Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn

 PC
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2236 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,673 out of 2236
  2. Mixed: 169 out of 2236
  3. Negative: 394 out of 2236
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  1. triffy
    Jul 28, 2023
    1
    Boring Slogfest. It’s boring. It’s repetitive. It’s not fun. I fall asleep and can’t play for more than a quest at a time. Apparently it gets good after 60+ or more. A Yawn Reborn is not for me.
  2. ersonic
    Jul 6, 2023
    0
    de los peores mmo que he jugado en mi vida. todas las misiones iguales. caminatas de 20 minutos para hablar con un npc y volver a caminar otros 20 minutos coger un objeto del suelo y que aparezca un bicho para matar. no tiene más durante 40 horas horribles.
  3. meru
    Jul 6, 2023
    1
    How long can your game be boring before it gets good?

    After my first hundred hours in the game, I asked my guild a question. (All of them are great people, by the way.) I asked these people who loved playing the game when the fantastic role-playing experience everyone was talking about will start. They seriously wanted to help me and totally understood the question. They had a    How long can your game be boring before it gets good?

    After my first hundred hours in the game, I asked my guild a question. (All of them are great people, by the way.)

    I asked these people who loved playing the game when the fantastic role-playing experience everyone was talking about will start. They seriously wanted to help me and totally understood the question. They had a discussion among themselves and could not decide if you had to drudge through 300 hours of boredom, or if it was more like 500 hours, before the game gets good.

    I was sad to tell them good-bye.    … Expand
  4. Egotwo
    Aug 23, 2022
    1
    A very boring game with "cheap" looking world. The story doesn't get any better, as some say. It's still boring. And boring again. Highly overrated. I gave it too much time because people said it gets better. But no, it's boring. I read all text, watched all cutscenes (boring).
  5. diamonxo
    Mar 20, 2022
    1
    This game has literally the worst launcher I have ever witnessed, I'm talking worse than the Epic Games store and Steam COMBINED. I can't even play the game because of constant errors trying to launch it and it's a shame because I'm sure the game is great, but I CAN'T PLAY IT. I've troubleshooted several times to no avail and researching for a couple hours has shown that quite a largeThis game has literally the worst launcher I have ever witnessed, I'm talking worse than the Epic Games store and Steam COMBINED. I can't even play the game because of constant errors trying to launch it and it's a shame because I'm sure the game is great, but I CAN'T PLAY IT. I've troubleshooted several times to no avail and researching for a couple hours has shown that quite a large percentage of players have had issues launching the game and playing in general. Not sure if it's because of the launcher that appears to be from 2007 with absolutely 0 updates performance wise or something else, but wow.… Expand
  6. mcbmg
    Dec 18, 2021
    0
    Purchased this game on Dec 11. I have been unable to get into the actual game. Spent a couple of hours trying to get server, then long 2500+ queues. I purchased it on Steam and requested a refund the same day and was denied. They include the download time, the time spent getting your character created and time wasted in queue. Do not buy this game.
  7. mugaro4201
    Dec 17, 2021
    0
    даже не старались хотя бы добавить русский интерфейс другие языки есть а вот русский нету
  8. Toldoth
    Dec 17, 2021
    0
    Hello,

    I tried to play the game and was not able to play as a new player since character creation was denied on all server.

    I asked for a refund and they denied it.

    This does not make sense to me. I can't believe that such a huge company cannot refund their customer when they are making such big mistakes.
  9. SmackyStarr
    Dec 15, 2021
    0
    Just don't bother. It's a great game but it's not worth the frustration of sitting in queue for hours, getting kicked out multiple times in the process, only to be kicked out of the game after finally getting in and then put back at the end of a 5k queue again. This game is unplayable right now.
  10. loliance
    Dec 11, 2021
    4
    Good remake of a terrible game.
    I would have rated it much, much higher(around a 8!) but I had to endure the 200Quest grind(post ARR) which is at level 50 and at the end of the expansion. Which has since been reduced but still the same issues remain,
    Post ARR story has poor immersion due to lack of voice acting, it's far too long, it's a lot of walking around with no real character    Good remake of a terrible game.
    I would have rated it much, much higher(around a 8!) but I had to endure the 200Quest grind(post ARR) which is at level 50 and at the end of the expansion. Which has since been reduced but still the same issues remain,

    Post ARR story has poor immersion due to lack of voice acting, it's far too long, it's a lot of walking around with no real character progression and it's forced on all users that will not pay for a story skip.

    Post ARR content was some of the worst I've experienced in an MMO, but it get's better with later expansions so stick with it!    … Expand
  11. jin40k
    Dec 5, 2021
    0
    queue > eror server > queue. naturally, in squaresoft, allegedly, no one knew about it and no one foresaw this
  12. Nihl
    Oct 29, 2021
    3
    Decided to give this game a try, coming from a content-starved WoW.
    And what can I say... it just bored me. Couldn't make past lvl 48.
    Combat was sluggish as hell, 2.5 sec cooldown on top of abilities needing to wind up animations before hitting felt awful to me. Speaking of animations... they're way too flashy. I couldn't distinguish anything while doing team content. Quests were    Decided to give this game a try, coming from a content-starved WoW.
    And what can I say... it just bored me. Couldn't make past lvl 48.
    Combat was sluggish as hell, 2.5 sec cooldown on top of abilities needing to wind up animations before hitting felt awful to me.
    Speaking of animations... they're way too flashy. I couldn't distinguish anything while doing team content.
    Quests were nothing to write home about. Absolutely boring.
    I didn't like the main story. At least until the part I was. Felt too generic. Maybe I played too many JRPGs back in the day to be impressed by yet another "chosen hero saving the world" story.
    All "world" zones are instanced. Many loadscreens.

    I really tried to enjoy this game but I couldn't even though I tried to force it under the idea it'd get better. But that's not how it works. A game should be enjoyable from the start.    … Expand
  13. rkarlberg
    Sep 29, 2021
    3
    Too many negatives! Level design is excellent - but the world is so empty. Monsters look very cool - but drop nothing and very little xp. Story is horrible - boring and too many long cutscenes. Forced dungeons are raids are awful.
  14. erazor2021
    Aug 18, 2021
    0
    If you don’t like the Trial / “Realm Reborn” take my word, you won’t like any of it…

    New players hope you are ready for 200+ hours of MSQ which is mainly reading text. I fell for the recent hype. To all the people who says “it gets better” seriously, what is wrong with you? This constant insincerity is what kept me going. IT DOESN’T GET BETTER (a least to the point it serves as a    If you don’t like the Trial / “Realm Reborn” take my word, you won’t like any of it…

    New players hope you are ready for 200+ hours of MSQ which is mainly reading text.

    I fell for the recent hype. To all the people who says “it gets better” seriously, what is wrong with you? This constant insincerity is what kept me going. IT DOESN’T GET BETTER (a least to the point it serves as a valid argument).

    I just finished Shadowbringers 5.5 MSQ, and let me tell you, this is an “interactive Novel” more than it is a video game.

    Sure with each expansion the game (novel) gets a little better, in terms of graphics, animations, storytelling, but the CORE of the game doesn’t change, it is still this outdated mmorpg tab targeting, with its main FOCUS on MSQ, which is basically walls of text.

    Your quests in order of occurrences is: talk, travel, click objects, kill NPCs, do dungeons/trials/story instances.
    They added one different mechanic in Stormblood lol, which is to “click stuff in FPS mode”.

    I can count the EPIC moments of the story in one hand! 3 of them were in Havensward and 2 in Shadowbringers (forget RR and SB).

    The main focus of this game is the MSQ, but the problem is; the MSQ is 90% fluff pointless writing and storytelling, you could cut out 80% of this writing and still get a concise accurate description of the story, albeit just more on point.

    What Square Enix is doing is inflating game time content with more and more text and sloppy animation screens, which I’m not kidding stretches the MSQ than it really needs to be. I’m not even talking about important background build up, I’m talking about content you won’t even remember because it served no purpose in the grand scheme of things. (Anything you wont remember a month from now isn't worth reading about).

    Because the MSQ is mainly storytelling, and single player orientated, why not just play better solo video games that are much, much better technically advanced in gameplay, like GTA 5, Witcher 3, red redemption 2, and hundreds of others titles?

    There were times I was so desperate to just “play” the game, because there is so few dungeons/trials and killing quests in-between all the walls of text.

    One could always pay a story skip potion, but the fact is MSQ is the focus of this game, the endgame is extra stuff. Players and Square have both said that MSQ is the focus of the game, and the more casual player base.

    WoW = focuses on repeatable endgame content after a short introductory (and often crap) storyline.

    FF14 = 200 hours of MSQ (at minimum) at which point you can cycle through some endgame content and get max ilvl gear fairly easily. But levelling others job/crafts, which has its own questlines seems be one of the most popular things to do.

    I won’t be buying Endwalker. People who enjoy reading fluff for hundreds of hours to see one good cutscene here and there, you do that, enjoy! I’ll watch it in a recap YouTube video and do more productive things with my life than read FLUFF MSQ content, which is intentionally used to extend game play time.

    “You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time” think about if you’re really enjoying that 200 hours or if you’re only enjoy small amounts of it. Whilst the epic moments were epic, the pain of going through so much unfun content to see it was not worth it. The balance is definitely not there.

    Even most fans think the post RR quests are so bad, yet square hasnt fixed it by just removing it for new players by using a short narration cutscene to bring players up to date for havensward. (And i heard it was even worse, oh dear God).    … Expand
  15. Volcharus
    Jul 24, 2021
    0
    first i shall say - support g-developers for problem character accounts is terrible!!!
    second - game is profoundly boring and dead long past ago in timeline our life!!!
  16. LeonieV2
    Jul 2, 2021
    0
    Achtung das Spiel klaut euch bewusst euro abo Zeit!

    1 Mit gezogenen Events die absichtlich eine längere Zeit benötigen als eigentlich nötig 2 Wer sich ein haus kaufen will zieht die arsch karte da ´die Grundstücke die eigentlich frei sind nicht sofort frei gegeben werden! sondern ein unsichtbaren Timer von 72 Stunden der zufällig verschwindet ich habe insgesamt mehr als einen Tag    Achtung das Spiel klaut euch bewusst euro abo Zeit!

    1 Mit gezogenen Events die absichtlich eine längere Zeit benötigen als eigentlich nötig

    2 Wer sich ein haus kaufen will zieht die arsch karte da ´die Grundstücke die eigentlich frei sind nicht sofort frei gegeben werden! sondern ein unsichtbaren Timer von 72 Stunden der zufällig verschwindet ich habe insgesamt mehr als einen Tag verschwendet und immer noch kein Haus da Cheater andauern schneller sind und die werden nicht einmal gebannt die verlorene Zeit bekommt man auch nicht mehr zurück.    … Expand
  17. eastman18
    Jun 18, 2021
    0
    Honestly the game is pure garbage. No PVP component, pure PVE and nothing else. Extremely slow early game.
  18. Midnightiris
    Jun 16, 2021
    2
    I think the game has a lot of potential, but there is a lot of parts of the game for me that are a turnoff.

    1. Leveling becomes so repetitive and boring, so I can't judge late game because the leveling was just so bad. 2. The UI is very bad, hard to navigate around and follow the map, not very user-friendly. 3. Toooo much teleportation, for it really ruins the game that I have to    I think the game has a lot of potential, but there is a lot of parts of the game for me that are a turnoff.

    1. Leveling becomes so repetitive and boring, so I can't judge late game because the leveling was just so bad.
    2. The UI is very bad, hard to navigate around and follow the map, not very user-friendly.
    3. Toooo much teleportation, for it really ruins the game that I have to teleport every time i have to hand in a quest, and you can't enjoy the world. You could run, but it is so far away every time.
    4. Dungeons, fate, and other content do not feel rewarding when leveling, because when you finally get a cool spell, you can't use it in the content, because you are too high level, even if you only do the main quest, it is kinda frustrating.
    5. Also super hard to install, not easy at all.
    6. The spells are awesome, but some spells feels useless when you get another spell, also too slow.

    I love the spells and animation, i just think the leveling experience is just too bad to continue, and I don't like that you have to get your character boosted to enjoy the content.

    All in all a game with potential, but is just too frustrating to play and not rewarding enough.    … Expand
  19. Chalkbrood
    Apr 20, 2021
    2
    MMORPGs are never good ever. Squenix never develops good games. you do the maths
  20. 2random
    Mar 20, 2021
    1
    Buy this, buy that, buy game, buy expansion, buy one more expansion, buy one more expension again, buy subscription every month. Then you have to spend 200 hours doing "fetch this- talk to that guy - fetch that" quests. Or buy auto lvl and buy skip quests. I can buy like a huge pizza and 2 years of WoW instead.
    Servers are filled with player-like bots. Most "people" just stand around    Buy this, buy that, buy game, buy expansion, buy one more expansion, buy one more expension again, buy subscription every month. Then you have to spend 200 hours doing "fetch this- talk to that guy - fetch that" quests. Or buy auto lvl and buy skip quests. I can buy like a huge pizza and 2 years of WoW instead.
    Servers are filled with player-like bots. Most "people" just stand around teleport area doing nothing. Havent seen anyone say a single word in global chat for like 2 months. It can take up to 2 hours to get into a dungeon. So fake. Every time I try to enter any server there is a fake "20 players login queue" message to make the game look more popular. In game community is extremely unfriendly. People would rather rage quit than explain boss tactics.
    Graphics are really bad. Even Lineage 2 looks better at this point.
    Music is good, though.
    So, in case you have 8(full party size) rich friends who can pay at least $100 each- you can have some fun. Otherwise, it's not worth it.    … Expand
  21. tremault
    Feb 3, 2021
    3
    it's hard going. controls are complicated, there is A LOT of reading, more than any final fantasy i've ever played and you're sent around doing busy work for a ton of NPC's that I really don't care about for a world that looks like hot garbage. many people love it but it's really not for me.
  22. yousuck1
    Aug 21, 2020
    0
    SucksSucks.,.................................................. ...................
  23. hithgor
    Feb 11, 2020
    3
    Unless you buy a story skip till the first expansion, you'll suffer the disgusting 60-ish hour-long fetchquests and a really mediocre story. After that, game's a solid 8 for gameplay and story.
    Would recommend adding an extra 10 euros to buying price for storyskip and watching brief recap on youtube.
  24. HafaNana
    May 28, 2019
    3
    I've been playing the game since launch with several breaks. The game can be a fun experience sometimes, but I cannot recommend playing it as it is intended by the developer.

    FFXIV has a new expansion released every 2 years. And you only need a couple of months playing the game for about 2 hours a day to do all the casual battle content of an expansion (released at launch and during the    I've been playing the game since launch with several breaks. The game can be a fun experience sometimes, but I cannot recommend playing it as it is intended by the developer.

    FFXIV has a new expansion released every 2 years. And you only need a couple of months playing the game for about 2 hours a day to do all the casual battle content of an expansion (released at launch and during the 2-year lifecycle). This includes time to watch main scenario cutscenes and to quickly read through main scenario dialogues.

