Reality Bites, So Go With Fantasy

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn comes out today! I’ve had the pleasure of partaking in the beta phases for the game, and I really liked it. Then, a friend was nice enough to get the game for me as an early Christmas gift, so now I’ve got something else to take up my time when I should be writing.

It seems like such a celebration of the franchise, too, because it has all of these nods to elements, themes, and even characters from the past games. It’s also part of that new wave of MMORPGs that actually present you with a story, at least with more than just presenting it to you in dialogue boxes we quickly skip through. It’s also nice because I’ve been bored with MMOs before, as I never liked simply standing around and trading blows with enemies that I never really felt like I was hitting. Guild Wars 2 was great because it was fast and frenetic, but I’m also not too good with keyboard and mouse play, at least jamming the the number keys while trying to stay mobile. I was born with a NES controller in my hand, after all (mom loved passing that, too). Final Fantasy XIV is sort of a nice mix between, a happy medium for me, where I have lots of different tactics to utilize and keep myself moving about, and it’s not so incredibly fast that I’m lost trying to figure out which skills to use.

I’ve been playing it on the PS3, and I’m surprised at how well they actually optimized the configuration with a controller. The targeting system gets a little wonky sometimes, but otherwise it’s put together very, very well. Plus, since this is a Square-Enix game, it’s graphics are gorgeous. Gotta love those particle effects.

If you’re gonna get the game yourself, maybe I’ll see you around the Siren server!

In other fantasy-related news, I started a heavily modified Final Fantasy-inspired D&D campaign with some of my close friends who had never really played before. We’ve had a blast so far, especially with unforeseen events like the healer being able to critically Diplomat an enemy into putting down his weapons, and pretty much all of the enemies rolling 3s and 5s the whole night, barely hitting anything but air. I have so many fun things in store for the players, and I’ve even got little character arcs set up for each of them to experience, and maybe get some special rewards out of it in the process.

It’s my first time being a DM, and there’s a lot to remember, but it’s a learning experience, and it makes the whole of it much more enjoyable. Never has grown-up pretend been so fun.

I’m also still, of course, working on Situation 0 -Amor Fati-, just being tight-lipped about it for now. Maybe I’ll have something else down the road.

Until next time, kiddies! Keep Yourself Alive!