I never thought this day would ever come. The day when we would see a game like Final Fantasy XIV, an MMO that I’ve been journeying through for almost three years at this point, would make its way into a portable console. I mean, I know handheld PCs like the Steam Deck have been around for a few years at this point, but still, I was intrigued about whether the Switch 2 can handle this gargantuan game while still providing a solid experience. And well, thanks to Square Enix, we got our hands on a copy of the game, so I was very eager to test it out.
Out of the Box Support
The first thing we tried on the Switch 2 was, of course, checking the performance. But before that, a few things to note: I personally don’t have all that fancy equipment that can provide hard numbers, so the tests were basically done by eye and by comparing the footage from my capture card. As you might expect from a console, you don’t have as many graphics options as on PC, with the only ones I could find being one that limits the framerate to 30 FPS while docked, three types of water refractions, and player physics settings.
Amusingly, on the first day service began, there was a bug with how the game reloads assets when a player is moving to a different region. This causes loading times to increase by almost 20 seconds, resulting in several of the in-game duties that rely on phase changes to become awfully unplayable. (Close enough, welcome back, PS4 hard drive.) This is a bug that seems like it should’ve been caught before service began, but I managed to get it somewhat under control by reducing the Character & Object Quantity to Minimum, and also turning some of the player physics to Simple, and the development team was quick to patch this with an overnight maintenance. Despite this, I don’t have any major complaints about the performance on Switch 2. The bar I had set for this was: If this runs as good as the PS4 version, I’ll call that a win, and I would say they cleared that with great success.
There were also, as expected, various connection issues, though this issue wasn’t really exclusive to the Switch 2, as it stemmed from the servers being loaded with new and returning players. From August 4 to September 4, Square Enix considers this period an early access period, where they will not be charging for your subscription, as they are constantly checking to see if the servers can handle this new influx of players. And sure enough, there were quite a few disconnects, but I wouldn’t say they reached Endwalker levels of pain, where you had queues of over 10,000 players.
The Nintendo Switch 2 Features and Controls
The next topic of discussion is about two features that the Nintendo Switch 2 version offers in relation to the PS5. The first is that there is full support for the JoyCon mouse controls, and the moment you lay down either the left or right one, you’ll be able to control the cursor with it, and you can click by pressing L/ZL or R/ZR. Having this out of the box is so good because even when I play the game on PC with a controller, there are some actions where a mouse is definitely needed, so having this as an option was definitely welcome, especially as I did the initial setup, porting over my settings from the PC.
Something I did find out is that if you prefer using a Pro Controller, you can still connect one of the JoyCons to be used exclusively in mouse mode, which was a very interesting discovery. And of course, if you’re playing in Handheld Mode, you can also use the touch screen, where your touch translates to a mouse click, although it’s not that great. I can see this being useful for when you need to touch a shortcut or a macro you have set on a hotbar that’s outside the range of the controller, but I vastly preferred using the mouse for this.
This discovery actually helped address an issue I had with playing using the JoyCons initially. You see, to use skills in Final Fantasy XIV on the Switch 2, you have to hold ZR and press either the D-Pad direction or the face button that is bound to the skill you want to use. And the problem is that for the current skill rotation to work, you have to keep ZR pressed down, which I will admit is a growing pain due to the lack of analog triggers. But using the Pro Controller I had with a mouse helped mitigate that issue almost entirely, I’d say. There does seem to be a bit of an input lag when using the JoyCon mouse, but it wasn’t terrible, in my opinion.
Understanding the Sub System
Now let’s talk about the subscription. Up until now, unless you were on the free trial, Final Fantasy XIV requires a monthly payment to continue playing. This subscription could be used across multiple platforms of the game, provided you acquired each of their licenses separately. When the XBOX version came out, it introduced some rather unwelcome caveats. For one, it obligated players to have an active XBOX Game Pass Core subscription, since that was essentially the successor to XBOX Live. And then it also introduced a new currency called FFXIV Coins. These coins are very similar to Square Enix Crysta, where 100 of them cost one US dollar, varying a bit per region according to their sales tax.
For the Nintendo Switch 2, you thankfully do not need to have an active Nintendo Switch Online membership to connect and log in to the servers (although you can register a free teleport destination if you have one active); you will have to acquire a separate subscription exclusive to the Switch 2. This means that, if you have, say, 6 months of play time on PC, PS5, and XBOX versions, this means nothing on Switch 2. The Entry-level sub will come to 1300 Coins, and the Standard level sub will come to 1500 Coins for 30 days, with the option to pay 4200 Coins upfront for 90 days of the Standard sub also available, according to Square Enix’s website. On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a big issue.
But what bothered me was how there isn’t a way to purchase exactly 1300 coins for the 30-day Entry tier. This means you will have to buy 1500 coins regardless and have 200 Coins left over for your next month. Functionally speaking, I think the Entry sub is what I recommend for the majority of people, unless they wish to acquire some of the paid upgrades on Mog Station, such as extra retainers and the companion app upgrade. But color me surprised that they just haven’t added a 1300-coin bundle yet, or a way to just automatically charge you the exact amount of coins you need based on a fixed conversion rate.
Furthermore, for players that already have an active subscription on PC, PS5, or XBOX, you’re entitled to a 50% discount that is active for as long as that subscription is active. This brings down the cost to 600 for 30 days of the Entry tier and 750 coins for 30 days of the Standard tier. However… yeah, the same issue happens here. There are only six bundles: 500, 1000, 1500, 3000, 4200, and 10,000. It adds this layer of complexity that feels rather unnecessary.
Final Fantasy XIV on the Go
The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Final Fantasy XIV honestly feels like a miracle port, much like the Switch 2 ports of Final Fantasy Remake and Final Fantasy Rebirth. If you’re someone who intends to get into the game right now, or if you want a way to experience the game on the go, then I am pleased to say that there are little to no compromises on the experience.
While there were a few bugs that I experienced, such as the loading screen bug, they were all addressed or noted by the team very promptly, and to be honest, this was perhaps the smoothest “open beta” I’ve ever had the opportunity to play. And to all new players, the world of Eorzea is vast, and remember, you can always download the free trial if you’re still on the fence about it.
Disclaimer: Square Enix provided a Nintendo Switch 2 copy of Final Fantasy XIV Online for the purposes of this article.
