Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn

 PlayStation 4
User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 906 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 679 out of 906
  2. Mixed: 81 out of 906
  3. Negative: 146 out of 906
Buy Now
Buy on

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. ShortReviews
    Oct 1, 2014
    7
    An average MMORPG experience that will satisfy most fans of the Final Fastasy Series. Great for anyone looking to explore a new world, or perhaps indulge in a combat system that differs from most other MMO's on the market today. The main story quest's has it's ups and downs. I felt as if certain phases of the story were dragged on too long. Worth a try.
  2. MethosTR
    Aug 16, 2014
    7
    First off, I want to state that MMORPG subscriptions do not bother me, as long as they are not exorbitantly expensive. As I received the game as a gift, I'm not going to comment on its price either.

    Now, on with my review. The story is fairly solid and well written, but also the overall theme and elements of the story are typical of the series. The leveling experience is easy, with a    First off, I want to state that MMORPG subscriptions do not bother me, as long as they are not exorbitantly expensive. As I received the game as a gift, I'm not going to comment on its price either.

    Now, on with my review.

    The story is fairly solid and well written, but also the overall theme and elements of the story are typical of the series. The leveling experience is easy, with a lot of alternate methods to use to help mitigate the monotony of grinding. The game's replayability is very good, as you can level every class and job on one character.

    The endgame is very diverse, if a bit shallow in depth. Currently it's a trivial affair to gear up in raid-level gear and begin raiding literally within a few hours of hitting level 50.

    But the major flaws in the game are very evident as well...

    Crafting is needlessly overcomplicated and perhaps the most tedious and downright infuriating system I've ever experienced in ANY game. In order to even have a chance of successfully crafting top-end items in high quality, you are almost forced into having every crafting class maxed out... which is a terrible game design decision that SE has made.

    While some may not agree with me, the lack of a basic service that most MMORPGs have, and is expected to be a standard in the genre... And that is character renaming. There really is no reason why this hasn't been implemented.

    TL;DR: FFXIV:ARR is a very solid game that is a vast improvement over its previous incarnation. But glaring flaws prevent it from becoming a great game.

    I'll remain subscribed, but only in the short term.    … Expand
  3. Hurrikhan
    Apr 2, 2018
    5
    Too much Fedex between the good parts.
    I stopped caring about the story pretty quickly and of the three months I've got to play, I did 120 hours which were mostly a chore with a few nice dungeons in between.
    Every time I think I'll play a bit with friends, I find something else to do : washing the dishes, taking a nap, playing a game that is challenging interesting and fun, ... I've    Too much Fedex between the good parts.
    I stopped caring about the story pretty quickly and of the three months I've got to play, I did 120 hours which were mostly a chore with a few nice dungeons in between.
    Every time I think I'll play a bit with friends, I find something else to do : washing the dishes, taking a nap, playing a game that is challenging interesting and fun, ...
    I've been told it will be better once I'm level 70 ... but i doubt it's worth the pain going there.    … Expand
  4. Webern
    Oct 11, 2014
    6
    In short...

    Pros: great music, nice characters, nice graphics. Dungeons are very fun, I really enjoyed them. Great storyline, you can raise every skill/class with only one character Cons: worthless crafting, you need to change outfit/spec every time you want to craft or gather, invisible walls everywhere, water is exclusively decorative, poor PvP, poor end of game content. Ah, and    In short...

    Pros: great music, nice characters, nice graphics. Dungeons are very fun, I really enjoyed them. Great storyline, you can raise every skill/class with only one character

    Cons: worthless crafting, you need to change outfit/spec every time you want to craft or gather, invisible walls everywhere, water is exclusively decorative, poor PvP, poor end of game content. Ah, and when I travel on an airship or on a boat, I like to actually enjoy the travel, not only seeing a cut scene. It ruins the sense of immersion.    … Expand
  5. SimonTemplar
    Jul 5, 2014
    7
    Let me first start off by saying this is a good game. I have a lot of respect for Square Enix resurrecting this game after it's failed attempt a few years back. Most MMORPG's fail in my opinion because they do well in one area but lack in all the others. This is a well rounded MMORPG experience that will be a safe buy for any MMO or Final Fantasy fan. My main dispute with the game isLet me first start off by saying this is a good game. I have a lot of respect for Square Enix resurrecting this game after it's failed attempt a few years back. Most MMORPG's fail in my opinion because they do well in one area but lack in all the others. This is a well rounded MMORPG experience that will be a safe buy for any MMO or Final Fantasy fan. My main dispute with the game is the main quest line. I couldn't help but not care about any of the quests in this game except the final ones. You have to prove yourself a lot which in hindsight is expected, but the way they make you prove yourself is stupid. For instance, before you are allowed to fight a harder boss, you must first kill something that is incredibly easy. They try to hype up what you are doing as something difficult but it really isn't. Just time consuming. The game didn't offer me enough challenge or variety when it came to this aspect of the game.

