Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

 PC
User Score
9.1

Universal acclaim- based on 993 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 890 out of 993
  2. Mixed: 39 out of 993
  3. Negative: 64 out of 993
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  1. kanelgiffel
    Jun 20, 2017
    1
    Exactly the same as the previous expansion, following the same old formula since the reboot some 3 years ago. Same dungeon format, same leveling format, same raid format. Nothing else new added to the game. Very uninspired overall.
  2. yousuck1
    Aug 21, 2020
    0
    Sucks.,.................................................. ...................
  3. erazor2021
    Aug 18, 2021
    0
    If you don’t like the Trial / “Realm Reborn” take my word, you won’t like any of it…

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

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

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

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

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better, in terms of graphics, animations, storytelling, but the CORE of the game doesn’t change, it is still this outdated mmorpg tab targeting, with its main FOCUS on MSQ, which is basically walls of text.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Even most fans think the post RR quests are so bad, yet square hasnt fixed it by just removing it for new players by using a short narration cutscene to bring players up to date for havensward. (And i heard it was even worse, oh dear God).    … Expand
  4. Dokkodo
    Jul 2, 2017
    3
    Not worth $15 let alone $60. They've added new zones that are devoid of life just like the old ones. Two new EX Primals, that's a patch not an expansion. Sure there's an upcoming raid, but that's still not enough to justify the price.

    Not to mention they still haven't upgraded their servers (and there's significant server-side lag) and still continue to do things like charge MONTHLY for    Not worth $15 let alone $60. They've added new zones that are devoid of life just like the old ones. Two new EX Primals, that's a patch not an expansion. Sure there's an upcoming raid, but that's still not enough to justify the price.

    Not to mention they still haven't upgraded their servers (and there's significant server-side lag) and still continue to do things like charge MONTHLY for extra inventory space when they overpack your inventory which even F2P games shouldn't do.

    They also charge for a lot of cosmetics, which I can get over, but is still very distasteful for a subscription game.

    Music continues to be good, graphics are acceptable, new classes and class revamps are ok. Should've been a free patch and not an expansion.    … Expand
  5. Nezia
    Jul 24, 2017
    0
    Price increase with no warning 1 month after expansion release, gj SE, that's how you ruin an entire player base, shady acts and even shadier responses.
  6. Powermario0
    Jan 24, 2019
    1
    Don't ever step in this **** This isn't a game, it's garbage. It's not fun, it's not rewarding and of course because it's made by Square Enix they can't make good games, can't they? Actually they do make some good games here and there, but this oh boy don't even touch this **** even with a stick because the stick is gonna pull you in the **** Don't buy it, don't even think about it. ThisDon't ever step in this **** This isn't a game, it's garbage. It's not fun, it's not rewarding and of course because it's made by Square Enix they can't make good games, can't they? Actually they do make some good games here and there, but this oh boy don't even touch this **** even with a stick because the stick is gonna pull you in the **** Don't buy it, don't even think about it. This is trash, not a game!

    This wasn't a joke review, I'm serious.    … Expand
  7. zaftgun
    Mar 7, 2019
    3
    Main quest are long, boring and tedious. Average characters, story, music, poor quality in some parts. Boss and dungeon design uninspiring. The game showed no improvement in terms of design and systems from the original release of ffxiv a realm reborn. Its just a big unenjoyable time-waster.

    The tasks are so lame and simple that automated bots make up half the player base, they do the    Main quest are long, boring and tedious. Average characters, story, music, poor quality in some parts. Boss and dungeon design uninspiring. The game showed no improvement in terms of design and systems from the original release of ffxiv a realm reborn. Its just a big unenjoyable time-waster.

    The tasks are so lame and simple that automated bots make up half the player base, they do the same main story quests as you do and even farm dungeons in duty finder. If you are playing the same game they do, you are doing it wrong.

    This is a ridiculous time waster that makes you dumb. Stay away.    … Expand
  8. kumbula
    Jul 14, 2017
    0
    I am rpg nerd i absolutely hate this VOICELESS mmo, absolutely rubbish quests without any narration, Just npcs opening their mouth and wall of text appears, it gets so boring the time goes on. Imagine leveling like that till the lvl cap. I dont understand how can anyone play this without buying max lvl boost so he can avoid talking to npcs.
  9. vahn
    Jul 13, 2018
    0
    I played this garbage for 5 years now (in fact I had a review from 4.0), and the only thing I can think of is "fall in quality". The game never - EVER - got better in any possible way, not in gameplay or content - and the story is another thing which I'll gladly talk about very soon.

    In fact let me start with the story which is, to say it bluntly, completely garbage: I used to follow it    I played this garbage for 5 years now (in fact I had a review from 4.0), and the only thing I can think of is "fall in quality". The game never - EVER - got better in any possible way, not in gameplay or content - and the story is another thing which I'll gladly talk about very soon.

    In fact let me start with the story which is, to say it bluntly, completely garbage: I used to follow it during 2.0 and 2.1 and I could not believe how bad it was, it simply wasn't entertaining nor engaging to follow it to the point that I only followed bits and pieces ever since.

    I am a HUGE JRPG lover, some of my favorite JRPGs are Trails of Cold Steel, Berseria, Vesperia, and old classics like Legend of Dragoon, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger/Cross, the list goes on, but this game flat out fails to tell an entertaining story and at actually engaging you; if you don't follow from the very start, you're basically unable to follow afterwards and making it very noob unfriendly to anyone who even dares to step in.

