Some years ago, Final Fantasy XIV included a jumping puzzle tower for the Moonfire Faire seasonal event. Well, it’s back this year. And I burned away several hours of my night trying to overcome what’s probably the most difficult obstacle to ever grace the critically acclaimed MMORPG. Dragonsong Ultimate…who?! Nah, Moonfire Faire (Extreme) is built different.
The Moonfire Faire is the summer event where you go through a short sidequest with a cute little story and get some neat summertime glam. Fireworks burst all day in the background of Costa del Sol as FFXIV itself celebrates the season. Items such as the Summer Sunset Bandana, Summer Sunset Beach Cover-Up, Summer Sunset Wrist Torques, Summer Sunset Bottoms, and Summer Sunset Sandals are your rewards for helping R’fhul Tia realize he doesn’t have to fake-flex in front of his friends to impress them.
You don’t really have to do much because you can skip the platforming challenges between you and the quest targets. You can just to complete this questline by just talking to the Faire Adventurer NPCs to teleport you to the quest locations. However, much more awaits those who want to go above and beyond for the sake of it.
A whole chunk of Costa del Sol features this imposing wooden tower with a no-fly zone (mounts are restricted). And while you’ve wrapped up the event quest, in the back of your mind is the nagging feeling that you have to make it to the top of this tower.
Short wooden pegs stick out from the sides of this tower acting as platforms, and traversing the path upwards requires precise jumps in a way FFXIV was never built to handle. Veterans of the Sightseeing Log or Leap of Faith GATEs from the Gold Saucer already know how these things go, and may very well make it past the first few sections. We’ve been trained to measure our jumps over the years, But the Moonfire Faire’s gauntlet is on a whole other level.
When you think you’re almost there, you’re presented with an even riskier set of pegs to jump on. The further you climb up the insurmountable tower, the narrower the routes and platforms become. You become increasingly susceptible to falling down to the previously level; or more likely, falling off entirely and having to start all over again. Overshooting your jump can mean hours of progress down the drain. Consider falling off the tower a wipe.
There is no room for error once you make it to the last phase; you’re jumping onto sticks by that point. There’s probably a very calculated way to handle these jumps or macros to every type of jump you need to make, I don’t know. What I do know is you have to be a sicko to 1) actually complete this challenge, and 2) actually design this thing.
Creative Business Unit III, let me know who made this Moonfire Faire jumping puzzle, I just want to talk. If I somehow complete this thing before the event wraps up on August 26 at 7:59 a.m. PT, I’ll be sure to let y’all know. However, by that time, we’ll probably all be knee deep in Patch 6.2.
Speaking of which, catch up on all things FFXIV Patch 6.2 before its release date, presumably on August 23. And keep up with all our coverage coming out of Live Letter 73 on August 12, which covers the rest of Patch 6.2’s content. Be sure to check out previous coverage on Island Sanctuary, Criterion and Variant dungeons, the next Tribal quests, and what to expect from the Pandaemonium Abyssos raids.