    I wish MMO's would realize that dragging the progression of a story on and on in attempt to milk dollars from players is a thing of the past. At least it should be. Why not create a shorter story line experience that doesn't beat around the bush and stop forcing players to do meaningless tasks? Why not offer other content that is as satisfying and fun in order to help players level up? None of the dungeons I played really wowed me, as well as the gear received. The queues were surprisingly long considering how many people are currently playing it. I didn't walk away feeling accomplished for looting a rare drop like I have in other MMO's such as WoW and SWTOR. I never felt like I had an advantage in this game when it came to gear because it never seemed like I killed enemies any quicker with or without better gear.

    I know it seems like I just s*** on this game, but I did enjoy my experience with it. I'm hoping that other companies would look at what Square Enix did and implement the same effect in remaking some failed titles. *Cough* Mass Effect 3 *Cough* *Cough*. Anyways, 7/10 is a fair score for this game. Good job Square Enix!    … Expand
  6. Skydog
    Apr 28, 2014
    6
    @Zuldo
    That mentioned that your Beta characters wouldn't transfer if you played Beta #1....
    (If you played Beta #2 they should have, but honestly why would you want to play an already leveled character? I think that's boring.. especially since your paying monthly) Now to my review.... For the price of the game and the monthly fee I was very strict going into this one so....    @Zuldo
    That mentioned that your Beta characters wouldn't transfer if you played Beta #1....
    (If you played Beta #2 they should have, but honestly why would you want to play an already leveled character? I think that's boring.. especially since your paying monthly)

    Now to my review....

    For the price of the game and the monthly fee I was very strict going into this one so....

    Good:
    - Graphics are amazing, PS3 and PS4 versions do not compare graphically or framerate wise.
    - A lot of stuff to do
    - A lot of class choices

    Bad:
    - Like I said in good "A lot of stuff to do", for someone like me that can also be bad if I'm trying to do too much at once lol.. I can't multitask :X
    - Doesn't feel too interactive with other users really.... Everyone just walks by you without a hello or gesture... Seems kinda like a SP game just full of more functional npcs lol (No I don't expect this all the time but it just makes the game seem not like an MMO.. WoW was more "chatty" per say..)
    - Doesn't seem worth the $15 a month, thankfully I got a free month free. Deciding if I want to do a month or two but than this game will probably sit on the shelf unplayable collecting dust...    … Expand
  7. Sweetew
    Apr 21, 2014
    6
    This game isn´t bad. But it´s not great either.

    The world is limited, not that the world is linear, but there is simply too many invisble walls. The whole crafting system is nice, but ultimately pointless, as they require a big effort to level up, but the gear you find in dungeons are better. The story dungeons is the most retarded thing. Who thought it would be a good idea, to    This game isn´t bad. But it´s not great either.

    The world is limited, not that the world is linear, but there is simply too many invisble walls.

    The whole crafting system is nice, but ultimately pointless, as they require a big effort to level up, but the gear you find in dungeons are better.

    The story dungeons is the most retarded thing. Who thought it would be a good idea, to FORCEFULLY make people group up to complete the story? Not that I don´t like grouping, but I spent 2 hours trying to find a group with the in-built dungeon finder.

    The quests are incredible boring, and I simply gave up at level 34.

    Combat is boring, guild wars 2, Elder scrolls online, and many other MMO´s have much better combat. And while the game certainly tries to make it better, by you having to dodge skillshouts, it ultimately falls flat.