    The game has very interesting HARDCORE BATTLE CONTENT, but I've decided to stop doing it for the following reasons:
    1. There is little amount of hardcore content (Savage Raids and Extreme Primals): 6 - 7 fights every 7 - 9 months.
    2. Progress through a Savage raids is artificially held back a lot due to weekly loot limitations, RNG and the amount of casual content grind required to gear up your character.
    3. It becomes repetitive very quickly. Fights are very rigidly scripted - to the point that you can write down the exact boss attack rotation.
    4. It's way too hard to find player parties for hardcore content. The game provides no efficient matchmaker or efficient tools to build communities (social networks) of reliable players or to filter out misbehaving players. Statics do on regular bases only hard content of the latest progression cycle (a new one starts every 7 - 9 months with the release of the next raid tier), because only this provides relevant rewards. Only about 10% of all active players manage to beat the last fight of a Savage Raid. In Stormblood two Ultimate difficulty fights have been released, that only about 1% of all active players were able to beat.

    Doing OLD CONTENT (of previous expansions) is not nearly as interesting as new one, because:
    - all actions (abilities) of a job (battle class) become available only when it reaches the current level cap;
    - absolute majority of game characters entering older fights through duty roulettes for daily rewards are overgeared.
    As a result older fights feel much more like easy grind than challenging and exciting action.

    PvP in FF XIV is a complete joke. It is unpopular to the point that Square Enix has to limit the number of available game modes (and rotate them each weak) so that the matchmaker can manage to find players for the available ones. There is no open world PvP either. PvP is also completely F2P: a free trial character can participate in all PvP fights (except for ranked matches) on equal terms with subscribers. It is plagued with cheaters and botters. Reporting such players to Square Enix has no effect. There are no efficient ways of communication between players: there is no VoIP in the game, and some of PvP modes have even text chat disabled (you can only use phrases predefined by Square Enix by pressing buttons/using text macros).

    The game is often praised for its CRAFTING system. While it is complex, it is also very repetitive at the same time. Players just use macros to automate the crafting process. If you decide to get into crafting seriously, you will need to level up all the crafting professions on a single game character in order to get all cross-class skills, as well as gathering professions for the supply of materials. And nobody is excited about gathering, because it's just a tedious grind. You don't need to level up crafting to be an efficient PvE/PvP player.

    The game is heavily MONETIZED. Expect to buy the base game and the latest expansion, pay monthly subscription fee and besides:
    - If you are a crafter or collect glamours (cosmetic gear for your game character) you will easily run out of inventory space. To increase it you are expected to hire additional retainers (NPC characters) for additional real money monthly fee. Retainers also provide additional bonuses for crafters. There are cosmetic items that can be bought only with real money. You need to buy Fantasia potion with real money to change the appearance of your game character significantly.
    - You are interested in housing? Be aware that your house will be destroyed if you unsubscribe from the game for longer than 45 days in a row.
    - The mobile app for buying/selling stuff on the in-game auction (Market Board) with in-game currency (Gil) has an optional real money subscription fee and a premium currency that are used to unlock transactions.
    - There are Scenario Skip and Job Level-Boost potions. Be ready to buy both or buy none. If you buy only Scenario Skip potion (there are ~584 main scenario quests as of patch 4.58) your progress will be too slow because of lack of experience points bonuses.

    Square Enix makes 50% DISCOUNTS on the base game and the latest expansion every year at different times on different digital stores (after several months cooldown since new expansion release). You also get all previous game expansions for free if you purchase the latest one.    … Expand
  25. Praise
    May 26, 2019
    1
    Horrible drawn out story with 1 dimensional characters you can’t force yourself to care about. Enjoy hearing “it’s only the first 30 hours then the story gets so much better!” Just for it to become slightly more tolerable. The fact that they sell story skips in the cash shop speaks for itself. Stay away from this WoW clone.
  26. Shperax
    Mar 12, 2019
    4
    This game had so much potential to be good.

    The only thing version 1.0 got right was the amazing combat system. This game removed it in favor of a WoW clone combat system. It feels soooo old. They did improve on the game on every other aspect but in these type of games the combat needs to hold up and the way they changed it just doesn't. 1.0 combat added into ARR would be a nearly    This game had so much potential to be good.

    The only thing version 1.0 got right was the amazing combat system. This game removed it in favor of a WoW clone combat system. It feels soooo old.

    They did improve on the game on every other aspect but in these type of games the combat needs to hold up and the way they changed it just doesn't.

    1.0 combat added into ARR would be a nearly perfect game. Its fun to check out the world and other game systems but once your done that your gonna wanna give it up quick in favor of a game with a better combat system.    … Expand
  27. Vectis99
    Oct 23, 2018
    2
    A mind-numbing beat-em-up over-saturated with aggressive, addiction-cultivating mechanics to the point of absurdity. The game relies heavily on social elements and can be a cute way to interact with distant friends, but this is about the extent of the games appeal and even it is abused to squeeze as notable a player count as possible using underhanded social-advertising driven tactics.A mind-numbing beat-em-up over-saturated with aggressive, addiction-cultivating mechanics to the point of absurdity. The game relies heavily on social elements and can be a cute way to interact with distant friends, but this is about the extent of the games appeal and even it is abused to squeeze as notable a player count as possible using underhanded social-advertising driven tactics. The game tries to be pleasant aesthetically but ends up looking rather bloated and cluttered. The extended and convoluted plot is bland, slow, and frustrating, with characters it is nearly impossible to become invested in. Avoid FFXIV if possible.… Expand
  28. moudoka
    Sep 14, 2017
    2
    I was a subscriber from patch 2.1, to 4.1. SE is a horrible company, zero customer service, and will steal from you if given half a chance. In ARR, the game was new, fun, and exciting. Heavensward came out, and it had a lot of elements that were not so good, but overall, the experience was fun. Stormblood came out, and honestly, I hated it. It's the same-old cut and dried danceI was a subscriber from patch 2.1, to 4.1. SE is a horrible company, zero customer service, and will steal from you if given half a chance. In ARR, the game was new, fun, and exciting. Heavensward came out, and it had a lot of elements that were not so good, but overall, the experience was fun. Stormblood came out, and honestly, I hated it. It's the same-old cut and dried dance routine, with nothing new. The new maps were nice, but they wore out VERY quickly until you can fly, then everything else becomes an utter waste of time. 50 bucks for Stormblood, when it's nothing more than Heavensward 1.5. Literally. Exact same raid system, exact same boring storyline that feels amateurish, rushed. Same stupid crafting scrip system that was hated in HW. You want a house? Well, too bad. Unless you are logged in on release day of the player housing, you get nothing. Free Company and personal housing mixed, reducing the chance of getting a house even more. Want to raid? Hope you enjoy wiping countless times because you missed a single step, killing everyone in the raid with you. Like 1-hit kills, no matter how much armor, HP, etc you have? Great, tons of them. Save your money, the subscription is a waste of time. There are almost zero content updates, save a drop every 3 months or so. Like holiday quests? Well, FF14's are trash, they last 15 seconds, and you're done. Zero effort anymore. Do not buy, or support this game until they make real changes.… Expand
  29. WdMac
    Sep 6, 2017
    1
    God awful questing and character progression. The entirety of the games content is locked behind the main story quest line. You cant do ANYTHING until the game lets you. Want to do dungeons with your friends? Too bad, the game wont let you until you do their lame story quest. Level doesnt matter as much as main story progression. This game commits the cardinal sin of becoming a chore toGod awful questing and character progression. The entirety of the games content is locked behind the main story quest line. You cant do ANYTHING until the game lets you. Want to do dungeons with your friends? Too bad, the game wont let you until you do their lame story quest. Level doesnt matter as much as main story progression. This game commits the cardinal sin of becoming a chore to play. The game will not let you progress and explore it under your own terms. This game is terrible.… Expand
  30. ZiNg31
    Feb 16, 2017
    4
    I had never played FF games before this. My best friend he is a huge fan of FF series. FF XIV, my friend recommended me to play this. I bought the game and had lot of funs! This is game something I like to play. The bad part was the online subscriptions expired. I was unable to continue playing this. The subscriptions really hurt this. It would be cool if they sell the game forI had never played FF games before this. My best friend he is a huge fan of FF series. FF XIV, my friend recommended me to play this. I bought the game and had lot of funs! This is game something I like to play. The bad part was the online subscriptions expired. I was unable to continue playing this. The subscriptions really hurt this. It would be cool if they sell the game for more money without subscriptions. I could see myself playing this for long time without subscriptions. I have ton of bills to pay including house, SUV, phone, cable and Internet. This sucks.… Expand
  31. Mmmmph
    Aug 30, 2016
    0
    This game is an account management nightmare. Don't even bother.

    I decided to try this game as a trial account, then the race I wanted to play was locked behind an expansion. So I went and bought the full game and the expansion. Now I can't upgrade my account, I contacted support and they're telling me to either delete the game off my account(yes you heard me right) which I can't do, or    This game is an account management nightmare. Don't even bother.

    I decided to try this game as a trial account, then the race I wanted to play was locked behind an expansion. So I went and bought the full game and the expansion. Now I can't upgrade my account, I contacted support and they're telling me to either delete the game off my account(yes you heard me right) which I can't do, or create an entirely NEW account.
    That's right folks that's how utterly backwards their trial accounts are, not even contacting support will allow me to upgrade my account.    … Expand
  32. MangaX
    Feb 26, 2016
    0
    Huge fan of Final Fantasy. I own nearly every game that was released prior to X-2. In fact, I own versions on multiple systems (PC and PS1 versions of VII and VIII for example).
    Nevertheless, Final Fantasy hasn't seemed appealing to me in a long time. Then, I was told that this was the best release yet, and has the best story out of all of them. So, I gave it a shot ...
    In the end,    Huge fan of Final Fantasy. I own nearly every game that was released prior to X-2. In fact, I own versions on multiple systems (PC and PS1 versions of VII and VIII for example).
    Nevertheless, Final Fantasy hasn't seemed appealing to me in a long time. Then, I was told that this was the best release yet, and has the best story out of all of them. So, I gave it a shot ...
    In the end, I'm not sure how this received such amazing reviews. RPGs on the Super Nintendo had more depth when it comes to combat -- and in some cases, story as well.
    People have told me that, "you just have to reach level 30 before the story really takes off."
    Really? ... If it takes that long for a game to become interesting and engaging, then you've failed as a developer.    … Expand
  33. JimmyCricket
    Nov 30, 2015
    4
    I am completely bewildered as to why this game is getting such a positive wrap. Laggy servers, terrible, boring and monotonous quest line, extremely poor UI all add up to make this feel like a title from 2005 (if not for the impressive graphics engine). Even so I'd much rather be playing Vanilla WoW cause it was such a smoother game experience, even 10 years ago in comparison to this.I am completely bewildered as to why this game is getting such a positive wrap. Laggy servers, terrible, boring and monotonous quest line, extremely poor UI all add up to make this feel like a title from 2005 (if not for the impressive graphics engine). Even so I'd much rather be playing Vanilla WoW cause it was such a smoother game experience, even 10 years ago in comparison to this.

    Alas, this game does not come close to being a WoW killer, and shows no signs of ever being one.

    Do yourself a favour... Don't bother.    … Expand
  34. Passivepete
    Oct 23, 2015
    0
    I've played a lot of games in my time and this one is bad. It's really simplistic, boring combat (press button, wait for cooldown, press the next button), boring missions (take this item to this guy) and clunky controls. It is designed around consoles so on a PC it is especially awkward to play. It looks like a little kids game, in fact I started to google it to see if it was designed forI've played a lot of games in my time and this one is bad. It's really simplistic, boring combat (press button, wait for cooldown, press the next button), boring missions (take this item to this guy) and clunky controls. It is designed around consoles so on a PC it is especially awkward to play. It looks like a little kids game, in fact I started to google it to see if it was designed for young kids. There is no real meat here, it's a dressed up grind fest. It makes me appreciate how good other mmos such as wow, eve, guildwars2 etc actually are and that I should appreciate them more!
    I really wanted this to be a good game I could sink some time into but I knew it wasn't it before hitting even level 10. The first introduction to the game, the hook that should make you think HELL YEAH, after creating your character is a whole bunch of dialog with no voice acting, it's your hint that this game is bad. Lucky they have a free tryout and I didn't waste money on it, they should have mini download of a few gig so you don't have to waste 20gig of data on it too.    … Expand
  35. baslack
    Aug 20, 2015
    4
    Ok, at this point I'm an MMO veteran. I've played dozens of these things since SWG and while I wasn't around for EQ or DAoC, I've seen most of the big titles. FFXIV is an anime themed WoW 2.0 theme park MMO that's pretty conventional to 2004 game play. That it's subscription only in this day and age of F2P bailouts is remarkable. However, it's not because of any secret in game play orOk, at this point I'm an MMO veteran. I've played dozens of these things since SWG and while I wasn't around for EQ or DAoC, I've seen most of the big titles. FFXIV is an anime themed WoW 2.0 theme park MMO that's pretty conventional to 2004 game play. That it's subscription only in this day and age of F2P bailouts is remarkable. However, it's not because of any secret in game play or innovative storytelling. The game play is pretty much WoW with a prettier skin on it. The story is some of the most painful mary sue anime archetypal tripe you'll ever come across. I think it's ability to hold subs directly correlates to the fan base for the IP. Simply, it is P2P because SQ fans are willing to pay to get their fix.

    It does a few things very well. Most notably, right off the bat you're introduced to a very robust fast travel system, both intra-city and global map wide. The class mechanic is unique in that it allows any character to level any class; active class is dictated by the implements equipped. The world and characters are appealing, especially if you're a fan of the anime style. As a roleplayer, it has one of the most active RP communities in any game I've ever seen. Cities are full of folks roleplaying at all hours, every day (on Balmung). The game also seems to cater to these folks, with robust housing (instanced lots) and cosmetic gear.

    That said, it does some things horribly. This is old school tab targeting. This is old school toolbar drive rotation repeat combat. When people are scripting macros to do combat and crafting (which is also toolbar driven) because it's tedious, you know you have a problem. Quests are your standard fare: kill fetch and escort. Kill quests tend to be short, which is good, but fetch quests tend to be long and take you between multiple zones with excessive loading times due to the pretty art. Escort quests are highly tedious, requiring you to manually emote at your charge to get them to follow you. Leveling is fast, at least early, but very grindy and repetitive because of the over simplification of combat.

    Perhaps my biggest complain is that one of the most interesting features, housing, is locked behind a level 50 grind wall. As a roleplayer, housing is what will make be pay a sub. It's a space to play in. Having to slog through 50 levels of grindy game just to get to it is a show stopper. Not to mention when those quests end up bugged, failing to turn in and wasting your time. Finally, there should be a check box to skip ALL cut scenes in the game. In this day and age, forcing your player to sit through these is totally unacceptable. If folks want to get on with their play, let them do so, SQ. Finally, putting basic items like the Auction House as unlockables behind a dungeon based quest system? Yes, they did that. And that's just one example. FFXIV and SQ like to lock features of their game behind a large collection of hoops. It's how they spread out your time and grind your sub money out of you. Well... the players. My 30 days are up in about two weeks and I think I'll be moving on.

