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. AmongstYou
    Sep 25, 2013
    9
    Final Fantasy XIV was a hugely botched opportunity, and one that Square themselves saw so much potential in, that they decided to apologize for their mistakes, and try again. The result? A well crafted, refined, and incredibly fun MMO RPG that both Final Fantasy fans and MMO fans can enjoy, without being simplified and dumbed down. Though not flawless, this is a game you'll be playing forFinal Fantasy XIV was a hugely botched opportunity, and one that Square themselves saw so much potential in, that they decided to apologize for their mistakes, and try again. The result? A well crafted, refined, and incredibly fun MMO RPG that both Final Fantasy fans and MMO fans can enjoy, without being simplified and dumbed down. Though not flawless, this is a game you'll be playing for ages, whether it's alone, or with friends.… Expand
  2. DexterMorgan
    Sep 10, 2013
    9
    Good game. Work on the targeting system though. I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of voice acting, but I can get over that. It would be nice if monsters took priority over players during Fates, at least for DDs. Maybe have an option to turn on which take priority.
  3. ApexHeights
    Sep 21, 2013
    9
    As a fan of the Final Fantasy series, I will do my best to ignore any bias I may have, that being said..

    I find the game to be enjoyable to play with a nice mix of the final fantasy flavor and MMO play style. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous, the combat (while a bit stale in the early levels) will feel familiar to MMO veterans while providing a new feel with the 2.5 second Global    As a fan of the Final Fantasy series, I will do my best to ignore any bias I may have, that being said..

    I find the game to be enjoyable to play with a nice mix of the final fantasy flavor and MMO play style. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous, the combat (while a bit stale in the early levels) will feel familiar to MMO veterans while providing a new feel with the 2.5 second Global Cooldown (which makes for more planned combat, fitting to the Final Fantasy gameplay).

    I would say my largest gripe with the game is the lacking in voice acting. While where it is present, the voice acting is flawless, I find it to be a rare and sort of random occurrence.

    The crafting and gathering are so unique in this game I can't decide what to do when I log on. There are no restrictions in what you can choose to do on your character. If you want to craft your way to level cap in each profession, expect no limitations.

    For me the best part about the game is it's uniqueness in it's progression and allowance of options. You can use one character to level from 1 50 each class, advance class, gathering skill, and crafting skill. There is so much content to enjoy. I highly recommend this game.    … Expand
  4. TheDeathWish
    Oct 26, 2013
    10
    Besides your usual gold sell sites this game is NOT PAY TO WIN. Awesome. Only can pay subscription.

    Set previous version aside: This game is wonderful, Beautiful world vibrant colors and like a Final Fantasy world. Easy to catch on and easy to play. Fate Events are nice and lots people doing them. Dungeons are very enjoyable, tough but not overwhelming. Lots of things to do to keep you    Besides your usual gold sell sites this game is NOT PAY TO WIN. Awesome. Only can pay subscription.

    Set previous version aside: This game is wonderful, Beautiful world vibrant colors and like a Final Fantasy world. Easy to catch on and easy to play. Fate Events are nice and lots people doing them. Dungeons are very enjoyable, tough but not overwhelming. Lots of things to do to keep you busy till they release more content. Be nice to see what pvp will have to over and to have spoken the words "to have the biggest guild and player housing in MMORPG history" is bold to make. Game runs well on max on gtx 570. Great music and great voice overs.

    Tho the game is lacking inventory sorting to be fixed in next large content release. Free Companies(Guild) has a great start and hope to see more on this topic.

