9. It Will Please MMO & Final Fantasy Fans
There's an extra hurdle thrown in front of this game from the outset, even excluding the prior mess they had to clean up. FFXIV doesn't just have to deal with trying to differentiate itself in an already overcrowded MMO market, but it also has to try and please the legions of Final Fantasy fans around the globe, too. As an MMO, it may not aggressively shake-up the formulas we're used to, but it cherry-picks desirable elements from a number of recent games and works them into one massively cohesive whole (something I'll expand upon later). As for appealing to FF fans, it is absolutely chock with references to the main canon of games; pilots going by the names Biggs and Wedge make an appearance, Chocobos are ubiquitously present, and there are supremely subtle references to the earlier games in the series that you'll need to be an ardent devotee to catch. It is a game that manages to be referential but also stand on its own too feet.