This whole entry might just be nostalgia speaking…if not that long ago can even count as nostalgia. I think for a lot of people, A Realm Reborn wasn’t that long ago for them, so is it really nostalgia speaking? Anyway, as the title says, I think there’s still beauty to be found in A Realm Reborn. Yes it’s a bit of a crappy main game experience with its clunkiness and overall slog of a main story because of all the exposition dumping and frankly the excessive usage of fantasy talk (that fortunately died down later into the game), but it’s in A Realm Reborn where I fell in love with the game. Not Heavensward, not Shadowbringers, but the base game.
In just the main story alone, we spend the most amount of time in A Realm Reborn more than any of the other expansions. Namely, each expansion (and the following patch quests) had the amount of quests as follows:
- A Realm Reborn (160-161), Post-A Realm Reborn (80)
- Heavensward
- Stormblood
- Shadowbringers
- Endwalker
- Dawntrail
Obviously this is to be expected– we spend a whole 50 levels in the base game, then 10 in each of the next expansions. Again, you could argue that my feelings for the base game is just nostalgia, and, well, you wouldn’t really be wrong. But I think that despite the amount of time spent in this hellhole of a base game, I still cherish it very deeply. I think back on the idea of replaying the game completely blind like a new player again including having to play through A Realm Reborn.
Because of the amount of time we have to and needed to spend, and after the catastrophe of 1.0 back in 2010, I think it must’ve been very important for the development team to create a good experience for the new players for them to stay and commit to this version of the game. Otherwise, they’d have to completely scrap the entire MMORPG again.
Of course, under modern standards, A Realm Reborn is extremely flawed. I don’t think I’m the right person at all to argue whether or not it was when it first released in 2013 for PS3 and PC, but even until now you can still feel the heavy limitations the hardware at the time had in its zone design.
Comparing the zone designs of the base game and Dawntrail, there is a massive difference between the two. In the 10+ years that have gone by since then, there has been a huge improvement in technology. Starting on the PS3, the game now finds itself two whole generations of consoles ahead with the PS5, so much so that there have been discussions on Square Enix possibly dropping support for the PS4 in order to accommodate the newer hardware given that they dropped support for PS3 some time ago.
For instance, the main hubs of the base game, Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, and Ul’dah, are all split up into a minimum of two separate zones with a loading screen in between (with Ul’dah having three) because of the hardware limitations at the time. Now, we have massive main hubs that are practically triple the size of one of the levels of the base hub.
And this is even more apparent when we compare the zones, with each expansion coming out with better and better zones every time.
Now you might be wondering what my point even is. Aren’t I supposed to be telling you about the beauty of the base game? Well, I think its simplicity is something to still write home about. Maybe not the part about how Ul’dah is separated into three loading screens and, despite the thousand hours I’ve poured into the game, I still get lost in that damn city-state!
Here’s the thing: as beautiful as all these newer zones are, if you were to ask me to tell you what I liked about it, I can probably give you a few items. But if you asked me about the base game zones? Man, there’s a lot. For starters, it’s not completely barren for the most part! I say for the most part because, well, it still is, lol.
Tours of Upper and Outer La Noscea and Stormblood 6th Zone:
P.S: I can't seem to find a more updated very clear tour of the La Noscea zones...so this beta footage will do.
I think one of the problems that the modern zones have in general is that it’s too big for its own good. What can you even put besides more trees and cliffs when your zone is obnoxiously big? I say modern zones because frankly I don’t think Heavensward had this much of an issue with their zone designs…and their zones are, honestly, kinda whacky.
Tour of Heavensward 3rd Zone:
Every time I step into a new expansion, and a new zone, I always try to explore as much as I can like I were a new player all over again. By every time I mean starting Endwalker after A Realm Reborn…because the previous zones had frustrated me somewhat. I feel like a lot of the newer maps don’t really give you that same joy and, well really, reason to explore the zones outside of grabbing the aether currents. Not to go into major spoiler territory, but in my opinion, Dawntrail handled this exploration aspect the best out of all the expansions for reasons I will not get into here. Yet despite there being no real reason to explore the base game zones, it seemed so much more rewarding to do so because of all the small things that made the zone feel alive even without hundreds of players there.
The obnoxiously large tree trunk in the North Shroud that you could climb? The many different spots to find each of the different allied societies scattered throughout the zones? The different sanctuaries protected by the different Grand Company members, each with groups of people telling a story? Of course, this isn’t again to say the next expansions don’t have it. I think they just…lessened it in quantity. Maybe I’m remembering it incorrectly, given how little of an impression majority of the zones left on me, but this is also a pretty common observation throughout the expansions: the amount of detail they’ve cut down in favor of making better use of their resources. Or something like that.