    If at least each expansion was its own separate story - which is how it should've been - I could at least compare each story by itself and maybe even enjoy them, but nope: have fun following a bunch of morons with no personality throughout plot lines so forced not even lube would help.
    Oh and of course you cannot skip it as they wanted to make it clearly the focus of the game...until they decided to add a jumping potion that allows you to skip to level 60 and begin the story from the last expansion
    The story is truly important, but so is money, now pay up if you actually wanna experience the game or enjoy the 548 unskippable quests!

    Alright now, let's pretend you actually survived the long ordeal and you FINALLY manage to be able to do all the content: at first it is a lot of stuff, I'm not even joking here, but you will soon realize that it's a flash in the pan and you'll soon have nothing to do for the rest of the game.

    For example there are 50+ dungeons to unlock and clear, which sounds like you'll have a lot of fun doing them, but once you're done clearing you have no reason to re-run them as they give you no incentives or achievements or anything worth a second run. SE seemed to have realized this too and they started giving crappy glamour items in order to give them some more life, but even then it doesn't hide the fact that dungeons have no lasting power. Even WoW's dungeon are still re-run thanks to the achievements and a better transmog function, which ACTUALLY gives a good reason to do them.
    FFXIV dungeons are, essentially, rotten data.

    Crafting and Gathering are probably the only two things that seemed to have some lasting power, if they didn't rely solely on complete RNG, which is there only to make it LOOK harder: the potential was there but they ruined it by giving each action a % that will easily screw your rotation and basically make you quit instantly. Fishing is even worse and all you'll be doing is sitting for hours upon hours, hoping to hook the fish you want, hopefully HQ, and then repeat the process until you get better gear, which will become obsolete in few months...fun?

    And there are a lot of side content - or fluff content - that has no real staying power at all: Gold saucer is the prime example with its crappy card game, LoL copy, crappy Chocobo racing and other minor stuff that you'll most likely never bother with unless you're into collecting crap. Hunts were potentially progress content until it died out because it never innovated, with people preferring doing weekly stuff rather than jump into the toxic pool. Eureka is currently the worst content I EVER played in my entire life, even worse than Diadem, and I can't even recommend it as a joke! Beast tribes are okay but I wish they gave more than 3 quests per day: this takes less than 20 minutes to clear. There are many but it's the daily lockout that will stop you and make it LOOK like it's longer than it should. PvP is okay, but the combat system is clearly not made for PvP and it turns out clunky and just not fun. A shame.

    And now the community, oh dear Lord the community: we're talking about a group that will relentlessly defend this game and its flaws, even at the cost of harassing people or namecalling you.
    I mean It's not even hard to seek them out: simply mention your dislike for the main story and you'll be stormed by everyone; say that the game is boring and they'll slap you and shout "go back to wow" or something; try to say that you're having no fun with the current content and hopefully they'll just ignore you or say you whine a lot - even if that was your only complain.
    There is simply no discussing with these people: I've been playing for 5 years and I safely say "there is not a single person who was worth calling a friend". Not even one. I had better times in LoL - or even WoW - than in this toxic cesspool of a community.
    As such, I highly recommend staying away from this game and just save your sub.    … Expand
  10. stupidusername
    May 3, 2020
    1
    I tried out Final Fantasy XIV on a whim with a discounted price for some sale..Not wanting to have to level to max, I purchased for $25 a "level to 100" kit so I could try out the pvp(which was why I bought the game). Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me I was unable to even participate in pvp, or anything but the level 1 starter quest. That's right, in order to do ANYTHING in the game youI tried out Final Fantasy XIV on a whim with a discounted price for some sale..Not wanting to have to level to max, I purchased for $25 a "level to 100" kit so I could try out the pvp(which was why I bought the game). Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me I was unable to even participate in pvp, or anything but the level 1 starter quest. That's right, in order to do ANYTHING in the game you have to go through a 70000000 hour quest that is so boring you will want to die. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME unless you really enjoy storyline, which I do not. I felt ripped off, and will never log in again.… Expand
  11. sadcustomer
    Jun 21, 2017
    0
    The game is designed to keep you out of expansion, unless you pay them extra. You must rent inventory not all servers are treated to the same game experience. Also take into consideration this is the same fan base that sent the dev birthday gifts (that's right they sent the game dev birthday gift) and has a blind devotion.

Awards & Rankings

11
#11 Best PC Game of 2017
54
#54 Most Discussed PC Game of 2017
55
#55 Most Shared PC Game of 2017

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
87

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
  1. Cubed3
    Jan 2, 2018
    90
    Stormblood is simply amazing. Not much more can be said about it. With a very well-crafted story, some tense and epic battles, two new classes, and wonderful zones, saying anything else would ruin so much of the expansion and what makes it great.
    Read full review
  2. Game Rant
    Aug 21, 2017
    90
    Do yourself a favor and lose yourself in the world of Hydaelyn for a good month at the very least. You won’t regret it.
    Read full review
  3. Everyeye.it
    Jul 25, 2017
    90
    Kugane's eastern atmospheres did a great job at Eorzea, which has never been so attractive.
    Read full review
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