FFXIV vs Dragon Raja – Feature Showdown

I know you’re probably thinking “are you crazy comparing a mobile MMO and a console/PC one” but eh I think it’s interesting to compare the various features in each one now that I’ve had a good feel of Dragon Raja’s systems!  😊 Most people will probably say graphics and gameplay on XIV is better which is true! However there are little features here and there that I think are worth taking a look at so I am going to do it battle style! Disclaimer: These are just my personal opinions on what makes a game enjoyable and does not represent anyone or anything.

Player Character Relevance

In FFXIV you are the center of the story – you are the warrior of light. The plot centers around you! In Dragon Raja, you’re a side character, not seen in most cut scenes and after about level 30 scenario, the other characters, except the true protagonist Ro Meihi (Luminous) forget you exist! You’ll fight things in flashbacks for some reason, but you were never there. You’re like the invisible ghost that only the protagonist can see and talks to you in his hotel room. In other words, in Dragon Raja you’re basically Ardbert from Shadowbringers. 😂

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Graphics

Unreal Engine vs Square’s Luminous Engine! This might be a personal preference but I do like XIV’s graphics more. That said, for a mobile game, Dragon Raja’s graphics are pretty great. I was actually surprised it was a mobile only game and not available for PC – though I personally play it on my PC via an emulator. When it comes to beautiful scenery though, XIV has the advantage on this and while some of their older models aren’t as good, their newer character models look a lot more polished. If they went back and actually renewed a lot of the old character graphics I think it would make a lot of players happy.

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Battle System

This is an easy one – Dragon Raja’s battle system is crap lol. You can press auto-mode and basically “follow” the leader in one of the daily dungeons and your character will literally just bot the entire thing lol. It’s helpful since it’s a mobile game and any complex battle system would probably be annoying anyway but it also makes it extremely uninteresting. There’s no skill involved and everything is basically decided by your gear/rating anyway. XIV has a complicated battle system with actual buttons you press and the damage is definitely dependent on how much the user presses those buttons. XIV also has a lot more job variety while Dragon Raja has only about 5 or 6.

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Glamors

This an easy one – and being one of those cash shop based f2p games, Dragon Raja wins by a mile. I guess this is also a “your mileage may vary” depending on what you find appealing. If you find battle style armor more appealing then you may disagree but if you like silly/casual looking/anime style clothing then Dragon Raja is the winner here. Seeing how a lot of “non conventional” glamors in XIV are more popular than armor stuff (like Quantrelle Dress/Swimsuits/pig suits etc) I get the feeling most people lean in the same direction as me anyway lol. The only thing I’d knock Dragon Raja for is their dye system is insanely pay to win that I hate it. You have to use a cash shop coupon to unlock a RANDOM DYE PER OUTFIT so if you wanted to say dye a dress pink, you buy 3 tickets, and it unlocks brown. Awesome. 💩

Winner: Dragon Raja
Loser: FFXIV

Character Creator

One thing that I wish XIV would update is their character creator. You basically get to pick from 4 faces for most races and the only thing you can really customize are things like height, tail length, boob size, hair/eye color and voice. Dragon Raja goes the extra step of letting even adjust the infamous butt slider that XIV fans have been asking for 7 years. 🤣 You can adjust eye size, shoulder slope, body style etc. The down side of course is your only options are standard male, standard female and standard female child (??) but at least those 3 are crazy customizeable. I’ve seen people make Kaiji out of the character creator so you can get pretty creative in it. Again it’s one of those 1.0 relics that I wish XIV would update but it’s just not their priority because they focus on the main scenario/battle system more than anything.

Winner: Dragon Raja
Loser: FFXIV

Photo Mode

This is a tough one because each game has its positives. For example Dragon Raja has a really great bokeh filter, and lots of instagram style filters. It even gives you the option to throw NPCs into there with you so if you ever wanted to pose with your favorite NPC you can easily do so. I’d love to be able to just put Aymeric or Haurchefant into my group pose…🤩 Sadly I  will probably never get that feature in XIV lol. Meanwhile though XIV has things like having all characters look at the camera, many more emotes/poses and the ability to turn the camera in many angles in order to get a good scenery shot – which for some reason DR doesn’t have. It only lets you zoom in/out and move the camera up & down but not sideways. Most of the cool graphical effects I get in XIV is because of an outside program called Reshade. So for this category I’m going to give it a tie!

Winner: TIE!

Interface

This category isn’t even a contest because FFXIV has the most customizable HUD layout in any MMO I’ve ever played. The layout of Dragon Raja is a cluttered mess and on top of that it constantly spams me with announcements about players loots/bonds that I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about and I have no way to turn them off.

