One clever Final Fantasy XIV player has modified a Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Disk to act as a controller for the MMO RPG.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! the Duel Disk is a piece of technology that allows for holographic Duel Monsters (magic and Shadow Realm influence not withstanding). This led to toys of the Duel Disk, but one player of Final Fantasy XIV has taken it a step further.
Former Gearbox developer Super Louis 64 had already made unique game controllers; such as playing Halo Reach with bananas, beating Dark Soulswith said bananas, and trying to beat Dark Souls before a tray of ice cubes hooked up to the controller melts, or with pizzas. He has also used peripherals for other games, such as the Ring Fit ring for Mario Golf: Super Rush, and the DK Bongos for Fall Guys.
Louis’ latest sin against ergonomics was modifying a Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Disk toy to play Final Fantasy XIV. Rather fittingly, to play the Astrologian Job.
Astrologians are a healer Job introduced in the Heavensward expansion; utilizing a star globe and and a deck of tarot cards to read the future, and use the power of the cosmos to cast protecting and healing spells. Rather than a complex deck system, players can Draw and Redraw six random cards (with one of two effects between them) granting buffs to allies.
Louis had rigged his special controller to cast Draw as he drew a card, and cast spells on his allies based on what slot he placed a real-life Yu-Gi-Oh! card on. Lois had managed to even use the set-up in a dungeon and raid with random players.
Could Louis take on the hardest challenges Final Fantasy XIV has to offer? Or (to quote Seto Kaiba) is he only a third rate duelist with a fourth rate deck?
Final Fantasy XIV has recently seen a surge in interest; being all attributed to one man. The game recentlybroke its Steam concurrent players record with over 47,000; after World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold tried the game.
As the game has a free trial, and the rising popularity of the game, other streamers sought to play the game, creating a cycle. The game briefly had to contend with the Western servers being full, and had to implement a waiting list for the digital Complete Edition.
Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida even asked players not to restrain themselves to ease the servers. To make matters more complicated, European servers suffered a DDOS attack in August 2021.
Officially, Final Fantasy XIV reached over 22 million registered players worldwide in April 2021. This would also include players who registered for the game’s free trial. Nonetheless, this number must surely have increased since Asmongold took his first steps into Eorzea.
Square Enix recently launched the benchmark for the Endwalker expansion. This allows players to not only test how well the game will run on their PC, but also use the game’s character creator. The latter will provide players with a small taste of the upcoming Male Viera race.
Final Fantasy XIV is available to Windows PC, (via the SE Store, and Steam), PlayStation 4, and coming soon to PlayStation 5, and Xbox One (though the latter was announced two years ago). A free trial is available, including the base game and the first expansion with some limitations. In case you missed it, you can find our Shadowbringers expansion review here (we can’t recommend it enough!)
The next expansion; Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, launches November 23rd.
