1. Yoshihito

   Aug 27, 2013

   10

   This game has come a long way from the fiasco that was version 1.0. Overall, Square Enix has done a great job completely remaking the game and optimizing everything that failed in the first. And aside from the server issues during Early Access and the 1017 errors as of launch this game couldn't be any better.
   
   You can call me a fanboy or just not agree with what I'm saying, that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and this happens to be mine. I've been playing since 1.0 but didn't play it for long because it did suck big time. When I heard about FFXIV:ARR I was excited and hoped they would do a better job this time around. They have.
   
   The game is better in almost every way. The graphics are almost as good and don't kill your system like 1.0 did. Most people couldn't run the old game. The optimizations have worked out wonderfully. I can safely say that it's one of the besting looking MMORPG's out. People seem to mistake that for best looking game but that's not the case. This is right up there with TERA in terms of beautiful MMO graphics. By the way, I am running on maximum settings with 60+ fps. Perks of building your own extreme gaming PC.
   
   The quest system is much improved and everything just feels more fluid. There is a lot of text to read but that's pretty standard. They do a pretty good job of defining what you need to do and it all isn't just fetch or kill quests. I think the most a quest has ever had me kill is 5 of a particular monster. I'm currently a 26 Marauder. My only gripe is I wish all the dialogue was all voice acted but as it stands only select in game cutscenes are voice acted. The ones that are are pretty well done too, some of the voices fit the characters while there are others that don't.
   
   Things to do are plentiful in this game. Want to quest, sure, go ahead. Want to craft? You can do it all on one character. FATE's are frequent and award nice experience and GC seals when you get that far. Leves are a fun diversion though I wish you weren't restricted to the allowance you're given. And you only gain 3 every 12 hours real life time. The story missions have been great too. Lot's of lore and character development to discover. Another great diversion are the Logs you have access to. Hunting Logs have you kill monsters for super bonus experience. It's all a nice way to help you level up.
   
   The only real issue I've had with the game so far is just the server issues which are doing much better than they were at the start of Early Access. Despite those issues I have given this game a 10/10 because it is everything I wanted and more. And the beauty is that it can only get better from here! They have so many wonderful plans for the future and even near future! So stick with it guys, I will, and I guarantee it will be a blast!… Expand

   • 99 of 144 users found this helpful
2. wazula5

   Aug 28, 2013

   10

   So far the game is excellent. The vast majority of the issues in 1.0 have been resolved.
   Initial class leveling is pretty quick and keeps the story moving.
   The Gear Set option is clutch a simple but massive improvement on inventory management and switching between classes.
   Love that they have established a new paradigm for grinding.… Expand

   • 4 of 9 users found this helpful
3. Jeimaiku

   Aug 27, 2013

   10

   A phenomenal game. This is the kind of MMO that MMO players have been waiting for, for a very long time. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's a gorgeous game with a well made engine. It's so good that people are clamoring by the thousands to play.
   
   There have been server issues (which is common among every MMO launch), but it's anticipated they'll be resolved in a week and then there will be literally nothing that would make this game less than a 10.… Expand

   • 8 of 22 users found this helpful
4. AmongstYou

   Sep 25, 2013

   9

   Final Fantasy XIV was a hugely botched opportunity, and one that Square themselves saw so much potential in, that they decided to apologize for their mistakes, and try again. The result? A well crafted, refined, and incredibly fun MMO RPG that both Final Fantasy fans and MMO fans can enjoy, without being simplified and dumbed down. Though not flawless, this is a game you'll be playing for ages, whether it's alone, or with friends.… Expand

   • 0 of 3 users found this helpful
5. crypticbutton

   Aug 30, 2013

   9

   Now that the majority of the kinks are fixed, it is a really enjoyable game. There is plenty to do and the and I can not see running out of things to do for a while. If you are a fan of the Final Fantasy series or just curious, buy the game play it for 30 days the decide. The story feels like a number FF game and wont disappoint.… Expand

   • 10 of 31 users found this helpful
6. Voqar

   Sep 28, 2013

   5

   It's pretty and what's there is polished but overall, FFXIV is a stripped down and dumber than usual post WoW clone that plays too fast and easy and which has little chance of keeping players busy like the old school MMORPGs it wants to copy (in regard to subs, little about the game itself is old school at all). FFXIV lacks MANY quality of life touches and features typically found in premium (MMO)RPGs. Making the game work on out of date consoles diminishes the PC potential.
   
