Final Fantasy XIV Online

 PC
User Score
3.9

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 408 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 113 out of 408
  2. Mixed: 36 out of 408
  3. Negative: 259 out of 408
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  1. loliance
    Dec 11, 2021
    0
    Awful game, bad story, bad gameplay, bad UI, no redeeming factor.
    Much more playable with the ARR remake.
  2. makinari
    Sep 24, 2021
    0
    Trash. Endless email accounts made to register an account for a steam code to not work, too many variables to go wrong and it goes wrong. SE never get in touch to resolve issues and honestly I shouldnt have to spend hours on google trying to figure out to start a game.
  3. Xaxxus
    Jul 10, 2021
    4
    Have not even played the game yet. Because I literally cant even figure out where to download the client.

    The FF XIV website is probably the worse user experience I have ever seen. It seems as though they are actively trying to stop you from playing their game.

    Also you have to buy the game more than once if you want to play it on mac and windows.
  4. jake_siege
    Jun 4, 2021
    0
    Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.
    Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.
    Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.Housing. Housing.
  5. jaydan
    Sep 28, 2020
    0
    Good luck trying to even install this on your PC...

    No advice given from Square Enix. But if you go through user forums, some people have managed to overcome these difficulties by doing the following: - Disabling all anti-virus on your machine - Using a VPN service (which you may / may not have used before) - Changing your DNS settings (perhaps to something you have not used before)    Good luck trying to even install this on your PC...

    No advice given from Square Enix. But if you go through user forums, some people have managed to overcome these difficulties by doing the following:
    - Disabling all anti-virus on your machine
    - Using a VPN service (which you may / may not have used before)
    - Changing your DNS settings (perhaps to something you have not used before)

    These are steps that you need to strongly consider before attempting to install this title. Is this even safe to do?!

    If the installation fails, it will usually fail because it cannot retrieve a patch files from the server (you will get a popup). Its about a 40GB download. If it fails at any point, you cannot resume your download. You will start from the beginning again.

    it is clear that no one in Square Enix has ever tried to install this themselves. What a joke. Zero out of ten.    … Expand
  6. Szternit
    Sep 4, 2020
    0
    this is THE WORST mmo i ever played
    THE WORST combat system
    THE WORST quest design
    THE WORST map design
    THE WORST fckin everything
    dont waste money
  7. yousuck1
    Aug 21, 2020
    0
    Sucks.,.................................................. ..................
  8. djkal
    Sep 4, 2013
    2
    Broken. Not much more needs to be said. The game came out in an unfinished state and that is inexcusable. I love final fantasy, but will skip this game.
  9. StoryBored
    Aug 31, 2013
    3
    Well, I have to say I've had every error that anyone has encountered on this game up until now. Unable to login, instances crashing and dropping me, the game crashing unexpectedly and being unable to log back in, limited full servers and poor connectivity when I do connect. I understood at the end of the Beta, I even understood during the early access, but now we're several days into theWell, I have to say I've had every error that anyone has encountered on this game up until now. Unable to login, instances crashing and dropping me, the game crashing unexpectedly and being unable to log back in, limited full servers and poor connectivity when I do connect. I understood at the end of the Beta, I even understood during the early access, but now we're several days into the actual release and STILL several days away from a *potential* solution.

    I wish I could expand more upon the gameplay so far, but getting up through level 20 so far is the standard MMO fanfare. Good graphics, a familiar interface, lackluster story and characters, and quests you can play with your friends. Most of what this game has to offer is no different at all from what it's competitors have except the FF name. Nothing besides the graphics so far indicating the game is anything other than average, and all the issues I've experienced have dragged the rating far below that. Avoid this game like the plague AT LEAST until mid September 2013 and even then, proceed with caution.

    There was not a sufficient amount of testing and preparation on this game by the development team, period.    … Expand
  10. 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
  11. chronoT
    Sep 6, 2012
    1
    Yes, I finally get to review a game and give it under a 4! Long story short, I am a huge RPG/Final Fantasy gamer, I have a lot of respect for FF 1-9, and for others on PS2 and XBox. Please check my reviews as I love the series and give my intake on a few, my lowest game is a 4, and that is SWG. Sadly though, there is one game that I thank my brother for showing me before I almost spentYes, I finally get to review a game and give it under a 4! Long story short, I am a huge RPG/Final Fantasy gamer, I have a lot of respect for FF 1-9, and for others on PS2 and XBox. Please check my reviews as I love the series and give my intake on a few, my lowest game is a 4, and that is SWG. Sadly though, there is one game that I thank my brother for showing me before I almost spent real $ on it, and that would be Final Fantasy 14 Online. I will say right now there are only a few other times in my entire life where I saw my bro so upset, after 1 hour of playing he was appalled that he spent money on this game. After witnessing it as well I felt genuinely sorry for him and told him I would try not to laugh about it. I know this is a superbly late review but I am new to reviewing so here it is. I have no idea what the creators of this game were thinking, releasing it in this condition. Also, having the nerve to charge more money for a supposed "exclusive pack" + $12.99 a month subscription. They refused to refund either of the 2 months that he paid for in advance and definitely didn't want to use. He literally paid $111 to dry dump a mushroom for an hour and a half. This game is a broken piece of trash and honestly I think all players deserve a FULL REFUND!!!… Expand
  12. Carlitoxic
    Mar 21, 2012
    2
    Final Fantasy chapters should not be online, and if it is done, at least that is brilliant. It is not the case. The worst Final fantasy with a ton of really annoying bugs, restricting chat system and many wrong ideas. What demons is happen with Final Fantasy?
  13. Cerveau
    Sep 26, 2011
    0
    To everyone saying the game has improved: I have been playing since beta and this game has not improved in the slightest. I'm actually redoing my review in light of these new changes. The easiest way to explain how poor this game is, google "Is FFXIV Ready to Play?" Its a youtube video and it shows the simplest of bugs and as of this date it is still not fixed.

    They've finally added    To everyone saying the game has improved: I have been playing since beta and this game has not improved in the slightest. I'm actually redoing my review in light of these new changes. The easiest way to explain how poor this game is, google "Is FFXIV Ready to Play?" Its a youtube video and it shows the simplest of bugs and as of this date it is still not fixed.

    They've finally added airships but those of us from FFXI will know its still not enough. "The airship ride is over in a matter of seconds." Wow, even in FFXI you could see the area below but a year later they still can't implement it in FFXIV. It seems to me that this was a last minute ditch effort to at least be able to claim they have airships.

    And chocobos. I'm sorry but if it takes a whole year to implement chocobos... how long will it take to make the game playable. Too little too late.

    The last time I logged in, the busiest city, Limsa Laminsa was bare. Only three people responded to my shouts. This does not bode well. When I asked where everyone was the reply I got was "They're taking a break until the new update" (chocobo update). We'll see. If they're smart they won't be on at all.

    There is a reason this game was awarded "Most Disappointing game of 2010". There's a reason it has the metascore it has.

    If you like this game and you rated it a 10 it only goes to show how blind you are. I've been playing Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy 6 on the SNES. After spending $80 on the Collector's Edition of FFXIV all I have to show for it is a stupid hardcover book. The Adventurer's Certificate never showed up and I'm realizing now, almost a year later, it never will. Not that I care at this point, I'm embarrassed to let any of my friends know I was ever interested.

    If you want to be frustrated and then spat upon by Square Enix, give it a try. If you have any sense at all, you'll come back here and rate this game a zero.    … Expand
  14. Apz
    Jul 26, 2011
    0
    Decided to come back to the game for patch 1.18. Do not let those singing praises and ringing bells fool you, there are as many negatives to this patch as there are positives. For one, there is no practical hMP (Healing MP) solution in game yet. This is a problem because Cure costs were QUADRUPLED with the recent patch. This leaves mages with limited options as conserving and managing yourDecided to come back to the game for patch 1.18. Do not let those singing praises and ringing bells fool you, there are as many negatives to this patch as there are positives. For one, there is no practical hMP (Healing MP) solution in game yet. This is a problem because Cure costs were QUADRUPLED with the recent patch. This leaves mages with limited options as conserving and managing your MP is top priority. Secondly, Behests were completely ruined. Reformatted from large party adventure fun times into another solo grind activity which rewards minimal SP. Definitely the game's most fun feature so far was flushed down the drain. Thirdly, overall EXP/SP gain was nerfed down to accommodate the lack of Fatigue now. Unfortunately, you were able to grind FASTER pre-patch while on lower tiers of fatigue than you can now post-patch. The game really isn't in a position to be messing with new players, or bitter old players like myself, with fake fanfare. The only three good things to come out of the patch were AutoAttack/Stamina bar removal, the instanced dungeons and the CONJ/THM damage nerfs. The rest is objectively bad. Save your disk space. Save your bandwidth. Save your patience. The game is not ready yet. Wait for 1.2 if you'd like.… Expand
  15. UWHusky
    May 25, 2011
    3
    Short and sweet:
    Pros: -Fantastic graphics, but it seems this is all they spent time on during creation of this game.
    -Good sound/music. Cons. -Horrible user interface. -No auction house. As it stands it is virtually impossible to find items that you wish to buy, and just as hard to sell them. -Horrid lag, even with a very good computer and a great internet connection. -SE lost a    Short and sweet:
    Pros: -Fantastic graphics, but it seems this is all they spent time on during creation of this game.
    -Good sound/music.
    Cons.
    -Horrible user interface. -No auction house. As it stands it is virtually impossible to find items that you wish to buy, and just as hard to sell them. -Horrid lag, even with a very good computer and a great internet connection.
    -SE lost a point just for the fact that they have ALREADY CREATED an online game, and you'd think they would have learned some of the mistakes they made from the past game. Instead they tried to start from scratch and just mucked it up. Played for a free trial and dumped the game. Waste of money.    … Expand
  16. Schitsocash
    May 17, 2011
    1
    I have been playing Final Fantasy XIV since Open beta until May 15th 2011, I have seen the many "Improvements" Square Enix has made and I can without a doubt tell you that this game is not worth your time, to this date the biggest changes they made were changes in monster and special effect sizes, they have changed the way you get Experience so that you get less, and altered non-combatI have been playing Final Fantasy XIV since Open beta until May 15th 2011, I have seen the many "Improvements" Square Enix has made and I can without a doubt tell you that this game is not worth your time, to this date the biggest changes they made were changes in monster and special effect sizes, they have changed the way you get Experience so that you get less, and altered non-combat Jobs so it's harder to get experience altogether for them.

    To this point Square Enix has promised many changes, as well as a big update Mid-June that adds more content, the problem being that added content is all it is, the game is still broken without any intent to be fixed, Just some of the general problems you'll experience are things like framerate drops (Don't think you are an exception if your PC is a beast, their engine is highly unoptimized, crippling even some of the high-end stuff) Alt-tabbing out of the game causes the game to shut down, there is a noticeable, and quite annoying Lag between activating action and the action being performed which can cause you a life or a Leve (timed quests which you are limited to 8 per 36 hours, win or lose) if you are not careful, Monsters you are supposed to kill quite often spawn inside aggressive Zone bosses which are way above your level, Square refuses to even acknowledge this particular issue, let alone do anything about it, several Leve monsters do not drop the quest items they are supposed to drop making you pretty much guaranteed to lose the Leve once again. Low level extermination Leves more than often have all the monsters you are supposed to kill spawn in a single large group making it impossible to solo on a solo difficulty, now many would argue that it's an MMO and should be played with a party, but there are two problems with this.
    1: Square advertises this game as solo AND party based, you can in fact chose "solo" difficulty for each Leve which in theory should let you pass it single-player but is so broken it is impossible.
    2: Community is awful (and if you mention this on the official forums your posts "disappear", thanks SquarEnix) when I say awful, i mean absolutely awful, when you start your game for the first time, the first thing you are welcomed by is some gold sellers trying to scam you out of your money, Then nothing, nobody wants to talk, nobody wants to interact, people want you to pay them for any kind of interaction that people in other MMOs would gladly do for free, and when you see people talking, it's some German, Japanese, or Spanish players who got tired of the same problems on their servers and decided to try the US server to see if its any different, Unfortunately it is not. And don't even think about having gear you like unless you're willing to level three or four jobs to level 50 because nobody will repair anything for you, even if you offer to pay them, making you either hunt down and craft the items yourself, or buy them in the marketplace for extortionate prices because the game has entirely player-driven economy, because apparently SE though it would be a good idea to have teens with no concept of finances be in charge of an entire world's economy.

    All in all, this game is an exercise in frustration, from the moment you log in it essentially does everything it possibly can to make you hate it as much as you can, most people here that gave it bad scores were probably in love with it at some point, rather than just straight-out hating on it, but the fact is, you can't love something that hurts you so much, at the end of the day you turn on your games to relax from a long and frustrating day, so what is the point of playing if the game frustrates you more than the entire day before it?

    The game does have potential, quite a bit, the problem is Square Enix is more obsessed with introducing more new broken features than fixing the current broken ones, and keep promising to fix the issues without even an attempt to deliver, the concept is fine, but execution absolutely terrible, and SE would do all of us a favor if it would just cut it's losses and kill this mutated beast that's choking on its own excrement.    … Expand
  17. FearTheCalm
    Mar 24, 2011
    0
    This game is a joke. Navigation is the worst part. You will spend your time figuring out how to navigate around locked areas, how to get down the sheer cliff, why isn't this leavequest engaging? Worst game of 2011, and most likely of 2010 as well. They should have been ashamed to release this.
  18. Gremace
    Mar 10, 2011
    0
    When Final Fantasy XI was released the only good MMO ever made was pretty much EQ1. The genre has moved foward leaps and bounds since, but SE pretty much decided to ignore that. 6 months after release FF14 is pretty much a beta build of a bad EQ1 era game with fancy graphics. Nothing more really needs to be said about it.
  19. framerunner
    Mar 5, 2011
    3
    This game is pure graphics, nothing more.
    There is almost NO tutorial and you have to find out and guess the controls by yourself.
    And let's not talk about the UI...
    FF XIV is pure fail in my eyes and the only reason it got 3 Points from me is:
    Graphics = 2
    Final Fantasy = 1
  20. kaioser
    Dec 29, 2010
    0
    Utter garbage, SE took a turd placed it inside a nice box and sold it to the masses. Shame on this company for selling such an abomination. This **** is one of the worst RPGs ever created. STAY AWAY FROM IT, do not touch it unless you want another JOB. It is really that bad. Bugs, glitches, no substance no quests. I would be surprised if this game reviews any higher than a 3, as this gameUtter garbage, SE took a turd placed it inside a nice box and sold it to the masses. Shame on this company for selling such an abomination. This **** is one of the worst RPGs ever created. STAY AWAY FROM IT, do not touch it unless you want another JOB. It is really that bad. Bugs, glitches, no substance no quests. I would be surprised if this game reviews any higher than a 3, as this game deserves less than a 0. do not buy. There is a reason that dude sold his SE stock, there is a reason they changed management, there is a reason the apology letter was sent. This game is an epic fail and is really that BAD. Shame on you SE for trying to feed these fan-boys this **** Again shame on you Square Enix. FIX THIS GARBAGE, redesign everything; or scrap it, give us refunds and make another game. This time do not release it in Alpha stage. WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN TRAVELING BACK IN TIME MMO-wise TO 1990.… Expand
  21. Xruptor
    Dec 3, 2010
    0
    Recently tried this game. It was terrible! Even with the recent patch it still is terrible. There is no sense of direction and everything becomes a repeating boring tedious grinding task. Granted many MMORPGS have grinding but this game takes it to the extreme. The controls are clunky and although some features in the UI were enhanced it still seems cumbersome. The graphics are beautifulRecently tried this game. It was terrible! Even with the recent patch it still is terrible. There is no sense of direction and everything becomes a repeating boring tedious grinding task. Granted many MMORPGS have grinding but this game takes it to the extreme. The controls are clunky and although some features in the UI were enhanced it still seems cumbersome. The graphics are beautiful I'll give you that. However, this game feels like I'm playing an MMORPG from the 90's like an early version of Everquest when it comes to archaic MMORPG techniques.… Expand
  22. AmyHalf
    Nov 24, 2010
    3
    The graphics are fantastic and-- always my favorite-- the character creation had enough options to keep me happy.