    I Come from F2P games where you can spend $200 in such a short time and rather spend money on a game that has all included for monthly cost    … Expand
  5. Kafiro
    Oct 29, 2013
    10
    The best MMO I've ever played. The story is awesome, the gameplay is amazing, the details are gorgeous. The realm really reborn. The quest system is incredible, the Duty Find works well. And it's not just a game, or a MMO, now they gave us a Final Fantasy game.
  6. iceblade1469
    Nov 10, 2013
    9
    Incredible game. This game is a good thing to come home from work or school and play until you go to sleep. Not many action-packed parts in the game, but the awe-inspiring graphics make up for that. All together, the game is great. Only thing i did not like is the constant maintenance's. There are so many of these un-needed maintenance's and at times that i actually play the game.
  7. Roshi
    Nov 25, 2013
    9
    Game fixed. Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn is now a game on the right track to be worthy of final fantasy xi. the game has been rebooted from the ground up and is well worth another try if you liked final fantasy xi but hated the first version of this game.
  8. 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
  9. Panserbjorne39
    Jun 4, 2015
    6
    I have a level 50 Warrior (tank) and have played the game for about 3 months. Here's my review:
    Beautiful to look at but at it's core is a relentless never ending grind. Toxic community full of former WoW goons and griefers. There are some good players out there of course, but there is a ton of griefing and harassment that take place. RMT and bots are running rampant atm.
    Full of    I have a level 50 Warrior (tank) and have played the game for about 3 months. Here's my review:
    Beautiful to look at but at it's core is a relentless never ending grind. Toxic community full of former WoW goons and griefers. There are some good players out there of course, but there is a ton of griefing and harassment that take place. RMT and bots are running rampant atm.
    Full of pointless fetch quests and travel time sinks even after level cap. Tab target combat with 3 second globals is boring and all jobs feel the same. Dungeons using insta-wipe mechanics and rigid adherence to trinity remove all semblance of skill or fun.
    Some very cute moments but they don't outweigh the monotonous grind of a WoW clone like this.
    Dungeon queue for DPS jobs is insanely long. At level 50 I quit the main story arc and went to crafting because I just couldn't take the grind any more. Crafting is great, and probably the best I've seen so far in an MMO. But at the end of the day, action and combat are what keep me interested in a game so I will be cancelling my sub this month.    … Expand
  10. 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
  11. 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!!!
  12. 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
  13. Simbot
    Aug 27, 2013
    0
    Restricting access to the game and not allowing people create characters on the same server as their friends.

    You'll either be fighting the login screen, keeping your character online AFK for more then 12 hours to keep your spot or trying to explain to your friends that rolling on a different server is okay.
  14. 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
  15. Fuz
    Mar 6, 2014
    5
    The game itself is pretty good.
    The job system is fantastic, the graphics and animations are excellent (although it asks too much of a configuration... slow pc can't play this... even pcs that can play most of other games), gameplay is great.
    Crafting is interesting, but very grindy and with tiresome mechanics... you have to do a very long set of actions for every piece, and although    The game itself is pretty good.
    The job system is fantastic, the graphics and animations are excellent (although it asks too much of a configuration... slow pc can't play this... even pcs that can play most of other games), gameplay is great.
    Crafting is interesting, but very grindy and with tiresome mechanics... you have to do a very long set of actions for every piece, and although it's cool for items, it's really, REALLY not when you have to smelt 500 iron ore pieces (for example).

    The big problem with the game, is that endgame is utterly broken. First, the game relies on a very old and outdated RNG system that is causing huge issues to lots of players.
    Also, there is a bug in the game's code that leaves some players with visual lag: basically, the servers (for EU too) are in Canada, also the server updates the character position every 0.3 seconds ONLY, and on fights you see the AoE on your monitor, move out in time, and still get hit by oneshotting abilities. This causes some fights to be utterly broken and extremely annoying.

