WARNING: This is a translation of this post, as the original is in Spanish. As such, the content itself is the same, detailing how I originally wrote the post on September 10th 2023, so the "present time" and the events mentioned refer to when I made the original post public, instead of this translation. However this version may contain some improvements and/or additional notes not present in the original post.
FINAL FANTASY XIV, that elusive game for most mortals, as you have to pay a monthly subscription just to play it. However, those who have never played the game have a "compensation" with a "trial version" completely free and not short at all. Its details and, most importantly, my own experience with this free trial, are the topics of this post, and will make it into one of the longest ones I've ever written.
The Origin: My Story with the Game
While I started almost 3 years ago, the real start of my story begins on July 28th of 2023, precisely for the reason you may think about: The anouncement of the Dawntrail expansion (and the fact it remind me about the existence of both this game as a whole and its free trial). I also have a better PC than the one I had when I installed the game for the first time, so it now runs smoother and the computer doesn't agonize as much...
However, I think the most important thing is that I started from scratch, with a new character, a new class and, even more importantly, without uploading it to my YouTube channel (unlike I did on my first time and ended up giving up on the game and the series I was making).
That means I had all the freedom I lacked on my first gameplay (whether you like it or not, the way you play is different when you record/stream from when you play on your own), and, beyond some aesthetic changes, I also changed how I faced the game.
Why do I say this? Well... we could say that... I decided to skip each and every cutscene and dialogue of the game. Is this something I recommend doing? Absolutely not. However, I did this for two reasons:
First of all, the game doesn't support Spanish as a language, and forced me to play in English. Is that a problem for me? No. Almost all the content I consume on the Internet is in English (both from YouTube and for "normal" websites), and I can almost consider myself as trilingual. Nontheless, while I was understanding practically everything I was reading on the game, was it cutscenes or menus, as a non-English native, I ended up getting tired after a while, and given this game doesn't have a narrative easy to follow and understand, the same way other FINAL FANTASY games have... we could say I ended each playing session more tired than interested in the game, so I decided to "sacrifice" this vital part of the game to keep progressing through the game, as a "playable content" insted of a "story". Nevertheless, a benefit FINAL FANTASY XIV has in that regard is that I'll be able to create another character at any moment to give the story another chance, as the game has three distinct beginnings depending on the starting city you choose when selecting your character's class, and other races and classes to choose from, so the game offers several opportunities to relive the game again whether you want to have a new experience or you just want to relive the same story.
And second (yes, this is a list with two points and I went a very long way with the first one): I wanted to get the Magitek Armor mount as soon as possible, and it can be obtained as a reward to beat the final boss of the base game (so I had to pass through a lot of dialogue that would have taken me literally dozens of additional hours that kept me away from the mount). Having so much content is a good thing, no doubt about that, but I was consumed by the craving.
Before jumping to the next section... why don't I talk about my characters?
Mya Ventalto is the character I trully started playing the game, and the one I did my cancelled YouTube series with. She is a Midlander Hyur (the equivalent of humans on this game) and an Arcanist. I chose this class for two reasons: I wanted to use a class that uses magic and I liked how Limsa Lominsa looked and wanted it as my starting city.
I still have this character, and it's still at level 15 as an Arcanist, like when it was when I cancelled the YouTube series (I entered on that save file a couple more times, but never more than 5 minutes). If you're curious, this character is on the Odin server from the Light Data Center (EU).
Outside from that, everything related with the character is still on YouTube. The only thing you won't find there (because I do not comment over my gameplay) is... why did I choose that name? Well, for those familiar with my content, "Mya" is easy to guess, as it's the name I always use on my female avatars... Why, though? I dunno. I just liked the first time I used and now it's a tradition on my part (except on Splatoon 3). As for "Ventalto", that's the official Spanish translation of the popular dragoon surname "Highwind", but I used it because of Kain from FINAL FANTASY IV (as the DS remake did use that translation, while I recall other more modern games just keep "Highwind" without translating it).
After several years, when I came back to the game (and for real this time), I decided to create a new character instead of rescuing my deceased character for various reasons. First, I wanted to start from scrath because I didn't remember anything about the game (mainly its gameplay), and a new character would serve me as a "tutorial" to relearn how to play the game. I also wanted to play as a new avatar, as, at the moment, I was curious about the Miqo'te (and obviously didn't want to pay a Fantasia for such a short-lived character as Mya Ventalto). Lastly, I wanted to try a different class from the one I chose for my first time, to get an even fresher restart of the game instead of repeating content.
That brings us to my second (and currently main) character: Myaqo'te Reborn. The name "Myaqo'te", as you can see, is nothing more than a deformation of "Mya", mixed with the word "Miqo'te" to describe the "new version" of virtually the same character. As for the surname "Reborn"... I won't lie to anyone. I'm so bad at giving names to things, and that's the first thing that crossed my mind at the moment, both because of the main title of the game (A Realm Reborn) and to represent my personal "rebirth" in the game.