    There was NO sort of tutorial to get me going and the wikis weren't much help, either. I had to talk to all of the NPCs to finally figure out what was going on/what I was supposed to do. The "guildleve" system is interesting but I still prefer vanilla quests. I was    The graphics are fantastic and-- always my favorite-- the character creation had enough options to keep me happy.

    There was NO sort of tutorial to get me going and the wikis weren't much help, either. I had to talk to all of the NPCs to finally figure out what was going on/what I was supposed to do.

    The "guildleve" system is interesting but I still prefer vanilla quests. I was bothered, too, that I could only find SIX to begin with and when finished was on my own again to run around aimlessly (which I did -not- do) until finding something and I certainly wasn't going to create another character (what, a Miner? ha) to take up the rest of the time.

    The fact that I make crafting-only characters is bizarre to me, too. I like being able to do all sorts of things with one character. It's just weird to me to login to JUST craft. Maybe that's just me.

    Fortunately I bought it at a discount and WON'T be paying a monthly fee when the free-trial period expires. They really should make this a F2P game and call it a day.    … Expand
  23. Sixtigers
    Nov 18, 2010
    0
    Take FFXI, (which I played for six years) remove basically any activities beyond grinding on mobs for exp and grinding crafts, and you pretty much have FFXIV. Oh, and add a heaping helping of interface lag, maddening bugs, a near-inability to find the items you want for sale, and repair costs that quickly become comically expensive. (and only restore about 25% of the item's durability)Take FFXI, (which I played for six years) remove basically any activities beyond grinding on mobs for exp and grinding crafts, and you pretty much have FFXIV. Oh, and add a heaping helping of interface lag, maddening bugs, a near-inability to find the items you want for sale, and repair costs that quickly become comically expensive. (and only restore about 25% of the item's durability) Oh, I almost forgot.... Forget about pulling mobs to avoid links. They all have ADHD and will only chase you for a few seconds before giving up and going back to where they were. If you're really unlucky, a bug will kick in and instantly give all of their health back when they get back to their spawn point. The ADHD also means that there's very little danger in the game. It's hard to aggro things in the first place, but if something can't one-shot you, it won't chase you long enough to pose a danger anyway.
    I could probably reach the character limit listing the game's faults, but it sure does look gorgeous for an MMO. But the tl;dr version would be that this game isn't even ready for beta testing.    … Expand
  24. nikkoleth
    Nov 18, 2010
    0
    The combat system in FFXIV seems to have been developed for toddlers. It is the most basic, infantile combat system I have ever seen in an MMO. No ability to jump, swim, or climb, movement feels like it has training wheels on. Simply put this game has the mechanics of a 1992 rpg covered in 2010 graphics.

    This game has along way to go to even be considered mediocre. If you are a true    The combat system in FFXIV seems to have been developed for toddlers. It is the most basic, infantile combat system I have ever seen in an MMO. No ability to jump, swim, or climb, movement feels like it has training wheels on. Simply put this game has the mechanics of a 1992 rpg covered in 2010 graphics.

    This game has along way to go to even be considered mediocre. If you are a true fanboy of Final Fantasy, you will stay as far away from this abomination as you can. Stop supporting horrible game design.    … Expand
  25. Lusterredux
    Nov 6, 2010
    2
    I wanted to love XIV, I really did. I bought this game knowing there was a huge chance it would be hard to get into and a major timesink like FFXI was. In fact, I WANTED that. I played FFXI for over 4 years and those years were the highlight of my gaming history. But what I got instead was some terrible trainwreck of a game that falls short of any expectations one could possibly have.I wanted to love XIV, I really did. I bought this game knowing there was a huge chance it would be hard to get into and a major timesink like FFXI was. In fact, I WANTED that. I played FFXI for over 4 years and those years were the highlight of my gaming history. But what I got instead was some terrible trainwreck of a game that falls short of any expectations one could possibly have. Bogged down by menus for the sake of menus, leveling that somehow manages to suck the life out of you, LACK OF AN AH, subsequent failure of the bazaar system, the list goes on.

    I almost want to rant for this game wasting my time. Why is it 100x worse than it's predecessor? Why weren't the flaws and annoyances worked out during the beta (which I took part in)? Why, why, why? I feel like I should take SE to court for defacing the Final Fantasy series and MMORPGs as a whole (though their projected profits next quarter should be punishment enough).

    Oh, and the 2/10 is SOLELY because FFXIV is nothing short of graphically amazing. All looks and no substance.    … Expand
  26. BBlake
    Nov 5, 2010
    0
    A very beautiful game, but mostly alternates between boring and frustrating. Coming from a total Final Fantasy fanboy, this one hurts. Why Square-Enix? What have done to you that was so bad?
  27. mrrevas
    Nov 4, 2010
    0
    I have been playing MMO's for over 11 years and FF series for around 20 years and this is by far the worst game I have ever played in relation to either. Once you get past the pretty graphics theres really nothing. Story is predictable and boring, the quest system and limits on.. everything is ridiculuos. It has none of the staples that make a good MMO. The interface... I cannot believeI have been playing MMO's for over 11 years and FF series for around 20 years and this is by far the worst game I have ever played in relation to either. Once you get past the pretty graphics theres really nothing. Story is predictable and boring, the quest system and limits on.. everything is ridiculuos. It has none of the staples that make a good MMO. The interface... I cannot believe they let that out the door. Sqaure Enix just released a stinker in everyway imaginable and the pricing model is predetory to put it kindly. I cannot say enough bad about this game. I ignored all of the reviews and traded in Drakes Fortune and Demon Souls to get this craptastic title and I wanna cry that I cannot return it to Game Stop. Worst of all theres nothing to do in this game... at all, no raids, no dungeons, no bosses.... nothing. I admit I only played for a few days, but I was dying and there was no lite at the end of the tunnel. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!! Ignore the fanboys becuase that is just what they are. The kind of people Who would buy a brick if Steve Jobs called it an I Brick. Avoid avoid avoid!… Expand
  28. freakytea
    Nov 2, 2010
    1
    Pretty awful game. Yikes. I can't believe anyone is giving this a good review. SE must be putting some interns to work! I could go on about the glaring faults, including the retainer system, the copy-pasted dungeon crawler like terrain, the UI lag (oh my GOD the lag), the lack of content at every level, the ridiculous skill point system, the grinding, the broken party mechanics, etc.,Pretty awful game. Yikes. I can't believe anyone is giving this a good review. SE must be putting some interns to work! I could go on about the glaring faults, including the retainer system, the copy-pasted dungeon crawler like terrain, the UI lag (oh my GOD the lag), the lack of content at every level, the ridiculous skill point system, the grinding, the broken party mechanics, etc., etc., etc. I could go on and on and on. The bottom line though, and the reason why people aren't going to play this game without serious improvements (if there's even enough left to salvage) is that FFXIV isn't fun. At all. Many people, including myself, bought this game because of the Final Fantasy name, and I have a feeling that we won't be making the same mistake again.… Expand
  29. MeleeAsura
    Oct 28, 2010
    1
    My short story as my reason to not buy: My girlfriend and I heard this game was coming out a year ago on PS3 and PC in 2010. As a self proclaimed fanboy/girl we had to have this game we went and bought 2 $300 PS3s, fast forward, release day is going to be PC only. Old PCs not up to par with XIV requirements, buy 2 $1100 PCs & 2 $75 copies of collector's edition ($2950 total). Plan 1 weekMy short story as my reason to not buy: My girlfriend and I heard this game was coming out a year ago on PS3 and PC in 2010. As a self proclaimed fanboy/girl we had to have this game we went and bought 2 $300 PS3s, fast forward, release day is going to be PC only. Old PCs not up to par with XIV requirements, buy 2 $1100 PCs & 2 $75 copies of collector's edition ($2950 total). Plan 1 week vacation for Sept. 22 - 29 for release date. Play for 4 weeks all the while literally rotating turns at forcing each other to get on and level in game we wanted to love. In short we didn't even 'like' it, just simply put... not fun at all. Our final decision: /flamerage, quit, delete characters & account, delete XI characters & account and vow to never, ever ever give SE another penny. On an up side, we are loving Aion for the last week. CONS: Game isn't fun, UI is bad, Buying/selling, lag, not fun, ZERO quests @ start to pull me in, virtually no story @ start to pull me in, fighting was a pain, guildleves were boring and repetitive, game itself not helpful and not fun, lots of copy pasted terrain that you cannot ignore after awhile, gear that can be worn by any level any job doesn't give me any drive to level to look/be a 'great hero'. There are more for the con side but I cannot always remember everything about this broken lame game. The looks of the game itself and character creation are awesome features that I am going to put in the con section due to them being attached to such a bad game in every other way. (Besides I recently learned that Aion creation and world look just as nice if not better) PROs Who cares? Not enough things to like about this game to out weigh the bad.… Expand
  30. Kyl63
    Oct 27, 2010
    1
    FFXIV is easily the single worst MMO I have ever played, period. There is no guidance whatsoever in the game, you create a character, get a quest to go somewhere, and that's about it. It tells you to come back later, but doesn't say when. Apparently you just check back every once in a while and hope for the best. To be fair, there are a couple of quests, one when you begin, and oneFFXIV is easily the single worst MMO I have ever played, period. There is no guidance whatsoever in the game, you create a character, get a quest to go somewhere, and that's about it. It tells you to come back later, but doesn't say when. Apparently you just check back every once in a while and hope for the best. To be fair, there are a couple of quests, one when you begin, and one when you hit level 10, the latter giving you no indication that you should go get a quest. From 10 to 20 you are on your own with Guildleves, that you can only do 8 of every 36 hours, and grinding. Once you get to 20, you can expand a little bit and have a few more options.

    Crafting in FFXIV is unnecessarily difficult. I can appreciate that you don't just click a button and you magically have an item, but not being able to complete crafting leves you are several ranks higher than because of consistent failures is quite unreasonable.

    Combat is boring and uneventful. Engage, stand there, hit basic attack button until you can use another ability. The whole time 1/3 of your attacks miss and another 1/3 are evaded, and even with advancing gear and stats this seemed to be all to prevalent a problem. I played an Archer, and I might as well have been a melee class, every monster ended up in my face and the most effective way to kill it was to just stand there.

    The UI is absolutely horrendous. It is slow, clunky, and completely counter-productive. It takes 5 minutes to clear out a full pack in FFXIV, whereas I can do that same task in 5 seconds in every other MMO. The map is useless, since quests aren't tracked on it unless you go through the journal, which in itself is useless. There are no indicators that an NPC might be important or have quests or missions. You simply have to check every NPC you come by, every time you run by them, because there is no guidance as to when you might get a quest.

    There is a simple fix: Play Vanguard, Saga of Heroes, that game has an entertaining, challenging, and productive crafting system. Play WoW, see how combat is fluid, fast, and entertaining. I might recommend taking a look at WoW's UI as well. And why the hell can't the characters jump?

    I don't want a WoW clone, that is the last thing I want. But the simple fact is that other game's UIs, gameplay, and social capabilities work. I understand the need to be different and refreshing, but you can do that in other ways without making a nonsensical UI and a poor combat system.    … Expand
  31. Nillipuss
    Oct 21, 2010
    0
    - Fails to deliver a satisfying experience at even the most basic level...killing stuff
    - Quests are exceptionally dull
    - Combat is exceptionally dull
    - I feel there is no 'love' in this game
    - Generally just really disappointed with something that I had such high expectations for
  32. JP1
    Oct 21, 2010
    3
    As a former player of FFXI, I was really looking forward to this game. I really wanted to like it, and I was totally ready to love this game. However, after playing it for a few days, it became immediately obvious that almost no progress has been made since 11 came out so many years ago.

    On the plus side, the graphics and sound are stunning. There is some repetitiveness in the    As a former player of FFXI, I was really looking forward to this game. I really wanted to like it, and I was totally ready to love this game. However, after playing it for a few days, it became immediately obvious that almost no progress has been made since 11 came out so many years ago.

    On the plus side, the graphics and sound are stunning. There is some repetitiveness in the graphics, but the actual visual experience is amazing. The game compares pretty favorably with the best looking MMOs out there, and as usual, the music of Final Fantasy is incredible.

    The class system which allows you to swap classes on the fly and steal bits and pieces from multiple classes is a great idea, and opens up a lot of potential for creativity. You can tune a character to work exactly how you would like them to, and end up with something which feels pretty unique.

    Unfortunately, that's about all I can say I liked about the game. In many other vitally important areas, the game failed spectacularly. It feels as though the developers of the game worked in an isolated chamber, without the benefit of seeing any of the improvements in MMOs which have come out since then, and without anyone questioning the design decisions made in FFXI.

    The economy of the game is based on a retainer system, in which players essentially set up bazaars to hawk their items. There's no auction house or trading post to scan for the items you want, you'll be coming here if you want something you can't make yourself. So if you want a new sword, you're going to zone into a room chock full of hundreds of retainers. And if you want to find a sword, you're going to have too look at them one by one, until you find a guy selling what you want. I can't imagine how this idea made it through any kind of design meeting. And in an economy where almost anything you ever want is made by players, this is not going to to be a minor annoyance, but a constant chore.

    Navigating the UI in the game is perhaps the most terrible, painful experiences I've had in an MMO. Menus are entirely server-authenticated. I don't know if this was to prevent exploits or just a bad design decision, but it means that whenever you press a button, you'll have to wait a short time to see the result, maybe a quarter of a second, maybe a couple of seconds on a slow connection. If I were going to put this into a game, I would design the UI with this in mind, to make as few calls as possible, but instead, many task in the game require many, many menus, and many calls to the server. Crafting an item frequently takes navigating a half-dozen menus and opening and closing your inventory 4 or 5 times. The tiny lag on every menu action adds up, and makes everything take so long as to be incredibly annoying.

    The levequest system one of the more painful questing systems ever put into a game. You pick up levequests in a large town, go to the correct location at which to do them, and start them up. You complete whatever goals are set for you, and you get the rewards. However, you only have a dozen or so of these quests available to you at any given time, and you can easily finish them off in a couple of hours, and then you're simply out of content until these levequests reset 36 hours later. And unfortunately, these quests are not interesting or epic. Most of them are simply requests to kill X of a specific mob and come back. Once you're done with these quests, you're simply out of stuff to do other than grind.

    And you're not allowed to grind for too long, or else your XP will begin to fall off. If this happens, the only way to gain XP at the normal rate again is to switch classes, or simply not gain XP for a while. This leaves the game in an uncomfortable state in which you can't play for very long periods of time without running out of things to do, but you miss out on opportunities to level your character as best you can without logging on for at least a couple of hours each day. It's hard to figure out what audience this game and its mechanics were intended for.

    The game keeps many of Final Fantasy XI's annoying quirks. Storyline quests which are available to you are very limited and unmarked. You have to stumble upon the correct person while you are the correct level in order to find out if you can make progress. Most fast travel is either not yet available, or you are heavily limited in your use of it. This would be less of an issue if the maps were smaller. But some maps and cities are simply gigantic mazes, with ridiculous amounts of dead space. The menu system is unique to FF games, and painful. Even as a former FFXI player, it took me over half an hour to figure out how to equip new skills.

