@raiderglace8641]

Will have no idea how someone can have this opinion an have had played Shadowbringers....

[@genjigearlive]

It’s crazy how radically different people feel about this game, but interestingly enough after getting outside the FFXIV bubble I’ve found more people actually agree with me than don’t, even people who played the game since 1.0, just read the comments.