The class I chose for her this time was Conjurer, and that made me have Gridania as my initial city... And let me tell you that was a decision I'm glad I took, as I enjoyed this class way way more than I did Arcanist (for reasons I'll explain later on this post).
As you can guess, I've beaten the main story as Myaqo'te (so yeah, I've got the mount I so much desired). I also did several Manderville quest (though not all of the ones that are available for me yet) and several others, mainly the ones related to my main class, to the point of unlocking White Mage. I've leveled that class up to level 60 (the maximum level for the trial version at the moment of publishing this post) and I've unlocked almost all the other classes, both the combat ones or the "utility" ones (crafting and gathering). However, the only one I used for anything more than just unlocking it and trying how it looks (obviously with the exception of Conjurer/White Mage) is... Arcanist (not only for being the first class I used in the game, but because I wanted to summon more things than just Carbuncle).
There is something more I must confess, and that is the character of the previous picture... is not her appearence anymore... but not because I wanted to! Before explaining what happened, you have her current appearance on the right.
Why this change? Well, when I created the character I wanted to give it my birthday, but I noticed several days after its creation that I messed up and and put a "nameday" that corresponded to the day before. While irreversible by normal means, when you beat the main game you don't only get the mount but also a single phial of Fantasia (the only one you can get for free), which lets you change basically everything about your character once. When I changed the nameday, I took advantadge of it and tried to change the Miqo'te clan for the fangs and to have better magic stats (initially it was a Seeker of the Sun and I changed it to a Keeper of the Moon). However, while trying to figure out how the menus worked I accidentally clicked Accept... and got stuck with the generic template desing of the Keepers of the Moon (at least I did the aesthetician sidequest and could change my hairstyle, although by heart, so it's not exactly the same colour I previously had (yet)). Fortunately, that template design has several similarities with my original design, but it still bugs me out quite a lot.
And... well, that's my story with the game. I played a lot very fast, and now that I've beaten the main game I'm playing in a more relaxed way (mainly on Gold Saucer). Now then, time to stop talking about myself (directly). It is time to talk about the different aspects of the game (except the story, for obvious reasons).
Free Trial: Freedoms and Restrictions
I've only played the Free Trial, as, like I said before, to play the full game you not only need to buy it (and the expansions, if you want the full experience), but to pay a monthly subscription.
Obviously, playing a Free Trial comes with a lot of restrictions, and SQUARE ENIX uses those to persuade players into buying the game. Now I'm going to list all of these restrictions and mention my personal impact with them, as well as what content is available.
Real Money Shop Restrictions
FINAL FANTASY XIV has a shop, Mogstation, in which you can buy products for your account in exchange of real life money (emotes, costumes, weapons, mounts, the previously mentioned Fantasia... even the subscription and expansions). Well, Free Trial users can only buy some of these items, not all of them...
Specifically, Free Trial players can NOT buy Level Boosts, the Character Renaming Service, Ceremony of Eternal Bonding (basically a virtual marriage between two characters... yeah, I'm not joking), World Transfer, housing items (because we cannot buy houses), Main Scenario Progression, Orchestrion Rolls (in-game songs, basically) and Retainers. About Eternal Bonding, I think I saw around somewhere you can't even be invited to it, and I know there is a free version of this ceremony, but, while I didn't try it myself, I'd say both things are trully locked out the Free Trial players.
Additionally, Free Trial users also can't redeem codes, so no, you can't take advantadge of a generous friend gifting you codes to get free stuff.
Personally, with the sky-high prices of everything on this shop, I wouldn't care even if everything was restricted for Free Trial players (the only thing I'm interested is Fantasia to have my character back, but with that price, like everything else, they can put it where the sun doesn't shine).
Limited to 8 Characters
A "Free Trialer" can only create eight characters in total, and technically only one per world.
I say "technically" because amidst some tests I was doing I created a second character in the same world I have Mya on (Light - Odin) without problem. It might be that this was a real restriction time ago, but that they ended up changing it.
It's also worth noting that this max restriction is per region, so considering you can play in four different regions (America, Europe, Oceania and Japan/Asia), the total raises up to 32 characters per account.
If we ignore that and stick to the 8 limit, as I never even reached it I think it's a fair limit. There are a total of 6 playable races in the Free Trial (as Vieras and Hrothgars are content from the Shadowbringers expansion, hence unavailable on the Free Trial), so you can try each and every race and a couple of different clans too.
While you cannot create a character per class (there are 9 initial classes and only 8 character slots), it is possible to unlock each and every class and job in a single character, and, like I said before, there are "only" 3 unique beginnings (one for each starting city), So I don't think that's a problem... And you always can create even more characters on a different region.
Level Cap at 60
I'll say now that this limit will increase to level 70 when they add the Stormblood expansion as part of the Free Trial content. It originally was 35 (in fact, that was the current cap when I started playing with Mya Ventalto, although I was far from reaching it, as you've already seen).
