Where would you rate FFXIV's story compared to other FF games. [Spoilers]

[Ryaz]

I love the game and the story in FFXIV. I'm more about the characters and character driven stories, which FFXIV has in spades. FFXIV has dethroned FFVI as my favorite FF game of all time and possibly is my favorite RPG of all time.

I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

[Anienai]

FF6 > Tactics >>>>>> all other.

[Lunalepsy]

By itself, story is ok. Compared to other games? Meh, 4/10.

[Mezzoforte]

Haha this guy is being paid by Blizzard! All he does is hate on FF14 Sheeeeeeesh!

[Quintessa]

I would say FF8 just kills all the FF stories, if it actually made sense after the Dollet mission.. None of the others have Laguna though haha.

[Haventale]

FFXIV’s story in my opnion is drastically overrated. I don’t think it’s terrible, but I’ve never thought it was great, it’s just… more interesting than other mmo stories I guess. The only bit of the story that made me cry (Not saying that’s the marker for good/bad storytelling), was the end of SB where Ala Mhigans were singing their national anthem after liberating their nation. As an indigenous woman, the idea of being freed from and pushing out your colonizers and having control of your homeland hits me pretty hard. But I’d not credit FFXIV for that bit of storytelling, as it’s hardly a unique concept in fantasy games.

MMOs just aren’t a good genre for storytelling. People who like mmos as a genre aren’t there for the story. We like dungeons, open world exploration, playing different classes etc. Nothing about what makes a great mmo, has anything to do with having a story.

FFXIV’s story is filled with huge amounts of filler that ranges from completely breaking the pacing of the narrative, to flat out boring chunks. And for me, I have difficulty reading, and the ungodly, sheer amount of text in this game makes going through the story utterly exhausting for me. They repeat the same information multiple times and take fifteen paragraphs to say something that could be said in one. I personally think the setting and story being told are more interesting than how they’re presented, if that makes sense.

Many of the villans are one dimensional, such as the ascians, who just maniacally laugh at the sky and you then you just defeat them. I honestly think they had no idea what to do with Zenos character, but he was obnoxiously boring for the entire game up until the very final fight with Meteion where I found it funny that he was just like “What? This is what you’re fighting? Why haven’t you killed it yet?” But thank god he’s finally dead and gone from the story (fingers crossed). Meteion/Dynamis was added super late and was a poor last minute add on. Beating her through the power of friendship was amusing though. As for the scions, most are also one dimensional, with only a few getting any genuine character progression.

The only expansion stories I actually had fun playing regardless of my criticisms of them were HW and EW. I didn’t enjoy the vast majority of ARR, SB or ShB. Although sometimes I get nostalgic for ARR, because after getting on a spaceship and flying to edge of the universe to have planets crash into me from the manifestation of the universe’s depression, I just look back at watching my little Au’Ra walk into the big city of Ul’dah with her little chonky sword and her raggedy dress and think “Wow, those were simpler times.”

As for how FFXIV compares to other FF games? Well, I’ve only played a bit of FFX, FFXII, FF7R and FFXIII (just the first one in the trilogy). And I only actually ever finished FFXIII. So… compared to that one? I guess I’d say… I like it about the same.

[Gothicshark]

Where would you rate FFXIV's story compared to other FF games.

Well Let's first list out the games I finished, or at least played 2/3s of, as some of them were not finished due to being a working adult at the time every FF game was released in the US Market.

FF (NES) - finished- scale 1 to 10 - 10/10 at the time, first video game I played to have a story besides Dragon's Lair.

FF 2(US SNES) (FFIV - Japan) - mostly finished- 8/10 by the time I played it (1995) I had played several other RPGs with good stories, although it had a excellent gameplay (for it's time) the story was a bit contrived.

FF 3 (US SNES) (FFVI - Japan) - Finished- solid 9/10- Much better than the previous entry, it was a glorious RPG.

The Anime - FFV's anime, which was a ton of fun, and made a lot of people in the US realize they were being short changed on Final Fantasy Games.

FFVII (PlayStation) - 3/4ths - I enjoyed it until I couldn't continue. Solid 7/10.

Spirits Within CGI Movie - 12/10 - Honestly it's a shame this movie isn't recognized for the greatness that it was. I still want them to salvage this film and use it to make a game or add it's story into the background of another game.

FFX/X-2 (PS2) - 8/10, 12/10 Honestly I enjoyed ten, but ten-two was perfection. I never realized how much I needed a Female lead character in Final Fantasy until I had one.

FFXIII - 9/10 - Female Lead, the game play had issues, but I loved the story, honestly FFXIII had one of my favorite settings in Final Fantasy, I had already stopped playing games with male protagonists.

FFXIV - 14/10 - Possibly one of the best RPG stories ever, and it happens to be an MMORPG. Slow Build Up, but the pay out is worth it, and frankly no other Video Game story has caused me to cry as much as FFXIV.

FFXV - 4/10 - Male protag, all male party, Cool setting, cool car, cool music, but it's too much Testosterone for me. Honestly couldn't get past the 1/3rd point of the game.

[Gothicshark]

Haha this guy is being paid by Blizzard! All he does is hate on FF14 Sheeeeeeesh!

Honestly, I'm sure it's just another Titanmen Alt, but I don't care, I'm taking him at face value, and pretending he's not actually a troll. Yet all the signs point to Titanmen Alt, Healer Max Level, nothing else leveled, Trollish post with a level of plausible not a troll, if His gathering and crafting all end up max without any DPS or Tanking at Max, then I will be 100% sure this is just the latest Titanmen alt.