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Cash Shop

This is a strange category because you start to think “but ok which cash shop is worse” or do I compare which one is better? The cash shop in XIV is purely cosmetic. Mounts, minions, outfits all just for the sake of changing your looks. In Dragon Raja though, the cash shop is more for pay to win and to up your stats or rating. There’s glamors in there too, but by spending money in DR you make your character more powerful which is pretty typical of these Chinese mobile games lol. So ultimately I guess I will give the winner to XIV because their cash shop doesn’t affect the balance of the game but the Dragon Raja one completely breaks it. Also Dragon Raja’s cash shop has so many different currencies that it gets confusing on what you are actually spending money on and if it’s not just “spend money for a CHANCE to win an item” rather than how you know exactly what you’re buying in XIV.

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Player Interaction

Both XIV and Dragon Raja have content that requires you to interact with others to clear content but Dragon Raja kind goes the extra mile to get you to interact with others. For example you get a bonus if you do content with a full party of 5 instead of say solo or 2 people. Certain contents are just impossible to complete without 5 people particularly if you aren’t a cash shop whale. Dragon Raja also rewards you for doing things like sending your friends gifts you make and will often announce to everyone if you got a rare item so people can congratulate you. Dragon Raja also has features in game such a journal people can comment/like (which is outside the game in XIV) as well as stuff to decorate your icon/chat bubble in your group chats. On the other hand, someone who doesn’t like to stand out and prefers to play solo might find XIV more welcoming. You can do most content “solo” by queuing up in duty finder and being paired up with people to clear content. Obviously any difficult content requires you to interact with others, but basic scenario/daily content you can just do with randos and be on your way.  That said since we’re going for a more MMO feel and playing with others, Dragon Raja is the winner in this category.

Winner: Dragon Raja
Loser: FFXIV

Main Scenario

This kinda ties in with the fact that your character is an irrelevant ghost in most of the story and you’re just a 3rd person camera. I wouldn’t mind that if the actual scenario was good but this shit is more bizarre than some Korean Drama. 🤣 It started out okay with the whole dragon blood experiments plot but then once you come to the school and meet the true protagonist, Ro Meihi, the entire plot goes balls. In one of the level 85 quests, a car runs over this guy’s father out of nowhere and then it just explodes while everyone just stands there doing nothing to even attempt to help him or find out who did it lol. Immediately following that another girl dies because for some reason I wasn’t sent to help kill the literal durds who she was fighting. I was sent to the past to fight a monster that is already dead though, that’s important. Meanwhile, XIV had a pretty ballsack scenario up to level 40 or so, but definitely picked up the pace and in the patch coming in August, they plan to cut the fat out for any newcomers to the game. I’ve laughed and cried in the XIV scenario, but in Dragon Raja I’m mostly just laughing ironically on DAFUQ is going on. 😂

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Pets

The “Pet” system in XIV is essentially a glamor type system where you can have various minions who follow you around and you can emote them but that’s about it. In Dragon Raja it’s actually pretty complex where you can raise and evolve your pets almost like Pokemon and they not only boost your stats, but they also fight with you! If you have a house you can also add a pet bed where they will sit when you come inside the house, making Dragon Raja the clear winner here. Just wish we had more pet variety – I want a kitty!

Winner: Dragon Raja
Loser: FFXIV

Housing

Housing has been a controversial issue in FFXIV because they didn’t release enough houses, they didn’t adjust the system to stop house plot purchase abuse and they didn’t go back to punish and free houses of the abusers. Apartments are limited to a smaller space and don’t have features such as company crafting or airships. There’s also a limit of how many of each size house there, particularly mediums and large leaving players with very little options especially on busy servers. On Dragon Raja though, you get instanced housing which a lot of MMOs incorporate and there’s housing for everyone. Additionally you basically get a huge plot of space to build not 1 but multiple houses. You’re also not restricted to a “house” you can make a garage, a pool, a museum whatever you want because you basically build from the ground up ala Minecraft style. You can build a mini neighborhood/village in your huge plot of land and all the furniture is contained within the housing system so you don’t have to go farm an ex primal to say get some aquarium decoration. You can even hire NPCs to be your house keepers! 😂

Winner: Dragon Raja
Loser: FFXIV

Gear Progression

Gear progression in Dragon Raja makes absolutely no sense to me. While you are leveling the game just throws gears at you and when you do random challenges sometimes you will get a piece of gear dropped that may have better stats than what you have. You also have the option of upgrade gear with various items you get from doing dungeons/challenges or you can always go the pay to win way. It’s just a huge mess. FFXIV gear ladder has been the same for 7 years, and its very organized and easy to follow.