    So, until they fix the lag bug and the RNG system I would not recommend this game to anyone.
    It will be a worthwile purchase after they fix the problems.    … Expand
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. Morbiuss
    Aug 27, 2013
    1
    the game is an amazing game, their inability to do login queues and boot players who are idle is absolute garbage, unfortunately it doesnt matter how good the game is, in the end it is still going to fail because of the horrible horrible login issues that in this day and age 2013 should never have happened, it shows that while yoshi has a good crew of game designers, the SE game developersthe game is an amazing game, their inability to do login queues and boot players who are idle is absolute garbage, unfortunately it doesnt matter how good the game is, in the end it is still going to fail because of the horrible horrible login issues that in this day and age 2013 should never have happened, it shows that while yoshi has a good crew of game designers, the SE game developers are still below sub par. this will probably be my last SE game I ever play… Expand
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. Pork_chops
    Oct 10, 2013
    9
    I've played World of Warcraft, I've played Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild wars 2, and I've played Star Trek Online. But Final Fantasy is by far my favourite MMORPG. I won't lie, it isn't a great departure from the stock standard MMO model, but what drew me in is the class system, the graphics, and the way the world feels.

    That's not to say it's without faults. The UI is really    I've played World of Warcraft, I've played Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild wars 2, and I've played Star Trek Online. But Final Fantasy is by far my favourite MMORPG. I won't lie, it isn't a great departure from the stock standard MMO model, but what drew me in is the class system, the graphics, and the way the world feels.

    That's not to say it's without faults. The UI is really clunky, and takes quite some time to figure out, and anyone with a PC that's not quite gamer level is going to enjoy sudden spikes in FPS. Figuring out where to quest can be a real pain in the neck, and a lot of quests have been translated poorly from Japanese to English, meaning you'll be doing what the quest text says, but getting nowhere.

    There could be a part of fan boyism in this post, since I've been a long time Final Fantasy fan, so take it as you will. But if you're looking for a good, multiplayer game, and you have the hardware to support it, I'd recommend at least giving it a go.    … Expand
  22. 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
  23. Zzzlol94
    Nov 16, 2013
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Finally, after 2 years with LotRO being a pain in the ass and more boring and buggy than ever, a replacement has come. Perfect replacement. During the beta I got to play until lvl 15 or so, not getting into crafting or anything, which was also a great period but with poor optimization for graphics so it was quite laggy. Most importantly, I had no issues with the game at all. In the final release, the game was optimized and can be run with everything maxed out at 1920x1200 on a GTX 680 and an i7-920 at 60-90FPS.

    As a solo PvE player and leveling addict, this game is absolutely at the top of my to do list. There are lots of quests to do during leveling up the first class and enough to be at a proper level compared to the quests and the location you're at. If I would come to the situation where I'm in lack of quests, Square Enix has absolutely made it brilliant by implementing the FATE system. It's great for leveling up as they are common and give out a solid chunk of exp, at least during the lower levels. The quests are also varied enough and exciting enough to not be repetitive.

    One big thing too is traveling. It's ridiculously easy to get to anywhere in the game. At the start of playing it does cost a little much, but it seems like that will be no issue when you're starting to play the game a lot. 5 seconds from anywhere and you're suddenly at another place. Aethernet is also a brilliant way of getting around in a capital quickly and easily, well, it could be even easier if you could travel via the map and not a list over aethernet spots.

    Also a brilliant thing in the game is that you're not bound to anything. Pretty much, you're only bound to the look of the character you've created. You can change classes like *snap*. You can be any class on a single character. If you'd even like, getting every single class to level 50 on a single character, then having absolutely no need to relog for a different character. Only issue, gear sets may become chaotic... or would they? One brilliant feature is also the gear set list, where you can swap between classes or even different gear sets in a *snap*. You'd think that you won't have enough space for all this gear, but no, you have 25 slots for every type of gear, which results in 325 slots dedicated to weapons, amour and jewelry. No one likes to run out of inventory space

    Speaking barely of crafting. Whoa, crafting can actually be a bit more than just click on a button while having the proper resources and wait a few seconds. Having a set of skills you have to use to craft items is quite interesting and fun at first. Could become repetitive, but they still have the old fashioned way of crafting in case when you want to be AFK while its crafting loads of things.

