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| Cyro sporting her vanity outfit and transfigured dagger and spellbook |
Lately I've been wasting a lot of my time with Rift Storm Legion and the (NDA has been semi-lifted) Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn beta. Thus far both games are excellent in their own right, but I wish that Rift had Final Fantasy's animation quality, which is the best I've ever seen in an MMO and I wish that Final Fantasy had Rift's open world, climbable mountains and swim-able waters.
You see, in Final Fantasy you can't swim, or even approach bodies of water and most mountains are completely inaccessible due to invisible walls you hit when you try stepping off the beach, docks, bridges when you've ascended into foothills more than a few meters up.
Also the world of Eorzea is neatly parceled out into separate zones. You have to pass portals and loading screens between areas in the world, and even within the cities. I don't know whether this is a limitation of the game engine, or some kind of concession to make things easier to port to the console version. All I know is that combined with the invisible walls it serves to really interrupt immersion.
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| My Miqo'te Thaumaturge/Conjuror - Keeper of the Moon tribe |
Contrast this to Rift where the developers put collectibles called 'artifacts', loot-able grave sites called 'cairns' and challenging puzzles, all in hard to reach locations on the tops of mountains, the roofs of buildings, under the earth in caves and even underwater... most of which are places that are impossible to reach in Squeenix's newly re-designed Eorzea.
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| Mountain-climbing is satisfying in Rift, even when you don't find any shinies |
However regardless my misgivings over the rather limited exploration in A Realm Reborn I do plan to play the game at launch. I pre-ordered the game last year and have been anticipating this title for quite some time now. I'll be playing ARR with a small cadre of friends that I got to know during my brief stay in TERA and I look forward to having a great time with all of them.
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| My beta main taking in the dawn of a new day |
I think that's what it comes down to. Without friends to experience them with, large beautifully crafted worlds are still flat and lifeless without companions to share your adventures with.
Much like life out here in Meatspace.
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| A friend and myself sunning ourselves at a hidden resort |