    The good:
    Well implement Fast Travel
    Interesting Multi-class mechanic
    Aesthetic appeal
    RP Community
    Has Housing

    The Bad:
    Total lack of innovation in gameplay
    Excessive grind
    Housing locked behind grind to 50
    Buggy quests still present after the reboot
    Unskippable cutscenes
    Basic functionality unlocks behind multiplayer dungeon quest completion

    P.S. Also note, which this maybe a Haven for roleplayers, getting into that haven, the Balmung server, will cost you. SQ for whatever reason ties their character creation to server queue. So if a server is full, you can't create characters on it. Balmung always has a queue and so it's virtually impossible to ever create characters on it. There's occasionally a window after maintenance (4AM PST) but otherwise, the only way to get onto the server is via the transfer service of Mog Station. That's $18 USD, for as many characters as you like from one server to another. Worth it if you're a roleplayer to some at least, but still, consider the extra cost if that's what you're coming to FFXIV for.    … Expand
  36. GrimStabberson
    Jun 15, 2015
    1
    This game is the final nail in the coffin for my love of the Final Fantasy series. FFXIV is a HUGE pain in the butt to even get started and has a monthly subscription- on top of the game's initial price tag. It is largely a chore to play and is designed more to eat up time more-so than actually be fun.

    FFXIV is chocked full of mindless fetch quests that have you delivering trivial    This game is the final nail in the coffin for my love of the Final Fantasy series. FFXIV is a HUGE pain in the butt to even get started and has a monthly subscription- on top of the game's initial price tag. It is largely a chore to play and is designed more to eat up time more-so than actually be fun.

    FFXIV is chocked full of mindless fetch quests that have you delivering trivial items, like tea leaves, from NPC A to NPC B. In typical MMORPG format you will run the same dungeons and kill the same mobs for endless hours for drops and levels. Again, most of this game is designed simply to eat up time doing menial tasks repeatedly to keep you subscribing for months to make progress.

    My main purpose for writing this bad review, however, is to warn about the ungodly amount of spam it has. The spam here is worse than anything I've ever seen in a game- including free to play games. On many servers it is so unbearable that people either have to use 3rd party tools to block some of it (which is against the ToS) or simply turn off the personal chat function. The whole freaking POINT of an MMO is to interact with other players, but many people struggle doing that due to all of the spam messages we are constantly bombarded with.

    The "Report Spam" function in this game is basically nonexistent and most players don't even know how to do this. SE basically expects you to stop what you are doing, log into their website, fill out a form for each spam message, and send it to their "Special Task Force" (which is basically 3 employees for all of North America). What makes this even more ludicrous is that we sometimes get a dozen or more of these spam messages from various characters with names like "Dffrffddf Gffgfdfg" every few minutes. This has been a problem with them for the last 2 years and it really hasn't gotten any better. Basically, they just don't care. It is totally unacceptable.

    Anyone that says this isn't a problem is either in a locked server that's hard to get an account on (for bots and players alike) or are on a Japanese server (which SE seems to actually give a damn about). NA/EU servers, as a whole, are completely spammed into oblivion and the developers just don't care. As a US player, I personally take this as a slap in the face.

    As an added bonus, a large part of this game's community consists of elitist metrosexual douchebags. Sure, there are nice people that play, but expect the obnoxious ones to drown them out. If you're new to a dungeon in end-game there is a very large probability you will be insulted non-stop and possibly kicked out of the party. You can expect rudeness and petty arguments in nearly every raid. This community is so toxic that- if understanding people like me try to explain the mechanics of a dungeon to new people- even I get hate for taking the time to do so. The mentality basically boils down to "GO! GO! GO! YOU SUCK, NOOB!!!" Of course, when they inevitably wipe due to this attitude, they rage quit. This might not sound so bad on its own, but often there is an hour wait *just to get into a dungeon*!

    If you like being trolled by metrosexual half-naked cat-men and spammed nonstop by bots trying to sell you game money for real money, then this is the game for you. If you want to make friends to go on an exciting and engaging adventure with, however, look elsewhere.    … Expand
  37. mk7peters
    Jun 4, 2015
    0
    Worst mmorpg I have ever played! First time log in you get bombarded with RMT friend requests by the end of your game play you have just received over 100 friend requests. SE support does nothing but tell you to blist and send a suggestion to them about it. You will spend more time blisting then enjoying the game. SE support is supposedly looking into the issue but I doubt they will doWorst mmorpg I have ever played! First time log in you get bombarded with RMT friend requests by the end of your game play you have just received over 100 friend requests. SE support does nothing but tell you to blist and send a suggestion to them about it. You will spend more time blisting then enjoying the game. SE support is supposedly looking into the issue but I doubt they will do anything since these accounts help make them money. In my opinion these so called support people are the ones engaged in these gil selling activities and will do nothing until they recuperate the money lost during the flopped release of this game. If you want to enjoy a mmorpg this is not the game to buy and dedicate your free time.… Expand
  38. Zenfang
    Feb 26, 2015
    0
    The Final Fantasy franchise has come a long way from the Final Fantasy 7-9 and even Final Fantasy XI and while I agree that ARR is a enormous improvement over what was first released it still leaves a lot to be desired. The battlecraft system is flat out confusing from Thaumaturge and Archer turning magically into Black Mage to splitting arcanist into two paths it makes no sense. Sure itThe Final Fantasy franchise has come a long way from the Final Fantasy 7-9 and even Final Fantasy XI and while I agree that ARR is a enormous improvement over what was first released it still leaves a lot to be desired. The battlecraft system is flat out confusing from Thaumaturge and Archer turning magically into Black Mage to splitting arcanist into two paths it makes no sense. Sure it has customization for characters,personal houses, and soon Free Company Airships (which in it self i a major break from the past FF games).

    I give it 5/10 it's pay to play, overpriced, graphically improved version of various other MMO's and uniting several past FF games completely throwing out the successful parts of FFXI. It's not fun unless you are crafting or chocobo racing and eventually that novelty wears off and you are left with a crappy battle system that is just boring. Don't buy it, don't waste your money - IF you want a good game go for Guild Wars 2    … Expand
  39. gamemax
    Dec 29, 2014
    1
    BAG OF STOLEN GOODS
    playing a thaumaturg: skill tree is copied from aion, "fate" events are copied from rift, skill sync is copied from guild wars 2, HUD customizing is copied from rift aso. aso.
    shame on the probably bought reviewers who made me buy this soulless, money grabbing asia grinder trying to cash in on the name of this great series and stolen ideas now please tell me    BAG OF STOLEN GOODS
    playing a thaumaturg: skill tree is copied from aion, "fate" events are copied from rift, skill sync is copied from guild wars 2, HUD customizing is copied from rift aso. aso.

    shame on the probably bought reviewers who made me buy this soulless, money grabbing asia grinder trying to cash in on the name of this great series and stolen ideas

    now please tell me again how profit incentive gives us the best product - capitalism debunked...    … Expand
  40. Ezalael
    Oct 11, 2014
    4
    In 1 word: annoying. It's not beautiful, nor challenging. Walking a lot, with static fights. When not walking, teleporting, but not everywhere, where no crystal to TP we can take a chocobo, and see its ass during minutes until we reach destination. Very lovely.. mmh in fact no. Ah another thing really good: regularly talking to NPC will put you in video mode. Didn't understood why exceptIn 1 word: annoying. It's not beautiful, nor challenging. Walking a lot, with static fights. When not walking, teleporting, but not everywhere, where no crystal to TP we can take a chocobo, and see its ass during minutes until we reach destination. Very lovely.. mmh in fact no. Ah another thing really good: regularly talking to NPC will put you in video mode. Didn't understood why except seeing NPC full screen. Nothing else. Luckily you can skip. Good.… Expand
  41. Pnx725
    Sep 13, 2014
    2
    This game faces many issues;

    *The combat system is one of the worst I have seen in any mmo ever, very simplistic and boring. *Huge storyline but only a few scenes have voice acting. *The maps in the World feel small and there is no sense of danger at all. *The Fate system (gw2 minievents copy) is boring and not challenging. *The dungeons are to easy *There is no enough real    This game faces many issues;

    *The combat system is one of the worst I have seen in any mmo ever, very simplistic and boring.
    *Huge storyline but only a few scenes have voice acting.
    *The maps in the World feel small and there is no sense of danger at all.
    *The Fate system (gw2 minievents copy) is boring and not challenging.
    *The dungeons are to easy
    *There is no enough real endgame content, it is only one 8 man raid with 4 boss fights. (can only do 1 time a week)
    *The game has a lot of restrictions to favor casual players and keeping the game becoming obsolete because of the lack of real endgame.
    *The crafting system is obsolete since they have let ppl know that dungeon gear will always be better than crafting gear.
    *The Customer Service is terrible and when they answer they send you a copy-pasted generic response with no help at all.

    Not all about this game is bad, it can keep you entertained till you realize it is not worth it, but I seriously recommend you to stay away from it.    … Expand
  42. stefmor90
    Aug 15, 2014
    4
    I never played the beta of this game, but in the first few hours I've played it, I found nothing remarkable. Now before anyone thinks 'But the game gets SO MUCH BETTER' that's a crock of **** if the game fails to captivate the player in the first few hours (which should be it's best moments of gameplay), then it has failed the rest.

    The first few quests I found myself doing were the    I never played the beta of this game, but in the first few hours I've played it, I found nothing remarkable. Now before anyone thinks 'But the game gets SO MUCH BETTER' that's a crock of **** if the game fails to captivate the player in the first few hours (which should be it's best moments of gameplay), then it has failed the rest.

    The first few quests I found myself doing were the worst: Fetch quests. I was told to go and pick up some items, or talk to some random NPC in the city, and these just dragged ON AND ON until I explored the whole city. I know the game is trying to convey a sense of exploration and meaning in exploring the city, but forcing the player and guiding them through linear tunnels of quests is certainly not a good way to make a first impression.

    Eventually, I finally got a quest where I could try out some combat. I thought that this must be the area where the game must shine, but instead it was mostly just cycling my 3 skills and dodging some telegraphed attacks, shown as little quarter circles and such on the ground you have to move out of or you take large amounts of damage .

    At about this time, I noticed that this game must have taken some huge inspiration from Guildwars 2 (One of my all time favorites), The telegraphed attacks, weapons changing gameplay, the FATE system, the personal story, and so on. However, minus the personal story, they seem patched on and no where near as competent or fun as the games role-model.

    I got to about level 10 when I stopped playing, and boy did it feel like forever. I was really bored and disinterested and level 10 is generally the area where MMOs should pick up but unfortunately Final Fantasy XIV didn't seem to be going anywhere special.

    Obviously this game is trying its hardest after its previous launch failure to be a great MMO, but it has completely and utterly disgusted me in the first few hours of gameplay, which is something no game, especially MMOs, should do. The only thing going through my head when I was playing this was 'I wish I was playing Guildwars 2, it does this so much better'.    … Expand
  43. Samuraikenshin
    Jul 23, 2014
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Combat is slow and dull and only gets mildly better as you level up. Story is bland and unremarkable in any way as the time in between any parts that are ok is broken up by tons of typical bland fetch/ups quests. Quests often have you go from point A to point B back to point A then on to point C etc etc... The FATE events almost all fall into one of two categories, either kill a small zerg of normal mobs or kill one mini boss type monster. This is mostly the same as other games that feature this style of event, how ever it feels worse here.

    Endgame fights rely mostly on extreme gimmick mechanics combined with the long global cool down to force difficulty into the fights. In most cases just reacting to a fight mechanic will not be enough you have to memorize the pattern of the boss so that you can move pre emptively, part of this is due to the horrid net coding used and the awful latency/updating the server does. Itemization on gear is horrible. Secondary stats provide so little benefit that they shouldn't even be on gear, spell/skill speed being the biggest culprit. It provides so little benefit so as not to break the long GCD system they designed that it should have never been created.

    This comes from a pre 2.2 player that cleared turn 4 and just stopped caring about the game due to all the above issues.

    P.S. Crystal tower loot system is the worst thing ever.    … Expand
  44. BadMMO
    Jun 22, 2014
    0
    I hope Yoshida and his crew should take sometime to review various issue that they
    had been bringing forward towards each patch and new contents.
    Each patch gurantees a bug crash or massive error that would contributes to server downtime/delay. They should realise that ff14 is not a game for normal players who's not working or players who does not come from adequately financially    I hope Yoshida and his crew should take sometime to review various issue that they
    had been bringing forward towards each patch and new contents.

    Each patch gurantees a bug crash or massive error that would contributes to server downtime/delay.

    They should realise that ff14 is not a game for normal players
    who's not working or players who does not come from adequately financially stabled income household.

    Players are mostly working adults and rich kids or medium household income family.
    Working adults would not have generous time to contribute so much activities that SE
    been pushing this new contents. This new contents are not design to suit all works of life.
    It's more to catering towards hardcore players apetite.
    If we put into some wild measurements, a full set of high allaghan took hardcore players
    a min of 30-50hours gametime.
    However. if we look at working adults of contribution towards gametime.
    It's ten times that effort or probably more.

    Dungeon that aims to put players in precise positioning and highly scripted AI that aim
    to disrupt or wipe players with only one mistake. Oftenly , players who join got killed
    by lag and this contributed a wipe session. This would repeat as lag seems to spread
    across other players as well. As long as one player lag , it's gurantee a never win situation
    for a whole day.
    Working adults could only play during normal gametime hours. Especially Asians, we get to
    compete against high peak hours. This would resulting players cursing each other ,
    discriminating each other with the language barrier or "alien players" term.
    The game was not built on making global players to get along well but the mechanism promotes
    high discrimination competition as well.
    I would not say an easy way of attaining end game gears but more of a logical method to attain it.

    The game was made to look so time consuming and rigid that it no longer call entertainment.
    It's like a single crumb of bread divided into a thousand pieces to make it looks bigger and more time to consume.

    From last interview, it seems that Yoshida believes that the game was not challenging enough. They now aim to make it more
    challenging *In their point of view* . This would alternate the sequence of this spells/skill that raid boss cast.
    Now , players have been dying to lag had the only method to dodge this spell/skill.
    Instead of making the game more accomodating towards global players , they further tweak the mechanism to wipe players more easily.

    The game was created to be based upon something illogical that sucks player's life away.
    FF11 was once based upon that standard they made players left. It was never challenging. It's just extreme time consuming.
    With the server's cockup latency from time to time. Players had to rely on tunneling or vpn services. This is something abnormal.

    I've been looking for a game that's call entertainment. But for ff14, i feel that i'm still working inside. This is entertainment, not occupation recreation.
    I'm looking to release stress, not gain more stress from game.

