As it turns out, Square Enix seems to have learned a great deal from their online mistake, and Yoshida had no qualms about admitting the original game’s poor quality. I asked him how it felt to take over the troubled project in late 2010. His initial reaction at the time “Well–at least it can’t get any worse.” In time, that trepidation turned to excitement, culminating in a realization that he had an opportunity to destroy a world and allow a new one to rise from its ashes. And what better way to annihilate the remnants of a disastrous past than with the giant fireball that will end the first era of Final Fantasy XIV

It was clear upon first starting A Realm Reborn that this was a very different game from the Final Fantasy XIV of yore. There were marked quest-givers, proper waypoints, easily-identified vendors, and normal hotbars. As a gladiator from the human-like Hyur race, I slashed and hacked my way through a variety of fantastical monsters, pressing the number keys as I would in any number of traditional online role-playing games. I came up against colorful winged Zizes (apparently these giant birds have made their way over from Final Fantasy XI) and defeated humongous gnats on my travels through the vibrant and eclectic pathways. It felt fluid and comfortable, in contrast to the clumsy mess I played in 2010.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn isn’t trying to be different from other MMOGs–it’s just trying to be different from Final Fantasy XIV as it currently exists.

Quests didn’t just have me fighting–they had me dancing with sylphs and searching for the missing, among other tasks. None of it was groundbreaking, but then again, Final Fantasy XIV’s original means of breaking ground was to make the game as impenetrable as possible. The dungeon run I participated in was equally accessible and enjoyable. One of the original release’s better elements was its flexible jobs system. Because I could draw on skills inherent to other jobs, I was able to heal teammates and fling poison at the monsters we encountered, in addition to standing my ground in a tank role. Proper group invites, auto-attacking: it was all there, making for an adventure unhindered by the original Final Fantasy XIV’s broken interface logic.

That isn’t to say that what I played was much different from many other games, and I pressed Yoshida on his choice of combat styles. With games like Tera, Wizardry Online, and the upcoming Neverwinter shooting for an action-game feel, why not shoot for a combat system less typical than the tab-targeting, hotkey-pressing standard The decision, in part, was made not just to stay true to Final Fantasy’s turn-based ways, but also to accommodate console players, who will be playing on the same servers as PC players.

Oh yes–remember the PlayStation 3 version of Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn will at last make good on the promise of a console version of the game, and though I didn’t get to play that version, I was treated to some side-by-side comparisons, along with a lengthy video explaining how each button on the DualShock 3 functioned. Yoshida’s goal is to give console players “the full MMO experience without the UI fuss,” and he proclaimed that A Realm Reborn will be the first online RPG in which the console version sports a completely separate interface from the PC version, fully tailored for the PS3.