    I can't recommend FFXIV at all in its current state. At best, it is a 'wait and see' game, and I'm not too hopeful that the issues will ever be resolved.    … Expand
  33. Kinlay
    Oct 21, 2010
    2
    I just don't understand how a company as large as SE can make such a glaringly flawed game, it has already been mentioned many times but the flaws far outweigh the and positives. The atrocious UI was my biggest gripe, I can't even begin to describe how much I loathed it. I do believe there is potential but for a game to be released like this is an insult to gamers, shame on SE.
  34. Kuroki
    Oct 20, 2010
    4
    I love Final Fantasy from FFVI - FFXIII, I've collected almost all its goods and its action figures, played the console games and its online games.... and FFXIV is just excited me... well it was... until it launched...

    OMG SE really need to change this grinding mode.... Not every player is hardcore player! to think i will have hours doing quest kills X number of monster etc etc etc and    I love Final Fantasy from FFVI - FFXIII, I've collected almost all its goods and its action figures, played the console games and its online games.... and FFXIV is just excited me... well it was... until it launched...

    OMG SE really need to change this grinding mode.... Not every player is hardcore player! to think i will have hours doing quest kills X number of monster etc etc etc and hours again to do other quest... and more hours in high lv to grind..... thx SE you really ruined my mood to play FF.... i really hopping FFXIV would be different..... guess not... AND DONT SAY I'M NOT A FF FAN BOY 'coz i do.... but NOT for this FF series.... i rather wait and play Guild Wars 2 FTW    … Expand
  35. Loury
    Oct 19, 2010
    3
    Square Enix's recent venture into the MMORPG realm has fallen flat on it's face. Being a SE Fanboy myself, i had high hopes for this game, sadly the clunky User Interface hampers any hopes of doing anything in a quick manner. Getting to your inventory alone takes forever, as you have to wait for the server lag to open your menu, then you have to wait for the lag once more, just to openSquare Enix's recent venture into the MMORPG realm has fallen flat on it's face. Being a SE Fanboy myself, i had high hopes for this game, sadly the clunky User Interface hampers any hopes of doing anything in a quick manner. Getting to your inventory alone takes forever, as you have to wait for the server lag to open your menu, then you have to wait for the lag once more, just to open your inventory.

    Issues are still everywhere, with casters having the biggest one I've found; Sometimes your spell will just not cast. In a game with no auto-attack, a spell being devoured by the lag spells death for a caster. The lack of an Auction House is easily overlooked, as most games lack an AH at their release, but the Market Wards, SE's main way for players to sell their wares via Retainers, is a cluster mess of annoyance. Walking in alone, you wait for a minute before the Retainer NPCs load, and you proceed to go through each bazaar, hoping to find the item you seek. Crafting in the game is fun, for a whole five minutes. Once you realize to make anything, you're required to branch out into 5 other crafts, the weight of their system really comes crashing down. To make a single cloth armor piece, it requires the yarn to be made into cloth, the cloth is then made into back piece, front piece, and sleeves (if it has any). along with any materials from other crafts. Seems decent, right? Wrong, if it requires a dye, you have to find the dye to buy it, or go find the material to make the dye yourself (an Alchemy synth) most require leather, normally dyed. so you're picking up Leathercraft. Nothing is ever middle of the road in this game, you spend hours upon hours crafting to make a piece of gear.

    Leveling in the game is a joke, at the start you gain ranks and physical levels like there's no tomorrow, but after hitting rank 10, the learning curve steeps up so drastically you're spending the next couple hours praying you gain SP off a mob. and at 20? well, i hope you enjoy your day long grind sessions. Mob scaling is done so poorly, a blue dot next to the mob's name is meant to mean it's easy prey, something you can kill without an issue, while a red dot means it's very stronger than you, and it's best you don't mess with it. Yet, a blue dot monster can easily kill me, while some red dot monsters are quickly skewered with my spear. FFXIV has great potential, but the rushed half-arsed release that Square did, has greatly damaged the public's belief in their game. I cannot suggest anyone goes out and buys this game right now, but i do suggest you keep an eye for updates and forums to see how people's attitude changes. Maybe come PS3 release, Square-Enix will have gotten their rears in gear enough that the game's actually something to positively write about    … Expand
  36. Eventide
    Oct 19, 2010
    1
    In case the extra 30 day trial extension wasn't evidence enough, buyer's should be aware that if they are purchasing this game they are essentially buying a Beta product from a company asking consumers to fund it's further development. This is inexcusable to me, especially from a company as prominent as Square-Enix. The game is clearly unfinished as evidenced by major exploits and bugsIn case the extra 30 day trial extension wasn't evidence enough, buyer's should be aware that if they are purchasing this game they are essentially buying a Beta product from a company asking consumers to fund it's further development. This is inexcusable to me, especially from a company as prominent as Square-Enix. The game is clearly unfinished as evidenced by major exploits and bugs still in the game, the worst user interface anyone could imagine, and a droll, lifeless world that is only pretty to look at until you realize you're staring at the same copy/paste environments over and over again. Pathetic.

    This game might be saved a year from now when it is out on PS3 and has had several major version updates. But is it fair for these companies to ask us to pay for such a product now? Absolutely not.    … Expand
  37. ghoststrykre
    Oct 16, 2010
    3
    I went against the flow here and crossed my fingers that the reviews were wrong and biased... Yeah well I paid dearly for that. Truthfully, there IS a good game somewhere deep inside this devilish little game.. Unfortunately, the minds employed at Square Enix have proven again that they can create great concepts, but don't think through the consequences.

    User Interface: AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL.    I went against the flow here and crossed my fingers that the reviews were wrong and biased... Yeah well I paid dearly for that. Truthfully, there IS a good game somewhere deep inside this devilish little game.. Unfortunately, the minds employed at Square Enix have proven again that they can create great concepts, but don't think through the consequences.

    User Interface: AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL. It is slow, clunky, tons of menus, no tutorials to tell you how to use it, and you constantly need to search fan sites to figure out how to add weapon skills, change equipment, etc. Once you understand it though, its not so awful, but WOW its bad.

    Combat: Really kinda fun, but slow and honestly has a sluggish feel to it.

    Crafting: I honestly don't know.. See the markets section.

    Markets: This is where Square Enix had a swing and a miss. FFXI was nearly ruined by gil sellers/RMT's. So Square Enix decided that they would create this retainer system and have no auction house whatsoever. Basically this means, there are items for sale on individual NPC's that must first be loaded (and there's thousands of them) before you can browse their wares individually. No search feature.. Say what? NO SEARCH FEATURE. I searched for over an hour for a freakin' hammer to become a blacksmith in the Market Ward (actually the Fieldcraft Ward since the update hit). I finally found it only to discover that the moron who was selling it wanted 30,000 gil for the crappiest hammer. WHAAtT?! So basically, you have no money, no hammer, and can't do anything. Resulting in the need to find a gil seller. OOPS SQUARE ENIX! Exactly what you were trying to avoid just got encouraged by your process. I applaud their effort to innovate, but internet technology needs about 10 years for this to work as it should, and even then it'd be a pain because the user interface is so terrible. How did this get past the idea board?!

    Verdict: People said the lack of tutorials made this game exceptionally difficult. I, a savvy MMO player thought i'd be fine.. Nope, I was wrong. Even with a quad core processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and an EVGA nVidea GTX 460, the game can't run above 30 fps. The programming is just baaaddd here. So, I think this game has the potential to eventually fix itself. Square Enix said that major updates would be released once every 3 months................. WTF?! In all fairness, SE extended the trial period to 60 days instead of 30.. but that was just because they knew their game was busted as all hell and players were cancelling subscriptions and returning the game as defective. The 60 trial will return to 30 for new registrations after October 25 though. I do not think I want to spend money waiting for Square Enix to fix such basic problems as the UI, the map, the markets, and more. They aren't even going to fix the UI with programming, they're just gonna split zones up onto multiple servers and hope it helps. Really, this is an insulting excuse for an MMO, and for a Square Enix product. I think it'll be over a year before this game is really fixed to the extent it should be. Square Enix has officially become an awful company, incapable of looking out at consequences ahead of their decisions, and completely content with releasing bad products. They even admitted FF13 could have been better (that's a whole other can of worms), the 60 day trial affirms they know this FF14 is garbage, and I'm pretty sure this ruined me ever buying FF13 Versus. Buyer BEWARE! This product is not prepared for market. Consider in one year when it is less than 25 dollars to buy (if SE ever goes that low. they don't even know how to properly price old games).

    I will say this, if you have 4 to 5 friends willing to figure this out together.. Maybe you'll have fun. But playing this alone, and trying to get involved in the community.. omg, near impossible.

    This review boils down to a great quote by the comedian Lewis Black: "So I took a spoon.. and I shoved it in my a$$.. because, if I'm gonna hurt this much... I'm gonna do it to myself."    … Expand
  38. Jokerfish
    Oct 15, 2010
    0
    It's like Square-Enix didn't play their own game before releasing it. Features a ridiculous crafting system (some items require materials 15 levels above what you're trying to craft!), a "player-driven" economy seemingly designed to benefit in-game currency selling sites, and an interface that works as if it was designed by several teams of people who had never met. It's just a completeIt's like Square-Enix didn't play their own game before releasing it. Features a ridiculous crafting system (some items require materials 15 levels above what you're trying to craft!), a "player-driven" economy seemingly designed to benefit in-game currency selling sites, and an interface that works as if it was designed by several teams of people who had never met. It's just a complete cash-in on a series that relies on fanboys to survive, and hopefully a wake up call for MMO developers after yet another failed MMO "blockbuster" in 2010. If curiousity gets the better of you, wait a few months and you'll find it in the bargain bin next to Star Trek Online.… Expand
  39. Velendris
    Oct 15, 2010
    3
    Pros:
    -Excellent Graphics
    -Excellent Music
    -The design of the class system is new and original

    Cons:
    -Unbearable laggy interface
    -Boring guildleves (Main storyline is good however)
    -Too much walking, incredibly inconvenient
    -Market system is a joke
    -Crafting is insanely complex and hard (No recipe lists, level 5 items need level 20 materials, etc.)
    -No bosses, no real endgame content
  40. prevbean
    Oct 15, 2010
    0
    I loved FFXI and all the single player games before 13 and I was looking forward to this game for years since the tech demo. As many has stated horrible garbage retarded moronic ui system baffles anyone with a brain. Fatigue system an obvious **** blocker stopping people from seeing the rest of this unfinished garbage. The lackluster copy and paste open worlds , please save your breathI loved FFXI and all the single player games before 13 and I was looking forward to this game for years since the tech demo. As many has stated horrible garbage retarded moronic ui system baffles anyone with a brain. Fatigue system an obvious **** blocker stopping people from seeing the rest of this unfinished garbage. The lackluster copy and paste open worlds , please save your breath don't compare this to a copy paste caves or buildings you will look like a fool.

    Only idiot retard fanboys that would eat a piece of **** from square enix will defend this .    … Expand
  41. keegander
    Oct 14, 2010
    3
    Possibly the worst MMO I've ever played and definitely not worthy of its Final Fantasy name. The graphic, music, and cutscenes are the only redeeming qualities but you won't even enjoy them since you'll be aggravated by almost everything else about the game. MMO thrive on making its players feel the need to better their character, explore the world and do battle with the monsters itPossibly the worst MMO I've ever played and definitely not worthy of its Final Fantasy name. The graphic, music, and cutscenes are the only redeeming qualities but you won't even enjoy them since you'll be aggravated by almost everything else about the game. MMO thrive on making its players feel the need to better their character, explore the world and do battle with the monsters it harbors. The problem is that character development doesn't go farther than just giving new attacks with the same animations, the world is repetitive (cut and pasted) and lacking interesting vistas, and the combat is unresponsive, boring, and simplistic and you'll probably spent more time doing battle with the interface than monsters. The time spent just waiting for menus to appear is just staggering. It will take a major overhaul just to make this title enjoyable.… Expand
  42. Carmillia
    Oct 14, 2010
    3
    Funny to see people complaining about people rating 0 this game and yet they rate it with max score of 10 talking about objectivity.I have been playing many years FFXI and other MMOs but I have to admit that FFXIV is not up to the expectations, specially having so many years of experience. The whole system is very slow, the crafting system is an improvement: can get you exp AND craftingFunny to see people complaining about people rating 0 this game and yet they rate it with max score of 10 talking about objectivity.I have been playing many years FFXI and other MMOs but I have to admit that FFXIV is not up to the expectations, specially having so many years of experience. The whole system is very slow, the crafting system is an improvement: can get you exp AND crafting skill levels, however it is far too slow and makes it kind of boring (too many windows to have to be opened before actually get into the craft itself). The fact that you can set abilities from another job to you mage allows to customize the type of characters you want and make it unique, which can be good and kind of frustrating for people that like class specific. The party system, however, is a fail as everyone is just doing is thing on his own and not really relying on each others class specificity. The lack of quests is another bad point. The fact that you have to spend hours looking around bazaars in the hope to find what you're looking for is a time sink and very annoying. The auction house should have been implemented and the excuse of avoiding RMTs doesn't make any sense because they will be some anyways (already seeing them appearing) and they tend to actually put the economy down because of the massive amount of items they bring into the market so that it differs from overpriced items sold be players. A step back from FFXI in my opinion instead of an improvement (they could still have made a different system but keep players-friendly users). Now, instead of having the stress/fear of being killed while running to you grinding spot (and the time it took also to reach it, which all together made a nice experience until you could move faster with teleport/chocobos), you can just teleport around to go grind but have to spend hours just to try to gear you up. I'm not even telling about the uber rare piece of gears, just basic equipements are just a pain in the a.. to find. i think that just the use of an AH or a similar system would decrease player's frustration a lot. How the skill/exp gain in a party has still to be adjusted so that it is not just 'soloing with a group of people' and more based on cooperation (teamwork, yes please!). A function to sort inventory also should have been there from the start. The lag and/or slowness should also be worked out so that it doesn't take 10/15 just to sell the junk in the inventory (because you don't want to spend 1 hour putting those into your bazaar...). I am not far into the game yet but I kind of regret the huge maps where you can just explore the world and not series of tunnels leading to small areas. The graphic although are very very nice and deserve a thumb up. Not much talking in the '/shout' chat for the moment going on but this seems just a matter of time. No problems with the linkshell system, works like a charm. Don't indeed expect a game taking you by the hands (NPC with marks on their head to say HEY I have a quest for you), you have to talk to NPCs to actually see if they have some available (as far as I know, none anyways so far). So in the end, because of the problems of the system, the only enjoyable thing is to grind/guildleves and crafting a bit until gets too boring to wait 5s to 10s between each windows to open (and 5 minutes to craft one item). I would recommend to keep an eye on how it evolves but not to play right now if you are currently playing other MMOs that you like. If you seek a new MMOs to play, give it a shot (or go to a friend's place playing it) but surely do not expect the big revelation or the MMOs of the century. Take it as a new firm trying out to make a MMOs.… Expand
  43. scwmortise
    Oct 13, 2010
    3
    In a word "unfinished". The game seems to have been rushed out, to reach shelves on time and quite clearley needs a lot of work before its ready for retail release. Some of the crafting in the game seems like, it could really work, forcing the economy to buy and trade but sadly this method just usually involves people selling items for ridiculously inflated prices. The game also feels likeIn a word "unfinished". The game seems to have been rushed out, to reach shelves on time and quite clearley needs a lot of work before its ready for retail release. Some of the crafting in the game seems like, it could really work, forcing the economy to buy and trade but sadly this method just usually involves people selling items for ridiculously inflated prices. The game also feels like a complete console port and almost no effort has been made to hide it, hence the use of the crummy menu system to do anything and the almost complete lack of any customisation to the controls. With some work this could be a real contender in the MMO market but as it is, very little has changed from beta, and still many of the major bugs exist. Its a total joke that this was released at full retail price. I know several people who brought in early to the colectors edition, seeing the square enix brand and after the fantastic games they have released in the past I couldnt fault them, sadly they were betrayed by a company with a big reputation. I hope this hurts square enix, I hope it hurts them a lot and scares other companies into thinking about releasing unfinished junk into the market.… Expand
  44. Enchufado
    Oct 13, 2010
    2
    3 points por graphics,-1 point because resources optimization doesn't exist in this game.The rest is very poor.The worst numeric final fantasy.Compared with other mmorpg,ffivx is boring,frustrating,and very expensive,and doesn't have any innovations.What a waste of time.
  45. abigsmurf
    Oct 13, 2010
    1
    At every turn this game makes things difficult for the player. The menus lag, the NPCs don't give you important directions, the map is horrible, there's no Auction house, the retainer system (where players set up their own shops) is painful to use, the game doesn't store your recipes for crafting, you're limited to how much XP and skill points you can receive, you can only do a smallAt every turn this game makes things difficult for the player. The menus lag, the NPCs don't give you important directions, the map is horrible, there's no Auction house, the retainer system (where players set up their own shops) is painful to use, the game doesn't store your recipes for crafting, you're limited to how much XP and skill points you can receive, you can only do a small number of guildleves a day...