    This has been square enix biggest failure in making mmo. They take pride into making something unachievable and unrealistic goals in their gaming mechanism.
    It destroys players life. Promoting players to hate each other which was regard as "competition"

    From the silly 12xzodiac stone that had random drop rates to 9x1500 tomes per book with each book with fate,leve,enemies and dungeon to accomplish.
    With t5 bcob, scob and ex primals that aim to make players scurrying accross pigeon hole safe zone.
    This would also cause players to redo the same silly raid for weeks or months.
    When players finally get through , they would only get a single drop that player been doing for weeks and months only to find it powerlot off by someone who did only 1-2 times. At least for ff11, for some highly time consuming raid, all participating players were rewarded well. This one give you nothing after so many attempts. And yes, japanese players usually powerlot very frequently in any raids. If you catch them lotting low , it's mostly unimportant lots or they are just lotting for fun. I've never won any lots before in bcob and primal ex. Everytime a japanese joins the lot, i'll always hit a gurantee low lot. Only unimportant drops that's dirt common, i'll get it without issue. Unless the japanese wanted that lot. If you are someone who is new and looking for entertaiment from game,i would suggest you not to touch this game. It's a game that'll literally suck you to hell.    … Expand
  45. AsuiaKyoto
    Apr 14, 2014
    4
    Horrible Customer service. Contradicting and abusive Terms & Policy.
    Community ruined by multiple mmorpg global world newcomers.
    This is no where near how Final Fantasy XI was. Sure FFXI Was a menu slow base game, though FFXIV new features and mid pace game play- it is all candy until Square Enix gets what they want from you. Money. They do not listen to their community when it comes    Horrible Customer service. Contradicting and abusive Terms & Policy.
    Community ruined by multiple mmorpg global world newcomers.

    This is no where near how Final Fantasy XI was. Sure FFXI Was a menu slow base game, though FFXIV new features and mid pace game play- it is all candy until Square Enix gets what they want from you. Money. They do not listen to their community when it comes to their account. Other than that great game, horrible service.    … Expand
  46. SkillyD
    Mar 4, 2014
    3
    The game has some good features, but as you advance, it becomes increasingly repetitive and boring. Game play for your first class is great through level 15. The graphics are amazing, the music is enjoyable, and the story line intriguing. After level 15, however, the game becomes increasingly repetitive.

    If you use side quests to level your first class, it's much harder to level    The game has some good features, but as you advance, it becomes increasingly repetitive and boring. Game play for your first class is great through level 15. The graphics are amazing, the music is enjoyable, and the story line intriguing. After level 15, however, the game becomes increasingly repetitive.

    If you use side quests to level your first class, it's much harder to level additional classes, and there's an advantage to having multiple classes on one character since you can share skills between classes. If you don't use side quests, though, you have to do the same dungeons, FATEs (time-limited area quests for multiple players), and levequests (quests obtained by talking to a levemete) over, and over, and over. As you progress further, you must repeat dungeons to get gear and tomes (that you spend to get better gear). You may end up doing the same dungeon twenty or thirty times to get the gear you want for a single class. The more classes you add to your character, the more you have to rely on repeated dungeons, fates, and leves to level.

    With the exception of the insanely difficult Titan hard mode quest - which you must complete to get your relic (high-level) weapon - most quests are interesting and sufficiently challenging the first time, and even the second and the third. But by the 20th or 30th time, they do get dull. When I found myself listening to audiobooks so I'd have something interesting to do while I ran a dungeon, I knew it was time to quit.

    Oh - and customer service is terrible. When a bug totally blocked the main story quest progression on my server, it took three days for SE to repair it. It took four for them to respond to my report - and then it was only to say that I should have submitted the report in a different fashion (which was not obvious from the report form). In other MMOs, when a bug has blocked quest progression, GMs have responded to the report within minutes and made it possible for characters to progress.

    In sum - the game would be much better if the content were wider, so that characters and classes could be leveled without tedious repeats. And customer service needs to be vastly improved.    … Expand
  47. tdebug
    Mar 1, 2014
    0
    If you passed through hell creating account, accepting dozens of agreement, confirmation emails, you may like this game ONLY if you actually like this specific type of MMO. It's basically same as Old Republic or Neverwinter, but in a different universe. Generally - dull and boring. This make you especially regret you lost an hours passing through hell as complicated and long accountIf you passed through hell creating account, accepting dozens of agreement, confirmation emails, you may like this game ONLY if you actually like this specific type of MMO. It's basically same as Old Republic or Neverwinter, but in a different universe. Generally - dull and boring. This make you especially regret you lost an hours passing through hell as complicated and long account creation process.… Expand
  48. JoshuaClee
    Feb 26, 2014
    2
    I realize that this game is currently free, but having to read tiny subtitles in 2014? Really? Really? 30 mins in and I have a headache. I just got new glasses so it's not me.
  49. nawrot
    Feb 18, 2014
    3
    This game is WOW clone without real PVP and worse skills/itemization, graphics is much better, but i dislike cartoony style of WOW, so this is matter of personal preferences. For this alone i would give FFXIV score of 7/10 at least, but they totally messed up endgame. They copied every major idea from WOW, but stopped right where it matters for long and successful run, they did their ownThis game is WOW clone without real PVP and worse skills/itemization, graphics is much better, but i dislike cartoony style of WOW, so this is matter of personal preferences. For this alone i would give FFXIV score of 7/10 at least, but they totally messed up endgame. They copied every major idea from WOW, but stopped right where it matters for long and successful run, they did their own boring grindfest endgame instead. First you kill for ages in same 2 dungeons to get tomes, when your gear is fine (or you have somebody to drag your sorry ass) you get to farming primals. Doing that stuff for week or two could be amusing, but after you can run whole instance just by listening to it, because you did it so many times that you memorized every move and distance. Well at that point i can call it boring. Also difficulty in primal fights does not come from skills or lack of it, its rather directly translated to lag. All those fights are about is "run from red circles" and know where to stop, Heigan dance from Naxx times ten with out of the ass unicorn particle farts everywhere, so sometimes you barely can see what is going on.… Expand
  50. Silvergryphon
    Feb 2, 2014
    3
    Full of flamers, trolls, goldminers, which greatly detract from enjoyment. There is no adequate reporting system or ability to 'monitor' these infantile actions by players, who deliberately do all they can to wipe teams/raids.

    Boss mechanics are absolutely horrid. Ground effects are useless - you MUST know the boss fight intimately, knowing each of his attack patterns, and be    Full of flamers, trolls, goldminers, which greatly detract from enjoyment. There is no adequate reporting system or ability to 'monitor' these infantile actions by players, who deliberately do all they can to wipe teams/raids.

    Boss mechanics are absolutely horrid. Ground effects are useless - you MUST know the boss fight intimately, knowing each of his attack patterns, and be positioned long before he casts it. If you go by the ground effect (red areas, etc), you will be hit most of the time, and in end-game content, that means the group/raid will fail.

    Vast improvement over first attempt, but still horribly executed in critical areas    … Expand
  51. wtfux2
    Jan 16, 2014
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. PROS:
    -FFXIV graphics.

    CONS:
    -FFXIV adopted WoW questing system is plain and boring.
    -Lack of classes. The newer classes such as paladin, black mage, etc. are a joke. Both paladin and black mage get no abilities that are better than their base classes. Apparently, a black mage is a combination of thaumaturge and archer classes. How archer abilities increase magic potency? You tell me.
    -FATE experience points farming is plain and boring.
    -Dungeons are plain and boring. Dungeons where never SQUARE's thing. Maze mongers and meeble burrows from FFXI never had a high player participation rate. They only reason why FFXIV players do dungeons is to get gear and fast xp.
    -WoW adopted battle system makes fighting repetitive and boring.
    -Lack of skills. Compared to FFXI, FFXIV has a very limited arsenal of skills and abilities. Although the spells and abilities may level up, they replace the previous spell.
    -No elemental weakness. Even more dull gameplay with your one damage spell, blizzard.
    -Lack of summons.
    -Gamepad keybind system is horrible. FFXI gamepad marco system is more organized and faster to search.
    -Some classes such as archer can attack while moving, which gives them a tactical advantage against some battles. How archers hit their targets while they are facing in the opposite direction? You tell me.
    -No skill based system.
    -Materia system sucks. The only reason there is a materia system is to remove gear from the economy. Similar to the evolith augmenting system in FFXI. Was never really popular.
    -Harvesting/gathering is boring and ultra repetitive.
    -Dungeon search is cross server = lack of server community communication.
    -Legacy characters cannot transfer to non-legacy servers.    … Expand
  52. ff14islame
    Dec 30, 2013
    0
    Bought the game, account got suspended due to "suspicious activity" can't recover it through their online chat or email. Been on the phone for an hour and a half and no help. By the way they charge your for the customer support by phone. my 50-60$ poof gone. absolute bull crap.
  53. maddog2013
    Nov 16, 2013
    1
    Sorry, FFXIV is Not worth picking up.
    Is ARR better than FFXIV 1.0? 50/50 Some aspects are better, but overall improvement style, graphics, gameplay and content? No improvement. Three major problems. #1 Too easy. Too simplified. You can max level in 2 weeks, you can max all crafts in less than 6 weeks. After that all that remains is endgame.
    #2 Endgame content is pathetically weak.    Sorry, FFXIV is Not worth picking up.
    Is ARR better than FFXIV 1.0? 50/50 Some aspects are better, but overall improvement style, graphics, gameplay and content? No improvement. Three major problems. #1 Too easy. Too simplified. You can max level in 2 weeks, you can max all crafts in less than 6 weeks. After that all that remains is endgame.
    #2 Endgame content is pathetically weak. Grind grind grind the typical Square Enix play method to make you spend your money paying subscription.
    #3 Zero reason to party play, alliance play or anything. You can solo this game near 100% only needing others for dungeon dungeon boss. To call this a game worth of the Final Fantasy title is a sickening joke.
    #4 Subscription. Subs should be $5-$10 for FFXIV not the $15 average it is. You are limited to gametime via the server issue, login issues, and SE's policy of removing and gimping game content rather than improving issues.
    Only redeeming factor FFXIV ARR is the game that SHOULD HAVE ORIGINALLY LAUNCHED er.. nearly 3 years ago? This game does not hold water compared to 2013 gaming standards. FFXIV is a 2010 game and should have remained buried where it fell, not reanimated by Yosh-P, as the hollow corpse of a failed game from a company going downhill.    … Expand
  54. Sindena
    Nov 11, 2013
    2
    While it looks all shiny and pretty it is actually a grind fest with lots of problems. You only get quests once, but allowed to do all classes. So once you get to your second class it is grind till you go blind. Hours and hours of running in circles. Then if you are a lower level and trying to complete a quests, you are competing against a level 50 farming for items from same mob. He oneWhile it looks all shiny and pretty it is actually a grind fest with lots of problems. You only get quests once, but allowed to do all classes. So once you get to your second class it is grind till you go blind. Hours and hours of running in circles. Then if you are a lower level and trying to complete a quests, you are competing against a level 50 farming for items from same mob. He one shots everything so you either party up with him and stand there while he kills or you wait hours. Now the party up problem is, providing he will, is that you get lower exp if any cause you get ZERO hits in. Plus you do not learn how to play your class at all this way. The community is worst that World of Warcrafts andI thought that would be impossible. These people are down right hateful and snobby. Do not ask for help in the shout chat, they call you names and laugh at you. Oh and did I mention the relentless spamming in general chat and whispers by gold spammers. It is non stop and makes playing very difficult at times.

    Over all this is a bad game I would not recommend it to anyone. The only good thing Square Enix did was make it pretty. Another failure in my book with new clothes on.    … Expand
  55. Nightchills
    Nov 6, 2013
    0
    The game is a total grid fest. Yes you can have one toon and do it all but OMG. There’s only enough quests out there for 2 “MAYBE” 3 classes worth of grinding and that’s still doing fates Rifts like in rift or should I say stolen from Rift or ark falls in defiance) The combat system is complete trash every ability is on a global cool down due to the cross platform factor. Set a macro andThe game is a total grid fest. Yes you can have one toon and do it all but OMG. There’s only enough quests out there for 2 “MAYBE” 3 classes worth of grinding and that’s still doing fates Rifts like in rift or should I say stolen from Rift or ark falls in defiance) The combat system is complete trash every ability is on a global cool down due to the cross platform factor. Set a macro and auto combat. While the game looks GREAT the mechanics and game play is so far below the line to even call it a Final Fantasy game. Gold spammers ever where, and due to SE’s lack of planning for the PC gamers there is no such thing and right click so if u want to ignore someone that takes an hour to open the menu then try to catch the spammer through the waves upon waves of spam. Within the first week of open game play you couldn’t walk into a town without getting spam in gen chat and IM’d constantly… Crafting is ok not the best crafting system out there, again a system stolen from another game. The crafting system is much like that of Vanguard, however the market is so trashed due to all the gold farmers you can’t make any money, and on top of that, that is how SE expects you to make money so good luck there. The community is the worst part though, one of the main grind instances for level 50+ gear just happens to be the 2nd to last instance of the main quest line. People speed run that instance and just leave the new comers behind they don’t even care if it’s your 1st or 50th time through. While this game could be great it falls short in a big way.
    Find a demo or get on a friends account. This game is good for about 1 month then the grind and the community will get you and you will wish you had every cent back.    … Expand
  56. wawekar
    Oct 30, 2013
    3
    The game has very nice graphics. How ever it just becomes boring and a chore to play after a bit. I did not last a month with it. if you like repetition over and over then this game is for you. I tried to play a conjurer (healing class), apparently I was not too good at it. Skills are boring. As a healer when I got heal 2 I could not use it as I ran out of mana healing. What didThe game has very nice graphics. How ever it just becomes boring and a chore to play after a bit. I did not last a month with it. if you like repetition over and over then this game is for you. I tried to play a conjurer (healing class), apparently I was not too good at it. Skills are boring. As a healer when I got heal 2 I could not use it as I ran out of mana healing. What did not make sense is your skills like heal 1 would heal for the same amount but each level you attained the cost to cast it went up. This game wasn't for me. I give it a 3 because the graphics were really good.… Expand
  57. Just_thetip
    Oct 20, 2013
    4
    There were a couple bright spots in this game but overall I found it to be painfully boring. The ability to mix abilities from different classes is a great idea. Unfortunately most abilities feel much the same. Combat felt slow paced. The Questing is its worst flaw. Reading through incredibly dull and unimaginative dialogue from quest giving NPCs was nothing short of a chore. None ofThere were a couple bright spots in this game but overall I found it to be painfully boring. The ability to mix abilities from different classes is a great idea. Unfortunately most abilities feel much the same. Combat felt slow paced. The Questing is its worst flaw. Reading through incredibly dull and unimaginative dialogue from quest giving NPCs was nothing short of a chore. None of it is compelling and I ended up skipping through all of it after a while. The character models look good but the graphics for the environments are sub-par and that's with all settings maxed. The tool used to find a group for dungeons is probably the slowest I've encountered. Especially when considering it can group you with anyone in the NA servers. PVP is completely absent at launch and will be limited when it does come from what I've read. I tried to like this game and gave it some time hoping it would get better as my character progressed but that just didn't happen.… Expand
  58. Hue
    Oct 18, 2013
    1
    Shall we begin with the force fed story or the fact that it took them over 2 months to get friends on the same server together?