The true max level a class or job can reach is level 90 (and will increase to level 100 once the Dawntrail expansion comes out next year)... But I think that's a logical restriction: all quests and content that requires a higher level than 60 (and 70 in the future) are from an expansion that is not included on the Free Trial, so it makes no sense to let the players raise to a higher level.
Gil Cap at 300.000
The Restriction I hate the most from the Free Trial.
It's very easy to earn money in this game, and considering how expensive a lot of things are that's a good thing (some things even cost you several million gil). Nonetheless, I think it is "too" easy to earn gil to put the cap so damn low, and it's even worse considering the prices of this game's items.
If that's a way to restrict players from buying expensive things (like housing, thing I believe is the reason of that specific cap), then just forbid the purchase of the specific elements to those who play on the Free Trial instead of putting that ridiculously low cap on gil income.
Unavailability of the Shout, Yell and Tell chat commands
Shout and Yell let your chat message to reach more people, as what people can see your messages depends on the relative distance between your character and the other players (Yell has a greater distance than Say (the default option), and Shout shows your message to all characters in the same zone as you).
On the other hand, Tell is the typical DM, a message that only the player you're sending it can see.
I think that, while I do not use the chat at all, it is not a good idea to limit communication in a game like this. I have some arguments for what this is, but I'll explain them later.
Friendship Limitations
This doesn't show up on the official restriction list, but the Free Trial players can receive Friend Requests, but not send them... Why? This is absurd. That's probably the reason why you also can't use the Tell command in chat, but it seems a ridiculous implementation. If there was a true purpose behind this, the whole Friend system would be blocked, not only sending Friend Requests, so I think this is just a dumb decesion from their part.
Marked Board Exclusion
You basically don't have access to sell and buy items from other players. Another heavy restriction (more for those interested in crafting), but I think it's understandable for a Free Trial perspective (this way you prevent players to abuse multiaccounts, "transfer" between characters, botting and things like that).
But there's no need to be affraid, as NPC vendors are still available. It will take longer to get things like specific weapons, armor, ingredients and such, but you can get them eventually by yourself.
Trade Exclusion
Similar to the previous restriction, you can't directly trade items or gil with other players. While annoying, it's still understandable to be banned for Free Trial players.
Delivery Moogle Exclusion
In a few words, you can't send nor receive letters from other players. I think of this the same as the chat ones: Being a social game that's a questionable restriction.
However, you CAN use it to receive purchased items from the Mogstation (if they're items that can be bought for a Free Trial account, as I said before).
Retainer Exclusion
They're basically an extra gil and item storage system, and they can also let you sell things to the Market Board... You do understand why you can't get them in the Free Trial, right?
Team Exclusions
On one hand, Free Trial players cannot join or create a Free Company nor participate on PVP content (like The Feast or Frontlines, and while it seems you can play PVP solo (or something like that), it seems that to is temporarily locked out due to overabundance of bots and cheaters who abused the Free Trial access, if it even gets enabled again at all). Free Companies are like teams or groups of friends, so I guess it makes sense is not available on the Free Trial (no, is not the same as Friend Requests). That aside, I also see why they closed PVP to Free Trial players: Aside from the problems mentioned before, being a side content with high value makes it a good hook to get the full game.
Free Trial players also cannot play to the Triple Triad minigame directly with other players, but the can still participate on Gold Saucer's Triple Triad open tournaments.
On the other hand, Free Trial players can JOIN on linkshells and Duty Finder groups, but cannot create them. That personally annoys me, but I can understand why they did it.
External App Exclusion
The use of Lodestone (a sort of social network to help connect players), the official forum and the Companion mobile app (it basically lets you get the information of your character on the phone).
Another stupid decision, in my opinion. I understand you want Free Trial people to buy the full game, but don't limit communication tools to your playerbase. People who play for free will use other methods like Reddit or third-party forums, so it makes no sense to block this kind of content... Can't a Free Trial player have the right to ask how do you get X item or how to beat Y boss? Quite a shameless restriction.
Low Priority Access to the Game
While it's not an "exclusion" per se, when you enter the game, people who have bought the game will access (and so start playing) the game sooner.
It's not like the waiting time is long (and you can also browse on the Internet or something like that while you wait), so I don't think it's that big of a problem, even at peak hours.
POST-CLARIFICATION NOTE: When I originally wrote this section I didn't even knew the queues to access the game when Endwalker launched were so long and lasted so much people even meme'd about it. The comment I originally made was written considering my own experience in the few months I played at the time of making the original post, and I never faced a queue longer than a minute by then. I know a new expansion launch is not the same as a random late point in the patch cycle of an expansion, but I thought it would be at least interesting to make that clarification.
Conclusions about Restrictions
While there are a bunch of sensible restrictions, some others make no sense and limit elements whose access should be of common sense. I don't think they have to remove those restrictions and call it a day, but I do think they have to limit content that makes sense to limit. It makes more sense to let Free Trial people out of some sidequest that is to don't let you make friends.