    I could easily keep going. One or two problems could easily be fixed but there are so many fundamental design flaws with this game that it requires an incredibly extensive re-write that I can't see them doing post-retail.

    I've never cancelled a subscription to an MMO as fast as I have for FFXIV. I usually stick with them, even if I'm not enjoying them, in the hope that they'll improve in the future. That's not going to happen here.    … Expand
  46. Tricksy
    Oct 12, 2010
    0
    I had given this a 2, but after seeing all of the people that gave this game a 10 just because of its name and their hopes for the future. I am replacing my critique with this blurb and my 2 with a 0. The game creators should see a score that reflects what the game is at not what the game "might be one day" and so my 0 is an attempt to balance out the bell-curving that is going on here.
  47. bil
    Oct 12, 2010
    3
    I can't believe I spent $50 dollars and updated my video card for this crap of a game. This game needs at least another 6 months of development but I guess they figured they could charge people to play a beta (if you could even call it that). Yes the only reason I bought it was because I love most FF titles but this is just a big turd wrapped in a popular brand name.
  48. Navii
    Oct 12, 2010
    1
    A staggering disappointment of a game for someone that loves the final fantasy series.

    Archaic UI, sluggish controls and extremely lengthy pauses when doing tasks such as buying and selling items just add further to aggravation when trying to do even the simplest actions in game. Quest dialogs assault you with a wall of irrelevant text that fails to pull you into the world and simply    A staggering disappointment of a game for someone that loves the final fantasy series.

    Archaic UI, sluggish controls and extremely lengthy pauses when doing tasks such as buying and selling items just add further to aggravation when trying to do even the simplest actions in game.

    Quest dialogs assault you with a wall of irrelevant text that fails to pull you into the world and simply rehashes the tired travel kill/fetch routine already present in many mmos. The game touts itself as casual friendly, but fails miserably at instilling any sense of accomplishment if one only has a few hours a day due to so much travel between the repetitive landscape. Compared to the Fields of Valor and experience ring bonuses in FFXI, the system in FFXIV appears to be a fluffed up and overcomplicated copycat version with more travel.

    The lack of an accessible Auction House for easy buying and selling of items creates a time sink when trying to find of upgrade equipment navigating the poorly thought out and tedious market wards, aggravating for a player that cares only for questing and monster slaying.

    The graphics nice to look at, and the music is a feast for the ears, but the characters lack a warm soul to them, and the character armor available looks highly generic, the iconic artifact armor associated with final fantasy jobs is nowhere to be found, making this feel like its not a final fantasy game.

    This game is a step backwards from its well aged forebear FFXI in many ways, provoking the question of FFXIV's necessity in the market place. FFXIV tries to be different in several ways to set itself apart from other games, but frustratingly does so in the worst ways thought possible for those that area already fans of FFXI or more accessible MMOs.

    Given the state of the current game, I would recommend waiting until next year to give this game a try, provided they have heavily patched the game to address the myriad of other nagging issues too long to list that plague this game in its current form.    … Expand
  49. metro_cube
    Oct 12, 2010
    3
    The good:
    * Powerful graphics engine
    * Flexible class system The OK: * It has decent music * It has a new take on crafting and gathering in MMOs The Bad: * Everything else I really cannot even begin to list the problems this game has. In nearly every way except for graphics, it is a massive step-back from even SE's previous MMO title (FFXI). The User Interface is terrible and sluggish.    The good:
    * Powerful graphics engine
    * Flexible class system

    The OK:
    * It has decent music
    * It has a new take on crafting and gathering in MMOs

    The Bad:
    * Everything else

    I really cannot even begin to list the problems this game has. In nearly every way except for graphics, it is a massive step-back from even SE's previous MMO title (FFXI).

    The User Interface is terrible and sluggish. It takes multiple confirmations and clicks to perform even the simplest tasks, such as moving items from your inventory to your retainer (bank). It will take you upwards of 10 minutes to just sell your vendor trash.

    The terrain is copy-and-pasted to such an extent that it will make those who complained about WOW's copying of caves die of shock. Areas just feel bland and lifeless.

    There is absolutely no reason to do anything in the game (except for it's own sake) because the game has no content (only 8 copy-pasted kill quests every 36 hours, no end-game to speak of, etc).

    There is absolutely no sense of progression in the game. Many dozens of hours in and you're still traversing areas that look exactly the same (literally because they are) and still fighting Moles and Rats; monsters that feel like they should be reserved for characters under level 5.

    The item durability system is absolutely terrible. It is impossible to repair your gear up to 100% without the help of an outside player, or you spend hours trying to work through the terrible crafting interface and retarded recipe design philosophy (a level 2 recipe requires level 15 recipe reagents from the same craft) to level up your own crafting skill.

    Your character will even get stuck on 2-inch high walls (I am not even joking), and have to walk around them.

    There are dozens of features that should have been implemented by release, but are still absent (Chocobos, AH, Airships, Company System, etc etc etc).

    I could go on forever but hopefully you get the idea. This MMO is in no way shape or form ready for a commercial release; it's barely in an Alpha state right now. I cannot recommend this MMO to anyone, but I can recommend you avoid it like plague.

    If it is not dead in a year, check back then and see if it is finally out of pay-to-play Beta.    … Expand
  50. Cookies5000
    Oct 10, 2010
    0
    As a FF lover this game completely disappoints. Only good thing is a bit on the graphics. List of disappointments:

    1. Graphics performance blows, especially on certain high end cards for no reason at all. If I can play Crysis on max settings on 1920x1200 I should be able to play this game on settings higher than all low. 2. No Square Enix communication. It's been over two weeks and    As a FF lover this game completely disappoints. Only good thing is a bit on the graphics. List of disappointments:

    1. Graphics performance blows, especially on certain high end cards for no reason at all. If I can play Crysis on max settings on 1920x1200 I should be able to play this game on settings higher than all low.
    2. No Square Enix communication. It's been over two weeks and there's been only one response to everyone's issues and requests for changes.
    3. No real community forums, go find one.
    4. Copy & Paste Land, seriously. Gets old real quickly when you have to run for 10 minutes and you see the same land over and over and over again.
    5. Terrible means of transportation. The copy and paste just to make a bigger world but force you to basically run blows. You can do instant teleport from one place to another but you only can do it so many times before you run out and the regen is endlessly long.
    6. Not allowed to just play a class you want. The game forces you to change jobs or be bored out of your mind if you just want to level one class. Why should I be forced to level a job I don't want to do?
    7. So few quests. Very repeatative. After you do your set of quests there are no more to do.
    8. No AH and selecting a person and clicking browse is terrible. Not only that but your store can run away from you while you're looking at it lol.
    9. Slow loading zones and areas. Turn around and await a few seconds before people appear on your screen.
    10. Loading, endless loading areas.
    11. Bugs, omg the bugs. I've passed hundreds of bugs/issues with the game, would take me forever to list.
    12. Terrible customer service. It's a joke.
    13. Slow loading interface, everything takes 2-3 seconds before appearing. What a joy.
    14. Cutscenes with no talking but you can see them talking. Uhh okay.
    15. No information on how to do something or how something works. I don't care that it isn't just all handed to me but at least show me how to do the simple things while starting up a brand new complex game.
    16. No armor/weapon seller besides level 1 gear. 100% community crafting. Now this wouldn't be an issue if there was an AH or something but since so few people want to stand around trying to sell and not only create 1-2 items the options are quite low. You can go through the main market area and see not one item for your job/class so you are forced to craft your own gear.
    17. Game gets boring after an hour or two. It just doesn't keep your attention span.
    18. Casting and selecting moving NPCs for AOE spells is painful. You click the ground instead of the mob, deselects off the mob now you have to reselect, click the spell again etc etc. By the time you start casting you've lost 25% of your health. So you're basically sitting on auto-attack...which gets boring to slowly hit the "1" key.

    There are a million more things that are wrong. I would give it a higher rating than 0 but I can't give a game something higher when the game was clearly released before ready, lazy effort on so many things, and didn't listen at all to the complaints in beta. I did hear they fixed a but this last patch that was found in alpha. Huh.    … Expand
  51. RobbazKing
    Oct 9, 2010
    2
    This game falls so extremely short on all aspects, poor gameplay, poor quests, poor dialogue, poor interface, poor environment at least the graphics and music is good.

    But the game is simply bad, sure graphics are nice but all the maps are like puzzles you will run past the same scenery like 15+ times, monsters are few and bugged not to mention the overall time it takes to kill one is    This game falls so extremely short on all aspects, poor gameplay, poor quests, poor dialogue, poor interface, poor environment at least the graphics and music is good.

    But the game is simply bad, sure graphics are nice but all the maps are like puzzles you will run past the same scenery like 15+ times, monsters are few and bugged not to mention the overall time it takes to kill one is 25-40seconds and this is your basic newbie mob. The game runs at a snail speed and it's so linear that you can't skip anything. The crafting system is decent if you care to figure it out.

    I thought FF13 was boring, but this simply sets a new high. I Probably never watch on a final fantasy game the same way any more. Even free asian mmorpg's can beat this crap!    … Expand
  52. AnimusSadow
    Oct 9, 2010
    2
    After navigating through the mind numbingly complex process of actually setting up your account, you get the choice of creating your character (you only get one, unless you want to pay more money, so make sure your friends are all on the same server), and watch what is a stunningly beautiful cutscene with good voice acting. After the cut scene, however, you're basically dropped off in theAfter navigating through the mind numbingly complex process of actually setting up your account, you get the choice of creating your character (you only get one, unless you want to pay more money, so make sure your friends are all on the same server), and watch what is a stunningly beautiful cutscene with good voice acting. After the cut scene, however, you're basically dropped off in the city with a "good luck" The graphics are well done, too well, perhaps, as even some high end gaming computers will struggle with it to be even semi-smooth. The sound has two settings, off and loud, and gets very repetitive very fast. The user-interface is slow and horrendously designed, to change weapons you have to open the main menu, and once you find the gear section, it doesnt only bring up items that can be placed in said equipment slot, it brings up your whole inventory, so you have to scroll through and find what you want. The main quest line, which seems interesting, has quests that are too few and far between, and it relies on a system of "levequests", of which you can only do 8 every 36 hours. These are your standard MMO style quests, go here and kill x monsters, but leaves nothing to backstory about the world, or stories about characters, or anything.
    The crafting system, which Square Enix has clearly placed a lot of emphasis on, is neat and refreshing at first, but quickly becomes exceptionally irritating. You have to either have their players website open and alt-tab to view recipes, or write them down yourself, as the game provides no in game recipe book. Another downside to this, is that the only way to get gear is either to buy it from someone else or craft it yourself, the emphasis being on crafting it yourself. This can be a horribly confusing and aggrivating process, as after farming for materials for hours, you finally go to make said item, and it breaks while you are crafting it, costing you both the materials and the time you spent gathering them. Overall, while FFXIV is a visually beautiful game, the poorly designed menus, slow and shoddy targetting system, the almos impossible to read maps, the over-emphasis on an insanely coplex crafting system, and overall lack of feeling like you are actually a part of the world make this game not only feel much more like work than a game, its an insult to the many great games of the Final Fantasy series. I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone    … Expand
  53. thegorgatron
    Oct 8, 2010
    1
    This game was rushed to market by a company that doesn't listen to its player base. The updating system is garbage, and the game requires you to have a bleeding edge system to be playable. The game play itself is backed by interesting concepts that were executed beyond poorly. The crafting and gathering mini games are neat ideas but it takes forever to do or make anything. TheThis game was rushed to market by a company that doesn't listen to its player base. The updating system is garbage, and the game requires you to have a bleeding edge system to be playable. The game play itself is backed by interesting concepts that were executed beyond poorly. The crafting and gathering mini games are neat ideas but it takes forever to do or make anything. The interface was seeming planned out by someone who has never played an MMO before and coded by someone who failed out of junior college. It wasn't until maybe a week before release that they decided to allow a hardware mouse to cut the interface lag and make it usable. A great example of how out of touch Square is with the rest of the world as a whole is the fact that there is no auction house or mail system..... I mean really, take a second think about that. An major market MMORPG that does not have a mail system or auction house at release. Its as if the lead designer had a stroke half way through development. To make it worse they limit you to 8 "Guild leves" (for the love of God square why cant we just call it a quest, why do you have to go out of your way to confuse people by renaming things to which we are all accustom to some meaningless collection of letters?) ever 36(?) hours, but count yourself lucky, it was 48 hours just a week or two before release, I hear they cut the time down a bit just before release but I am not totally sure on that. On another note, each of these guild leves takes about 5 min. to complete leaving you with more than a day of wondering "ok...what now?". The graphics are pretty but there is a lot of cut and paste going on. A lot of people, myself included, were very excited for this game and really really wanted it to be good and enjoyable but it seems that the majority of use were let down in a big way. I can't help thinking that if the ideas, concepts and art for this game were given to literally any other company other than square it would be a good game but Square managed to pull defeat out of the cold clutches of success. I would recommend steering clear of this title, at least for the time being. I still hold out some hope that maybe they will learn their lesson and enact some sort of changes by the time the PS3 version is released sometime in March or April of next year.… Expand
  54. Electro-fox
    Oct 8, 2010
    0
    This game is an astounding disappointment. I feel sorry for others like me who waited years for this polished turd. I have to ask myself: Did they just spend all their time tightening up the graphics? Questing is abysmal. You'll finish levequests within minutes and then have to wait literally a day and some until you can get more. There is no pacing in the game, no direction or storyThis game is an astounding disappointment. I feel sorry for others like me who waited years for this polished turd. I have to ask myself: Did they just spend all their time tightening up the graphics? Questing is abysmal. You'll finish levequests within minutes and then have to wait literally a day and some until you can get more. There is no pacing in the game, no direction or story development. Instead you're left to your own devices trying to forge a path using a horribly thought out system. Speaking of systems, the UI and menu system are atrocious. There is just so much wrong in this game that I could go on for hours. Square, you have failed us, go hang your head in shame.… Expand
  55. Josh312
    Oct 8, 2010
    0
    I was really excited about this game. From a financial side point, the worst possible thing they did was have an open beta. I didn't expect it to be fast or amazing based on its beta, but the entire game was just plain terrible. The introductions were nice, but they had no tutorial whatsoever. All in all it was just an extremely user unfriendly game and I canceled my limited editionI was really excited about this game. From a financial side point, the worst possible thing they did was have an open beta. I didn't expect it to be fast or amazing based on its beta, but the entire game was just plain terrible. The introductions were nice, but they had no tutorial whatsoever. All in all it was just an extremely user unfriendly game and I canceled my limited edition pre-order just in time. The company we knew and loved that produced FF's such as 7,8, and 10 is dead. 12, 13, and 14 are the epic failure of a declining masterpiece in gaming.… Expand
  56. Tridus
    Oct 8, 2010
    0
    You notice how most of the positive reviews feature people familiar with FF 11? There's a reason for that. This game has the worst UI of any MMO released in years. Someone needs to tell Square that FF 11's crappy UI is unacceptably bad in 2010. Pile that on top of the slowest patching system ever invented, how crash prone the game is, the fact that crashing in the middle of a quest causesYou notice how most of the positive reviews feature people familiar with FF 11? There's a reason for that. This game has the worst UI of any MMO released in years. Someone needs to tell Square that FF 11's crappy UI is unacceptably bad in 2010. Pile that on top of the slowest patching system ever invented, how crash prone the game is, the fact that crashing in the middle of a quest causes you to fail the quest (and in some cases not be able to do it again for two days), whisper message size limits that make tweets seem long, and all around general problems... and you have a game not worth playing. It would be bad even if it was a F2P, but for a monthly fee this is a disgrace.… Expand
  57. Paulie
    Oct 7, 2010
    0
    You ever wish you could back in time? Well than go buy Final Fantasy XIV. When playing Final Fantasy XIV I feel as if I have gone back in time at least ten years. All modern advances in the MMORPG genre are absent from Final Fantasy XIV. Who needs friendly user interfaces? Who needs a auction house? Who needs a tutorial explaining how to play? Who needs direction where to go? Who needs aYou ever wish you could back in time? Well than go buy Final Fantasy XIV. When playing Final Fantasy XIV I feel as if I have gone back in time at least ten years. All modern advances in the MMORPG genre are absent from Final Fantasy XIV. Who needs friendly user interfaces? Who needs a auction house? Who needs a tutorial explaining how to play? Who needs direction where to go? Who needs a friendly travel system? Who needs lots of quests? Who needs a experience system that isn't buggy and broken when grouping? Who needs a game that performs well on a wide range of systems? Who needs a game with content?