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Mounts

If you think FFXIV has crazy mounts you haven’t seen the ridiculous crap that Dragon Raja has! Weird spherical rabbits, airplanes, host club chairs..and a random fat grandma who puts you into her shopping cart like kids.😂 Not only that but you can use items in the game (that you can purchase from the market board) to change the “appearance” of mounts. For example the grandma above can be changed into a more fancy grandma or a witch in the forest style grandma! You can also change the color of her dress and the shape of the cart! So now you can have uniqueness with mounts. Also I got this mount simply from daily logins so not all goofy mounts are cash shop. Most mounts can also be unlocked with currency you get in game for free, so you don’t have to grind some battle 99 times to get a mount like you do in XIV.

Winner: Dragon Raja
Loser: FFXIV

Events & Dailies

Since Dragon Raja is a free to play MMO they gotta get non-whales to login to the game. Obviously whales are gonna whale but free to play players will get bored unless there’s something drawing them back into the game. That’s where most f2p/mobile games frequently have events to get users to log back in. FFXIV has their quarterly update patches, but other than that the only events are the few holiday events like Valentine’s day or Easter. Because of that there’s often content lulls with nothing to do, especially if you are a veteran and I often end up unsubbing. Meanwhile this game keeps me busy because there’s always something to do. On that note, Dragon Raja has many “daily” login rewards as well as rewards for doing daily tasks. FFXIV doesn’t really have many dailies, especially if you have geared your character and have leveled all your jobs to 80 so if you don’t raid there’s often not much motivation to login at all.

Winner: Dragon Raja
Loser: FFXIV

Crafting

Dragon Raja has “careers” which is essentially their crafting system. The thing is you have weird things like “crafting idol CDs” along the usual of “Crafting a bento” features. At the moment the only careers are culinarian, idol and store owner. Again it’s very simple and is more robotic and less “thoughtful” like in FFXIV where your crafting rotation is very important. I wouldn’t even call this crafting to be honest and it has very few benefits other than getting rid of weirdly pointless debuffs this game has in it. FFXIV’s crafting system is involved and rewarding so it takes the win in this one.

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Level Grinding

FFXIV has many ways to level up – multiple roulettes, leves, squadrons, trusts etc. Dragon Raja’s leveling is completely random from doing your career dailies to just auto-botting the daily dragon slaying or answering questions in some random in game history quiz. Once you hit 80 in XIV that’s the cap, so you are free to do everything and any new scenario updates you can view as long as you’re at the cap. Dragon Raja, like most f2p MMOs, is an annoying endless grind fest and the story is locked behind the painfully slow leveling. Or rather – once you get to 80 it becomes painfully slow. From 1-79 its weirdly fast and before you even understand most of the game you’ll find you’ve hit level 80. (;’∀’)

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Music

This isn’t even a contest – Dragon Raja has like 3 bgms or something. FFXIV has multiple soundtracks and amazing music hands down.

Winner: FFXIV
Loser: Dragon Raja

Game Cost

This is a tough one depending on your situation. If you don’t have a lot of money and aren’t a whale, then you’ll find Dragon Raja to be a more friendly game cost wise because you can login, do some dailies and logout without spending a penny. If you value all the features I mentioned as winners, then FFXIV is a better value for your money – unless of course you start getting optional retainers, buying glamors and everyone’s all time favorite – fantasias 😂 then costs add up quickly. For this category I will make it a tie – because ultimately the cost is what you make it for both games. By the way, I am 100% free to play in DR lol, the cash shop is so convoluted with all the currencies it actually made me NOT want to spend money lol.

Winner: TIE!

Average Player Age

This is a funny category but it’s a fact that FFXIV is fulla olds. Most younger kids will flock towards mobile games like Dragon Raja because they are free but anything that requires a subscription will usually deter them. Therefore probably the average age of FFXIV players is late 20s to early 30s. I’ve seen people way into their 40s and 50s say they are active players of the game. Father of Light isn’t a unique story anymore! So there’s no real “winner” here but depending on your age group, you might want to consider one over the other.

Winner: FFXIV if you’re an old fart, Dragon Raja if you’re younger.

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And so that concludes my category listing! I wanted to talk about the wedding/bond system but unfortunately me and my husband’s characters aren’t high in affection (which levels by doing content together) to try out the bond system to compare. Maybe I will go back and edit the post once we’ve done it to see how it falls in comparison to FFXIV’s eternal bond system! I think both games have their ups and downs and since XIV frequently has content down time, I’ve found Dragon Raja to be a great filler in the meantime! 😉