Today Kerwin Tsang, our representative at E3, had a chance to participate in a hands-on demonstration of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm reborn at Square Enix’s booth.
The floor show for Square Enix featured a number of PCs running the studio’s current major MMO Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. While visiting the booths for the various studios, Kerwin took the time to experience one of the game’s many raid bosses.
“They had us in batches of eight, each player was assigned a computer that had a different class. They were, Black mage, white mage, bard, paladin, monk, warrior ,scholar, and dragoon. The game ran on desktops, but we had a choice of using keyboard/mouse or PS4 controller.
The goal of the demo was for everyone to work together to take down a Leviathan, a giant dragon-like beast. The level took place on a large wooden platform in the middle of the ocean.
Everyone had to defeat the leviathan without getting killed or tossed into the water.”
The game demonstration comes hot on the tail of yesterday’s announcement of Final Fantasy XIV’s 2.4 update. During their live conference Square Enix gave a presentation on the new content coming with the update, including both a new playable class (with accompanying master class) and the addition of gay marriage to the game’s many role playing features.
Final Fantasy XIV’s history is far from spotless. The game’s initial release was plagued with problems, including the dubious inclusion of a special currency required to purchase game access time. A Realm Reborn was the game’s re-release, fixing many of the user-friendliness issues of the original. With the re-release the game went from being largely mocked by critics to being a well-respected addition to the MMO landscape, and with successful release on the PS3 and PS4 the game has an impressive scope.
Kerwin’s adventures with the game concluded with the completion of the raid boss, giving him a chance to experience the game in all its glory.
“I guess it’s not really a demo since the game’s already out; its more of an opportunity for the people there to play one of the harder bosses in the game in a more communal fashion. They also had two emcees doing play-by-plays of the action, and assuming your team succeeded, you would get a ticket for free T-shirts that said ‘I beat leviathan battle challenge.'”
E3 is always a big time for MMOs. Square might be keeping largely mum about their plans for Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3, but at least with Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn they are showing continued dedication to an already impressive franchise.