    Well I need all of the above mentioned features. Stay away from Final Fantasy XIV at all costs!    … Expand
  58. Robbaz
    Oct 7, 2010
    3
    I played the beta and also tested the game once more at launch. And i all can say is... Only buy this if you are a final fantasy fan or really enjoy asian mmorpgs. Since this is insanely boring and the most linear game i ever played! I mean common! They copied the terrain like 6-10 times at some places! The most entertaining in this game is the spelling errors. The overall combat is veryI played the beta and also tested the game once more at launch. And i all can say is... Only buy this if you are a final fantasy fan or really enjoy asian mmorpgs. Since this is insanely boring and the most linear game i ever played! I mean common! They copied the terrain like 6-10 times at some places! The most entertaining in this game is the spelling errors. The overall combat is very very very slow as well even once you get several abilities it's still slow and some of the controls are just simple horrible! And remapping them wont work since it's the game it self that is played in such a odd manor!

    This game will never be fixed.    … Expand
  59. Troggie87
    Oct 7, 2010
    0
    One of the worst mmos I have ever played in 20 years of playing online mmos. The only reason this doesn't have a zero rating on fansites is a decicated effort assembled on Final fantasy fan forums to give perfect 10's to try and boost ratings. In reality, if this wasn't based on such a powerhouse IP, there would already be talk of server closures. Don't waste your money. The problemOne of the worst mmos I have ever played in 20 years of playing online mmos. The only reason this doesn't have a zero rating on fansites is a decicated effort assembled on Final fantasy fan forums to give perfect 10's to try and boost ratings. In reality, if this wasn't based on such a powerhouse IP, there would already be talk of server closures. Don't waste your money. The problem here isn't that its a niche mmo, its just a bad mmo. Oldies like Everquest 2 do the same things better, so if you want gameplay go there. Or if graphics and story drive you, wait for Star Wars the Old Republic in the spring.… Expand
  60. wynams
    Oct 7, 2010
    0
    Was a big fan of XI.
    XIV is pretty horribad.
    The UI/Engine are totally gimped because this was written for the PS3 from the ground up.
    Lag abounds.
    Vast (beautiful) zones filled with nothing. Few mobs, no NPCs/Dungeons/POIs.
    Pre-internet level of account management/subscription management

    Its pretty, and it sucks
  61. strondbokken
    Oct 7, 2010
    0
    I really can't understand how people can give this game a "10" or anything higher than 4. I've played over 30 MMOs since I beta tested Ultima Online in the early '90s and have seen quite a lot of failures, but this game has to be one of the worst I've ever played. Every single thing about it is either outdated, sub-par, or simply stupid. There are absolutely no quests outside of the mainI really can't understand how people can give this game a "10" or anything higher than 4. I've played over 30 MMOs since I beta tested Ultima Online in the early '90s and have seen quite a lot of failures, but this game has to be one of the worst I've ever played. Every single thing about it is either outdated, sub-par, or simply stupid. There are absolutely no quests outside of the main quest line and that leaves you with 99.999% of your time grinding away on the same mobs with 1000 other people because the mob:player ratio is very poor. The UI is obviously made for a console and the entire game has been dumbed down for PS3 users to be able to use it. I cannot stress highly enough, DO NOT LISTEN TO THE FANBOYS HERE GIVING THIS GAME A GOOD REVIEW! This game is, literally, a taint on the MMO industry and should be avoided at all costs. I can't even begin to tell you in words how bad this game is. It makes STO look good. There. That's how bad it is.… Expand
  62. Ranmauzo
    Oct 7, 2010
    2
    They rushed this game out the door so fast they didn't have time to bribe their usual gaming websites.

    - Played FFXI since launch and loved it - Has been waiting for this game since the project rapture tech demo they released in around 2006 - Invested $600 in PC upgrades to be able to max this game out - Played the Beta and thought things were going to get better once retail hit - Bought    They rushed this game out the door so fast they didn't have time to bribe their usual gaming websites.

    - Played FFXI since launch and loved it - Has been waiting for this game since the project rapture tech demo they released in around 2006
    - Invested $600 in PC upgrades to be able to max this game out - Played the Beta and thought things were going to get better once retail hit
    - Bought the Collector's Edition gleefully

    Even I can't deny this game is complete and utter ****
    I've tried to lie to myself, tell myself it's going to get better, but the Square MMO team are complete frackups, as clearly laid out by FFXI. Somehow, they managed to make a game that takes all the good of FFXI and turns it to **** and then took a huge steaming **** on top of it, and put a cherry on top for the beautiful graphics.

    This game is abysmal. It's a complete failure. I'm a fraking Finfan fanboy for fracksake, and I can't stand this pile of horse**** Here's to hoping Guild Wars or that bland looking Starwars MMO can finally pull me away from the cesspool that is WoW. As for this game, I just hope they shut down the servers quickly before too many people find out about it so it isn't etched into everyone's minds as the biggest failure in MMO history.    … Expand
  63. Roarshack
    Oct 7, 2010
    1
    I really wanted to like this game. I really did. When I bought it and installed on my PC I felt like I've been sold cheap Chinese product that barely works. But on to the point, this game lacks everything and it's simply not fun to play. The core content is doing quests around big crystal that require you to kill critters for experience. I think Square Enix ran out of time and they justI really wanted to like this game. I really did. When I bought it and installed on my PC I felt like I've been sold cheap Chinese product that barely works. But on to the point, this game lacks everything and it's simply not fun to play. The core content is doing quests around big crystal that require you to kill critters for experience. I think Square Enix ran out of time and they just slapped higher stats on rabbits because they couldn't be bothered with making enemies models.… Expand
  64. Statik
    Oct 7, 2010
    0
    If this gets any more than a 5 officially and a 2 on the user score I will have lost all faith in the validity of the gaming fanbase. While gems like Demon's Souls are trampled underfoot compared to Call of Duty and FFXIII, I direct my sights to a game so bad even people who lie to themselves as much as you casuals can't give this game any more than a 5. Should you have sense every reviewIf this gets any more than a 5 officially and a 2 on the user score I will have lost all faith in the validity of the gaming fanbase. While gems like Demon's Souls are trampled underfoot compared to Call of Duty and FFXIII, I direct my sights to a game so bad even people who lie to themselves as much as you casuals can't give this game any more than a 5. Should you have sense every review here would be a 0.

    You are not having any fun at all playing this. You aren't.    … Expand
  65. DrGreenbacks
    Oct 7, 2010
    0
    I really like the graphics. They are good looking, fresh, and new. But the game feels linear. It doesn't have an 'open world' feel. It feels like I am playing an MMO on rails. I have to follow a certain path, I can't climb, and I can't jump. It feels like an old school game. If I wanted to play an old school game, I would have bought an old school game. I really don't like the fact that II really like the graphics. They are good looking, fresh, and new. But the game feels linear. It doesn't have an 'open world' feel. It feels like I am playing an MMO on rails. I have to follow a certain path, I can't climb, and I can't jump. It feels like an old school game. If I wanted to play an old school game, I would have bought an old school game. I really don't like the fact that I can't even see the recipe that I have learned. Crafting looks cool but takes way too long to produce a single item. It's not the actual crafting time, it's the three second delay to do anything. Gathering is cool, but really, really cumbersome. Changing classes takes way too much time. You have to open your gear bag, mouse or joystick over to your slot, find the weapon in your inventory, and then change the weapon, then delay...... class changed. It's annoying. The combat is slooooooow. I don't like how you can only take 8 quests every 48 hours. Sometimes you need to walk for 20 minutes just to get to the quest starting location. It's annoying. I guess I'm really not impressed. FFXIV is more annoying than fun, but the graphics are good.… Expand
  66. lawina
    Oct 7, 2010
    1
    I find it funny that fanboys are stubborn on admitting that this game is very bad. The only positive thing I hear from them are the graphics, sadly this did not make a game playable for me. I prefer a game which is fun to play, with a good story and good game play over the graphics. FFXIV Online sadly only does OK in the graphics department. I'm saying OK, because the graphics aren't asI find it funny that fanboys are stubborn on admitting that this game is very bad. The only positive thing I hear from them are the graphics, sadly this did not make a game playable for me. I prefer a game which is fun to play, with a good story and good game play over the graphics. FFXIV Online sadly only does OK in the graphics department. I'm saying OK, because the graphics aren't as amazing as some fanboys would make you think it is. Ofcourse, the CGI/cutscenes are great as expected from Square, however you will notice that most of the environment is the same and gets very boring quickly. The graphics are comparable to Eve Online, amazing but you'll notice the same everywhere.

    I won't even go in detail regarding the other aspects of the game. I have played games made by ONE SINGLE PERSON and they were better in all the other aspects. I wonder how big Square's developer team was, but in my opinion and I am being serious, I believe it consisted of trained monkeys. No offense, OK maybe a little, because I was really looking forward to this game.    … Expand
  67. Jennacide
    Oct 7, 2010
    1
    First off, I must say this: How exact a game company can look at thier currently released MMO and decide that features it utilizes need to be removed from thier new game is beyond me. FFXIV does a few things right, but so many wrong it's downright baffling. Visually the game is in the top tier of MMOs, with nice high fidelity scenery, very well done player and item models. Unfortunately,First off, I must say this: How exact a game company can look at thier currently released MMO and decide that features it utilizes need to be removed from thier new game is beyond me. FFXIV does a few things right, but so many wrong it's downright baffling. Visually the game is in the top tier of MMOs, with nice high fidelity scenery, very well done player and item models. Unfortunately, that's about the only praise I can give it. It has beautiful scenery, but that scenery is copy pasted all over the world in such blatant fashion it's painful. You will walk through numerous areas where the exact same monsters are in mirrored positions from where you just came, and every rock/tree/bush/hill is in the same place as well.

    Performance is spotty at best on my high end gaming PC. Controls are sluggish if you use mouse and keyboard, almost forcing you to resort to using a controller. (Works well with 360 controller at least.) But the real meat and potatos of the game is the real problem. FFXIV took gameplay mechanics from FFXI that were already inherently not well balanced, and makes them worse. Gameplay is bogged down with tedium and artificial ways to increase time sunk into the game. Trying to craft a single item could take you hours upon hours, or 3x's+ the actual valve of the item.

    So, you say to yourself, FF games are about story! This is true in FFXI, the only MMO I know of where I cared about the story going on. Shame this is not the case here. There is almost no story content in the game so far as much as a small handful of scenes per city, and then nothing but the big experience cap wall to chip away at. In case you hadn't heard, FFXIV introduced a series of systems to restrict your experience gains. The first is an 8 hour limit per week, account wide, that any time past 8 hours means you start to lose out on experience. The second being more party/powerleveling related, where if your healer heals more than 5 times, exp is reduced or nullified.

    It's an honest shame. I actually enjoyed FFXI, regardless of it's flaws. I was truely hoping that SE would learn thier lessons from FFXI and carry them into a beautiful, well crafted, and enjoyable game. I can barely give it one of those three.    … Expand
  68. imjoey
    Oct 6, 2010
    1
    I am disappointed with the overall game. The User Interface is lackluster and cumbersome. I have read that SE took the time to observe what made WoW such a HIT; yet, SE failed to deliver. Even with the great graphics in this game, I cannot rate the game any higher than a 1. In addition, the game lacks an actual auctionhouse or something similar. All the FFXIV servers are located in Japan.I am disappointed with the overall game. The User Interface is lackluster and cumbersome. I have read that SE took the time to observe what made WoW such a HIT; yet, SE failed to deliver. Even with the great graphics in this game, I cannot rate the game any higher than a 1. In addition, the game lacks an actual auctionhouse or something similar. All the FFXIV servers are located in Japan. Total letdown if you ask me! LAGGGGG much? You are also limited to a certain amount of questing/experience gain a day or so, which is dumbfounded. Terrible! Also creating additional characters seems to be frowned up in this game. There seems to be more work involved with actually adding new characters... and it is supposed to cost money too to have more than one character... (After your trial expires)

    JUST TERRIBLE!

    Worse MMO thus far to sum it up. I rather play WoW!    … Expand
  69. jade
    Oct 6, 2010
    2
    UI: a slow interface requiring multiple clicks to navigate wasting time

    Crafting: From the first level you notice dependencies on almost every other crafting job and materials that you have to spend hours tracking down. Repair: requires exotic materials and many crafting jobs to repair your own gear, NPC is overpriced and cannot repair all your gear. Combat: Lag/no auto    UI: a slow interface requiring multiple clicks to navigate wasting time

    Crafting: From the first level you notice dependencies on almost every other crafting job and materials that you have to spend hours tracking down.

    Repair: requires exotic materials and many crafting jobs to repair your own gear, NPC is overpriced and cannot repair all your gear.

    Combat: Lag/no auto attack/Slow/Targeting issues (click attack and wait 2 seconds to see if you attacked). And then the chipmunk kills you. Oh do you feel weak. Combat became easier as I got the hang of the system and re-issued my commands over and over. Definately understand why there's no PvP.... I feel like I write my character a postal note saying please wand attack again, then give it to a courier and /pray the courier actually gets to my character before she's gnawed to death by a fluffy critter.

    Lag: despite a killer connection running into a room doesn't even load static NPCs for a long time making quests difficult (am I in the right place?)

    Inventory: 80 slots, cannot sort, cannot "consolidate" split stacks easily, very tedious.

    Economy: N/A - right now if you want to buy a piece of crafted gear you either get to run around shouting all over cities and craft points or visit the retainers in the wards. Imagine 1000 people in a room and 1 person has something useful, you need to do a lengthy/slow interaction with each one to find the item you want (if its even there)

    Graphics: Pretty, would be enjoyable if the rest of the experience was.

    Music: Could be better

    Quests: wow - only can do X quests per couple days. And they're the same repeatable ones.

    Plot: NPC's with screens filled with text. Very little voice acting. If I ever met someone who spewed 3 pages of text /wout letting me read I'd shot them, however not an option here :(

    Music: Music: Music: Music: Music: Music: Music: (am I getting repetitive?)

    Forums: They appear to be all rants. I see almost no promising posts from SE. I wonder if the forums are being read.