[IdowhatIwant]

Sadly I made it a goal one year to play every Final Fantasy game. Was kinda interesting how ever some of these I have actually played through multiple times.

scale 1 to 10 I am a little more harsh on my numbers. Even a 5/10 I'd recommend as its a average game IMO.

FF (NES and GBA) - finished- - 6/10 For its time is it incredible, it hasn't aged well IMO story is very simple with a kinda wild complicated ending.

FF2 (GBA) 8/10 I am probably one of the only people that like this game. It's easily breakable sadly with the skill up system by fighting weak mobs and attacking / healing yourself you can easily make the game way to easy. Story's good a surprising number of characters are killed off and it was pretty dark for it's time. Anyone surprised by the death in FF7 obviously never played previous entries.

FF3 (DS) 4/10 Only thing interesting about this game was the job system which makes the combat fun. Not much going on plot was very cliche, really feels like it was trying to be DQ but failed.

FF IV(US SNES DS) - 6/10 Most intricate story the series has seen so far. Hasn't aged well compared to entries after it.

FFV (GBA) - 5/10 Job system is back and it is still fun. Story is a mixed bag its really goofy at times and really series at times. Everyone should play this specially if you thought the death in FF7 was a surprise.

FFVI (US SNES) (FFVI - SNES, GBA) 8/10- Best FF of the 16 bit era, one of the best in the series. Must play villain is awesome and it's full of twists and great character building.

FFVII (PlayStation, PC) - 7/10- Pretty good story, it's aged meh, best to play on PC with graphic mods. I think this one is a bit over rated, but it is one of the better games in the series and would highly recommend.

FFVIII (Playstation, PC) - 4/10 - Not a huge fan of this game, it's a very drawn out love story and it can be hard to follow as it's just kind of weird. Game play is fun though the draw system can be tedious. Recommend PC version with graphics mods and making it where you can draw once for 99 of the spell to save you a lot of time.

Spirits Within CGI Movie - ?/10 - It's a decent Sci Fi film. I think calling if FF was a mistake as it was not what I expected.

FFIX - (Playstation) 10/10 - This is a classic and it is Sakaguchi's big send off as this is the last game he directed. It is a huge fan service to all the previous games. Story is really fun, with some very dark and deep themes. Highly recommend playing this.

FFX (PS2) (Both Versions) - 10/10, This is another amazing title, the fish out of water story telling is very enjoyable. Story is great and has some deep themes about religious corruption and control it's awesome. It can be a bit linear but it fits the narrative well. Highly Recommend playing this one.

FFXI (PC) - 5/10 Job system is fun, very very slow MMO many flaws but its very old school MMO where every thing takes an extreme amount of time. Fun time playing it not sure how it plays now so hard to recommend.

FFXII - (PS2) (Both Versions) - 2/10 Basically same story as FF2 just more light hearted. You will hear the main character tell you he want's to be a sky pirate 50 times before finishing this game. Many like it I was not a fan. Would recommend cause although it was not my cup of tea a lot of people enjoy this game.

FFXIII - 1/10 - Female Lead that sadly did not work. Female Cloud wanna be that was to edgy to have any real character development. Sadly though only about 2 characters were ever interesting in this whole plot. Like FFXII Snow will tell you he is a hero 50 times before you finish the game. You still get tutorials 40 hours into the game. The only thing I can say good about this game is the combat is enjoyable, but your characters roles are ingrained until that last 40 hour tutorial. Horribly paced. Would never tell anyone to play it, I like to pretend it does not exist.

FFXIV - 7/10 - I think it is the best MMO on the market, compared to other FF games the story is pretty good. It's hard to rate this game as each expansion has different experiences and the over all experience is always changing. I think the MSQ is easily the best part of this game. How ever it is an MMO which means it has MMO problems. Outside the MSQ I think the game suffers a lot of content droughts specially for people that want to do more challenging fights. I think most expansions feel like expansions to the story, Shadow bringers MSQ is the only expansion the felt like a stand alone FF game and it was awesome.

FFXV - 3/10 - Chilling with your best buds is a majority of the game. I liked it, combat can be fun at its best moments, and a nightmare at its worst moments. Game suffered from being in development hell and it's plot suffered a lot to the point you need to purchase DLC to understand what happened to some of the characters. Although I liked it most people don't, wouldn't really recommend this unless you want to play a decent open world game.

FF7R - Coolest combat in an FF game yet. But they took the first 3 hours of FF7 and made it 40 hours. A little disappointing and it feels like SE is trying to steal my money with the padding. The ending WTF was that.

FFT - 10/10 Everyone go play this.

[DatPotato]

I'd give it a 6.5 or a 7, story is a real roller coster in term of quality starts kinda uninspired then rise in quality at 2.5keeps going up all the way till 3.3 SB was kinda...meh, imo the worst expansion in so many ways, then rose back in quality with 4.4 and 4.5. shadowbringer was a blast and definitely my favorite expansion for the story. then it went and sunk again and again from 5.1 to 5.3.
end walker came and the pacing was weird for me slow in the beginning but then hooked up in the mid part, then cut off by a big section of the game, then back into it and the ending stated from the beginning unlike shadowbringers that there will be no stacks, keep comforting the players in telling you that your friends are still alive and yet it took the time to give closure to each characters and mad eus bond with them.

Not my most loved ff but not my most disliked
slighlty above the middle made me cry on some part but definitely wasn't crisis core or ff9, still a good ff nonetheless.