    Only some of the cutscenes have voiceover, making the rest feel lazy and imcomplete    … Expand
  8. ravenclaw77
    May 14, 2014
    7
    I played this on PS3, PC and PS4. The PS4 version is the only one I enjoy but on PS4 I give it a perfect 10. The graphics are so much better, frame rates are great, and the touch pad makes all the difference with controls. If you have a PS4, thid is the only must buy title, until Q4 when ESO finaly comes out, maybe.
  9. no1killr
    Mar 1, 2015
    5
    This game was only played on the PS4, first I want to say though the graphics are stunning and character creation us awesome, the game has many issues to include the PS4's abilities to run such a vast program. this is just my experience and my own opinion.
    Square Enix under went n astonishing make over for a Realm Reborn! the game had great potential and some of the best character    This game was only played on the PS4, first I want to say though the graphics are stunning and character creation us awesome, the game has many issues to include the PS4's abilities to run such a vast program. this is just my experience and my own opinion.
    Square Enix under went n astonishing make over for a Realm Reborn! the game had great potential and some of the best character designs seen in MMO's to date. However the console chosen for the game was not quite ready to handle the vast amount of data needed to run FFXIV, PS4 even with the best internet connection speed cannot handle MMO's, it's FPS (frames per second) causes the game to be choppy and chalky in heavily populated areas or large graphic fighting. infact for most of the 70+ hours I played and adventured in the game, there were very few places I did not experience the constant skipping and lag. After purchasing the game you will have to wait at least 4 to 6 hours to play it due to the enormous download needed to play plus all the patches and updates. Another problem with the PS4 is that even if you put the system on standby it tends to shut down all downloading and when you start the system back up you will be commencing your downloads from where it stopped. It took my PS4 nearly 11 hours to get all the data needed and I have a great internet connection. Ultimately though the game is nice in graphics and the idea of the game was great, the console is not the best platform to use for such an expansive game. I just feel in the time it takes to download everything needed to enjoy the game, the juice is not worth the squeeze.    … Expand
  10. Thaksin
    Mar 25, 2021
    7
    Старая школа классических ММО здесь. Мне пришлась по нраву, не зря в топах у многих блогеров.

    Из минусов подчеркнул бы отсутствие озвучивания квестов, полное отсутствие русского в любой его виде, типа субтитров, крайне яркая анимация (для некоторых игроков) и черт возьми затянутая сюжетная линия.    Старая школа классических ММО здесь. Мне пришлась по нраву, не зря в топах у многих блогеров.

    Из минусов подчеркнул бы отсутствие озвучивания квестов, полное отсутствие русского в любой его виде, типа субтитров, крайне яркая анимация (для некоторых игроков) и черт возьми затянутая сюжетная линия.
  11. Lion7
    May 7, 2015
    7
    It's definitely an MMO, and with the reboot feels familiar to some of the other big three-letter games. With the Final Fantasy brand, graphics, and music, this feels like a very polished game, if somewhat generic at times. That said, it pulled me away from WoW after its recent downward spiral.

    It took me a few days, but after playing with the PSN 14-day Free Trial I found myself buying    It's definitely an MMO, and with the reboot feels familiar to some of the other big three-letter games. With the Final Fantasy brand, graphics, and music, this feels like a very polished game, if somewhat generic at times. That said, it pulled me away from WoW after its recent downward spiral.

    It took me a few days, but after playing with the PSN 14-day Free Trial I found myself buying a copy of the game for both the PC and PS4. This is not a game you just pick up and evaluate within the first hour.

    REBOOT: Make no mistake, the original Final Fantasy XIV was an awful game. The developers recognized the mistake and literally killed it. A Realm Reborn isn't just a flashy subtitle.

    CONTROLS: Done surprisingly well for a console MMO. They do take some time getting used to, and developing the muscle memory for your L2/R2+Button combinations. Even using Remote Play and being extremely lazy (playing from my bed) felt alright enough to play. I'm told there are people who do end-game instances on the console, but I would definitely recommend using a keyboard and mouse for that. The controller controls work just fine.

    GAMEPLAY: Standard MMO gameplay. There are a few different ways to level classes, depending on how much grinding you want to do. The best feature is that you can switch classes as easily as switching weapons. One character can level any class or job, defeating the need for alts unless you want to raid multiple times a week.