We can’t separate the zones and its corresponding music. A Realm Reborn music still had Nobuo Uematsu on the team alongside Masayoshi Soken, but it’s in the later expansions when Soken took over. In fact, the tracks for the original 1.0 version (Before Meteor) was primarily composed by Uematsu. Now this isn’t to diminish Soken’s abilities, nor is this to say Uematsu had better music. I just think it’s fun to remember and acknowledge Uematsu’s contribution to the original and base game’s tracks! In general, FFXIV music is really good. There’s no denying that. But again, because we spent a lot of time in A Realm Reborn, naturally, its music sticks around a little bit longer in comparison in terms of recall.
There’s something extremely soothing about listening to the La Noscea theme, on Westerly Winds, that takes me back to the first few levels of the game where I just wandered around aimlessly, staring at the large Gobbues in the area (This really is just nostalgia bait, huh). Yet even if I were to listen to, for instance, Shadowbringer’s 2nd zone: , as beautiful and as much of a favorite it is for me…I don’t really have any particular nostalgia for it.
Since we’re on that topic, I of course have to give you guys my favorite A Realm Reborn music, but instead of giving you just the typical starting zones and city-states songs, I will be giving other songs, such as (in no particular order):
- Ultima (Ultima Weapon)
- Fallen Angel (Garuda)
- The Gift of Life (Thanalan Sanctuary)
Because A Realm Reborn and 1.0 are linked, I have to bring up some iconic 1.0 tracks.
- No Quarter (Repurposed for Eureka Notorious Monsters)
- Fragments of Forever (Plays in various cutscenes)
- Tranquility (Plays in various cutscenes)
I won’t go over the Main Story Quests here because everyone has already said their piece about it, but what I do want to talk about in connection to the MSQ is the fight design and dungeon design. As we all know, starting 6.1, multiple dungeons were rehauled for the Duty Support system, such as the infamous Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak. This led to the dungeon having a changed map layout, going from a mess of a dungeon with multiple optional areas like all the old 2.0 dungeons originally had, to the linear no-nonsense route all the modern dungeons have now.
Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak from 2.0-6.0 and in 6.1
Mechanics were also changed, which also introduced the common mechanic markers that became more prevalent, such as the tank buster markers that were implemented, I believe, in Shadowbringers. This allows for a smoother transition going from expansion to expansion, where the game gets more and more difficult as they expect you to know the basics of combat.
At the same time, however, there’s a part of me that misses having these clunky as hell dungeons and fights around. I’m not talking about mechanics like in Toto-Rak because honestly that really sucked, but in dungeon and fight designs like in Stone Vigil. Previously, the third boss Isgebind would throw out targeted AoE attacks on each player, leaving a puddle of ice on the ground. This made it somewhat difficult, given that the mechanic right before and after it would have Isgebind cleave half the arena (the half being random), meaning that if you poorly positioned yourself, you would probably die (lol). Maybe I’m biased, after all, this was the dungeon that got me invested in the overall combat and fight design of the game. It’s also one of the only few (if not maybe the only) actually relatively ‘difficult’ fights in the base game so it’s a little sad they nerfed it…
I think it’s blindingly obvious because I’ve mentioned it myself quite a bit that this might just be nostalgia speaking. After all, A Realm Reborn is the only time you get to experience the game for the first time. It doesn’t matter how many new zones or dungeons they throw at us in the new expansions, no matter how many new blind exploration opportunities we get, there will never truly be “a first time” again. A Realm Reborn has that sort of charm to it, really. It’s only in the base game where you can explore a lot of the zones before the game gates you out of it. You can’t do that in the expansions anymore.
Anyway, that’s it from me! I miss being a sprout. I think most of the player base does. If you have never played FFXIV before, or dropped it pretty darn early because of the A Realm Reborn horrors, give it a shot (again)! It truly is an experience like no other…both good and bad.
Footnotes:
I initially had a few photos for comparison in this entry but I'm frankly too lazy to download them and host them here. So this'll do.
Main Starting Hub Size Comparison:
- Old Gridania: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/File:Old_gridania_map.jpg
- Shadowbringers Main Starting Hub
Page on explaining Dungeons (Be mindful of expansion spoilers): https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Dungeons