so, given how much there is, how different it is from FFXI, the vexillology of each nation's

flag... so I'm back, after another week of fighting the demon 1017 errors and emergency

maintenances. Yeah, it's been a bit rough, but the payoff's been worth it all. Any game

can have action and thrills and spills and whatnot... but sometimes what you really want

is to find a particularly picturesque spot, put on your waders, and FISH.

Back in FFXI, if you wanted to increase your movement speed, your options were at L25 Thief,

L37 Bard, L76 Corsair or L86 Summoner - that is, unless you wanted to shell out millions

of gil for a marginal increase on your gear. Teleportation was the sole domain of White

Mages, while Warping was a Black Mage task. Every class in XIV, from Lancer to Leatherworker,

now gets all those at level 1, though returning to your home point sits on a rather lengthy

timer and teleportation costs a nominal quantity of gil. Don't wanna shell out the cash? Find

your nearest chocobo porter, who will give you an auto-piloting chocobo for a fraction

of the cost. Nice if you need to get up and stretch your legs. On the other hand, if you

need to be functional while crossing town to deliver $5000 to the assessor's office

for the St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud orphanage, you can automate rote crafting for up to 99

syntheses, provided you've got the raw materials and it's something you've crafted before.

But then you'd be depriving yourself of the chance to use FFXIV's overhauled crafting

system to fine-tune the quality of your items (and greatly increase the EXP yield for making

them).

But let's get into raids, since that seems to be a selling point for most games. As I

mentioned in the first half of this review, the Duty Finder is the gateway to most of

the instanced content, since 90% of the time it beats yelling your lungs out for that tank

you need. When you register, your current job and your selected raids are locked in,

and you enter a queue to find you a spot with an ad-hoc party from your server cluster.

Once you're registered, though, you can change jobs and go make some skillets or whatever;

when your number comes up, you can change back and instantly transport to the instance.

These tend to be more complex than the "Sit back and wail on whatever moves" nature of

FATEs, with more coordinated packs of mobs and some right gimmicky bosses. But then again,

what would a Final Fantasy be WITHOUT gimmicky bosses? The only problem is targeting in fast

and frenzied action... especially if your target is like ten yalms tall.

Through it all, Final Fantasy XIV walks a line between referential and reverential,

keeping its storyline, characters, and world steeped in a rustic blend of foul-mouthedness

and British accents (now we see the ramifications of the whole Project Rainfall debacle), even

while the quest names and achievements reference... deep breath here... Drowning Pool, Inspector

Gadget, House M.D., Destiny's Child, Lance Armstrong, Shaft, 50 Cent, Monty Python and

the Holy Grail, The Bar-Kays, Blue Öyster Cult, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Star

Trek, Madonna, American Pie, Dragon Age, Led Zeppelin, Men in Black, My Little Pony, Pimp

My Ride, The Doors, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dance Dance Revolution, Spirited

Away, The Cider House Rules, The Fugees, Big Trouble in Little China, Beetlejuice, Flowers

for Algernon, Toxic Avenger, Parasite Eve, Sense and Sensibility, Great White, All Dogs

go to Heaven, For Your Eyes Only, Minority Report, MC Hammer, and Star Wars!

MMORPGs don't really get second chances. I mean, how many have you watched rise and fall

in matters of months? By all accounts, Final Fantasy XIV is an aberration in its own right,

just on that basis. But this version... well, if you stare long enough, you see the elements

from XI, elements from XII, and... well, thankfully, just fonts from XIII... that came together

to make a game greater than the sum of its parts... once they got their act together.

Just forget old-XIV, condemn it to a back page on the strategy guide of history, and

appreciate this rebirth for what it is: Square's Mea Culpa, in playable form. See ya on the

airship.