Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

1. LastResource

   Jan 14, 2023

   10

   worth it and glad to play this game again. so much memories and nostalgia within this fourteenth game in the series. this expansion is breathtaking!

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
2. Odettehr

   Jun 24, 2015

   10

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The best expansion that i played on my alll life in mmos.The story is great, music excellent
   
   The scenary are beautiful, memorable character, new jobs are really funny, new abilities for all jobs are good
   The only bad point, i don know what i need to do for level another jobs to lvl 60… Expand

   • 16 of 19 users found this helpful
4. Kennyamr

   Jul 2, 2015

   10

   This is the continuation of the A Realm Reborn story arc. This directly follows what happens next after the great finale of ARR. Story is evenThis is the continuation of the A Realm Reborn story arc. This directly follows what happens next after the great finale of ARR. Story is even better than what it was before the expansion.The addition of the new jobs has expanded the ways of players to run through content and the new abilities included in ALL jobs are giving us the change to reimagine our rotations and create new ways to play. The new areas are really really large and they make you work to be able to fly, it is a bit of a pain at first but as soon as you are allowed to fly, Oh, man you will LOVE it! the story is amazing again and all of the new adjustments are very very good in general. I am very happy with the expansion and I'm looking forward to finally beat Alexander when it comes out next week! Good luck fellow adventurers! o/… Expand

   • 3 of 5 users found this helpful
5. ValValentine

   Jun 24, 2015

   10

   Amazing!, all you could ask from any MMORPG or a FF series game, great Main Story full of CS-voice, dynamic events (FATES), great music,Amazing!, all you could ask from any MMORPG or a FF series game, great Main Story full of CS-voice, dynamic events (FATES), great music, traditional questing more relevant now, beautiful and HUGE new maps, great dungeons and new primals. All jobs got new skills, 3 new jobs, flying feels great, new FC (guilds) options. 10/10… Expand

   • 12 of 16 users found this helpful
6. Starlightzz85

   Jun 24, 2015

   10

   I have been playing MMORPGs since the Everquest 1 days and have probably played every major MMO under the sun. I have experienced a lot ofI have been playing MMORPGs since the Everquest 1 days and have probably played every major MMO under the sun. I have experienced a lot of expansions, but Heavensward is in an entirely different league. I can honestly say it is the best expansion in the history of MMOs. It is the largest expansion ever released, and also very high quality. The amount of improvements over A Realm Reborn is staggering. The story writing is even better than before. The zones are huge and some of the most beautifully designed zones to ever grace an MMO. The music is amazing. They added a lot more voice acting in this one to please all the players that wanted more voice acting, and plenty of the voiced narratives is high quality stuff. The flying is handled perfectly, unlike the way WoW originally added flying, SE got it right. Being able to fly right out of the gate can break an MMO that was not designed with flying in mind, such as it did in WoW which is why they removed it originally. In HW you must unlock all of the aether currents in each zone to fly in that zone. Most of them you find through exploration, while a smaller portion comes from quests in the zone. By doing this SE not only answered players craving for more exploration, but also makes it where players can't just instantly skip over everything, and once you unlock flying there are plenty of quests and other locations that open up. SE plans to continue making full use of flying through future updates. They also made mobs in the open world more challenging as many complained that the mobs in ARR were too easy, but they did not make them so hard that casual players would hate the game. It's the perfect balance. The amount of details and love that went into this expansion is apparent. The cohesiveness and polish of it all blows other traditional style MMOs out of the water.… Expand

   • 14 of 18 users found this helpful
7. Jabborwacky

   Jun 25, 2015

   7

   The good:
   1. Story is objectively better than that which came before it. Yes, stories can be objectively better when dealing with basic formThe good:
   1. Story is objectively better than that which came before it. Yes, stories can be objectively better when dealing with basic form and common sense. If a story provides giant gaping loopholes that the characters could have exploited to avoid catastrophic situations, you will notice them and it will suck. You will be happy to find no giant "poison vial implication" loophole here like you did at the end of the "Before the Fall" patch.
   2. The new classes are interesting to see, if only for their story quests. Each provides a slightly different take on the traditional three roles, but for those hoping for something to break free of the trinity formula, you will be disappointed.
   3. The new areas are a welcome breath of fresh air. Despite my initial impressions from preview videos, each zone is refreshingly different from the last with the sole exception of Coerthas Western Highlands being fairly similar to Coerthas Central Highlands.
   
