The Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG isn’t going to make anyone happy

When I first opened up the slim, nondescript white box that contained the Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG, I couldn’t help myself. I immediately put the game on a cluttered corner of my desk and aimed my shitty phone camera down, snapping a pic and uploading it to Twitter with an exuberant post before I had even taken the game out of the cellophane. Maybe I should have waited. Maybe I shouldn’t tweet my blogs. Or maybe the immediate humiliation of having to tweet “oh no” less than three hours later is humbling enough. Gamers, I am so sorry, but this game sucks. 

‘Linda!’ You’ll say, annoyed, ‘you haven’t played this game, you can’t say that for sure!’ 

I want to assure you, I have played this game. The Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG—advertised as an original game—is simply D&D  fourth edition-inspired tactical combat with minis using the fifth edition SRD, but made far, far less interesting, creating a system that messily merges MMO game loops with reductive social moves. The sheer unplayability would be impressive if it weren’t so easy to make a bad game out of a mediocre one.