    I should have taken my initial suspicions about this game and stuck to them. Just turn around before you waste your time working in a game. It will take you countless hours or boring repetitive story line quests to unlock end game dungeons. Just turn around    Shall we begin with the force fed story or the fact that it took them over 2 months to get friends on the same server together?

    I should have taken my initial suspicions about this game and stuck to them. Just turn around before you waste your time working in a game. It will take you countless hours or boring repetitive story line quests to unlock end game dungeons. Just turn around and pick a game that was actually developed for the story.

    This should have been marketed as a JRPG with ONLINE CONTENT as opposed to an MMORPG.    … Expand
  59. Adyon
    Oct 15, 2013
    3
    I rarely base part of my opinion of a game on the customer service of the company if I can help it. But in this case, the customer service has been SO bad that it makes me drop my rating of the actual game. The game itself (what amount I got to play of course...so take it with a grain of salt)? 8-9. Customer service? 0. After over 1000 minutes on hold total and being hung up on multipleI rarely base part of my opinion of a game on the customer service of the company if I can help it. But in this case, the customer service has been SO bad that it makes me drop my rating of the actual game. The game itself (what amount I got to play of course...so take it with a grain of salt)? 8-9. Customer service? 0. After over 1000 minutes on hold total and being hung up on multiple times by their machines as well as by their chat, I am still even now wondering why they never contact me about ANYTHING to tell me what's going on.

    A week in I got hacked. My fault. I didn't have an authenticator. I realized the only other thing I'd use the same password was my LoL that I hadn't played in a few months. Went checking and discovered about their being hacked and passwords lost. My account was "terminated" by Square-Enix with admittedly a VERY rude accusatory e-mail that ACTUALLY says, "Unfortunately, you have shown yourself to be unwilling to follow the rules of the FINAL FANTASY XIV community. If we find that you have created another FINAL FANTASY XIV service account, we reserve the right to terminate that account as well".

    But that's not the bad part. It's the fact that I spent a couple weeks TRYING to get in touch with them. 3 hours waiting on hold then...suddenly it hangs up on me. This happened more than once! What? I even got a message from their chat after I waited in the que that their were no representatives available which instead gave me a form to fill out. All of these events early in the day well within their hours. Oh and that form? Waited over a week and NEVER got a response. So I started trying to contact again and after a couple attempts FINALLY got through.

    I found out from him my account spammed chat with gold-seller site information. But that was my only transgression. Okay, sounds like what they'd do with a hacked account. But it turns out he can't do anything. He told me he'd "escalate" my problem for the investigation group to look at and that they'd get back to me. Well that was weeks ago. I haven't heard a SINGLE thing from them in that time. After a month and a half from when this started, I STILL haven't gotten my account back. I may have to write this off as money I wasted purchasing a game in the first place that I'll never really get to play. Glad I bought the collector's edition for the extra goodies! TOTALLY WORTH IT! Ha ha.    … Expand
  60. Dokkodo
    Oct 14, 2013
    2
    Well, at least it's pretty. Unfortunately that's the end of the positives.

    A very typical MMO with VERY slow pacing and almost no strategy to it's combat or diversity to it's classes. The class-changing system is cool, or rather it would be if all the classes didn't play pretty much exactly the same. There's many MMOs out on the market now, and a lot of them are free and just as    Well, at least it's pretty. Unfortunately that's the end of the positives.

    A very typical MMO with VERY slow pacing and almost no strategy to it's combat or diversity to it's classes. The class-changing system is cool, or rather it would be if all the classes didn't play pretty much exactly the same.

    There's many MMOs out on the market now, and a lot of them are free and just as good, if not better, than this game. I would suggest you go play one of those instead if you need that MMO fix.

    Note my experiences are based only on the beta, I knew within an hour of my time playing in beta it wasn't worth a subscription fee.    … Expand
  61. BudMan11
    Oct 12, 2013
    0
    NOTE: I put this review in the wrong spot, I actually played this game for ps3 and I cannot speak about the PC version of this game.
    REVIEW: This game is very bad, I wouldn't recommend spending any money on it. The graphics are pretty nice for 10 year old game. The soundtrack is not bad. This game is very boring and very repetitive. The map is terrible. I would recommend every other game    NOTE: I put this review in the wrong spot, I actually played this game for ps3 and I cannot speak about the PC version of this game.
    REVIEW: This game is very bad, I wouldn't recommend spending any money on it. The graphics are pretty nice for 10 year old game. The soundtrack is not bad. This game is very boring and very repetitive. The map is terrible. I would recommend every other game on the planet before I would recommend this. Wish I could get a refund, signed up to metacritic just to tell everyone how bad this game is. The reviews for this game tell me one thing, never ever trust critic reviews, They must have a different copy of the game or were hit on the head or something. Run as far away from this game as you can, its boring and sucks.    … Expand
  62. squish88
    Oct 10, 2013
    3
    To say this game is outdated is putting it very kindly.

    Pros: 1) The ability to make a chat channel that's specific to a group of people that you choose is nice. No more spamming guild chat to talk to your smaller group of buddies all at once. 2) Inventory space is a non-issue from the get go. Finally a game that sees that it's more annoying than anything else to have to 'build    To say this game is outdated is putting it very kindly.

    Pros:
    1) The ability to make a chat channel that's specific to a group of people that you choose is nice. No more spamming guild chat to talk to your smaller group of buddies all at once.

    2) Inventory space is a non-issue from the get go. Finally a game that sees that it's more annoying than anything else to have to 'build up' inventory space. On a side note, the gear not going into your normal inventory is nice as well.

    Cons:
    1) The map functionality is so convoluted you have to "figure it out"... That's MMO gaming 101 folks... an easy to use map. They failed at that. Badly.

    2) The chat functionality lacks basic abilities like right clicking on the names of gold farmers and/or greifer-types to block/report them...

    3) Quest turn ins... WHY on God's green earth, do I have to drag a quest item from my inventory, to a special quest turn in window just to turn in the quest... No other MMO that I've ever played does this. It's absurd, and a waste of my time.

    4) Gathering... a) gathering sucks, other MMO's (think SWTOR) have found ways around this. Take a look at them & stop wasting players' time, and b) Why is it that I, all of the sudden, can't cast a spell, swing a sword/axe, or even wear the same clothing just 'cause I'm picking berries?!?!?!?! Stupid. Just plain stupid.

    5) The combat system is beyond dated. It's standard vanilla WoW. There's no active combat like, say, Guild Wars 2, or Tera for example where you actively dodge. It's the same boring, no thought, button clicking rotation that people used 7 years ago where you occasionally have to step out of the red circle on the ground.

    6) Last but not least... you have to travel on Chickens. No further explanation needed.

    Honestly, I don't care if they screwed up their first version, and this one is 'way' better. It's still not as good as a lot of other games currently out there, and they want people to pay a monthly fee for this... HA!! Good luck.    … Expand
  63. Hadelex
    Oct 9, 2013
    0
    Game is still in it's prime and it will grow..better...NOT! Cause game is not new, it is an overhaul of ff 14 1.0 version, then it has serious mechanism flaws..Once you run out of main and sub quests in order to level your class/job you need to do dungeons (you need a guild called here free company for it cause auto party matcher waiting time will kill you as dps)or mostly grind fates forGame is still in it's prime and it will grow..better...NOT! Cause game is not new, it is an overhaul of ff 14 1.0 version, then it has serious mechanism flaws..Once you run out of main and sub quests in order to level your class/job you need to do dungeons (you need a guild called here free company for it cause auto party matcher waiting time will kill you as dps)or mostly grind fates for xp..a some sort of rift/GW2 dynamic events but with this kind of slow paced combat it turns horrible and uninspired..(take your mount search on map Fates and go..).Most important thing in a mmo is combat and enjoy to progress, here i was frustrated and you can see a lot of players didn't resub. SE need to change leveling to make a non blind FF fans to stay… Expand
  64. Asuyu
    Oct 5, 2013
    0
    I have read the reviews. A lot of people seem to give this game 10/10, which begs the question what game were they playing and what are they basing those reviews off of. This game is marred by constant server repairs, glitches, congestion and that is before you even log into the game. (SE has take an approach to immediately fix Japanese servers and wait and see to North Americans, soI have read the reviews. A lot of people seem to give this game 10/10, which begs the question what game were they playing and what are they basing those reviews off of. This game is marred by constant server repairs, glitches, congestion and that is before you even log into the game. (SE has take an approach to immediately fix Japanese servers and wait and see to North Americans, so expect significant delays between when JP servers get fixed and NA get fixed) A lot of FFxiv is unoriginal. They have mashed the previous 13+(there are actually more than 14 currently) FF's, WoW, and a whole lot of other MMO's into this one game. Which should indicate its superiority, but I think it points to SE loss of originality. FF has always been about reinventing itself. Each FF game, added something new to the previous, started a whole new story, and had a completely different game system, there were marked differences in graphics, character types, jobs, etc. The new system is far from new, its the basic system you find in any MMO. The races are all borrowed from FFxi, except the names for those races are different with some minor exceptions (they added a few new sexes and we have light/dark versions) Each class again is borrowed from FFxi, again only change is different names. Additionally, the abilities are learned, similar in some ways to FFxi. Sometimes you obtain abilities from quests. Nothing original about that.

    Overall. The game is fun for about the 30 day trial. After that you delve further into the game and it becomes a grind. Not of leveling but of just staying with the game for its lackluster appeal. SE missed the boat in 1.0 and again in reborn. I give this game 0. Find another monthly service that will appreciate its players and the game.    … Expand
  65. waverlock
    Oct 3, 2013
    0
    Game is too boring. Played for almost 30 hours. As a conjurer i was just spamming aero, not doing anything else to win a fight (except run). The evolution was very slow at some parts.

    Found missions and storyline meanless, with no relevant content. Items where all about the sanme. I felt a kind of waste of time with this game. Most of the time i felt a sense of "I am lost and alone"    Game is too boring. Played for almost 30 hours. As a conjurer i was just spamming aero, not doing anything else to win a fight (except run). The evolution was very slow at some parts.

    Found missions and storyline meanless, with no relevant content. Items where all about the sanme. I felt a kind of waste of time with this game.

    Most of the time i felt a sense of "I am lost and alone" looking for the mission objectives. Map is a complete nonsense and let you dizzy.

    Didnt see anything new or relevant to continue to play. It was extremelly boring and at the end i realize it was a waste of money.

    Also the necessary monthly fee was not so clear before I purchase the game... a TIP for everyone who wants to adventure yourself.    … Expand
  66. ntall1
    Oct 3, 2013
    4
    You can get to max level super fast. If you are one of those players that puts in a full 3 day weekend. You could probably get a max level character in that time. Then at max level you have a few choices. First you need to gear up a bit. That requires that you repeat the same dungeon over and over until you have enough of the currency required to buy that gear.

    After you gear up (Really    You can get to max level super fast. If you are one of those players that puts in a full 3 day weekend. You could probably get a max level character in that time. Then at max level you have a few choices. First you need to gear up a bit. That requires that you repeat the same dungeon over and over until you have enough of the currency required to buy that gear.

    After you gear up (Really takes no time at all even tho its super tedious and repetitive) You have have the option to do raid content. Yay. Well there is only one raid so far. A single 8 man raid for you to take down and repeat weekly.

    So, now you have a max level character and you have some gear. What to do, what to do. Run coil, wait a week, rinse repeat.

    tl:dr Pace of the game is super fast leaving you with next to nothing to do in a very short amount of time.    … Expand
  67. faircritic
    Sep 30, 2013
    0
    MMORPGs are dead.You play the same thing as WoW but almost a decade later just with cooler graphics, and this genre got absolutely drained,looks like pretty graphics can't save this game from boredom,so linear quests,too much grinding. This is what's going on in FF XIV. And if this wasn't enough to discourage you of getting this game,you'll be lucky enough to log onto servers.I can onlyMMORPGs are dead.You play the same thing as WoW but almost a decade later just with cooler graphics, and this genre got absolutely drained,looks like pretty graphics can't save this game from boredom,so linear quests,too much grinding. This is what's going on in FF XIV. And if this wasn't enough to discourage you of getting this game,you'll be lucky enough to log onto servers.I can only suspect that FFXIV is right now on a endless loop.They are waiting for more customers to buy more servers but meanwhile there are more frustrated players saying CRAP! 0 rated,then the more they wait for money the more 0s they get.The more you wait until you get a stupid error,the more you say garbage,online garbage,cannot enter,more garbage...endless loop. What is worst ,looks like every darn company is following the same stupid formula to go for our money,lack of support ,error something that prevents you from logging until only god knows when.My patience and my belief is done with all overhyped MMOs stuff.
    You saw the same with Diablo,Sim City,etc and when you can finally play them you realize how disappointing they are,and they still want to charge you 15 bucks per m? Oh no sir,I have already learned my lesson,at the sucky way, but you wouln't got me again for graphics or by viral marketing,never again. If you wan to play a MMO go for a F2P at least you aren't charged and probably have more fun that this err final disappointing experience,well at least for me.    … Expand
  68. vinarian
    Sep 28, 2013
    2
    This game is a complete clone of other mmo's, it has the Crafting system of Everquest 2, the combat system of WOW, and the dynamic event system of Guildwars 2.

    The questing system is not really a clone of any other game, simply because I have never seen another game with such unimaginative, repeated, exhausting quests since the original Everquest (collect 4 bat wings and kill 12 goblins    This game is a complete clone of other mmo's, it has the Crafting system of Everquest 2, the combat system of WOW, and the dynamic event system of Guildwars 2.

    The questing system is not really a clone of any other game, simply because I have never seen another game with such unimaginative, repeated, exhausting quests since the original Everquest (collect 4 bat wings and kill 12 goblins anyone?).

    If this game is that much better than version 1.0, I am glad I did not try it then...

    The only saving graces that this game has is the music, and the class/leveling system the class leveling system is excellent, however, it is a far cry from being able to redeem this otherwise abysmal travesty of a game...    … Expand
  69. zimtschnecke81
    Sep 28, 2013
    3
    I was really disappointed by that game and stopped playing because i got bored after only three days of game play. Maybe i had the wrong expectations i was expecting something different, something new, something fantastic i could simply not find it in this game. I also think the rating for this game is so high, because the first release was so bad. I might have found out other coolI was really disappointed by that game and stopped playing because i got bored after only three days of game play. Maybe i had the wrong expectations i was expecting something different, something new, something fantastic i could simply not find it in this game. I also think the rating for this game is so high, because the first release was so bad. I might have found out other cool things that i would maybe have liked but i am not keeping on playing a game that keeps me disappointed while i am running around, desperately looking for something i might like…

    IMHO ffxiv is nothing more than another, very common MMORPG, with a very common fighting system, a decent story and a very poor soundtrack. If you do not mind and you are not searching for something new or different and pay for a game like that feel free to try out anytime.