    As a big fan of MMO's I am really sad to score FFXIV at 2 - I can /pray it gets better, but at the moment I'm writting the expense off as a loss and canceling my account. I had Realm First achievements in Warcraft along with 6 level 80 toons, I've played many many many MMO's including FFXI which I actually enjoyed.    … Expand
  70. Synthaxus
    Oct 6, 2010
    1
    Having been a fan of FFXI since it's NA release as well as owning every FF game to date (13 was a let down...) I was excited for FFXIV. Myself and a few LS members from FFXI Bought the game and rolled on Besaid.

    Sadly we were greeted with issues from the start... Setting up an account was pretty painful (not as painful as dealing with PlayOnline, but a pretty close second). Patching up    Having been a fan of FFXI since it's NA release as well as owning every FF game to date (13 was a let down...) I was excited for FFXIV. Myself and a few LS members from FFXI Bought the game and rolled on Besaid.

    Sadly we were greeted with issues from the start...

    Setting up an account was pretty painful (not as painful as dealing with PlayOnline, but a pretty close second). Patching up the game uses probably the most annoying torrent system I have ever used.

    Once in game performance was OK, but the UI lag was pretty bad. The menu navigation is best described as tedious, as pretty much everything in the game requires you to sift through several menus and menu layers to get anything accomplished (add in the UI lag and you get frustrated really quick)

    Combat: I have read everywhere from various fans how the combat is deep and engaging... I have no idea what game they are playing, but it is quite the opposite. Slow and cumbersome come to mind when describing the combat system in FFXIV. Melee combat isn't too slow, but slow enough. Spell casting on the other hand ends up being a lot of *Click target, click spell, click spell again to actually use the spell (sort of a confirmation that 'yes, I want to cast this') and then wait 5 to 20 seconds for the skill to go off, rinse repeat*.

    Character advancement is pretty poor. You are presented with 8 guild leves every 36 hours, as well as a few local leves. Once these leves are completed (about 3 hours tops at around PL 22) the rest of your time will be spent grinding XP from mobs (which are few and far between and mostly controlled by grind parties) or crafting (which can be really expensive and even more tedious due in part to the plethora of menus/sub menus you have to trudge through for each step).

    The community in the game is pretty elitist overall. While there are a few players who are willing to help others out or answer a few questions, a majority of the players we encountered usually replied with a 'This isn't WoW' or just totally ignored us and our question.

    Basically after several days of playing we decided to head back to FFXI. We were going to burn out the rest of our 30 days that came with the CE, but then decided it just wasn't worth the headache.

    If you are interested in the game, grab a buddy key from a friend or wait until the have a free trial. I would not recommend buying the game unless you have tried it first.    … Expand
  71. defive
    Oct 6, 2010
    3
    Empty. Souless. Unfinished.

    Stay far far away from this disaster. Worst UI in MMO history, massive empty world filled with nothing except cut-and-pasted terrain. Utterly boring quest system, hilariously broken economy (no ah and no way to search retainers).. I could go on and on.... Be very clear if you buy the PC version of FFXIV - you are paying Square-Enix for the 'privelige'    Empty. Souless. Unfinished.

    Stay far far away from this disaster.

    Worst UI in MMO history, massive empty world filled with nothing except cut-and-pasted terrain. Utterly boring quest system, hilariously broken economy (no ah and no way to search retainers).. I could go on and on....

    Be very clear if you buy the PC version of FFXIV - you are paying Square-Enix for the 'privelige' of beta testing their PS3 release.    … Expand
  72. nirvycn
    Oct 5, 2010
    2
    At the present, there is little to reccomend about FFXIV. It has little to no content barring a few repeatable daily quests, and 3 mainy quest lines. It looks pretty, however pretty doesnt make the game fun. This is no FFXI, in fact compared to most MMO's its a little inadequate, the UI is slow, buggy and cumbersome, the content is severely lacking, once you hit about rank 23-24 there areAt the present, there is little to reccomend about FFXIV. It has little to no content barring a few repeatable daily quests, and 3 mainy quest lines. It looks pretty, however pretty doesnt make the game fun. This is no FFXI, in fact compared to most MMO's its a little inadequate, the UI is slow, buggy and cumbersome, the content is severely lacking, once you hit about rank 23-24 there are no longer any mobs, or zones you can level in. The servers lag, and the chat system is appalling, the servers are like ghost towns community wise, and the linkpearl system is getting old.

    That said the game has potential, but needs a year or so of content to make it worth buying, as it stands, even the most casual will get to rank 25 or so in a few weeks, and thats where the content and zones abruptly stop.

    Stay away for now, but come back in a year and see how the expansion makes the game play.    … Expand
  73. thegrave
    Oct 5, 2010
    0
    Worst peice of crap I have ever played in my life in concerns of an MMO. This is a warning to those that are thinking of getting this game. They have a fatigue system which limits your play. The UI is absolutely horrible too the point that its a stuggle to play fluidly. There aren't any servers in the United States so the lag is horrible. The only nice thing about the game is theWorst peice of crap I have ever played in my life in concerns of an MMO. This is a warning to those that are thinking of getting this game. They have a fatigue system which limits your play. The UI is absolutely horrible too the point that its a stuggle to play fluidly. There aren't any servers in the United States so the lag is horrible. The only nice thing about the game is the graphics. Which aren't even close to enough to save the title. There aren't any REAL quests. only 8 simple run and kill "x" creatures a day leves quests. There is no content in this peice of flaming turd. This is a warning to you. Don't waste $85 like I did for the SE box. Don't buy the standard box. Just stay away from this title. I have never been so angry at a game in my life. I can't believe this unfinished turd was released to the public. It should be criminal. And too all of those that try to promote the game. Shame on you for making people waste money on a game that they are going to rage quit like half the population already has in less than a week. Metacritic should have allowed us to post reviews when the SE was released so the standard edition peeps could warn them of this ripoff. And as far as the company that already posted its 84 review. **** Code Central, shame on you. You have no taste and are betraying the customers in the gaming market. People turn to review companies to lead them in the right direction. I should start my own review company that actually serves the fans and warns them of such horrible titles. Enough said.… Expand
  74. Redorb
    Oct 4, 2010
    4
    *Good Things:*
    --FANTASTIC GRAPHICS.- Stunning visuals which make the world and its creatures amazing to look at.
    --MUSIC.- The music brings back a lot of nostalgia from the old days of FFIII (US version) and FFVII. --BATTLE SOUND EFFECTS.- Not great but decent and make you engage in combat. *The Bad:* --USER INTERFACE.- Clunky and most importantly SLOW! For instance, there is no    *Good Things:*
    --FANTASTIC GRAPHICS.- Stunning visuals which make the world and its creatures amazing to look at.
    --MUSIC.- The music brings back a lot of nostalgia from the old days of FFIII (US version) and FFVII.
    --BATTLE SOUND EFFECTS.- Not great but decent and make you engage in combat.

    *The Bad:*
    --USER INTERFACE.- Clunky and most importantly SLOW! For instance, there is no auto arrange on items. I DREAD everytime I have to think about selling something as it takes litterally 5-10 minutes to sell the junk in my inventory. Crafting and gathering literally becomes a chore which makes taking out the trash and doing the dishes around the house seem pleasant in comparison.
    --COMMERCE.- An MMORPG is only as good as its ability to make your character look awsome and feel powerful. One of the best ways for that an RPG can do this is by constantly positively incrementing a character's gear. FF XIV completely and totally FAILS at this. Levequest rewards very very rarely offer any gear rewards at all, this in itself woudln't be a problem if there were other ways to get gear without spending hours and hours searching the "retainer" wards for gear. Of course you can always craft your own gear, meaning you need to be a blacksmith and and armorsmith and a goldsmith and maybe a carpenter (depending on your class); I don't need to tell you how that will go over for you since you've already read about the UI. It is possible... to get gear using this system but honestly who has the time to spend it wasting away in some video game while they are NOT having fun? The commerce system; the most important part of any MMORPG, in this game is all but broken.
    --USER HELP.- I have been playing games for years. I will be the first to admit I'm not the best at them, but I can hold my own and can kick some butt sometimes. This game however trully made me feel like a newb. Something I have never really felt before. This is not in itself a big problem as humility is probably good for me :P. The real problem is that every 5 minutes I have to alt-tab out of the game so I can figure out how to do ANYTHING and I mean ANYTHING. How do you follow someone else? Alt-tab, you can't follow someone. How do I party up with someone who isn't next to me? Alt-tab, you can't party up with someone not next to you. Where can I find a thaumaturge weapon in Gridania so I can switch to that class because after walking around for an hour I couldn't find it? Alt-tab, Gridania doesn't have a thaumaturge's weapon. How do I use sythesis? How do I resurrect my character? How do I use macros? This list goes on and on and on... Oh get this... When you alt-tab out of the game the game automatically crashes. WOOT!!!! This is a common bug btw. It happened on my windows 7 and my windows XP machine.

    This is the first review that I have written for a game ever. However, I felt soo personally compelled to warn the public about this game that I have written this one as well to pop that negative # up one more click. I love video games. I love RPG's. I love MMORPG's have played them for years since Ultima Online came out when I was in High School. I am borderline hating this game. Now I know some people are going to think (or say) "go back to WOW you fanboy". And maybe they have a point. I liked WOW I really really did. But then I liked Ultima Online and LOTRO and AION and EQ and Asheron's Call. All I am saying is that if you have not bought this game and you are reading this review please please do yourself a favor and ask yourself how much free time you have and how much you are willing to give to a video game which rewards you little for the amount of time you put into it. If you have a LOT of free time and like grinding away and don't mind a slow UI then this is the game for you. If, however, you are like the majority of the worlds populace please please look elsewhere for your entertainment. For instance Starcraft 2 just came out, so did Civ 5, Fable 3 comes out in 3 weeks.    … Expand
  75. xukiza
    Oct 4, 2010
    4
    1. Sold as solo/casual - hardcore grind
    2. No quests or significant content - only guildleves on a 36 hour cooldown and not enough teleport anima to do the ones from the other cities every 36 hours to get 8 battle quests.
    3. random skill point and exp rewards 4. no point to grouping 5. world feels dead and empty. 6. Literal copy and paste landscape - I mean you will think you are in the    1. Sold as solo/casual - hardcore grind
    2. No quests or significant content - only guildleves on a 36 hour cooldown and not enough teleport anima to do the ones from the other cities every 36 hours to get 8 battle quests.
    3. random skill point and exp rewards
    4. no point to grouping
    5. world feels dead and empty.
    6. Literal copy and paste landscape - I mean you will think you are in the same place you just walked through 10 mins ago - it's literal copy and paste.
    7. No decent market system
    8. Forced crafting essentially
    9. Time sink annoying repair system
    10. Forced to play most of the other classes to be competent.
    11. Did I mention the grind after the teens is horrific. Go back to Aion, it's a joke after FFXIV.
    12. UI is the most horrific experience of any PC MMO to date
    13. Game is designed around horrific barely hidden time sinks to artificially slow your progress.
    14. Partying is pointless
    15. Guild leves are boring
    16. Crafting requires knowing several other crafts to make most anything.
    17. No real story
    18. Not enough mobs to even make grinding viable.
    19. Mobs don't scale properly - some own your face off as blues, some reds are soloable.
    20. No way to travel when anima is low - i.e. no chocobo, airships etc

    Goods:
    1. Game looks beautiful
    2. Combat itself, if you burn mana etc, is really fun, some cool animations (seismic shock for example)
    3. Having options for lots of classes on one character is a cool idea.
    4. Crafting has potential
    5. Combat has potential
    6. Economy has potential
    7. The game world has hints of possible good things down the line
    8. If the above issues are fixed the game would be pretty awesome.

    Overall, tons of potential locked in a sucky, time wasting, broken mechanics package that sucks your will to play and turn on the game.

    For the price and monthly sub, I recommend you give this a pass.    … Expand
  76. JonnyBigBoss
    Oct 4, 2010
    2
    It has been about four years since I began waiting for this game. Originally known as Rapture, the game was said to be the next generation of MMORPG. I would like to preface this by saying I have played more than half of the Final Fantasy titles and beaten them, and on the other hand, I have played a handful of MMORPGs including FFXI.

    The Good: - Graphics: The game looks fantastic.    It has been about four years since I began waiting for this game. Originally known as Rapture, the game was said to be the next generation of MMORPG. I would like to preface this by saying I have played more than half of the Final Fantasy titles and beaten them, and on the other hand, I have played a handful of MMORPGs including FFXI.

    The Good:
    - Graphics: The game looks fantastic. Characters are alive and beautiful, and the armor in the game is incredibly detailed. I'd say this game has the best graphics of any MMORPG to date.
    - Sound: While not one of the better Final Fantasy soundtracks, the music is definitely solid. Sound effects from attacks to footsteps are very convincing and add to the atmosphere of the game.

    The Bad:
    - Performance: This game simply isn't optimized. Many players, including myself, have powerful rigs but still chug along. Granted the graphics are great, but the scalability is deplorable. If you don't have a recently-upgraded PC, don't bother.
    - Interface: I think the best way to sum this up is to say the decade-old Final Fantasy XI had a better UI. Navigation of the interface is unbearable at times, and adds minutes of wasted time. The game has been developed with the console in mind, so navigation with a controller is optimal, but is still incredibly tedious and archaic. You can't sort your interface, and everything seems to take twice as many steps as it should. Want to sell some items? Well, you'll have to go through a handful of dialogue boxes just to sell 1 item. Games for the last few years have been using what we call the "right click" on the mouse. Why doesn't this game in 2010 have it? Oh, and targeting is incredibly bad.
    - Lag: Inputs take seconds to execute. This adds to a "clunky" experience both in combat and out. Yes, the game is new, but Square Enix should have at least allowed client-side interactions. Everything needs to be communicated to the server in Japan meaning everything you do has to be registered on the server before it executes. Frustrating to say the least.
    - Gameplay: To enter combat, you have to press a button to take out your weapon. This leaves you standing in 1 place for about 2-3 seconds while your character pulls out your weapon. Animations are slow and must be completed, so if you want to use abilities quickly in combat, good luck. The combat isn't very fun either. Abilities aren't very interesting or varied, and interactions are clunky.
    - No tutorials: This game makes you feel lost, very lost. Square Enix doesn't seem to have taken the precautions to help people figure the game out. When crafting items, there are no recipes, so you'll have to use pen and paper. During missions, you'll be left guessing who to talk to. Instructions are nowhere to be found. Heck, nobody even tells you how to switch classes, you'll have to refer to the internet for that.
    - Controls: No key mapping for the keyboard means you're stuck with some ridiculous keybindings set by Square Enix. Controls are easily the worst in any MMORPG in the last decade and reek of 20th century.
    - Content: Chocobos are in the game but no way to ride or interact with them. Grinding. Lots of grinding. Quests with no purpose. You can't see your party members on the map. Very few search options ingame. No /invite command. The list goes on and on.
    - Market system: No auction house. If you want a specific item, you'll be left begging in /shout and searching through hundreds if not thousands of bazaars to find the item.

    This game is inconvenient. Very inconvenient. It feels like a game from over 10 years ago but with modern graphics. This game was advertised as being welcoming to casuals, but running around takes ages and the combat is slow. Leveling takes an eternity and the lack of direction is evident. This is the most disappointing game I've played in years. I don't recommend it to anyone.    … Expand
  77. p0ltergeist
    Oct 4, 2010
    2
    The graphics are the only redeeming quality to this game. The game is missing everything that you would come to expect from a modern MMO. And worst of all, there is nothing to do but GRIND. The VAST majority of quests are just "kill X of monster Y" or "Collect X items by killing monster Y". And even then, you can only do a tiny amount of these quests because they are locked out on a 48The graphics are the only redeeming quality to this game. The game is missing everything that you would come to expect from a modern MMO. And worst of all, there is nothing to do but GRIND. The VAST majority of quests are just "kill X of monster Y" or "Collect X items by killing monster Y". And even then, you can only do a tiny amount of these quests because they are locked out on a 48 hour timer. Trust me people, steer clear of this game until AT LEAST the first expansion. If it even makes it that far.… Expand
  78. Lansow
    Oct 4, 2010
    0
    Garbage. Absolute garbage. The lack of hardware mouse cursor, xp restricted on a timer, sluggish UI, far too much reliance on server side processing, unintuitive gameplay. I'm sorely disappointed in SE here.