Content that IS Available on the Free Trial
I know I listed a lot of thing the Free Trial does NOT have, but I think it's more important to see what it DOES have.
The most obvious one is that includes not only the base game (A Realm Reborn), but also the Heavensward expansion, and the Stormblood expansion will be added to the list with the release of patch 6.5. Each expansion is like a game by itself, with quests, jobs, items, mounts and other elements that guarantee literally dozens of hours, if not hundreds.
Free Trial also includes 21 classes in total, some "evolutions" (improved versions) of them when they reach level 30 and you also equip a special crystal: Gladiator (which "evolves" to Paladin), Marauder (which "evolves" to Warrior), Conjurer (which "evolves" to White Mage), Arcanist (which can "evolve" to Scholar or Summoner), Pugilist (which "evolves" to Monk), Rogue (which "evolves" to Ninja), Archer (which "evolves" to Bard), Thaumaturge (which "evolves" to Black Mage), Dark Knight, Astrogian, Machinist and Blue Mage (limited to 80 spells or so). There are even more classes, exclusive to paid expansions, but the majority are available for free. It is true is not possible to unlock all the skills (as all classes have multiple skills unlockable after level 60), but, as I previously said, it doesn't make any sense for the content you have available.
It is also worth considering that ALL players can participate on event quests (like the Moonfire Faire of 2023, the most recent one), and can obtain their exclusive rewards. They may not be of your taste, but you can get some interesting things with these quests.
Truth to be told, even now I'm surprised that you can get mounts and minions at all (even though you obviously can only get those present on the available content for the Free Trial). I thought that would be something that only the players of the full game could get, but yes, you have access to EVERY mount and EVERY minion from A Realm Reborn and Heavensward (and Stormblood too in a few weeks). Once you beat the main game you also unlock flying mounts (a better wording would be that you unlock the ability to use mounts to fly), another restriction I thought they would implement.
Finally, Gold Saucer is also fully available, and, with the exception of some rewards linked to paid expansions (like Pod 602, which is linked to Shadowbringers), you have access to everything, both minigames and rewards (with the exception of Triple Triad, as I said before). This includes rewards added in patches from paid expansions (like the Blackjack mounth, which can be bought by Free Trial players even though it was introduced to the game in patch 6.3, which would be Endwalker content).
White Mage: The Life of a Healer
I would like to talk about all classes, but the only ones I tried for more than 5 minutes are this and Summoner (and while it's almost at level 50 and is the one I started with my first character, I don't know very much about it).
As a healer, your damage obviously sucks... but it's not useless, and the quests you do solo are made counting your atacks are not "quite potent". I can say Holy is possibly the best offensive spell it has, not only because is an AoE (able to hit multiple enemies at once, although its damage is lower than Stone II), but also because it inflicts Stun, preventing multiple enemies at once to move or attack for a short time (turning even shorter with consecutive uses until they become immune, and not even after too many uses), which is great for content like FATEs or simply when you deal with groups of mobs you want or have to deal with anywhere. Another relevant offensive spell is Aero, and while it's by far the weakest of the three offensive spells available on the Free Trial (at the time of writting this post), it does damage over time for 30 seconds (while other abilites from other classes also have a DoT skill that can even do more damage, this one last longer, letting me not to be too focused on when you have to reapply it).
The most important thing, obviously, comes as a support member on group quests. Your role on teams is to heal the rest (duh), instead of attacking the boss. Keeping the team alive for them to do the damage depends on you. While I miss some support magic like Shell and Protect, you have Cure, Regen (even though Medica II is an upgraded version almost mandatory) and even Raise, which... let's be honest, you sometimes end up without enough time to use all of them. Nonetheless, some "calmer" group quests let you have a more "offensive" role, only stopping to cast Cure or Regen from time to time, and while your damage is not significative, at least you can speed the things up, and that's a good thing.
Sometimes, with bosses with a lot of AoEs or enemies that apply a lot of pressure (especifically on larger groups), you can feel overwhelmed by having to heal so many people, but it's a role that makes you feel important and needed even though you're not directly helping defeat the boss, and also can be more relaxed, as you don't have to use too many actions even in the most critical moments. It IS important to have an adequate management of your MP consumption and, obviously, the remaining health of your team members, but leaving that aside, it's quite simple thanks to the tanks, who take the aggro on the one-target attacks (and you repay them by healing them more, as they end up being the ones they need it the most, for obvious reasons).
In short, that's a support job quite simple, but still as engaging as an offensive one, in my opinion.
In the future (I literally have hundreds of hours ahead of me, on this game) I want to try the tank role, but that will be a story for another time (if I even do a post about it in the future).
POST-CLARIFICATION NOTE: Here I sound like one of those noob healers who refused to attack and only heal, but even then I attacked in all types of content. What I meant was the most important thing to focus as a healer is to heal, and that the damage I did was very small in comparison to the other roles, so it's less important (but not utterly useless as I made it sound). Also, I improved a lot as a healer since then. Don't kill me, plz y.y. Also I did end up doing that other post.