    PROS
    The graphic is nice even though it did not make me say „wow“ on one single point of the game. There are several different possibilities in earning xp which is shared fairly between people taking part of an event and thats really great. So no more stealing kills/xp from other players, as it seems. Respawns are fast enough and that adds good extra fun to the game too. I also really liked stuff like the hunting log nice to make some xp, discover new places etc. I wish to say there are more things i liked but, to me, there are none.

    CONS
    Looking at the races and classes i could choose from there was none i was saying „yes, i really want to play this one“ i made a different experience when playing other games. Also the game world lacks a bit of fancy details and i think it could be way more fantastic for my very personal taste.

    The story itself is incredibly flat. There is too much useless talking (too long dialogues), too much running around and the balance between story (talking) and fighting lacks a lot. At a certain point of the game i would hit a row of video and semi-video sequences that took me 1,5 hours(!) without actually having to do anything! On the other hand I ended up not being able to keep on doing my class or the main quests since i was missing 1-2 levels. So i had to run around, find something/anything to do and perform the same things (like F.A.T.E.‘s) over and over again til i got even more bored by doing that.

    I had to turn off the music because i got very annoyed by it after only 2-3 hours of game play (so there‘s a big minus for the soundtrack whose job should be to add some unique extra atmosphere to a game).

    The fight system is very simple (a few spells, with common effects you would find in any other rpg) and you end up performing the same two/three actions for hours and hours and hours.

    The game-studio does not seem to have lots of experience with a game like that and it might take them some more time to be able to offer its customers a proper support (i was, for example, in queue for help chat for over three hours(!), when i was told that there is nobody available for me and just got kicked out). I made this game run after performing three hours of trouble shooting, finding help in some of the forums to finally make it work.

    The game is very young. I think it has some potential to be a good MMORPG in maybe 1+ years. But i play games for a cool, nice, exciting story, an atmospheric soundtrack, a good balance between talking and fighting, a nice fighting system i did not find it here. So i will, as many others, go and search somewhere else.    … Expand
  70. Xradus
    Sep 27, 2013
    4
    I think all final fantasy fans have waited long enough to finally get their new MMO after the first FFXIV fiasco we had. I played more than 100 hours, so you can expect I've seen everything this game has to offer, and I'll tell you: This game has almost nothing to offer. The whole basic idea is great, I love how the story is set, the animations and everything are probably the best I'veI think all final fantasy fans have waited long enough to finally get their new MMO after the first FFXIV fiasco we had. I played more than 100 hours, so you can expect I've seen everything this game has to offer, and I'll tell you: This game has almost nothing to offer. The whole basic idea is great, I love how the story is set, the animations and everything are probably the best I've seen in a MMO. But here comes the bad news: It's one huge boring grind fest with no diversity what so ever. You can hit max level pretty quick, you can either take the slower road to quest trough everything, or you can grind your way faster with FATEs, you choose. You get Items shoved down your throat all the time so you won't even need the action house and economy this game has to offer, which causes in end game you have almost no possibility to make some money. Once you hit max level you're gonna grind the same dungeons over and over again to gear up (I wouldn't mind that if there are actually a lot of dungeons, but there are 2-3 dungeons you're gonna spam....3 DAMN DUNGEONS that take you almost an hour to complete with little to no reward, just to get some tomes you can turn in for gear), with the same boring rotation you're character has. You almost never use any situational spells at all. The bosses are all so easy, you pretty much just need to dodge everything the boss launches at you, and that's not even hard because you get red indicators where the bosses attack will land. There is no feel of achievement in this game at all, all players are forced to do the same dungeons which results in no diversity again in all characters in the end. I really hope the game is gonna bring A LOT of new good content with the next patches, but as it is right now, you have to be a robot to enjoy this game.… Expand
  71. wooflikeabear
    Sep 26, 2013
    3
    The game is simplistic, slow and inflexible. Did I say slow? There's a 2.5second global cooldown that leaves you wanting to do something else while in combat.. like watch tv. There's no variety in building your character, all white mages are the same, all warriors are the same, there's nothing to make you unique or stand out. Many of the cross class skills you can use are often soThe game is simplistic, slow and inflexible. Did I say slow? There's a 2.5second global cooldown that leaves you wanting to do something else while in combat.. like watch tv. There's no variety in building your character, all white mages are the same, all warriors are the same, there's nothing to make you unique or stand out. Many of the cross class skills you can use are often so underpowered that they are a waste of MP, TP and a global cooldown to cast.

    For a game that has been re-released, there are so many empty areas with NPCs that have no quests to give. There are also insufficient quests to level you completely and then little to no quests available to level the rest of the classes that it forces you to play on the same character. In other words there is insufficient content for a new release, let alone a re-released game. The public quest system called FATES is also simplistic and boring. Coming from having played Warhammer and Rift, the public quests here are a total letdown and the game forces you to grind these boring public quests to level subsequent characters. The dungeon matchmaker forces you to wait 40-90 minutes for a group unless you play a white mage which makes dungeons a lousy method of gaining XP or progressing.

    Character balancing also leaves much to be desired. Playing a melee in high level dungeons leaves you running away from boss attacks more often than actually attacking causing your damage to be lousy and leading groups to always prefer having ranged damage dealers over melee. Playing a ranged just leaves you standing around pressing 1..2..3.. repeatedly. Of the two tank classes, no one wants a Warrior in group and any high level group will insist on the tank being a Paladin instead. This may be acceptable if this was a game just out of beta, but for a re-release, it's not just disappointing, it's a ripoff.    … Expand
  72. Danarchist
    Sep 26, 2013
    3
    I can honestly say I have not been so bored in a MMO since....well...never. The combat is a matter of hitting the same buttons in the same pattern (macrod to my keyboard after first hour) and sidestepping the occasional special attack.
    Quests are kill 10 wolves and fedex as is the standard, but do no reward nearly as much xp as just standing around whopping stuff and hitting any events    I can honestly say I have not been so bored in a MMO since....well...never. The combat is a matter of hitting the same buttons in the same pattern (macrod to my keyboard after first hour) and sidestepping the occasional special attack.
    Quests are kill 10 wolves and fedex as is the standard, but do no reward nearly as much xp as just standing around whopping stuff and hitting any events you see pop up for the same amount of time. In fact ignoring side quests completely led to a much better experience with my second character as I was out of the training wheels portion much earlier.
    When will MMO's figure out that the majority of the people playing can figure out their systems without being forced to do the "tutorial levels" for the first few hours of gameplay? As this game is exactly like every other MMO (with a couple gimmicks) why do I need to spend an hour and a half learning how to do a combo? I figured that out when I got my second attack. Make this crap optional, I have played dozens of these games!
    Much like going from one fast food chain to the other. The wrappers different but the food tastes the same. Just this one requires you subscribe.    … Expand
  73. Cell1e
    Sep 22, 2013
    3
    What I like:
    I like the pretty places, the graphics and the range of armours and weapons, classes and skills. The animations are nice too. I like the cut scenes seeing my character in them. I liked the character creator, its better than some mmo's out there.
    The ability to play lots of classes and do lots of crafts all with one character is nice if you are into building lots into your    What I like:
    I like the pretty places, the graphics and the range of armours and weapons, classes and skills. The animations are nice too. I like the cut scenes seeing my character in them. I liked the character creator, its better than some mmo's out there.
    The ability to play lots of classes and do lots of crafts all with one character is nice if you are into building lots into your one main. I personally like making lots of different characters with different looks and trying out new classes and jobs that way.
    The bad:
    The Map, its TERRIBLE!!! I have never used a worse map in an mmo in the last five years at least. It has been a torture finding my way around. The crystal travel within cities is pretty pointless as you can't use it unless you happen to be right there touching one, why not let you teleport from anywhere you are to any of the crystals. The fact you can't preview items...who makes an mmo without item preview? The lack of a sort button in the inventory.
    Now the UGLY:
    Why tie all the fun stuff to the main quest and THEN make dungeons part of the main quest??? It is beyond belief that any game maker would happily alienate a large group of potential customers by saying 'its our way or the highway'.
    Let me explain. Everything I like to do in an mmo, like crafting, selling things on the brokers, storing things in storage and yes even riding a chocobo can only be done when you have passed certain milestones in the main quests; at level 15 you get a main quest to leave your little town and fly to the other two main cities to deliver messages. Until this point you are just doing local quests, not able to store anything or sell anything as you have no access to the servant guy who you can hire when you complete some of your main quests higher up. Im level 19 and still haven't unlocked my chocobo or auction house and am a little stuck with no money waiting on a slow dungeon finder mechanic to find me a place on the third of the three main quest story dungeons you HAVE to do before you can hope to advance. Actually I ran out of money because as you quest you get no money dropping, you get paid very small amounts from SOME quests but I was silly enough to just use the teleporting skill without realising it was using my money and I wasn't getting the money back from the two dungeons I had laboured through.
    Yeah this game is so not about great loot- I'm not seeing how anyone can find it rewarding at all.
    This afternoon after waiting a long time to be matched with a group I decided to roll another character out just to get a break from the grind and frustration and when she was ready to go I was told I could NOT go back to my server as it is full and no new characters allowed. I tried to get any eu server and they were all blocked and the only servers allowed for me to try were NA servers. Not great for me here in Ireland. There as also a message stating that there would be NO server switching at any time. So I have one character stuck, broke and waiting for a dungeon on a full up server (how is it I had so much trouble getting a dungeon group is beyond me)
    I feel utterly fed up and annoyed and bothered. I would say to anyone out there who isn't a brainwashed final fantasy fan to think carefully before buying this game. Make sure you love dungeons, you will have to play them and you will have to play a lot of them. If you love getting lots of loot, forget this game, I got to level 19 without even filling one of my 6 bags, okay the clothes items go to a separate storage but still there should be drops of potions, weapons, crafting stuff, money...there is nearly nothing but xp from grinding.
    If I manage to suck it up and stick out the final dungeon I should imagine I will be at least level 20-22 before I get to use the brokers properly or get my riding skill. That's half-way to level cap!! Something is wrong with that picture.
    Oh and gathering and crafting? Very time consuming. I'm really not sure it is worth the bother. I love to craft and do it in every mmo I play. I can't see myself doing it in this game.
    The FATES are pretty unrewarding too. You get xp and some small amount of coins. Oh and another big disappointment is the lack of audio with 90% of the talking cut scenes, in this day and age and with the wealth of Square Enix you would think they would pay some voice actors.
    But it is pretty.

    Pretty Frustrating!!
    Pretty Unrewarding!!
    Pretty Grindy!!    … Expand
  74. mikemilz
    Sep 20, 2013
    1
    I don't understand how anyone with a PC can enjoy this game. The game play is mind numbingly slow. The quests are mundane and boring. The graphics are less than spectacular. As a new pay to play MMO it's dated in almost every way. It offers nothing that wasn't offered 5 years ago in this genre. I'm a huge MMO fan and I can usually get at least a month of play out of newly released MMOs.I don't understand how anyone with a PC can enjoy this game. The game play is mind numbingly slow. The quests are mundane and boring. The graphics are less than spectacular. As a new pay to play MMO it's dated in almost every way. It offers nothing that wasn't offered 5 years ago in this genre. I'm a huge MMO fan and I can usually get at least a month of play out of newly released MMOs. This one just makes me want to take a nap every time I've played it. There's nothing even remotely addictive about this game.… Expand
  75. Moonraver005
    Sep 16, 2013
    2
    FFXI brought up to speed. Which isn't saying a whole lot, the game capitalizes in all of the new and great updates that came with MMO's pulling themselves out of dark ages over the last decade, but it does a once over on an already poorly mundane design concept. The classes, races, cities, and core concepts don't stray too far from this. Where it does differ is in the amount of time itFFXI brought up to speed. Which isn't saying a whole lot, the game capitalizes in all of the new and great updates that came with MMO's pulling themselves out of dark ages over the last decade, but it does a once over on an already poorly mundane design concept. The classes, races, cities, and core concepts don't stray too far from this. Where it does differ is in the amount of time it takes to reach the current cap; which is not a positive. Time sinks are not cleverly hidden in the form a head scathingly bizarre and repetitive crafting system and the lack of quests to support leveling multiple classes leaves many to store up Leve allowances" as if you were playing a free-to-play facebook game. Combat leaves a lot to be desired after you find yourself mindlessly grinding out what seems like a simply designed combo system. Lack of action and movement that exceeds to dancing around the target and stepping out of enemy telegraphed zones leave you wanting something extra. The detail to your character and their clothing is amazing, but you soon learn where the budgeted geometry went when you step out into the world and notice its drab, poorly textured, hard surfaces. When will they learn that most of the game you stare at 50% of your character, while the rest of the viewing angle is designed to view the enemies and environments. I was reasonably unimpressed by the lack of atmosphere and design of environments that the game had to offer. The story, which I honestly couldn't be bothered with only emphasized the lacking quality in character animations and voice over dialogue. Reading isn't a major issue, but being able to comfortably enjoy the story and all of its terrible emote driven acting; voice over could eased the suffering. The CG cut scenes were good, but no longer as breathtaking as they used to be, again, competitors do it better. All in all they failed to bring something new and different to the table as always. The same tired "Holy triad" came included with longer than expected wait times when queuing for the simply boring, constrained and phantasy-star-online-esque dungeons. So if you're looking for a new MMO to play save your pennies and wait for some of the others that promise to further the genre, because this one was just a bad MMO brought up to snuff.

    P.S.
    Don't hold your breath for any depth in the itemization unless you like to screw with materia (see time sink).    … Expand
  76. Raiden94
    Sep 8, 2013
    4
    Cons:
    -Terrible servers that still haven't been fixed.
    -Annoying and unnecessarily long subscription process. Add to that the fact that nothing is clear and Square Enix does a terrible job at making you understand what you're doing. -Once you're done with the subscription, you'll be lucky to find a server that actually works. Good luck with that. -First 10 or so hours of the game are    Cons:
    -Terrible servers that still haven't been fixed.
    -Annoying and unnecessarily long subscription process. Add to that the fact that nothing is clear and Square Enix does a terrible job at making you understand what you're doing.
    -Once you're done with the subscription, you'll be lucky to find a server that actually works. Good luck with that.
    -First 10 or so hours of the game are terribly boring and do a bad job at hooking you up. You'll spend most of your time asking yourself "What the hell is going on? Why do i have to do this and do that?"
    -Once you're past those annoying and linear quests, the world will open up. The world is really nothing special. I've played better, bigger and more immersive mmos. This is really nothing special.
    -Countless times you will be disconnected from the server for no reason whatsoever.
    -The quests are largely the same repetetive objectives.
    -13 dollars a month for what? A few patches and stability? Games like GW2 do a FAR better job than FF XIV ARR at maintaining stability and keeping things fresh and they require no additional payment at all.