   The Bad:
   1. The inventory system: To understand the current problems with the FFXIV:ARR inventory system, you have to understand three things: First, we are free to play every class in the game on a single character; Second, FFXIV:ARR has a vanity system that lets you use older item skins over your current equipment if you so choose; and third, the same inventory space that will be used for half a dozen or more vanity sets will be used to hold any crafting materials you may be using or gathering. It's a glorious mess of epic proportions linked to a terribly managed server back end. The limits of a player's inventory prevent the exploration of all the game's many options on a single character without adding to the monthly sub by renting out more "retainers"- NPCs that act as the player's bank and auction house. Which brings us to number 2.
   2. Unlike games like World of Warcraft, where players have multiple factions with different story quests, FFXIV:ARR shares a single story shared by all players regardless of their origins. While the story does start out differently, it all converges together around the level 20 mark. This is old news, but is related to the continuing inventory issues. Cross-class skills require other classes to be leveled up, so two characters may end up leveling one of the same class regardless.
   3. The patch story wall: FFXIV:ARR runs on a linear story, so to get to the Heavensward content you'll have to visit all the story quests from the content patches. Whether you personally find this a detraction or not depends on how much you care for the story. The writing pre-Heavensward constantly shifts from adequate to terrible. The constant shifting between good and bad means that it inevitably drops the ball at some crucial moments, leaving the player tearing his hair out wondering why the characters would act a particular way when some obvious thing should have made them act differently. Before you get to where the story is genuinely good, you have to move through where development was clearly rushed.
   
   I would rate FFXIV:Heavensward in the 8-9 category, but with technical issues holding back players from engaging the game in particular ways (namely the inventory) and the requirement of new characters to go through nearly two years of patched in story of fluctuating quality, I have to rate is as a strong 6. The improvements beyond the 50 story wall bump it up to a tentative 7. Should they fix the inventory issue, the game would be an 8/10.… Expand

   • 4 of 13 users found this helpful
8. Spira

   Jun 25, 2015

   1

   Expansion isn't enough to make me stay.
   
   Before buying this be aware you must complete all MQ before you get the content, that includes theExpansion isn't enough to make me stay.
   
   Before buying this be aware you must complete all MQ before you get the content, that includes the new job roles which don't really add all that much to the game, the previous jobs are more than enough.
   As a Final Fantasy fan it brings me great pain to say the story is beyond terrible. The characters would be forgettable if they weren't so annoying. The dialogue hurts my ears (I never want to hear mayhap or pray tell every again) It is weak and often feels more forced than the stories you get at the beginning of 80's pornography video.Also, HIDE AND SEEK MOOGLE QUESTS, enough said.
   The exp required to level up now is painful, fates were my favourite way previously because the dungeons are dreadful, but have received a huge collapse in the amount rewarded, and my pvp queues haven't improved. Killing other players is the only challenging thing about the game, the rest is easy.
   The look of the game isn't as great as it people make out, there are far better looking mmo's out there, Elder Scrolls looks a million times better and no one even takes that game seriously. I like to explore, and with the new areas I was left disappointed. They're bigger, but not big enough. You don't ever get that real feel of being in another world
   
   The biggest issue I have with this game, is that the battles continue to feel more like a puzzle than a battle. You have 0 freedom in fights. If you're a DPS you are constantly repeating the same combos over and over even with the new abilities, they're cool for about 3 minutes then they just fall into line with the auto-pilot way of playing.
   
   With the new jobs, they've added a great sword to the dark knight, sounds powerful? Wrong. We're led to believe that a dagger and claws would hurt more than a sword or axe, this is pathetic. There's also the new race which looks terrible. The females look like they have goats horns and the males look like bad photoshops.
   
   I'm sure the best content is yet to hit but sadly the game is dead now. I pre-ordered the game and was hoping for so much more, enough so that it makes me want to stay because I've spent the last 8 months of my life playing it. I'm certain fans will vote this down as not being helpful because they don't agree with my opinion but it's not going to change the fact I think this game and the expansion sucks.
   
   Also to anyone who can't commit to less than 20 hours a week of this game - Do not buy it. There is very little this game does to make it enjoyable for casual players who don't live in their bedrooms.… Expand

   • 4 of 16 users found this helpful

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