Crafting and Gathering Classes: From the Saw to the Fishing Rod, Passing by the Skillet
While I didn't try them that much, that's a class category that I didn't know existed and didn't expect to do. They are classes that let you get things instead of using them in combat: You can get items (such as fish, armour pieces, weapons or materials for other classes to use), repair your stuff (and you can even give them additional stuff, like increased durability), prepare dishes to get buffs, make potions with even more buffs...
Some items (like some orchestrion rolls) can only be aquired by crafting them with different materials using these classes, which give them an additional value, even more considering they let you "disconnect" your mind from battles.
These classes also act as a minigame by itself, as getting the best quality is not an automatic process, nor is a random thing (well, it DOES depend on RNG, but not completely), making things more interesting... However, those interested in going fast with all the crafting process can do so by the automatic crafting (though from a specific level onwards, after trying the class by yourself a bit and only if you already crafted that item).
I personally don't do it so much, but I thank its existence, as if offers even more variety to this already varied game.
Gameplay: Dungeons, Trials, FATEs...
A lot of quests are limited to just "Go to X place and talk to Y character", "Kill X amount of Y monster" (or the equivalent of "Get X amount of Z material from Y monster") or "Inspect X place" (that usually ends up with an ambush). These are the simplest quests, but they are used to help you understand how combat works... Yeah, further on it's used as filler content to extend the story... but I don't find that wrong, to be honest.
There is an alternate version of this kind of quests, tribal quests. They're daily quests that are basically what I said before, but at least offer you exclusive rewards depending on the tribe. Furthermore, as there is a limit of quests you can do each day, there is an incentive to play every day to reach a high alliance level with each tribe and get the exclusive rewards. Also, for each "reputation level" of each tribe there is a special more "unique" quest that let's you go up a "reputation level".
But these are all things you can do by yourself in your solitude. There are lots and lots of other "modes" available to mainly play with other players (although for some big story-related quests they can be replaced by NPCs).
Let's start talking about the "story mode", the Main Scenario Quests (or MSQ for short). As such, most of them are quests like the ones I previously described: Go to this place, talk to that character, kill those monsters... but usually adding special dialogues or even cutscenes (some are even dubbed!) explaining thte story. As I said before, I skipped all of this narrative just because I wanted to go fast, but the small experience I've had with the plot (both from my first character as from the beginning of my current main character) seems interesting, at the same level of the other mainline FINAL FANTASY games. I don't know if this quality level is mantained for the most important parts of the story(ies), but at least it has a promissing start(s, as there are 3).
As for the other type of main quests, there are 3 categories (also available as content for sidequests), although in the moment of writing this post (POST-CLARIFICATION NOTE: Obviously the original post, not actually this current post) I only tried two of them: Dungeons, Trials and Raids.
Dungeons are isolated zones (basically a bunch of hallways and rooms, nothing too complex, but are not places that you can freely roam in the open world) with several enemies and minibosses, and a tougher boss at the end. To traverse the dungeons, you sometimes need to do some tasks, like pick a key or explode a hole in a wall, which makes navigating them a fresher and more unique experience, even when all of them are quite same-y gameplay-wise. You must enter as a group of four: Two DPS, a tank and a healer.
Trials are a single fight against a tough boss, usually eidolons (like Ifrit, Titan or Garuda). The area is limited to the "combat arena", but it doesn't need more, if you just participate in a singular fight. As you only do one fight, bosses are more complex, have more health and a larger repertoire of attacks, and the game compensates this with teams of 8 players instead of 4 (two healers, two tanks and 4 DPS), making the encounters a tad bit more frantic, but also funnier (I want to specify that the firsts trials keep the 4 player teams because are simpler, like a "tutorial" for future trials).
Finally (in regards of the story), we have the category I haven't personally tried yet: Raids. Following what I've read, they're more or less a combination of the previous two types of content: traversable levels separated from the main world (like dungeons) with a final boss more complex at the end (like the ones from the trials). Considering that the third raid has Cloud of Darkness from FINAL FANTASY III as the final boss... you can understand why I want to try this content so much (I didn't want to progress through the story just in case, but I suppose I'll do it soon now that the new expansion approaches to the Free Trial). I've also read there are alliance raids, that increase the amount of players to 24... TWENTY FOUR! That's crazy... but NieR quests (that I obviously can't try because they're not available in the Free Trial, unfortunately) are this kind of raid, so... even crazier for sure (you don't know how much I want to play this).
I'm now done talking about the "mandatory content", but there is still a lot of optional quest types and modes to talk about. I still have to talk about FATEs, levequests/guildleves), Hall of the Novice, Palace of the Dead, The Hunt and PVP. I won't talk about the last two because I didn't try it on my own (but both of them seem quite straightforward: You just have to kill a specific tough enemy in the overworld for the first one, like they do again in FINAL FANTASY XVI, and the other one is... PVP, player(s) versus player(s).