    Pros:
    -One of the best looking mmos up to this date. The game is very powerful in terms of graphics.
    -The world is Final Fantasy. You'll find something to like if you're a FF fan.
    -The gameplay is good to some extent, even though it's extremely slow and boring.
    -The job system offers enough uniqueness.

    Verdict:
    -This is really nothing special. Granted, it is leagues better than the fail that was FF XIV in 2010. But is that really a reason to buy it? Most people here seem to give it good scores simply because "it is better than FF XIV 2010". But in general, when you compare it to other mmos, it falls in the mediocre and downright bad department.
    That's what A Realm Reborn is. It is a bad mmo that's better than XIV. Which, on the grand scale, is pathetic.    … Expand
  77. zeigdo
    Sep 5, 2013
    2
    really wished i would of enjoyed the game after spending a few hours of trying multiple character to lvl 20 ish ive noticed that the game has a huge lack of action ive had alot more fun with free mmos out there then this subscription based game. The overall graphics are ok the story is alright the cut scenes and voice acting for the little parts that have some are pretty bad.
    like    really wished i would of enjoyed the game after spending a few hours of trying multiple character to lvl 20 ish ive noticed that the game has a huge lack of action ive had alot more fun with free mmos out there then this subscription based game. The overall graphics are ok the story is alright the cut scenes and voice acting for the little parts that have some are pretty bad.
    like most people mentioned you cant really access the game since release because of servers full and no queue system, witch is very annoying.... its normal to have issues at launch day but they said something like they didn't expect so many people playing but they didnt see the amount of sales before game come out weird
    anyways maybe this game will improve but the game doesn't feel up to date graphically and fun wise for today's gaming maybe if it was 7+ years ago     … Expand
  78. Klun
    Sep 5, 2013
    3
    After 2 Years and this being the second launch of this game and they still cant manage to grant access to the player is a huge fail... Now lets skip the server problems and jump to the game "

    The Customization is awful, very limited options and went you jump into the game world everyone looks alike... The fights are still slow and in the safe zone with nothing special, charming or    After 2 Years and this being the second launch of this game and they still cant manage to grant access to the player is a huge fail... Now lets skip the server problems and jump to the game "

    The Customization is awful, very limited options and went you jump into the game world everyone looks alike...
    The fights are still slow and in the safe zone with nothing special, charming or new.
    The graphics and sounds are the only improvement and the reason of my 3 Score points.

    Overall for a "reborn game" that has a full entry price /monthly fees and one of the best developer of fantasy experience is just sad, especially when you take into consideration others MMo games more polished and Free    … Expand
  79. Nakts
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    This game is an admitted WoW clone in Final Fantasy skin, the quests are boring and time consuming, Skinner box anyone, the combat is terrible, and the game was too easy, before they made it easier.

    Graphics: It's pretty, but being based in the PS3 platform, that will likely not last. Music: Fairly unmemorable, nothing seem to stand out at all. Gameplay: It's pretty horrible, if    This game is an admitted WoW clone in Final Fantasy skin, the quests are boring and time consuming, Skinner box anyone, the combat is terrible, and the game was too easy, before they made it easier.

    Graphics: It's pretty, but being based in the PS3 platform, that will likely not last.
    Music: Fairly unmemorable, nothing seem to stand out at all.
    Gameplay: It's pretty horrible, if you're looking for something different, look someplace else.

    Bottom line: they took everything good about MMOs and made it simple to the point of stupidity, this may actually qualify as baby's first MMO with difficulty level being nil and the game holding your hand at all times.

    On the other hand, the game is being run by people who'd rather work on new things to add to the already broken pile, they already have with their errors and server cues, rather than fix what's broken now.    … Expand
  80. Reira
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Starts out as fun as any MMORPG but quickly deteriorates due to lack of any substantial content. It becomes a grind no matter how you play it. It is worth mentioning that the customer service is extremely bad. However, being in Japan and working for Japanese companies has showed me that what passes as bad in many countries is actually "normal" in Japan. Don't expect things to changeStarts out as fun as any MMORPG but quickly deteriorates due to lack of any substantial content. It becomes a grind no matter how you play it. It is worth mentioning that the customer service is extremely bad. However, being in Japan and working for Japanese companies has showed me that what passes as bad in many countries is actually "normal" in Japan. Don't expect things to change much as the Japanese players aren't as likely to complain about this as players from other countries are.… Expand
  81. gouki12
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    Don't waste your time on this.

    Should you ever get into the game. You will face a ton of problems and shortcomings. Especially content-wise. Have fun fate-grinding your way to 50, waiting 3+ hours for a group if you are a damage dealer only to find, at the end of the journey, that there is pretty much no endgame content. Once you finish the main story endgame consists of farming 3    Don't waste your time on this.

    Should you ever get into the game. You will face a ton of problems and shortcomings. Especially content-wise.

    Have fun fate-grinding your way to 50, waiting 3+ hours for a group if you are a damage dealer only to find, at the end of the journey, that there is pretty much no endgame content.

    Once you finish the main story endgame consists of farming 3 bosses in hard-mode.

    There is no pvp either. It will take them months to add another 3 bosses that you have already done in normal mode to farm in hard-mode.

    Repetitive and boring. It might take 2 or 3 expansion packs until this game is worth it.

    IF they have fixed their server-architecture by then.    … Expand
  82. Xareswe
    Sep 2, 2013
    0
    I'm so let down by all the errors, server issues, log in issues and much much more. This is a subscription based game and they haven't even made any progress since launch to fix it all. I'm not supporting them anymore, This is not a way to treat players! Even F2P games fix these issues faster than them. It's embarrassing SE... Shape up!
  83. Coachcamp
    Sep 2, 2013
    3
    Final Fantasy is a great series. It always has had good story, tactical gameplay a great overall atmosphere for the game. The problem is that this game is not what is expected from a modern MMO. It has the same gameplay mechanics as any regular mmorpg to date, except this one has a very moderate "combo" system, where you use the same two skills consecutively until the mob's dead... to makeFinal Fantasy is a great series. It always has had good story, tactical gameplay a great overall atmosphere for the game. The problem is that this game is not what is expected from a modern MMO. It has the same gameplay mechanics as any regular mmorpg to date, except this one has a very moderate "combo" system, where you use the same two skills consecutively until the mob's dead... to make this worse, there is a 2.5 second global cooldown on most abilities. I thought this game would be cool as it's called a tactical mmorpg, but really it's all the same. Some might call it another WoW clone. the questing is the same mindless grinding with a purpose. (lackluster quests) The interface is very well organized. the graphics are great and perform well on most machines, but that is honestly the best part. Back to the combo system: there is no combo system. Basically, you use one attack, you are obligated to use this other specific attack because using that attack will cause more damage than any other. That is not a combo system. The monk is simply the only fun class, but even then, you are forced into chaining the same abilities together in a rotation because there is no tactical aspect. While other MMOs are only getting faster, Final Fantasy 14: a realm reborn is the slowest MMO to date. (maybe even behind perfect world) Oh, and not to mention that the much anticipated cutscenes have zero voice acting… Expand
  84. EonEire
    Sep 1, 2013
    3
    Having played the beta for a few of the weekends only, the impression was amazing, it seems to fix everything wrong with the game that was FF14. Then when you actually get your teeth into it, you realise that SE have not embraced the modern day MMO scene at all.

    Leves: This is where people like myself will run into the first instance of: "Why would ANY developer think this was a good    Having played the beta for a few of the weekends only, the impression was amazing, it seems to fix everything wrong with the game that was FF14. Then when you actually get your teeth into it, you realise that SE have not embraced the modern day MMO scene at all.

    Leves: This is where people like myself will run into the first instance of: "Why would ANY developer think this was a good idea? Why didn't anybody tell them this was awful design? Leves work mainly as repeatable quests for the various jobs, either combat based ones for the 4 "melee" and 3 "magic" jobs or crafting ones for the gathering production jobs. All sounds fine right? Until you encounter the wall, the one you wouldn't think it would be possible to hit with such poor design. You can run out of them really fast. You have an allowance for your character on how many of these you can take and it is refreshed by 3 every 12 hours. Because these are character wide, they are used up too fast between all the possible jobs. Effectively you are limited to 3 extra quest to spend on leveling your "alt" jobs every 12 hours. Completely arbitrary, completely pointless.

    Standard features pointlessly gated: The auction house, mounts, access to the most basic things needs to interact with this MMO are gated behind the story quest. Yes you will be playing the game so obviously these will be unlocked anyway, but why gate them? I personally wanted to be self sufficient as far as gear and crafting went. So I went about leveling my professions (All the while draining my leve count, assuming this was how you were to level jobs that had no quests, except the 5-10-15 etc ones). Only to discover that all the extra items I had crafted I couldn't sell to help fund more production. So I stopped gathering and I stopped producing, there was no way for me to get rid of the items I had created. Because as it stood I had not been granted the privilege of using a basic feature of MMOs.

    Things that got better: To be fair SE have improved their MMO stance from getting trounced by the competition repeatedly. Like 14 1.0 and unlike 11, your race has no impact on your class So your Taru-Taru, sorry, Lalafel Gladiator wont be kicked from parties due to the obnoxious FF fanbois. You are free to mix and match all you like.
    The controls also have improved vastly, you can jump and moving in and out of combat isn't as clunky and awkward as it was in 14 1.0.

    It has made improvements, but you are still so arbitrarily limited in how you interact with the whole world that its clear SE are not one of the MMO arenas strong contenders, the lead developer wants to do his own thing and you have to feel privileged that you are allowed to join in "his" experience. My advice is to defiantly keep and eye on FF14 ARR but don't buy it just yet, you will hit the wall where if you aren't willing to grind out your levels in a dungeon or mob farm, you are not going to have much fun, but if the leve issue was addressed it wold make a lot more sense due to the sheer amount of Jobs in the game.

    In closing hold off buying until some changes are made to the basic interacting of characters and the world and hold off until the myriad of server errors 1017/2002/90000 etc are fixed or it will just sour you entirely on the whole experience that given some time (and some sense from SE) could the the best FF MMO yet.    … Expand
  85. KingdoGoodbomb
    Sep 1, 2013
    4
    Server issues are not acceptable. It's 2013, if SE can't launch an MMO and have it stable in a week then A Realm Reborn should have had aborted. SE polished the turd then took a dump all over it. I am already tired of the non-stop excuses coming from the creepy personality cult forming around the developer Yoshi-P. This launch has been a disaster so much so that they halted digitalServer issues are not acceptable. It's 2013, if SE can't launch an MMO and have it stable in a week then A Realm Reborn should have had aborted. SE polished the turd then took a dump all over it. I am already tired of the non-stop excuses coming from the creepy personality cult forming around the developer Yoshi-P. This launch has been a disaster so much so that they halted digital sales. ANet's launch was amazing compared to this even EA launched an MMO with fewer issues.

    Weaksauce, fundamental issues that wow solved 10 years ago, like queues. The launch has been so bad that people are making macros and rigging up their PS3 controllers to spam the login servers. PATHETIC.

    supposedly the cult leader FF messiah Yoshi has a big Second Coming planned on Tuesday to fix everything, hide the kool aid and arsenic and put his cult on suicide watch in case their messiah fails and they aren't up for another round of weaksauce excuse making.    … Expand
  86. Zimbardo
    Aug 31, 2013
    0
    I bought the game on launch and still have NOT ONCE been able to log onto a N.A. server. I've played a host of MMOs through their launches and I have never encountered anything this bad. I expected there to be issues on launch, but the lack of a queue system and insufficient server capacity have left me with a game that I can not play.
    If you have a lifestyle that permits you to sit at    I bought the game on launch and still have NOT ONCE been able to log onto a N.A. server. I've played a host of MMOs through their launches and I have never encountered anything this bad. I expected there to be issues on launch, but the lack of a queue system and insufficient server capacity have left me with a game that I can not play.
    If you have a lifestyle that permits you to sit at your keyboard and routinely refresh servers every 3 minutes (they implemented a cap on how often you can check) then apparently Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn is a magical experience.
    If you have a job, school, or other commitments outside of Eorzea you are looking at a log-in simulator.

    I am rating this game based on the version I have had access to.    … Expand
  87. Totmacher
    Aug 31, 2013
    0
    This game should be called "Log In Simulator: An Error Reborn" because if you can even get the character list to populate and if you can even create a character, when you try to log in, you get an error on your screen preventing you from logging in because the servers are full. What did Square Enix do to remedy this issue? They limited the server population and logins so the people thatThis game should be called "Log In Simulator: An Error Reborn" because if you can even get the character list to populate and if you can even create a character, when you try to log in, you get an error on your screen preventing you from logging in because the servers are full. What did Square Enix do to remedy this issue? They limited the server population and logins so the people that are already in-game can play without a server crash, which wouldn't happen in the first place if they had prepared for it. When you actually get in game it's pretty good, but the hardest quest in the entire game is logging in.… Expand
  88. freiherrchulain
    Aug 30, 2013
    2
    The game is decently fun. Not the most fun I've played recently, nothing really ground breaking. The downside is; it's plagued by technical issues to which the games support team is non respondent. Would I recommend buying it and playing it? I'd have to answer: only if you are a masochist. This game is a resounding SKIP.
  89. McGamor
    Aug 30, 2013
    3
    There are many reasons why I enjoy the new FFXIV. The detail of the environments and animations are much better than any current MMO. FFXIV will have fully customizable housing, combat is addictive and solid, the multi-classing system is actually done right unlike 'The Secret World', and most importantly the story line and cutscenes are amazing.

    Not to mention there are tons of RP    There are many reasons why I enjoy the new FFXIV. The detail of the environments and animations are much better than any current MMO. FFXIV will have fully customizable housing, combat is addictive and solid, the multi-classing system is actually done right unlike 'The Secret World', and most importantly the story line and cutscenes are amazing.

    Not to mention there are tons of RP supported features like lots of emotes and being able to sit on furniture and even on benches and edges of items like a crate for example. The only problems FFXIV had during early access was the servers were so crowded. The game itself is stable and awesome. Those who complain about 3102 and 1017 need to take a course on networking sometime before making false assumptions.    … Expand
  90. revial
    Aug 29, 2013
    0
    Let's see. This is their second time launching this title. Did they learn anything from their first launch?

    Hrm. 25 servers for Japan. 25 servers for the rest of the world. Oh. The rest of the world is filled with people unable to play. I, myself, have played a combined two hours since early release started. That's 2 hours in 6 days. On Sunday, I literally pressed 0 on my number pad for    Let's see. This is their second time launching this title. Did they learn anything from their first launch?