   The story quests are generic, simplistic, and tedious. Other quests, when they exist are ultra simplistic and silly easy. The game has a public quest system called fates that are almost always zero challenge, zero threat, and tons of reward for doing nothing. Often at times while leveling, or especially when leveling alt classes, you'll ONLY be able to do fates you will do many fates. The dungeons have very fun bosses but are filled with tedious trash.
   
   Endgame is pretty typical grind some content, get your special currency, hand it in for gear, except in FFXIV there isn't a whole lot of content to grind to get that gear. Endgame content is an odd mix of very few challenging encounters mixed with some stupidly easy content and players tend to grind the least challenging most rewarding content (since there are no lockouts or restrictions or limits) so most players grind the same 2 instance several times a day for days.
   
   The game suffers big time from quality of life issues. No attributes or important stats on item comparison, clunky/brutal inventory system, clunkier/more brutal armoire system, cumbersome banking/market/ah system, no item preview, no server transfers, and on and on the list goes.
   
   FFXIV has a 2.5 second global cooldown, which is the wait time between actions in combat. You either fire an instant ability and wait 2.5s before you can act again, or you have spells with a 2.5s or higher casting time. The 2.5s GCD slows down combat. The theory is that it gives players more time to think although when you have simplified and stripped down and simplistic classes as in FFXIV, there isn't much to think about. Most MMORPGs (except FFXI, the predecessor) have a 1.5s GCD and often give you ways to reduce it to 1s or give you abilities "off the GCD".
   
   FFXIV has somewhat pretty graphics but for one thing, it has smallish zones with little to no exploration value, invisible barriers, you can't go in water or swim or fall off a cliff and die, or fall off a bridge, you can't jump off a dock into the ocean, you can't go into water that's more than knee deep, and so on. The bigger issue with the graphics is that the engine can't render lots of avatars at once, so in some game content, like when rare level 50 bosses appear every few days and hundreds of players show up, you can see maybe 20 players near you and may or may not be able to see and target the boss even when standing right on him.
   
   One of the potentially interesting things about FFXIV that ends up not being so great is how they do their class system. Any character can unlock and do any class (crafting and gathering disciplines are classes too). Some skills from a given class can be used wither classes (cross class skills) that allows you to augment your character a little. Then eventually you unlock jobs (prereq levels from 2 classes, for ex, gladiator conjuror paladin). Where this kind of breaks down is with the fact that jobs are highly restricted for cross class skills and even the base classes can often only find so many usefull skills to tack on, such that in the end, every player ends up being similar because there are so few choices.
   
   FFXIV doesn't have talents or any other way to customize your character, so with cross class skills being so limited, you end up with everybody being the same. On top of that all gear looks the same and there's no real customization (there are armor dyes but you can't dye the better gear. As a result, every player is a clone.
   
   The crafting system is a mix of a cool minigame style of going for high quality with skills and finite resources, but this ends up being brutally tedious to level up and since crafted gear is generic with drops and quest rewards until level 50, there isn't much point to crafting except to max it out for endgame.
   
   Gathering is also a minigame of sorts in that you can use skills to increase gathering change or to get high quality materials. Cool idea that's buried in brutal tedium as you run around in a circle tapping 4 tightly placed nodes that respawn faster than you circle.
   
   The game had a brutal release and even now players can wait 15-45 minutes to "reserve" a level 50 instance even joining as a full group.
   
   The game is plagued with gil spammers (RMT) in public chat and whispers.
   
   Console tie in results in small zones, tons of loading screens, screwy UI design, and 3/4 of cutscenes having no voice overs. Even the tiny cities are multi-zoned.… Expand

   • 3 of 3 users found this helpful
7. BudMan11

   Oct 12, 2013

   0

   NOTE: I put this review in the wrong spot, I actually played this game for ps3 and I cannot speak about the PC version of this game.
   REVIEW: This game is very bad, I wouldn't recommend spending any money on it. The graphics are pretty nice for 10 year old game. The soundtrack is not bad. This game is very boring and very repetitive. The map is terrible. I would recommend every other game on the planet before I would recommend this. Wish I could get a refund, signed up to metacritic just to tell everyone how bad this game is. The reviews for this game tell me one thing, never ever trust critic reviews, They must have a different copy of the game or were hit on the head or something. Run as far away from this game as you can, its boring and sucks.… Expand

   • 1 of 2 users found this helpful

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