FATEs (acronym of "Full Active Time Events") are basically a group of one or several types of enemies that must be defeated before time runs out and with a level cap (like other content with this kind of restriction, you can temporarily reduce your character's level to participate in them). They're generally quite simple activities, as the enemies you have to defeat usually are similar to the ones populating the zone. However, sometimes (mainly in later zones) you get some twist here and there, adding a miniboss to defeat. Nothing too impressive, but it's satisfying to make a stop along the way from time to time to do a FATE and see how other players that pass by gather to join. It is an undeniable original concept that changes the usual random fights against world mobs.
Levequests or guildleves are quests that can be repeated, but have an allowance limit (if what I saw is true, as I personally never reached that limit, you can only do 3 per day). Each category (combat, crafting or gathering) has its own quests, but are not too different of the quests you regularly do for them... Nonetheless, I appreciate having an alternative that can be repeated as many times as you want. I'll just say it took me a longer time that I like to admit to understand how the peck you activate this kind of quests, but once you know how to do it, it turns into a more thoughtless process once more.
Hall of the Novice is a group of tutorials to learn how to use the combat roles depending on the one you have equipped (tank, healer or DPS). They're tutorials worthy of a dictionary entry, with very controlled environments and very precise instructions about how to do your job through several missions, where each one of them is focused on a particular topic and end with a "final test" where you put into practice all you have learned. It's nice to see that there is an option so clear to be able to understand how to play your role, but I also like they give you good rewards (if you do them when it matters, obviously) and that they're optional (for those who don't want to do them (as they are in a secondary character or just because they dislike tutorials) so no one is forced to do what it's usually half an hour of quests... per role).
Last but not least, Palace of the Dead. My first thought when I tried this mode for the first time was "It's like a Mystery Dungeon game inside FINAL FANTASY XIV", which surprised me, but positively... Well, I say this, but it's not 100% like that (the rooms are directly connected instead of by long, narrow hallways, you don't move in a check board and there is not a hunger meter or anything similar that limits your exploration in each flor, exploration that is also faster). I've only reached the 10th floor, but at least at this point is relatively fast to reach, and when you do it you have to fight against a boss (so I suppose there is one each a specific amount of floors, probably each ten). I liked this concept, but at least when I found about it and tried it for the first time it took me a lot of waiting time to form a mere group of 4 players (myself included).
In summary: There's a lot of variety and hundreds of hours of content, as most of it can be played as many times as you want.
Ode to Manderville: Who Doesn't Like Fanservice?
While I still didn't finish its quest chain (does it even have an ending, nowadays?) and I skipped several cutscenes... I did not skip all of them, and mainly for one reason: Gilgamesh.
For those who may not know, Gilgamesh is my favourite character of all FINAL FANTASY, and one of my favourite characters in the whole videogame industry. He's quite clumsy and goofy, and also a nice and friendly guy, but he too has proven time and time again that he is tough and offer hard and engaging challenges. This is kept in this quest chain (as well as everything related with the search for Enkidu), but is expanded even further with the relationship he develops with Hildibrand Manderville, Nashu Mhakaracca and Godbert Manderville, a group of characters as or even more ridiculous (in a good way) than Gilgamesh, complementing him perfectly (though Gilgamesh has a more secondary role in these quests, but it doesn't bother me at all) and giving rise to hilarious moments that made me laught out loud.
I wanted to upload this quest chain to my YouTube channel, but I couldn't due to problems with my capture program and because I started the first quest without knowing.
I consider this quest chain a 10/10, and I'm grateful to have TWO different trials against Gilgamesh, with unique mechanics and fully keeping how the character is (I like the attack with which it turns you into a frog and makes "Enkidu" chase you, and he keeps his six-armed version for the second trial).
Minigames: Hours and Hours of Content to Pass Time
I'm going to focus on Gold Saucer, because I don't know if there are more minigames or not.
There is a lot to pick from. For a start, we have the "beeg minigames": Chocobo racing, Lord of Verminion, Doman Mahjong and Triple Triad. We then have GATEs (acronym for "Gold Saucer Active Time Events") and the "minigames" (there are other things, like Cactpots, but that's a straight-up lottery, not minigames, and "Fashion Report", where you have to dress up as the game wants you to). Each minigame rewards you with MGP (acronym for "Manderville Gold Saucer Points"), which can be exchanged for a myriad of rewards: Orchestrion rolls, hairstyles, gear, mounts, minions...
Now let's go minigame by minigame.
Chocobo racing, originary from FINAL FANTASY VII, is what you can expect You mount a chocobo and race to see who reaches first to the finish line (wow). It has an style a tad bit like Mario Kart, with power-ups to buff yourself or hinder your opponents, but it also have unique mechanics like the stamina. However, the most striking thing is sadly not on the Free Trial, and that's the chocobo breeding (AKA customization of your "vehicle"), as the chocobo you race with is not the same as the one you have as a mount, and that option is restricted to your house (and, as I said before, you can't have a house in Free Trial). While enjoyable, this, alongside the fact there is only three "tracks" to race on, makes it nice... but you get tired fast, at least for a Free Trial player.
