LIFE

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward long-term review | Technobubble

Cameron Duren
RGJ
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward.

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Back in 2013 we had no idea what to expect. Naoki Yoshida had been working on rebooting Final Fantasy XIV — one of the biggest black stains for a major video company in history. What was going to happen? Would it be worth playing?

Fortunately, the answer ended up being a huge yes for Final Fantasy fans. "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn" proved to be fresh while still having the little quirks of a Final Fantasy game. It also was a pretty solid MMO experience in its own right overall. Fast forward a couple of years later and we saw the release of Heavensward expansion.

"Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward" adds several new classes to the mix.

Now you may be asking why write a review so long after release? I think for a game of this scale you need to play as much as you can and experience as much of its world before you can sit down and complete an honest review. With Patch 3.1 just releasing with a fresh addition of extra content, now sounded like the perfect time to finally release a review of the full expansion. Do note that this review will have minor spoilers of some of Heavensward's main story and major ones from the very end of A Realm Reborn's main campaign. As a public service announcement, keep in mind that playing Heavensward requires beating ARR's entire story, including all five of the content patches.

Heavensward starts off fresh from the wounds of betrayal that happened at the end of the ARR story. As a refugee, you now must travel to the wonderful world of Ishgard to clear your name and restore order back to the lands while assisting this new country with their own problems. While it seems like a nice land on the surface, however, there are also some rumblings of deceit simmering just below the surface.

Heavensward introduces multiple new areas from floating islands in the sky and snow-covered mountain zones, all the way to an area exclusively for moogle quests. To assist in traversing the new lands they have introduced flying mounts into the game. Allowing yourself to fly In a zone is an entire mini-game in itself. Other noteworthy additions include three new jobs: Dark Knight, Machinist and Astrologian. This brings the ranged physical DPS class count up to two as well as tank and healers up to three, providing more options to everyone.

The Dark Knight has a small mix of the Warrior's heavy damage-dealing and the Paladin's mitigation but is slightly weaker in both regards. That doesn't mean this hulking beast is bad. The Dark Knight can handle it's own in any tanking situation and even excels during high magic damage fights.

The Machinist is a gun-wielding class that has some support moves like the Bard and puts out tons of damage to boot. This steampunk class may seem a little strange when compared with aesthetics involving spears or magic but the Machinist has swag and tons of damage to boot.

The guiding star Astrologian is the new healer class. Able to switch between the healing styles of a White Mage or Scholar, Astrologians excel at adapting to different situations and buffing targets in the group. They may not be able to put out the damage that other healers can produce but the buffs the provide can more than make up for it.

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Folks looking to rock a new race will also likely dig the addition of the new dragonkin called the Au Ra. This new playable race features imposing men or petite yet vicious females and is the closest to a Monster Race we have so far in the game. There are also changes for all the old classes, which get a bit of a refresh. One example would be Dragoons, which get a whole new finisher for their combos and a buff to maintain. While maintaining this buff you gain the ability to shoot a pretty awesome dragon out at enemies to do some AoE damage.

The new dungeons in the game feel really well made as well. There is variety and a little bit of difficulty to break up the monotony of grinding and questing or just to do something new with friends. The bosses are rather smartly made such as one of the bosses sporting a simpler version of mechanics found in an ARR raid. It seems that they put a lot of effort in trying to increase the base skill of the playerbase for new players.

Since launch there has been changes to the original crafting and gathering. At launch it was a little lackluster on what you could create and do but once they added Scripts it added a fresh new layer of work and profit to be made. They now allow you to create high-end rare items by gathering rare items found only with scripts from items on an ingame timer. It's an interesting mechanic though doing it after a while may be a little boring as you still have the ability to be an endgame crafter or gatherer exclusively without really playing a combat class.

If you are a fan of endgame grouping and partying, the game is following the four boss turns that it started in ARR with the amazing holy mech Alexander. You get to travel through the inner workings of this behemoth and fight different boss monsters in each zone. They have also added Void Ark in the newest patch which I haven't had a chance to play yet but I hear great things about. There is even some PVP to be had if you want to test your mettle on the battlefields or in an arena-like setting. This game has something for everyone.

So, uh, what was that saying about a bird in the hand being better again?

I don't want to go too much into the story of Heavensward because it's such a fantastic experience. There is so much you can accidently spoil for a player who has never seen the game before. There is backstabbing, betrayal and redemption — all key themes in Final Fantasy games that make it here. They even expand on the Relic Quests and also bring back people from the Hildebrand quest line for some more amazing quest experiences.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, you'll literally get hundreds of hours of gameplay to do, with more content added roughly every three months. This is hands down the best MMO on the market currently, in my opinion, and I think every Final Fantasy fan should at least play it through. Even if you're not the type to join clans, it's a game you can play almost exclusively solo except for a couple bosses and some mandatory dungeons. If you have been waiting on picking up Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward there is no better time than now to pick it up. It's a solid 4.5 out of 5 for me.

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