    Pretty graphics do not a solid game make. 0/10 for SE. I was so looking forward to this. Only a completely out-to-lunch JRPG knucklehead designer would release such tripe to the    Garbage. Absolute garbage. The lack of hardware mouse cursor, xp restricted on a timer, sluggish UI, far too much reliance on server side processing, unintuitive gameplay. I'm sorely disappointed in SE here.

    Pretty graphics do not a solid game make.

    0/10 for SE. I was so looking forward to this. Only a completely out-to-lunch JRPG knucklehead designer would release such tripe to the NA market. For shame, SE, for shame.    … Expand
  79. ketsurui
    Oct 4, 2010
    4
    Huge disappointment. If one buys games like this for the graphics, then look no further. If one buys games like this for the gameplay and lack of frustration, look elsewhere. Square is dead.
  80. benfreefly
    Oct 4, 2010
    4
    There are some pretty polarizing reviews of this game. Anyone that rates it a 0 or a 10 should be immediately discounted. The reality is somewhere in-between. The game is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's also not without potential. For sure, Square Enix has their work cut out for them to make this game truly enjoyable. Here's hoping that they start listening toThere are some pretty polarizing reviews of this game. Anyone that rates it a 0 or a 10 should be immediately discounted. The reality is somewhere in-between. The game is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's also not without potential. For sure, Square Enix has their work cut out for them to make this game truly enjoyable. Here's hoping that they start listening to their player base sooner rather than later.… Expand
  81. Scritty
    Oct 4, 2010
    1
    Firstly, could people stop assuming the negative reviews are all becasue "we don't get it" and "we just want an "easy mode" game" That's really patronising and in most cases completely untrue.

    Check out all the review sites on the net. Although their are few "pro" reviews now, there are literally thousands of user reviews, the majority of them rating the game the wrong side of average.    Firstly, could people stop assuming the negative reviews are all becasue "we don't get it" and "we just want an "easy mode" game" That's really patronising and in most cases completely untrue.

    Check out all the review sites on the net. Although their are few "pro" reviews now, there are literally thousands of user reviews, the majority of them rating the game the wrong side of average.
    Given that all the fan boys voted this game a 10, then you'll see it's struggling to average 5.5 on most sites despite this.
    Why?
    Because the menu system is broekn (and no patch is going to change that any time soon)
    The lag (not people's porcessors or GFX card _ but the LAG is terrible. I get almost 50 frames a second, but a ping of over 1000 millisenconds constantly.
    The gathering pro's a re great, the crafting ones are hit and miss, some like them - many don't (they are - again - dull)
    The need to have the same animation every time you speak to certain NPC's - with the associated time wasted.

    I know the game is well animated - it looks wonderful. BUT GET ON WITH IT ALREADY, i have seen theis over long cut scene of the vendor turning to notive me a hundred times -it takes too long, and I don't want to see it again.

    I LOVE complex MMORPG's. EvE (which is VASTLY more complex than FFXIV will ever be) is my all time favourite.
    I DON'T WANT an easy mode game.
    But then again, I don't want to struggle through half a dozen menus just to select an item to sell or trade.
    The GUI is broken, the PING is dreadful for none Japan players, and there are start up bugs.
    The startup bugs will go, I can forgive them, all MMORPG's have them.

    But the intrusive animation, overly complex GUI and horrendous PING will probably be with the game forever.    … Expand
  82. yamers
    Oct 3, 2010
    1
    ATROCIOUS. This game is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind our day and age. Square Enix doesn't understand what they are doing, they are still stuck in 2000 when it comes to making MMA...actualy I think they want back in time. Why did WoW do so well? it was fun and refreshing for players. Everything in FFXIV is a tedius task that is built to annoy the living crap out of a player.
  83. maettsy
    Oct 3, 2010
    2
    Still playing, level 25 atm.
    Rushed release, anyone who doesn't think so isn't 20+.
    SE needs to rehaul a lot of things, long time fan of their franchises but terrible choices here.
    Anyone who defends moronic decisions around their designs is in denial.
  84. Aeliene
    Oct 3, 2010
    0
    Absolutely gorgeous! I just wish I could figure out how to play it.
    The fact that (1) the instruction booklet has zero information about actual gameplay and (2) that no strategy guide company even attempted to make a guide for this game - should tell you everything you need to know about it.
  85. Aquakitty
    Oct 2, 2010
    3
    I gave this game a chance.

    The Good Graphics are pretty The Bad Punished for teaming, xp drops significantly for no reason Groups of 11 people attacking Ladybugs Repetitive, gameplay and mobs are the same at L 20. I am still killing marmots. Terrible UI Everything looks the same No auction house, you have to click people individually to see what they are selling (usually junk), there's    I gave this game a chance.

    The Good
    Graphics are pretty

    The Bad
    Punished for teaming, xp drops significantly for no reason
    Groups of 11 people attacking Ladybugs
    Repetitive, gameplay and mobs are the same at L 20. I am still killing marmots.
    Terrible UI
    Everything looks the same
    No auction house, you have to click people individually to see what they are selling (usually junk), there's not even a place to put a title of the contents of your "store" like back in Lineage 2.
    Levelling is like molasses
    Chat system is primitive

    Summary: Someone on here wrote the game is a breath of fresh air, I disagree, it is more like a wiff of rotten fish my dog rolled in. The game is a step back in every way possible. Bad chat, UI, archaic and repetitive. Slow.    … Expand
  86. Jabborwacky
    Oct 2, 2010
    2
    I've played this in both the open beta and on release, and I've never seen a game that has come out with so many flaws and problems. Just like FFXI, the entire basis of the game is the advancement of a linear storyline... and that's it. The game boasts impressive in-game art, graphics, and cinematics, but the gameplay is boring and repetitive. Once you get through your first few startingI've played this in both the open beta and on release, and I've never seen a game that has come out with so many flaws and problems. Just like FFXI, the entire basis of the game is the advancement of a linear storyline... and that's it. The game boasts impressive in-game art, graphics, and cinematics, but the gameplay is boring and repetitive. Once you get through your first few starting quests, you are left to do repeatable daily quests in one of three categories: Battle, crafting, and gathering. So basically you are left doing daily quests in a very similar fashion to World of Warcraft's endgame play, only that is what you will be doing for the entire length of the game. To make matters worse, the combat controls make working in a group a pain, as they do not allow for point and click casting. A redundant target select is built into the game so that people with gamepads can keep their eye on one target while healing people around it, but this only complicates PC controls.
    The crafting in this game is a carbon copy of the Final Fantasy XI crystal crafting system with an unintuitive mini-game added on top. You have no recipe list, so you must look up all the recipes online at their website and you also have no way to tell if the item is too difficult for you to craft at your given skill. This also means you must manually put in all the materials for the item into a grid of boxes before you start crafting. Once at the mini-game, new players will be left scratching their heads in frustration as they vainly try to learn the crafting mini-game with a complete lack tutorials. Sure, if the player is smart enough to pick up the crafting tutorial quest back at the city he will have something to work with, but the tutorial fails to explain the intricacies of the game, such as what the pretty light on your crafting tool represents. Also, when you fail at making an item, all the ingredients you meticulously collected are destroyed, only adding to player frustration. The gathering mini-game trades the frustration for boredom, and is just as unintuitive as the crafting mini-game. Thankfully the introductory gathering quest is helpful here, but "hot and cold" mini-games belong in the realm of things to do on long car trips when we don't have advanced electronic devices available to us, not in a video game. At least not in the unintuitive, and rather dull application it is applied here. The player market is a mess as well. Square went with a Bazaar system as opposed to an Auction House, and since the economy is mostly player run (think like 90%), this ends up creating a convoluted mess. You will be stuck searching through an army of retainers (the npcs that player hire out to put their stuff on) for close to an hour before finding what you want. The costs will also be either out the roof or ludicrously low due to their being no way for players to gauge the marketplace in order to set a good price for their goods.
    The game's physics engine is a rip straight out of Final Fantasy XI as well, meaning poor interaction with the environment and no swimming or jumping. You are guaranteed to always be on the ground in this game. The only improvement that this game boasts over its predecessor is the fact that it allows for solo play. This is nothing to be proud about, however, since that has been standard issue in MMOs for at least the last 5 years. So basically we have a game system that is a carbon copy of the Final Fantasy XI system with the only difference being repeatable quests and solo play. The only thing to look forward to is the storyline, but we've moved far beyond linear stories with games such as Baldur's Gate, Dragon's Age, and Fallout. Nothing to be proud of here folks, and certainly not worth wasting your money on. Pretty graphics give this two stars, but ancient game-play mechanics on top of endless player frustration gives this a 0 in game-play category.
    2 out of 10 for this one folks.    … Expand
  87. Lawrens
    Oct 2, 2010
    3
    FFXIV is an incomplete game, for that I have to give it a 3/10, it is extremely hard to give a game anything higher than this when initially the game has little to offer, and to add to that, whatever it has to offer is nothing but a horrible experience.

    The game starts you off with a few introductory cutscenes, then off you go doing levequests: quests which offer no story or plot, but to    FFXIV is an incomplete game, for that I have to give it a 3/10, it is extremely hard to give a game anything higher than this when initially the game has little to offer, and to add to that, whatever it has to offer is nothing but a horrible experience.

    The game starts you off with a few introductory cutscenes, then off you go doing levequests: quests which offer no story or plot, but to run around fulfilling random generated objectives, which is all just running to point B to kill a certain number of mobs, you get money and sometimes items as reward. You get 8 everyday and a half, some new ones opens up, and some are just repeats, it also helps you gain levels and class ranks since you have to fight a lot of enemies.

    The above sounds great and fun, but there are a few problems with the mission structure and balance itself:
    Problems:
    Skill points distribution: you get skill points from attacking enemies/heal/etc, this is so far a bit broken as the chances of you getting skill points are not very consistent, there are occasions where you could get really low amount of skillpoints from fighting strong monsters, even if you're to group with a few other players, which leads to the problem where soloing is a better and faster way to play. Difficulty balance - Low level leve quests were also too easy for a group, monsters die in 2 hits and you get no skillpoints at all, and for some quests it is also very easy to do at 3-4 stars even when you're 5-6 levels below the suggested rank. While certain quest have mobs with aoe attacks that could oneshot you.

    Lag - With the partying system, when the lag is bad on your server, there are bugs where you can't target your party members, can't reinvite, and invite taking tremendously long to process (or not process at all), this gets better as the server load is lower, but the targetting issue still exists, sometimes you can't see your party members hp. Lag leads to a lot other problems, abilities gets congested, with the long animation your character do, it delays a lot of your abilities.

    Surplus - This isn't as big of a problem as other players make it out to be, but it is a mechanic that a few might find annoying as it is there to restrict your playstyle and how you want to spend your time. You really can't progress on just 1 job alone, and if you like running around on your highest level job, you will eventually run into surplus - which gives a penalty to the skill points you gain, this isn't a problem if the game wasn't that much of a grind but the skill points required to level at lvl20s is really high, what SE doing here is to restrict people from progressing and forcing them to level other jobs and crafts, if you like that, it is ok, but there is a limitation to the freedom given.

    Crafting itself is more interesting but also tedious, the animations are too long so most of the time it would take 5minutes just to do a craft, imagine having to unequip all your gears, change to your crafting tools and having to access item box to repair them one by one, which leads to the problem of inventory space, and gears swapping, you have to type out lines and lines of macros so you don't have to unequip every piece of equipments by hand when you change jobs.
    The lines of macros is also limited. For a game encouraging you to switch between like 10 jobs, it is an annoyance as you also have to reset all your actions/abilities. Fighting enemies - Some enemies have weird pathing which they will run around and regen itself to full. Sometimes you can't engage your party members' target with a message "Target can not be engaged". Targetting is also extremely hard and you have to tab through a lot of targets.

    There are other issues people have already listed, most will run into problem that leads to another, the core of the game is great and the classes/ability mix is a great system, but there are too many problems that hinders a player's enjoyment. There's nothing to do but grind, there are a few cutscenes every 5-10 ranks.

    It is clearly an unfinished game with restrictions grant upon players so they won't progress too fast inorder to buy time for them to fix/implement new features. If you take a look at their site, they are still "looking into improve" many aspects of the game instead of already having the right idea and releasing patches. Most of the updates/maintenance are all bugs/glitches related that should've been fix during the beta phase, the menu and UI lag infact still exists and I'm not sure how people could tolerate it.

    The game has only been out for 2 weeks, it doesn't sound fair to judge the game at its current state, but it is also not very fair for consumers to be paying 60 dollars for an incomplete game, and for a better experience they have been encouraged to wait until they fix all the problems, for a game with a subscription fee, it is a really bad business practice from square-enix.    … Expand
  88. CitizenSwift
    Oct 1, 2010
    1
    From installation to patching to account setup to playing... Everything about this game has been painful. Far less than I'd expect from an established developer.
  89. santiagodraco
    Oct 1, 2010
    3
    Ok, so here's the real deal._____________

    First off, graphically, sonically and aesthetically the game is great. If games were scored on looks alone I'd give this one an 8/9._______________ Well, games are like books, don't judge it by it's cover. And what's inside isn't prose it's gibberish.___________ I cannot comprehend how anyone can give this game a 10. It simply isn't    Ok, so here's the real deal._____________

    First off, graphically, sonically and aesthetically the game is great. If games were scored on looks alone I'd give this one an 8/9._______________

    Well, games are like books, don't judge it by it's cover. And what's inside isn't prose it's gibberish.___________

    I cannot comprehend how anyone can give this game a 10. It simply isn't rational. First, the combat mechanics are frustrating in the extreme. To give you a taste, lets say you are running around in ANY MMO you can think of and you engage a target. You can move around, reposition yourself or your camera easily, like a normal shooter for example. Not so with FFXIV. When you engage you "LOCK" to that encounter and movement becomes severely hampered and your cameras up down view is frozen. Yes, you heard me, you can no longer change the camera Y position. On top of that tabbing... tabbing targets ANYTHING including yourself and other players and NPCs and target mobs.... how frustrating do you think it will be to have 2-3 mobs putting the smackdown (oh and even con mobs can kill you pretty easy) only to find that you cannot fight them because you keep targeting everything OTHER than the mobs attacking you. It is the worst combat implementation I've ever seen in any game to date._________________

    Now lets talk about the world. It's big. Big and pretty. And repetitive. And virtually empty. If you are expecting the rich and full environments you are used to in games like WoW, EQ, EQ2, Aion, etc then don't get your hopes up. You'll be running quite a bit looking at grass and bushes and trees with little else to create any sense of story or immersion.________________

    Oh, and don't forget to avoid that 2 inch drop off! No you can't jump! How dare you ask! Go around! What do you mean it's only a 2 inch piece of tile on the ground? Of course you can't walk over it. What do you think, this is the real world? You're in our world now and you'll play by our rules of physics! No jumping and no stepping up or down!______________

    Quests. I have to ask, what quests? Other than the main "story line" (which btw seems completely unrelated to the stylish opening sequences) and a couple of sidelines I don't know what quests there are, if any. For one I am pretty sure they are few and far between. But for another you are forced to talk to every NPC (and I mean EVERY NPC) just to see if they have a quest, or if they are your next step. It's so outdated and frustrating that you'll give up questing altogether pretty quick.______________