Then we have Lord of Verminion, that is an awesome idea to take advantage of your minions (basically, to use them for more than a cosmetic that follows you around almost anywere). Each minion has a "type" (like Pokémon) that forms a triangle ("monster" is strong against "poppet", which is strong against "critter", which is strong agains "monster"... and then we have "gadget", that is neutral against everyone). There is a lot of stuff to explain and I'm not gonna bother doing so, as this is a very complex minigame (and the matches are very long) and this is a post about my opinion, not an informative one (well, it partially is, but for that much info you will understand it better reading a wiki), so just stick with this being an interesting concept that give each and every one of your minions their own value and personality.
Doman Mahjong... I'll be honest with you. I only tried it once and I did not get how it worked at all, so I didn't pay attention to it. It's a very confusing minigame that doesn't explain well enough how it works (and that's if they do, unlike the other two previously mentioned minigames) and I ended up blindly following the automatic recommendations the game gave me just to not win anyway. I don't say it's bad, but with its complexity and how poorly explained it is I'm not finding it attractive.
Finally for the "beeg minigames" we have Triple Triad, which FINAL FANTASY VIII fans will know quite well (I guess FINAL FANTASY IX fans too because of Tetra Master, but FINAL FANTASY XIV uses the original 3x3 format). You play this like in the original: A cross of numbers from 1 to 9 (or A for the highest value) determines each side of your card. If the card is besides yours has a lower number on that side you claim it, but the same can happen to your card if your rival uses a higher value card on yours. This version has a lot of new additional rules than in the original game (aside from classics like "Open" or "Random", we get new rules such as "Ascension", which increases the value of the same type of cards with each use, or "Chaos", which makes the game choose randomly which card you and your opponent have to play next each round). This not only offers you more variety (there are a ton of NPCs that can be challenged and even more cards to collect), but is also extended thanks to multiplayer, as you can play against real people and there are tournaments that are held from time to time.
Now it's time to enter to the realm of GATEs, multiple minigames selected half-randomly that happen every 20 minutes (at XX:00, at XX:20 and at XX:40).
First, Leap of Faith, that's basically a platform circuit in which you have to reach the end collecting cactuar statues (the more difficult to reach these are, the more points they give). This concept will be expanded with the Fall Guys collab, but at the moment of publishing this post the original post, these versions are not available yet. Personally, I don't like these minigames that much. They are too long, give too little MGP for how long you take to complete them (compared to other GATEs) and a lot of the jumps of the three circuits and variations are simply unfair (they don't work with the physics and movement mechanics of the game).
Next we have Air Force One, a rail shooter: Hit the targets (except the ones with a Bomb, as they make you lose points). Some variations can be tight, generating a bomb target in front of a normal one after you shoot but before the projectile hits it, or swiftly moving to cover other targets you want to hit. It's relatively short, but those who play in console / with a controller will suffer it more (not my case, though).
Cliffhanger is another platforming game, this time inside Gold Saucer itself (there are two variants, one on the rocky room and another on the room with the giant presents). Both variants are way easier and shorter than Leap of Faith, and while it gives you less MGPs, I don't mind because it's so fast (you finish it in less than half a minute, probably being the fastest of them all, if you know to move through fast). Because of this, it's possibly the best one on a time-reward ratio.
Finally, Any Way the Wind Blows and The Slice is Right are two variations of the same minigame. In the first one you can move a bit, but then you're immobilized, Typhoon appears on a random spot and generates an AoE that you cannot avoid (you have to be lucky enough to pick the spots where Typhoon won't "attack" to remain on the platform). The second variation is the same, but you can move (almost) anytime. It lasts way longer and I'd also say that it is almost impossible to reach the end (every time I tried it no one was able to do it), the collisions are sometimes just ridiculous because how little space you have to avoid the "attacks". Both are good, but the lack of control makes them not as valuable (as you can guess, I think that Air Force One and Cliffhanger are the best ones to get MGP).
To wrap this up, we have the "minigames", that you can get a very small amount of MGP in exchange of a 1 MGP payment (it's the safest and "fastest" way to get MGP, but the one you earn the least, so it's the least advisable one (fortunately, everything that implies paying MGP to participate (maybe with the exception of Triple Triad, as it's harder to win every time) you can get that payment back with (a lot of) interests effortlessly. They're equivalent to arcade games, and most of them require hitting a button on the exact moment: Crystal Tower Striker is the equivalent to the hammer game (you hit the machine as strongly as you can to make the meter rise the tower as high as possible), Cuff-a-cur is a boxing arcade machine, Monster Toss in a basketball one and Moogle's Paw is a claw machine. There are a couple ones that are more unique: Out of a Limb and The Finer Miner, in which you have to guess the "weak spot" looking at bars or circles that are constantly moving. My favourite one of all of them is Out of a Limb, as it is (with its pair) the most fleshed out, I'm relatively good at it (not like with the other one) and it's the one that gives the most MGP of them (you take a little longer, but the time-reward ratio is still better than the rest of the machines), or at least it's the one I beat more easily.