    Hrm. 25 servers for Japan. 25 servers for the rest of the world. Oh. The rest of the world is filled with people unable to play. I, myself, have played a combined two hours since early release started. That's 2 hours in 6 days. On Sunday, I literally pressed 0 on my number pad for 7 straight hours without getting in.

    Compounding this issue is that there is no afk timer, and anyone who does log in never logs out because no one wants to play the login roulette to get back in. Walk around the server. See a hell of a lot of afk players at aetherytes. Each one preventing another person from logging in.

    Character creation has essentially been stopped since the official release, so if you didn't have early access...you can't even create a character, never mind trying to get in the game.

    The producer just wrote a letter apologizing over all this. I get that apologies mean a lot in Japan. In the rest of the world, actions mean a lot more. It's also just incredibly 'wtf' when he says they had no idea so many people would be trying to play the game. Considering these issues started immediately in early access, which required pre-ordering the game, they obviously had an idea of how many people were going to try to be playing the game. For someone who's been given a lot of brownie points for being 'honest' with how bad 1.0 was, he sure is shoveling a lot of poop today.

    I suppose words like 'worst' are entirely subjective. In my opinion, bugs are largely meaningless, unless they completely inhibit a person from playing. What's more important is whether a person is even able to play. 2 hours in 6 days. I can not think of a single MMO in existence that had this poor of a launch in that regards.

    Oh, did I mention their queueing system only queues like 40 people? Meaning that for all intents and purposes there is no login queue? So you have to just keep trying to connect over and over again until you win the lottery and happened to be the first person to click join when someone in the game actually logs out (rather than just goes afk)?

    What a joke.    … Expand
  91. hardjack
    Aug 29, 2013
    0
    First of all I love FF (specially FF VI).
    I wish I could love this game, I really wanted to, but FFXIV:ARR is far from being the perfect MMO.
    Many people will downvote my review as they're doing to all the negatives. But before buying this game take some time to read all the negative reviews, they don't lie! Pros: - Nice graphics - Decent character customization (not perfect though,    First of all I love FF (specially FF VI).
    I wish I could love this game, I really wanted to, but FFXIV:ARR is far from being the perfect MMO.
    Many people will downvote my review as they're doing to all the negatives. But before buying this game take some time to read all the negative reviews, they don't lie!

    Pros:
    - Nice graphics
    - Decent character customization (not perfect though, we only have 4 faces for each race)
    - Yay! it's Final Fantasy!
    - You can have more than 1 class in the same toon.

    Cons:
    - Voiceless and very long cutscenes (some can be skipped though)
    - Dull quests: a) Click on a NPC, read the wall of text, then b) find the other npc and read another wall of text (sometimes hand him some items, one by one...zzz...) or c) kill x mobs/fetch x props and d) turn in your quest to quest-giver NPC); Quests are not interesting and I didn't find any motivation to finish them.
    - Boring combat: It's just button-mashing and the global cooldown is huge which turns out a very slow combat;
    - Story is flat and not motivating;
    - Mapping system is frustrating and unfriendly. There's an Aethernet system to teleport to different locations, though it's not map based: you'll have to learn by heart all the destination names. Mini-map is useless as it doesn't help at all and the icons on maps have not hovering texts. It's like you have to spend quite a time in order to learn all the names and locations very well if you don't want to get lost (which is quite easy if you're just starting).

    All in all, FFXIV:ARR is an outdated system with nice and fresh graphics with not too much Final Fantasy on it you won't find those moving stories we are used to see in the series. It's an MMO made to be also played on a console that's why some game design options can look bad on a PC. But, if you're new to MMOs or you just played some bad quality ones, perhaps FFXIV:ARR can be a good game for you. I'd prefer worse graphics with a better gameplay and story, and a more friendly mapping system/UI.    … Expand
  92. Panglishes
    Aug 29, 2013
    3
    Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn is just another MMO. The mechanics of the game are extremely simplified and have no depth. The quests in the game are "Go here and kill X". The difficulty is "You 1 shot these, you 2 shot these, and these 1 shot you". There is no game play difference between level 1 and level 40. The classes are copy paste versions of every other MMO class with little orFinal Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn is just another MMO. The mechanics of the game are extremely simplified and have no depth. The quests in the game are "Go here and kill X". The difficulty is "You 1 shot these, you 2 shot these, and these 1 shot you". There is no game play difference between level 1 and level 40. The classes are copy paste versions of every other MMO class with little or no depth what so ever. The leveling is monotonous and boring. If you like games such as Runescape, Diecide, or Hello Kitty, this game is for you. If you can't stand care-bearing the population of 12 year old ADHD riddled 12 year-olds, I suggest you find a better game.… Expand
  93. NdranC
    Aug 28, 2013
    0
    Combat system is slow, lacks customization and interesting skills, like 20% more damage for 20 secs with a 3 min cooldown. The class mechanics are dumb down. Quest hub system with an insane amount of fetching quests and a boring linear story line.

    Class system forces you to level alts if you want to improve your main. Crafting system is the same old recipe based system with annoyances    Combat system is slow, lacks customization and interesting skills, like 20% more damage for 20 secs with a 3 min cooldown. The class mechanics are dumb down. Quest hub system with an insane amount of fetching quests and a boring linear story line.

    Class system forces you to level alts if you want to improve your main. Crafting system is the same old recipe based system with annoyances like minigames or switching professions before you can gather. The whole leveling experience encourages solo play, because of class/guild specific quests and a huge amount of solo tiny instances that your friends can't come in.

    Graphic style depends on your tastes, it has a photo realistic environment with cartoon looking characters that in my opinion looks very odd. UI is horrible, very bright lights everywhere and it looks confusing against the background. HORRIBLE map system and useless minimap, you need to keep your map open and use it as a proper minimap. Seriously the worst map system I can think off right now... Animations are bad... spell effects are worse.. might be a taste thing but Square Enix LOVES to make every single spell look like fairy fart. If i cast a fire spell, lots and lots of fairy like particles all over. Excessive use of glow on EVERYTHING. Not everything has to glow like navi in Zelda... Class system is the trinity with a heavy requirement for DPS classes and just 1 tank and 1 healer. I don't have to explain why this outdated design is horrible.

    Over all the game (I don't use this term lightly) is a wow clone with a worst combat system and a Final Fantasy reskin. If you LOVE every single FF ever then you might get a kick out of it. But the fact remains this is an outdated game with horrible design choices on a sub fee that is only getting this many reviews because of the Justin Beiber phenomenon. Fanboism.    … Expand
  94. Ehllfhire
    Aug 28, 2013
    0
    The game us unplayable at this time. You cant even log in to make a character. If you do get logged in, you end up getting booted by some error and then have to take 4-8 hours to be able to log in again. Worst launch of an mmo ever.
  95. Krooser
    Aug 28, 2013
    1
    Once you do finally get logged into the game, which is by no means an easy task since there is no queue and when you get a message stating the world is full, you have to continue clicking through several prompts to try again, the game you will find is buggy and unplayable at worst, and boring and uninspired at best. Enjoy spamming one or two skills over and over in order to kill things?Once you do finally get logged into the game, which is by no means an easy task since there is no queue and when you get a message stating the world is full, you have to continue clicking through several prompts to try again, the game you will find is buggy and unplayable at worst, and boring and uninspired at best. Enjoy spamming one or two skills over and over in order to kill things? Well then this game might be right for you. The word feels dead and cold even when surrounded by other players. The quests are very standard fetch and kill quests, and the combat couldn't be more plain and uninspired. If you love Final Fantasy and just want to be able to run around in a final fantasy inspired world, then you may enjoy this. But if you're a fan of MMOs and were hoping for something new or exciting, or any progression of the genre, you should probably look elsewhere. Launch week server issues are bad enough, but there should be a great game behind it all once you get in. There simply isn't.… Expand
  96. Tacobadgers
    Aug 28, 2013
    3
    I love this game, however Square Enix has handicapped all of the youtubers who were helping me learn how to play and be good at it. They removed the ability for youtubers to make video's about this game ruining all the work that these people put in to help new players. I'm Sorry Mr. Happy that is terrible and an awful thing for them to do. I'm sorry that all the work you put in and plannedI love this game, however Square Enix has handicapped all of the youtubers who were helping me learn how to play and be good at it. They removed the ability for youtubers to make video's about this game ruining all the work that these people put in to help new players. I'm Sorry Mr. Happy that is terrible and an awful thing for them to do. I'm sorry that all the work you put in and planned to put in and the hours upon hours upon hours of time that you spent learning how this game works in order to make great tutorial videos and make a little bit of money off youtube as compensation was all ruined by this horrible company that loves to screw people over. (see any final fantasy on ios as proof of their evilness 15 dollars for a nes era game on ios get real Sqeenix you suck get with the times you cox suckers)… Expand
  97. Papaoso
    Aug 28, 2013
    2
    Let’s be honest, one question what does this game offer? Having taken part in the open beta and religiously playing during early access I fail to see the appeal of this game.

    Pros: Gorgeous world, really impressive artwork. Hats off to the artwork department for this game, really is the best feature of the game. Cross class abilities allow for some flexibility and interesting    Let’s be honest, one question what does this game offer? Having taken part in the open beta and religiously playing during early access I fail to see the appeal of this game.

    Pros:

    Gorgeous world, really impressive artwork. Hats off to the artwork department for this game, really is the best feature of the game.

    Cross class abilities allow for some flexibility and interesting combinations of skills. Really nice being able to play one character and just switch weapons to change classes.

    Fates (similar to rifts from Rift) can be fun and enjoyable with a good group of people. Amazing rewards for simple tasks.

    Lots of dungeons and lvl adjustment for them is nice.

    Positive community of people in-game (that I’ve interacted with thus far). When players can’t get into the game things get nasty (World’s full error, 3012 error during early access etc.)

    Cons:

    The combat system feels ancient. Use an ability, wait for the global cool down to be done and then use your next ability. Nothing about the combat system feels dynamic or really interactive. The limit breaks are cool but its just a group ability and nothing too special about them.

    Boss fights present the player with mind numbing simplicity. When you have a poor combat system that lacks any dynamic actions you create these kind of poor, simplistic boss encounters. Run out of red circles, click this object to prevent more dmg from coming in, pickup adds etc. Nothing new or innovative in the encounters. At least GW2 you could roll to a side and dodge a little.

    Is this an MMO (massive multiplayer) or a single player game with the occasional groups? Duty finder (group/dungeon finder) takes 10-20mins for a healer to find a group, 30+ for dps, tanks I hear its much better. The main quest line instances must be completed alone, grouping for any kind of content also kicks you out of a duty finder(dungeon finder). I feel like I’m running around doing the main quest line and waiting forever to run any kind of dungeon.

    The grind the grind the grind! There aren’t any major raids prior to lvl 50 right now. Aside from Fate grinding you will never be in a group beyond 4 players. Again is this even an MMO? Once again another WoW imitator where you start playing the game when you hit the lvl cap.

    Skills, give me more skills!!! I understand cross class skills are nice and enjoyable, but as a healer I don’t have a dispel? I cast Cure I and Cure I and Cure I, sleep an add, repeat. I miss the days from SWTOR where I had 5 hot bars of skills I all used. Now I don’t even have 2 hot bars of skills….

    In the end I feel like this game is dead at launch. I can’t imagine people tricking themselves into thinking this is a good game. It is not. It offers nothing special. The combat in the game is terrible. The frequency with which you’re grouping with others makes the game feel like a single player game. Aside from how pretty the game looks there isn’t anything that this game offers. Why developers in 2013 are still making such poor WoW imitators almost a decade after WoW launched is beyond me. Has the MMORPG genre died? Playing Final Fantasy a Realm Reborn sure makes me feel like it’s hit a new low. Earns a rating of 2 just because it looks good.    … Expand
  98. Xen-Masta
    Aug 28, 2013
    0
    I played this game for awhile on a Japanese server, since the NA/EU servers are locking most people out. Game is essentially unplayable, hence the low rating. I will amend this rating assuming that they fix the issue at some point.

    As far as the game itself goes, once/if you actually get to play it: It's no FFXI, which was infinitely more original and fun to play. FFXIV is as generic    I played this game for awhile on a Japanese server, since the NA/EU servers are locking most people out. Game is essentially unplayable, hence the low rating. I will amend this rating assuming that they fix the issue at some point.

    As far as the game itself goes, once/if you actually get to play it: It's no FFXI, which was infinitely more original and fun to play. FFXIV is as generic a regurgitation of modern western MMO's as i have ever seen. No originality, no voice overs, no challenge/skill needed, music is even lack luster for a FF game. The gane was obviously developed this time around based on PS3 specs, and an easy cross platform development. When the graphics are cranked the whole way up, it looks like a decent ps3 game, nowhere near as good as a game developed for PC. This game was developed to please the post wow generation imo.    … Expand
  99. helli
    Aug 28, 2013
    3
    I'm sure this is a great game. Can't say as I'm locked out of being able to play because my account (NA made during FFXI)) and my physical copy of the game (EU) are in different regions.

    Square Enix's solution (after 2 days of trying to contact them to resolve the issue). Too bad, make a new account (and be unable to play with my son and my partner as their server doesn't allow new    I'm sure this is a great game. Can't say as I'm locked out of being able to play because my account (NA made during FFXI)) and my physical copy of the game (EU) are in different regions.

    Square Enix's solution (after 2 days of trying to contact them to resolve the issue). Too bad, make a new account (and be unable to play with my son and my partner as their server doesn't allow new characters), or buy a new digital copy (but we have closed sales).

    Request for a region transfer.....we don't do that.
    Yep I say 0/10 based on the total lack of Customer Support for people region locked to the wrong region.    … Expand
  100. spiros-liro
    Aug 27, 2013
    1
    Do not buy this game yet.

    The company running it have locked the servers without stopping sales, so if you buy it you will not be able to get online at all. This aside, I found the questing to be very boring, and the combat to be probably the worst I've seen in an mmo. The story is ok, as is the music and graphics but there are are far better mmos out there that you can play for    Do not buy this game yet.

    The company running it have locked the servers without stopping sales, so if you buy it you will not be able to get online at all.

    This aside, I found the questing to be very boring, and the combat to be probably the worst I've seen in an mmo. The story is ok, as is the music and graphics but there are are far better mmos out there that you can play for free. Avoid this mess of a game.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

33
#33 Best PC Game of 2013
19
#19 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
31
#31 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 32 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
  1. Hyper Magazine
    Dec 28, 2013
    80
    Full of enough adventure, daring-do and chocobos to make any MMO fan happy. [Jan 2014, p.72]
  2. Gaming Nexus
    Nov 13, 2013
    85
    A Realm Reborn is such a substantial change from the original game that it merits a second look if you hated the first release. So much has changed for the better, and it has resulted in one of the most polished MMORPGs out there today.
    Read full review
  3. PCGamesN
    Nov 6, 2013
    80
    The completionist in me is nearly overwhelmed with the sheer amount of things to do in A Realm Reborn. Square Enix really do deserve praise for not only fixing the issues of the original game, but far exceeding their goal.
    Read full review
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