    When you get to about lvl 20 and done the lvl 20 main scenario quest to enter a grand company and get a chocobo, the gameplay really softens up and becomes much better. There are just so many things done right with the game to be mentioned that it should just be experienced to get the full package.

    There are however a few issues I find annoying sometimes. Living in EU and playing on a european server, the server is located in NA, which adds on to the major issue with lag. Having a 200ms lag to the server, there's also another 300ms added onto that. Which results in everything you interact with takes a second to respond and every induction doesn't get interrupted after almost a second you've tried to interrupt it by moving. OHKO AoE attacks from bosses can be an issue for the slower players, as it can seem like you're out of the circle in time, but you're still getting KO'd. So it's not a perfect game, but looking away from the lag, it's damn near. Network lag causes this to be 9 instead of 10.    … Expand
  24. RTS
    Nov 9, 2013
    10
    Take note, majority of the negative reviews were written by the cry baby nerds who couldn't get on during the launch day. I'm actually kind of glad it was difficult to get on, just goes to show how popular this game was and STILL is. Don't listen to these negative ones, for the most part it's just a bunch of lifeless nerds whose lives revolve around games getting pissed off because theyTake note, majority of the negative reviews were written by the cry baby nerds who couldn't get on during the launch day. I'm actually kind of glad it was difficult to get on, just goes to show how popular this game was and STILL is. Don't listen to these negative ones, for the most part it's just a bunch of lifeless nerds whose lives revolve around games getting pissed off because they couldn't long on when the game first started. It's a FINAL FANTASY game in MMO form, what did you think was going to happen? We knew it would be popular but had no idea it would do this well. My only issue with the game at first was the map and locating the missions once i picked them up. After i got passed the map issues this game just flows like a stream. Missions seem repetitive but that just comes with the MMO package. I've seen other MMORPG's played and just never found them interesting, figured since i was a fan of the FF series this would be the place to start. Over all for the most part I enjoy it and when you have friends on the same servers where you can share quests with it's even better. If i could change anything about this game it would be more voice acting and adding a voice chat for players in a party or dungeon quest to chat. Lets face it, the new FF games are no where close as good as the classics, but for one of the newer generation titles in MMO form this one is pretty good in my book.… Expand
  25. 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
  26. SynKazama
    Jul 13, 2015
    5
    FFXIV as a whole offers a great story, beautiful world, great music and production values. By gaming standards it's very good. By MMO standards, it's actually quite bland and really offers nothing new to the genre or fails to even rehash anything that made MMOs great.

    From a veteran's perspective (10+ years playing various MMOs): Jobs are overly balanced to the point where they don't    FFXIV as a whole offers a great story, beautiful world, great music and production values. By gaming standards it's very good. By MMO standards, it's actually quite bland and really offers nothing new to the genre or fails to even rehash anything that made MMOs great.

    From a veteran's perspective (10+ years playing various MMOs):

    Jobs are overly balanced to the point where they don't differentiate well within their trinity (Tank,Healer,DPS). Everything in the game has been designed around equality, which is odd seeing as how, like FFXI, all jobs are accessible on a single character and players are encouraged to level multiples.

    Character progression slows to a near standstill at cap with virtually no options for how you build and play your character. Unlike most other MMOs there are no talents/skill trees/ branching or specialization in either skills or equipment. All skills and abilities are automatically learned along the way, and for equipment It's simply a straight vertical climb up the iLVL chart which also offers next to nothing in terms of choice.

    Raid content is repetitive and heavily reliant upon dodge and enrage mechanics. While raids can be difficult, it is generally because people fail to execute a very mechanical formula such as failing to meet DPS checks or remembering phase changes and specific positioning.

    Dungeons are simply a means to level and gain tokens to exchange for the basic pre-raid iLVL requirement gear. There are no valuables or collectibles (besides glamour items, furniture and minions) to be obtained. No usable rare and unusual items exist at all in the world.

