Jeremy.

The Seventh Umbral Era storyline drew to a close last night and, with it, closed the doors to Final Fantasy XIV’s 1.0 client. Droves of players gathered in Mor Dhona to partake in the final event, during what had to be the busiest hours the game has seen since launch.

Things proceeded about as smoothly as you can imagine.

SquareEnix is launching a Welcome Back campaign for players with inactive accounts to give FFXIV another spin for a ten-day free-to-play period. But is it worth bothering?

It’s no secret that Final Fantasy XIV experienced one of the most disastrous launches in the history of MMORPGs. SquareEnix has gone through extreme lengths to win back player loyalty: The entire staff was replaced, the game went free to play for a year while they got their shit together, and they’ve gone as far as remaking the game from the ground up for re-release later this year. Many of these changes have occurred live, and it’s already a drastically different game than when it was launched.

The last year has actually been a pretty exciting period for FFXIV. Patches have been frequent and massive, to the point of a practically new game being introduced every few months. The battle and crafting systems have been redone, and continue to be refined based on player feedback. Classic Final Fantasy jobs were introduced. Grand Companies replaced Levequests as the main source of content, bringing with them raids, beautiful cutscenes, and primal battles with series mainstays such as Ifrit and Garuda.

But who the fuck cares about what they’ve done, people want to know if it’s any good. Is this shit worth coming back for? Of course, I can’t answer for everyone, but what I can do is tell you what I really enjoy about FFXIV, and what I’m still disappointed with.