In general, all of Gold Saucer minigames are fun and you have a lot of different options to get MGP (that is the reason why you play these minigames)... although I must say that the prices of most of the rewards are so high it makes me want to cry (I guess that they do it that way to increase how much time you spend on the game... but there are a lot of other things to do in this game, already).
Cross-platform: Limited but Enjoyable Multiplayer
This is the first of a final list of smaller sections, as they don't have as much to cover (and, in this case in particular, I didn't personally tried it, at least knowingly), but with the Xbox version around the corner (beaing already a reality), I think it's worth mentioning it.
For those unaware, there are not dedicated servers for each platform, so any player can play with (or against) any other player, regardless of the platform they're on. For example, someone (because I can't due to be a Free Trial player) could create a group on PC and recruit a player playing on PlayStation 4, another playing on PlayStation 5 and another one playing on Xbox (when it comes out, obviously), and the four of them would be playing together without a problem.
That's something that seems common sense, but there are a lot less games of this style that should handle online like this but don't, so I appreciate that this game has it, even more considering you can add the Free Trial and the full game players playing together to the mix. The only limitation between them is the quests you have available, not the platform you're on.
Fashion: Battling with Style
As any good RPG, this game has a pile of clothing, weapons and accessories that improve your offensive and defensive stats. Also, obviously, 99% of all of them end up becoming unusable junk the farther you progress in the game, and most of the designs end up buried into oblivion... or so it would be if this was a conventional RPG.
There are a couple of options in this game focused on fashion that prevent and improve this: Glamour and dyes.
Glamour lets you give the appearance of a piece of cloth, a weapon (or shield) or an accessory to another piece of the same category, so you can use its appearance without being affected by its stats, as you can apply it to the ideal piece in that regard. It usage is limited to the amount of Glamour Prisms you have, and it determines the amount of gear you can do this with (one Prism per change), but as long as you have them you can make changes without limit. It can also be undone using a Clear Prism, so you can give that same gear piece another appearance, if you want.
Also, dyes are as obvious as they seem: You can change the colour of various pieces of cloth and armor. It doesn't matter if you want to use a jacket with a hood but you want it to be yellow and you have it maroon, you just use a dye and that's it. Then you can combine it with a Glamour Prism and have a customized cloth piece in your gear with the best stats you have.
Those who know me are aware that I ADORE everything that gives you more options and the ability to customize things, whether I end up using it or not, so you can imagine how much I like these options.
Seasonal Events: How to Keep the Community Alive
As a social game, it depends on its community to pay them the subscription religiously, so what a better game to keep your community alive than offering seasonal events: You offer quests that can be related to the real world festivities (like summer or Christmas) or celebrations (like the current one, The Rising 2023, whichs is made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the game) and exclusive rewards to keep interest on its limited access.
Yes, it can turn into a quite dirty tactic (more so considering some of these rewards can only be obtained paying with real mone once the event in question is over), and while some events and rewards cannot be currently obtained, some come back in future events (again, with this year's The Rising event that is currently running) and it's an attractive incentive to everyone, like it or not, even for those in the Free Trial (although in some cases can be harder for them given the restriction on the amount of content available that can play).
Personally... I don't know, I just hope the FINAL FANTASY XV event eventually comes back, as I wasn't playing when they last did it and I'd love to have the Regalia as a mount, but other than that I don't see it as a good or a bad thing.
FINAL Thoughts
This may have become the longest Corner (POST-CLARIFICATION NOTE: My original Spanish blog is called "El Rincón de Timeman", that can be translated as "Timeman's Corner", and I call all my posts "Corners", just because I like to do so) I've ever written (at least without separating it into multiple smaller ones). Even so, you have to admit there is a lot to talk about (and that's considering I ommited or abreviated a lot of things).
But to what it matters... Is this game worht of your time if you play it for free? And paying for it? I personally think yes in both cases. As a free player you literally have hundreds of hours of quality content that you will probably never finish it fully, and if you pay for it you get even more (and sometimes even better) content and hours of fun. AS for the expansions... if they keep with what they're doing with Stormblood and keep adding expansions to the Free Trial every two years (more or less)... it depends on how much patience each one has, but even if it ends up as free content I don't think it can be considered as "wasting money" for those who payed for them: You enjoyed that content before the others, and depending on the version that is current when you buy it, you can even get some exclusive things.
Personally, my current personal economy is not good enough to be able to pay for the full game like I'd want to, but it's quite probable I end up buying it (and all the expansions up to that moment) once I have enough money to not have to worry about the monthly fee (or every whatever-time-is-it-you-have-to-regularly-pay) of the subscription.
That's all for this time. Until next time. Myaqo'te out!
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