Echoing the sentiments of players, even the western gaming press is hammering Final Fantasy XIV – the worst example of which being a Gamespot review giving the game 40% and calling it “a step backward for the genre” and commenting that “Final Fantasy XIV isn’t fun; it’s work.”
The executive summary:
Good:
Impressive visual engine
Flexible class system lets you be what you want, when you want.Bad:
Absolutely miserable interface
Does a poor job of communicating important information
Limited questing means you’re always looking for something fun to do
Everything about the economy stinks
Every aspect of the game is filled with dumb obstacles.4.0/10 – Poor
In other comments there are telling complaints about the game’s new casual mission structure – “bland, repetitive, stand-alone missions that involve killing a certain number of creatures or harvesting resources” which “the game inexplicably limits […] to eight every 36 hours.”
The game is further panned in conclusion:
Final Fantasy XIV is a notable entry to the genre but only for what it lacks.
It lacks character; bare-bones quests and audiovisual repetition fail to instill a sense of fantasy wonder.
It lacks cohesion; communication failures, economic oddities, and stringent limitations leave you constantly directionless.
And it lacks joy; the abysmal interface and boring monsters make it a struggle to stay invested. The open-ended classes, the stunning graphics engine, the focus on story–these elements deserve rightful praise.
It’s a shame they weren’t put to use in a game worthy of the Final Fantasy brand. Certainly, Final Fantasy XIV will improve as features are added, yet the failures go beyond the superficial.
Updates may address a multitude of flaws, but “fun” is not a feature that can be added with a simple patch.
Whilst Gamespot is hardly a paragon of reliability, their comments do seem broadly in line with the generally unfavourable reaction the game has so far inspired (not to be confused with the surprisingly rabid reaction of both Square Enix fans and detractors).
For those wondering, Gamespot gave Final Fantasy XI 8.2 and World of Warcraft 9.5.
Little wonder Square Enix was keen for reviewers to wait until after everyone had the chance to rue the purchase themselves.
f♥♥k it… it sucks monkey f♥♥k and shouldnt be played.
I have to admit, the game isn’t so much fun starting off as of yet. They’ve shown a slew of the potential the game holds, and that has been exciting. If you kept up with the videos, a person like me who was considering XI another go, was promised so much from the next installment and it promised to be wonderful.
And you are dropped in some of that from the videos and interviews when you play. In Gridania, or whatever town, you are treated to a real introduction to a place. And not only that, you have to linearly, but certainly not over-linearly go on a quick group of instances. For instance, Gridania you immediately have to go to the Adventurer’s Guild, and your next missions are not by any means bad.
Unfortunately, after the first mission, you’re left to do levequests and just grind until your rank is high enough in one class to do another story.
So while the current content and content promised in the future are something truly epic to be marveled at, something that makes you want to hurry up and get a good computer, the game, a subscription, and log in to be a part of this world so you don’t miss out on some epic development, right now it’s far to spread out, and you feel more like Goku training in a Time Chamber waiting for the world to truly “come alive” and you’ll be prepared for all that content that’s coming.
And as much as I’m still on edge and dying for my Shantotto, I could only hold out grind for so long, and have eventually had to take longer breaks, playing for a lot less a day and a lot less a way, using my new rig and all the effort I had made to play the game earlier and get ahead in the game so I don’t miss out on being one of the players to conquer Absolute Virtue XIV instead of late or not even reaching many of the things I wanted to in XI, to emulate PlayStation 2 games. In which a computer that is able to handle playing Final Fantasy XIV seems to even easier emulate the PlayStation 2.
I think that we should all hold them to their promises for this game, in which have been massive and indeed worth being a part of. But I can understand many people no having fun, yet. They haven’t even released a fourth of the content that they’ve promised, which is much more massive than that promised of XI, and content is important. The Roleplayers have already pushed out twice the content of Square Enix. If not many times more than that.
The only real reason to play right now is if you’re gotten your hands on a good roleplaying group to make full use of your beautiful Lolifell, Miqo’te, sprawling worlds, beautiful lands, and other immediate immersion benefits, and occasionally grind, or completely grind waiting for possible player created(roleplay) or Square created content in the future, so that you will be level capped and all ready for anything that’s thrown at you instead of being late to the party.
The latter of which most people are doing, and is, indeed, much like a painful job, and “addiction-forming” in some of the worst ways. I’m becoming addicted to preparing for my promises, and I already hate grinding, but one you start getting past ranks and levels further than 18, that grind that was kind of less than horrible at first, becomes something you’re, or at least I’m, really pushing myself to do just relying on the promises I’m given. And even those aren’t enough to keep me going for too many days at a time, even I have a threshold.
As much as I want to be fully prepared for my promises, I want the content to hurry up and get here.
I firmly believe in those promises, again. But it’s certainly not very fun yet, now.
Gametrailers has posted their review also.
“We suppose there is potential down the line for the experience to improve with patches and tweeks, but that doesn’t justify why the game is in such shambles at launch. There are too many good MMOs on the market for you to spend your time and money on this broken, incomplete mess.
Overall: 4.2”
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-final-fantasy/705892
I couldn’t care less about its flaws…
Miqo’te <3
I’m willing to bet it’s not as bad as they’re saying. Yeah it might have some problems but it’s an MMO. It’s not like it can’t change.