    Crafting provides almost no advantage to character development as equipment is, in 95% of all cases, sub-par to raid and token gear. It can be used to earn an equally useless income by crafting consumables and glamour items but ultimately provides little to be desired.

    Both of the above are done in an overly cautious means to prevent RMT (Real Money Trade).

    Despite the recent news and reviews, open world is no more dangerous than in 2.0. Players can still take down 3 enemies at a time with literally no open world danger aside from going AFK.

    The most glaring issue is in all of the limitations imposed by SE that prevent people from continuing to grow at their own pace. Nearly everything is gated by timed lockouts and access. Even gathering jobs can only obtain the most important resources at specific intervals. These serve the purpose of delaying content consumption between the patch cycles and to balance the progression levels of the player base.

    Although the attempt to level the progression of the player base is likely done to prevent elitism, it's backfired in a sense. Instead of being judged on their progress in the game, players are more often ostracized for lack of coordination, response time and general skill.

    It's first expansion Heavansward offers almost nothing new to the genre either. The largest changes made to the game are a graphics refresh (DX11), open world flight, new dungeons, new jobs and a level cap increase. In other words, very standard fare for an MMO expansion. Once the world is seen, story played through and dungeons crawled it leaves very little for veteran MMO players to enjoy.

    If you're new to the MMO genre, looking for a casual place to hang out online with friends, really into role playing or just have a very limited amount of time to play, FFXIV may be hands down the best choice. But if you're a hardcore MMO player, raid junkie, or want to become a PvP god we're a little out in the cold right now. Hopefully 2015/16 will bring back some of the great sandbox MMO features many of us miss.    … Expand
  27. 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
  28. yousuck1
    Aug 21, 2020
    0
    SucksSucks.,.................................................. ...................
  29. eastman18
    Jun 18, 2021
    0
    Honestly the game is pure garbage. No PVP component, pure PVE and nothing else. Extremely slow early game.
  30. transient03
    Sep 3, 2013
    6
    This is the truth about FF14 arr: PLEASE READ

    First of all, it is a FF game. Very much feels like one, nuff said. The world, graphics and cinematics are wonderful; gameplay is fluent and responsive. The lvling system is tedious and unoriginal, but for some reason its addictive. Haven't gotten too far into crafting/gathering but both seem OK, nothing to complain or write home about.    This is the truth about FF14 arr: PLEASE READ

    First of all, it is a FF game. Very much feels like one, nuff said. The world, graphics and cinematics are wonderful; gameplay is fluent and responsive.

    The lvling system is tedious and unoriginal, but for some reason its addictive. Haven't gotten too far into crafting/gathering but both seem OK, nothing to complain or write home about.

    Class/Job system is interesting and balanced. BUT, this is where the game is ultimately going to fail. Right now I am a lvl 25 arcanist and I am spamming 3 moves. Overall my endgame rotation as arc/summoner with cross skills might be 6-7 skills with some variance for off-healing/tanking on top of DOT Dps. Right now its ok, but the lack of endgame and monotonous rotation is why i know myself and many of you will eventually move-on to the next MMO (Elder Scrolls Online sometime next year).

    As far as the server issues: extremely frustrating without much helpful communication from SE. However, I'm sure this will not remain a problem for long. Everyone scoring this game based on first week server issues is missing the point.

    Overall, play this this game. Its not going to be the greatest MMO or FF you've ever played, but this is my reasoning Let's be honest, as of right now there really isn't much in the way of fun, new video games out right now with all the focus on next-gen gaming, and for the next...six months...there won't be. I'm sure SE is scratching their head right now of why so many people are playing this game beyond their expectations, and this is a question it seems the video game industry as a whole has yet to figure out; the ANSWER... Most gamers are looking for the same things and those quality games us gamers are looking for are often missing. During these "Video Game Dry Seasons" a game like FF14 ARR is the best we're gonna get. So play this game along with the console version of Diablo 3 until Titan Fall is released in march and then Destiny and ESO later in 2014.    … 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.
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  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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