    Guildleves... a very very sad replacement for leveling quests. They are meaningless, in far to short of supply and add absolutely nothing to the story of the game. At least in WoW the "kill x or gather y" quests were often written into a series of storyline related activities that made them somewhat meaningful. Here guildleves are like going to some kind of soda machine and pressing a button for a refill, only to find out that you've had your limit on refills for today._____________

    Now lets talk about UI and add further to the interaction mechanics discussion. Remember the combat lock and camera note above? Well the same applies for talking to NPCs. First you have to successfully target them, once you've done that and then navigate a few menus just to begin dialog (yeah get used to menus for everything) you'll be locked into that encounter until you click away (don't miss!) to end it. Hopefully that works. So no, you can't simply move away to end like you can with every other MMO under the sun.___________

    And how about that snappy UI! Well there's nothing snappy about this one other than hitting the logoff button.______________

    Storyline interaction? Very short paragraphs of text in a very small window with a very small arrow on the bottom to scroll. You'll have no idea where you are in the dialog, how far you have to go, nor any way to go back OR see the overall context of the dialog. __________

    Expecting NPCs to talk? Interact as you walk by with nice general voiceovers? Nope. _________

    I can go on. As you can gather from my post the game has me pretty seriously dissapointed and very frustrated that SE has taken a game that had such enormous potential and has completely ruined it due to their apparent arrogance and complete disconnect as to what the vast vast majority of gamers are looking for out there._______________


    I really think that SE should purchase the rights to the "You're in our world now" slogan since it so aptly exemplifies the attitude SE has taken to the player base in the introduction of this game to the market.    … Expand
  90. CaptElephant
    Oct 1, 2010
    3
    As a long-time fan of FFXI I was disappointed by FFXIV. It's a pretty substantial step backwards from it's predecessor, despite coming out 7 years later. Overall the game feels unfinished and rushed, the UI is very slow, combat is badly designed and content is sorely lacking. It certainly may become a quality game after a year or so of patches, but currently it's pretty terrible. Save yourAs a long-time fan of FFXI I was disappointed by FFXIV. It's a pretty substantial step backwards from it's predecessor, despite coming out 7 years later. Overall the game feels unfinished and rushed, the UI is very slow, combat is badly designed and content is sorely lacking. It certainly may become a quality game after a year or so of patches, but currently it's pretty terrible. Save your time and money for something better.… Expand
  91. Tubie
    Oct 1, 2010
    0
    No search feature, no mail system, no AH and no support for party play are just a few of the things that are broken with this game. Stay far away from this, at least until they release it on the PS3. PC players are paying to play a game still in Alpha stage. I am slowing but steadily losing trust in SE a company I once admired.
  92. k3nt0456
    Oct 1, 2010
    2
    The game has made absolutely no improvements to the genre, every major feature is incomplete or riddled with bugs or downright bad in it's implementation. You'll find yourself dropped into an unfamiliar (by mmo standards) world with absolutely no technical guidance and UI that seems straight out of a '99 console game; all of this while running code so poorly optimized for the PC that itThe game has made absolutely no improvements to the genre, every major feature is incomplete or riddled with bugs or downright bad in it's implementation. You'll find yourself dropped into an unfamiliar (by mmo standards) world with absolutely no technical guidance and UI that seems straight out of a '99 console game; all of this while running code so poorly optimized for the PC that it makes GTA 4 (a notoriously bad console port) seem like the holy grail of solid FPS.

    All of this is truly baffling coming from Square-enix who should have had previous MMO experience. If you've played ANY mmo before get ready for some serious WTF'ing; if you've played FFXI and were hoping for the next-gen group based experience you'll be so furious you'll write a negative review on Metacritic.    … Expand
  93. stray
    Oct 1, 2010
    0
    If you haven't considered changing your name to "Cloud" legally, this probably isn't the game for you. Even then your loyalty might be questioned. I've played FFXI for a number of years, as well as WoW, and this game succeeds in little else but setting the genre back. Gone are auction houses, every player is now expected to open up their own shop. Which isn't horrible in principle, butIf you haven't considered changing your name to "Cloud" legally, this probably isn't the game for you. Even then your loyalty might be questioned. I've played FFXI for a number of years, as well as WoW, and this game succeeds in little else but setting the genre back. Gone are auction houses, every player is now expected to open up their own shop. Which isn't horrible in principle, but it's an archaic MMO design that was left behind for a reason. There's no search, so simply shopping can take hours dependent on what you're looking for. The quest system is the equivalent of 'dailies' in WoW, fairly short, uninspired, repetitive quests you can do once every 36 hours. There is a main story quest that I believe unravels once every 10 levels, the rest of the game is grinding dailies or just... grinding. NPC's rarely say anything useful, the entire world is incredibly beautiful... it just feels like cardboard.

    System requirements are absurdly high, and your results may vary on server lag or server queues, some of this is forgivable for a starting MMO. Stability is actually great, actually... but there's just nothing there. The game feels like a late alpha going into beta, not a release quality game.    … Expand
  94. Rofellos
    Oct 1, 2010
    0
    1. Bad UI that is worse even than some console games today
    2. Copy Pasted world terrain pointing to lazy developers
    3. Rushed release for PC marked when the game obviously was developed for consoles (release for them after 6 months). 4. Lack of any communication between the playerbase and the developers because " the japnanese developers do not understand english " - OH MY GOD! 5. No    1. Bad UI that is worse even than some console games today
    2. Copy Pasted world terrain pointing to lazy developers
    3. Rushed release for PC marked when the game obviously was developed for consoles (release for them after 6 months).
    4. Lack of any communication between the playerbase and the developers because " the japnanese developers do not understand english " - OH MY GOD!
    5. No direct payment method for the day - you need to use third party services like "click and buy" and paypal - Also points to SE not wanting to spend money to develop such service.

    All this just screams ka-ching. Paying to beta test the game for console release.    … Expand
  95. Edeor
    Sep 30, 2010
    1
    One of the worst mmorpg I've ever seen. The UI is very complex and not user friendly, the mouse-keyboard support is very poor, the combat system is slow and repetitive, anche the graphics engine is very heavy. The worst thing is the absolute lack of content, and at the end is just a matter of grind.
  96. Alaff
    Sep 30, 2010
    2
    (sorry for Grammar, not main language)
    I really really want to like this game. I've played FFXI for 3 yrs and had a lot of fun with it. However, FFXIV is not what I enjoy. I don't feel like I want to log in because there is nothing to do after I completed all battle leves. I tired crafting and harvesting but it's so boring - take so long time to do anything and I don't like it. So I have    (sorry for Grammar, not main language)
    I really really want to like this game. I've played FFXI for 3 yrs and had a lot of fun with it. However, FFXIV is not what I enjoy. I don't feel like I want to log in because there is nothing to do after I completed all battle leves. I tired crafting and harvesting but it's so boring - take so long time to do anything and I don't like it. So I have War and Magic to play. I have no choice but to grind mildessly , run kill , run kill errrr I just wonder I am playing RAGNAROK ONLINE 2010??? ... Also the skill up is buggy somehow or it's broken... I am Conjuror I suppose to skill up by casting magic such as Thunder , .. etc but belive it or not , after running around for 2 hour I've found that the best way to get skill up is spamming Spirit dart until enemy die even I use cure while fighting is not gain any skill point ... it's so strange and stupid I feel. Also, I feel sorry for those who don't have active Linkshell or Friends. They have no one to talk with! Nobody talk anything even in the Aetherite camp. Grats whoever get into LS and have a group going .. oh did I mention, as a Conjuror, in order to gain class skill in party as much as other melee class, I have to spam spirit dart as well! becuz I can't cast spell. I get aggro immediatly from only 1 heal or 1 nuke or 1 MPrecoverSkill - I've play EQ1 EQ2 FFXIV and I think I know by now the aggro system for caster or healer or Do FFXIV use other rule for aggro management ? If so they should have it in manual or something. Furthermore, why there's no Dev team or Community manager that communicate with player. Why SE never talk with their players? Where is official forum? All they have is Feedback system which won't be responded and E-mail system that takes about 3 days to get Copy-paste answer ... I can go on with so many disappointed things in this game. Sorry I feel very bad now I invest so much money to play this game. I bought a new computer i7 960 / GTX 480 / etc just to play this game and I thought at that time my money is worth it. Even in Beta, my friend told me it's better to use Controller and I bought it immediately in hope many things will be fixed when its released but it's isn't .... Map , Bazaar , Trade , even selling item to NPC is terrible .. slow and too much unnecessary progress... and WHY in the world I had to assigned the drop to myself when I am soloing ? I just don't understand... This is much worse than EQ2 Launch ... sorry for FFXIV fan ( I am also FF fan too but I had to speak the truth)    … Expand
  97. jmegapac
    Sep 30, 2010
    3
    This is possibly one of the worst MMO's to be released relative to other MMO's of its generation. The main story line so far has been blend. The game was touted for its engaging plot and immersive environment. The main quest starts then quickly disappears for a while. The player is left to figure out what to do (the only thing left to do is grinding guildleves and crafting, aside from aThis is possibly one of the worst MMO's to be released relative to other MMO's of its generation. The main story line so far has been blend. The game was touted for its engaging plot and immersive environment. The main quest starts then quickly disappears for a while. The player is left to figure out what to do (the only thing left to do is grinding guildleves and crafting, aside from a small number of quests). I'm fine with allowing players to explorer the world and figure out what to do. But there's nothing to do but grind here! Then there's the environment. A large portion of the world is narrow, twisted valleys connecting rather small main zones. Sure, it takes a while to walk from one area to another. But all you see is narrow paths that twists and turns. You generally don't see a vast area to explorer.

    Perhaps the lack of content can be understood, since the game just came out. However, the issue with UI is unforgivable. SE has had almost a decade to look at and experiment with UI. There are plenty of other MMO's that have shown how a good UI could be implemented. SE decided to completely ignore that and implement an archaic system of accessing practically everything via a main menu. You want to equip an item? Go to the main menu and open equipped item window. You can't just select an item from your inventory and equip it. You have to select a body part in equipment window, select an item from an inventory list that shows up, then click the equip button. Did I tell you that the inventory list is not sorted?

    There are plenty of other issues that made me cancel my subscription. You should be able to find them easily online. I'm not the only one complaining about them. My recommendation is, the game has potential, but it may not be realized for another year. Save your money and play some other MMO until then.    … Expand
  98. Sliph
    Sep 30, 2010
    2
    Wow i don't even know where to begin.

    1. The UI is a joke horribly slow and confusing 2. Overall controls are sluggish it feels like im slogging through water trying to move my mouse " and NO i dont want to play with a frikin controller I shouldn't HAVE to" 3. Spellcasting is overly tedious , I have to target mob, select spell, hit enter, hit spell agian ..just to cast a spell?! WTF?! 4.    Wow i don't even know where to begin.

    1. The UI is a joke horribly slow and confusing
    2. Overall controls are sluggish it feels like im slogging through water trying to move my mouse " and NO i dont want to play with a frikin controller I shouldn't HAVE to"
    3. Spellcasting is overly tedious , I have to target mob, select spell, hit enter, hit spell agian ..just to cast a spell?! WTF?!
    4. Crafting is horribly slow and painful and so much downtime waiting for menus to popup
    5. Fun Factor = 0 NOTHING in this game is fun to do, everything is a CHORE everything requires insane amounts of time to do mainly because of the horrid ui and controls.
    6. Con system, Has anyone actually figured out how to con mobs yet? Should it be this difficult to figure it out?
    7. Combat, slow and boring it makes me want to fall asleep its so boring
    8.Quests are tedious and boring I don't even know where to begin
    9. forming a guild/linkshell is a pain in the ass. Do you have ANY idea how ridiculously hard it will be to invite people to a large guild if you have to meet EVERYONE in person to actually do it?
    10. Chat system is horrible is it even possible to reply to someone w/o having to type there name out all the time ? Should it be this hard to figure it out?
    11.Death, It took me 10 minutes to figure out that when i died i had to open my menu and hit return...thats ridiculous I had to figure out what to do when I die. Unacceptable.
    12. Terrain , SO MUCH COPY PASTE its so obvious that they copied so much terrain its not even funny.

    13. The world map, we really can't zoom in or out? Really? No really?! wow....

    This is quit possibly the WORST mmo I have ever played and that's really saying something. I've been gaming for over 15 years now and this is literally the worst. Even ff11 played better than this and its not that much better. It literally makes me want to spread the word out and make sure no one ever even thinks of buying this horrible excuse for an mmo. How anyone could possible give this game a good score is beyond me. They either are complete and total FFanbois or have just never actually played a good mmo before and are basing this game off of FFXI other than that it makes no sense when there are so many obvious flaws with this game they practically scream out to you.    … Expand
  99. sams
    Sep 30, 2010
    2
    This is a most definitely "wait and see", or "skip entirely". Major problems exist, caused by the game not containing the basics of an mmorpg. The UI issues can almost be forgiven. The terrible performance can be overlooked. But the lack of content, missing of core systems (even the map doesn't work properly), terrible billing system, and complete lack of direction to this game is theThis is a most definitely "wait and see", or "skip entirely". Major problems exist, caused by the game not containing the basics of an mmorpg. The UI issues can almost be forgiven. The terrible performance can be overlooked. But the lack of content, missing of core systems (even the map doesn't work properly), terrible billing system, and complete lack of direction to this game is the nail in the coffin. Do not buy.… Expand
  100. GreenEyedMonste
    Sep 30, 2010
    0
    Really disappointed. I have been looking forward to this game for quite a while. I put up with all the problems in beta because, well, it's beta. But nearly all the problems made it into the release. The only saving grace in this game is the graphics, however.
    -Simply moving around is not fluid at all. You can get stuck on 2 inch tall pebbles and even the slightest incline.
    -Combat is    Really disappointed. I have been looking forward to this game for quite a while. I put up with all the problems in beta because, well, it's beta. But nearly all the problems made it into the release. The only saving grace in this game is the graphics, however.
    -Simply moving around is not fluid at all. You can get stuck on 2 inch tall pebbles and even the slightest incline.
    -Combat is clunky(nothing to do with lag)
    -Empty world.(Nothing in it but monsters and the occasional crystal camp)
    -Lacking in story(You literally have to grind four hours on end just to see 30 minutes of storyline every 10 or so levels)
    -Completely backwards party system(It's actually better to party up then solo on other sides of the map because of the way you get exp)
    -Aggro system is broken. A single heal spell can completely peel any mob.
    -Lack of content, you can craft, do a few daily style quests that are more bland than any WoW kill quest, then you grind until you can do more of those poor quests.
    -Frustrating UI that requires you to flood your whole screen with menus in order to do ANYTHING even opening a simple door.
    -Mobs are not balanced, randomly something that registers as "Weaker than you" can kill you in two shots, and others that register as "You don't have a chance" hardly does any damage -Crafting is the only way to reliably get gear(you very rarely get them from the quests)
    -Crafting even the lowest level newbie gear requires several crafts and lots of failing and losing items. It should not take several hours just to assemble a pair of level 5 pants.
    -Many many more problems.

    They rushed the release of this game, and forced through a poorly implemented quest system.

    Don't believe all the mindless fan boys. Unless you like grinding hours on end and don't mind a frustrating UI, you will not like this game.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

23
#23 Most Discussed PC Game of 2010
27
#27 Most Shared PC Game of 2010

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
49

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 26
  3. Negative: 13 out of 26
  1. PC Games (Russia)
    Mar 21, 2011
    50
    Positively, there is nothing to do in Final Fantasy XIV at the moment. It's not even close to a completed product. [Feb 2011, p.82]
  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 15, 2011
    40
    MMORPG with great potential is sunken by fatal bugs and errors – first comes a catastrophic interface followed by the absence of player-to-player communication. [Issue#199]
  3. games(TM)
    Jan 11, 2011
    40
    For hardware nuts, Final Fantasy obsessives and PS3 owners, FFXIV does offer a fairly distinctive MMO experience. [Christmas 2010, p.94]
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