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. 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
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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.
  6. 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
  7. 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.
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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.
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. 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.
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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
  23. zone16
    Sep 30, 2010
    0
    This game is an insult to the Final Fantasy series which always strived to be games of superb quality. It's as if this game wasn't even made by SE. Only good thing about the game are graphics. There is a ton of really annoying bugs, no one ever talks because of restricting chat system, no content because of their brilliant idea to restrict people to 8 leves (quests) per 36 hours, marketThis game is an insult to the Final Fantasy series which always strived to be games of superb quality. It's as if this game wasn't even made by SE. Only good thing about the game are graphics. There is a ton of really annoying bugs, no one ever talks because of restricting chat system, no content because of their brilliant idea to restrict people to 8 leves (quests) per 36 hours, market and economy is terrible because they didn't provide necessary tools to let you search for items or use an auction house. Everything takes ages to do. Crafting is overly complicated and grindy. 98% of this game is just grinding monsters or annoying yourself trying to craft by searching for 20 different items just so you could create one single weapon.… Expand
  24. Lans
    Sep 30, 2010
    3
    The best way I can describe it is if somebody took out all the good things about FFXI and made the problems even worse. Some lag and bugs are to be expected at launch so I'm not even counting those against it. Partying is broken due to the way skill gains are awarded and an exp bug that has been in for a long time since beta that prevents some people in groups larger than 2 from gainingThe best way I can describe it is if somebody took out all the good things about FFXI and made the problems even worse. Some lag and bugs are to be expected at launch so I'm not even counting those against it. Partying is broken due to the way skill gains are awarded and an exp bug that has been in for a long time since beta that prevents some people in groups larger than 2 from gaining SP. The market wards are a complete joke and you have no idea if the item you are looking for is actually for sale anywhere. The lack of content is appalling. The one saving grace could have been the story but even that is falling flat (maybe the others have better but Limsa's is pretty lame up to 20). The UI is quite possibly the worst out of any PC game in the past decade. No drag/drop, clicking on things typically doesn't do anything, and you have to go thru more menus than an old DOS MUD to get anything done.

    Not even sure this game has potential anymore. It HAD potential, but given that it's release and they haven't accomplished anything of significance and made so many bad decisions already I don't think they can dig themselves out anytime soon. The graphics and music are nice but the rest of it can hardly be classified as a game.    … Expand
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 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.
  28. Ferrsai
    Sep 30, 2010
    2
    I'm going to give this game a score of two. I think this is a fair score considering they didn't F up two things. Graphics - AWESOME! 10/10

    Stability - Pretty damn good here for me and a couple of friends of mine. I crashed once, but I think it was my fault. I crashed hourly during Age of Conan's launch. 9/10 Everything else (i.e. the bazaar system, leve system, macro system,    I'm going to give this game a score of two. I think this is a fair score considering they didn't F up two things. Graphics - AWESOME! 10/10

    Stability - Pretty damn good here for me and a couple of friends of mine. I crashed once, but I think it was my fault. I crashed hourly during Age of Conan's launch. 9/10

    Everything else (i.e. the bazaar system, leve system, macro system, equipment/character level progression...) Sucks big. I understand it takes a little time for the market to mature and such, but other than that I don't see a game overhaul happening to fix the other things I don't like. 0/10

    I wouldn't recommend this game, there are more mmo titles just around the corner. As a side note, this doesn't surprise me, I thought FF13 sucked too.    … Expand
  29. 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
  30. PopPhonic
    Sep 30, 2010
    1
    After trying my very hardest to love this game in the Beta, the only advice I have to fans is to run. Run far, far away from this game. Never look back. Horribly designed, sluggish, with nothing to keep you involved or enmeshed in the game's pretty graphics. After a month, you will feel like you have wasted your money.
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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]
See all critic reviews »