    LIFE: The game is doing well, several servers are locked almost 23 hours a day because of the number of people playing, and there is the first expansion pack coming this summer. There are some cash shop options, but the game relies on subscription costs. Thankfully, the game is not overly plagued by a microtransaction store or F2P-esque elements.    … Expand
  12. smw119
    Feb 24, 2017
    7
    There are a number of things that hold this otherwise fantastic MMO back from being what it should be. What this game shows is that there's a lot of untapped potential that can only be fully witnessed if one is willing to jump into the excellent expansion for this game.
    With a myriad of truly unforgivable bugs at launch (which I did not have the misfortune of experiencing but have heard    There are a number of things that hold this otherwise fantastic MMO back from being what it should be. What this game shows is that there's a lot of untapped potential that can only be fully witnessed if one is willing to jump into the excellent expansion for this game.
    With a myriad of truly unforgivable bugs at launch (which I did not have the misfortune of experiencing but have heard legends of) and a sloppy presentation in the story, there's too many missteps to ignore. Knowing all of these things, is this a bad game? The answer is a resounding no. The graphics are gorgeous for an MMO and the areas keep you wide eyed and give you that sense of awe which is so appropriate to games like this. The gameplay is standard fair for an MMO which is no small feat but does nothing to differentiate itself too much from the pack.
    There's always something to do here and it's easy to lose yourself in this world, which is what MMOs do best. But the biggest flaw in this experience as it currently stands is in the story presentation and the voice acting. You will often find yourself doing menial, uninteresting tasks just to get to the next bit of interesting content or to the next story point. While this is not unheard of in MMOs it does stick out since the story itself, until the end at least, is not particularly compelling. This lack of depth can be attributed to some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard in a video game.
    There are so many moments where I got invested into the story only to find myself laughing uncontrollably to the horribly bad acting in some of the most important story moments. These moments ripped me clean out of the world, broke my immersion and reminded me that I'm playing a video game. This is not why somebody plays an MMO. MMOs are designed to get lost in and when the game takes you right out of the world it's a fairly big disappointment. Now that the expansion has come out, people in the community laugh and look upon these earlier, cringy moments with endeared affection. But if one were to experience this game without the expansion or anything to look forward to after ARR, then the flaws could leave one feeling a little disappointed.
    If you do happen to pick up this MMO, power through the base game to get to the expansion and enjoy the game for what it gets right. The atmosphere, the mechanics and the positive community that it puts a lot of effort into maintaining. Underneath it all, FFXIV is an amazing game that I've put, literally, thousands of hours into and wont stop soon as the new expansion looms on the horizon just a few months away. Just be prepared to skip a lot of dialogue and cut-scenes as you go through the story missions. Trust me, you will be eventually if you play this long enough.
    But if you want to get lost in a beautifully rendered world based on Final Fantasy, then this is the MMO for you, flaws and all.    … Expand
  13. candidKlutz
    Apr 3, 2023
    7
    I'm going to start this off by saying that when I first decided to try this game, I didn't think I was going to like it. I'm not a fan of subscription models, and I had yet to ever enjoy a single MMO before playing it. I could not have been more surprised.

    It's true that ARR has a slow start to it, but they had to make enough quests to fill it all the way up to level 50. Don't listen to    I'm going to start this off by saying that when I first decided to try this game, I didn't think I was going to like it. I'm not a fan of subscription models, and I had yet to ever enjoy a single MMO before playing it. I could not have been more surprised.

    It's true that ARR has a slow start to it, but they had to make enough quests to fill it all the way up to level 50. Don't listen to anyone saying that it's boring, though. I enjoyed it immensely, especially all of the post ARR patches leading up to HW.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

12
#12 Best PS4 Game of 2014
36
#36 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2014
30
#30 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
86

Generally favorable reviews - based on 35 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 35
  3. Negative: 0 out of 35
  1. Gamer.no
    Aug 26, 2014
    70
    A solid, safe and well-made port to the PlayStation 4. Pretty visuals, hours of gameplay and solid combat makes this one of the best massive online games for console to date.
    Read full review
  2. The Digital Fix
    Jun 19, 2014
    90
    By adhering to the cookie-cutter conformity of MMO tropes, A Realm Reborn doesn’t attempt anything wholly new but shines in its familiarity.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    Jun 7, 2014
    86
    The best Final Fantasy game in years and the finest MMO you can currently play on a console. [July 2014, p.72]
See all critic reviews »