Support NeoGAF

[Effect]

It seems the first reviews are starting to come in.

GameSpot - http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/finalfantasy14/review.html - Score: 4.0 out of 10.

The Good:

Impressive visual engine. Flexible class system lets you be what you want, when you want.

The 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.

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.

Cheat Code Central - http://www.cheatcc.com/pc/rev/finalfantasyxivreview.html - 4.2/5

This review is kinda questionable I think. They seem to be rating the game more on it's potential even though they point out the negatives to it. I personally wouldn't take this score seriously. The graphics and sound ratings seem okay. Control and Play Value however are something else.

Amazon.co.jp and Amazon.com

As of 10/06/2010 at 11:10pm EST at a combined total of 235 reviews (take Amazon reviews for what they're worth in the end) spread across the Collector's Edition and the Standard addition the game is averaging 1.5 stars out of 5 on Amazon.co.jp.

On Amazon.com it's averaging 2.5 stars out of 5 with a total of 95 ratings spread across both PC versions.

Edit----------------------

GameTrailers - HD - http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-hd-final-fantasy/705893
SD - http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-hd-final-fantasy/705892?type=flv

Overall score: 4.2 out of 10.

Story: 5.7
Design: 3.2
Gameplay: 3.9
Presentation: 4.2

Final Fantasy 14 falls flat at almost every turn.

The interface is atrocious.

FF14 is in no way, shape or form ready for commercial release.

GameSpy - http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/square-enix-next-gen-mmorpg/1127142p1.html - Score: 2 out of 5

Pro: Not quite Star Trek Online bad.
Con: Worst user interface in a PC game since 1998; every aspect of game unnecessarily convoluted; feels like a free-to-play MMO in the very worst way.

This is the part of the review where critics typically express hope for the future of the MMO that they've otherwise viciously panned for the past 600 words. And I see glimmers of goodness here: The horizontal leveling system that allows on-the-fly class switching via weapon swaps is a fantastic idea, and the concept of a player-driven economy (based on complex interactions between the various crafting professions) sounds great on paper. I'm sure that -- given a year of nonstop patching -- FFXIV will probably be out of beta and acceptably functional. But, barring a complete overhaul of the user interface, the combat, the player interaction mechanics, the progress system, and of the layout of the world itself, FFXIV is unlikely to ever be fun.

(I don't get the diss at STO to be honest. Sure STO had it's problems but it wasn't anywhere near FFXIV bad from what I recall. They gave it the same score but clearly for different reasons which makes that diss weird to me. Oh well.)

IGN - http://pc.ign.com/articles/112/1123824p3.html - Score: 5.5 out of 10

Closing Comments

With its newest MMO in its flagship franchise, Square Enix delivers a gigantic, beautiful fantasy world to explore. The flexible class system means you'll be able to mix and match abilities from many different roles so you can change your specialization at will. Much of the promise of the combat system and depth of the crafting mechanics are drowned, unfortunately, under a sea of interface and performance issues that hinder the experience at nearly every step. While there's a lot to consider when building your ideal class, there's far too little interesting structured content to chew on, resulting in an experience that quickly grows tedious and tiresome. All MMOs are designed to keep players logging in for long into the future, but at launch Final Fantasy XIV's questing mechanics feel more like a subway commute than a fun gameplay experience. Patches over the course of the next few months may address many of the technical issues, but for now this is not a world worth visiting.

Score Break down.

3.0 Presentation

Terrible interface, sluggish menu response times, poor overworld map, and many other issues. Interesting story, though, in the main missions.

7.0 Graphics

It's an absolutely gorgeous game, but you'll need an insanely powerful PC to see it. It still looks nice with dialed back settings, but will rarely run well.

8.5 Sound

Great overworld music that feels right at home in a Final Fantasy game, backed by solid sound effects and rare instances of voice acting.

6.0 Gameplay

A flexible class system results in a welcome freedom of customization, but combat and other activities are still victims of the poor interface and performance. Questing gets repetitive quickly.

5.0 Lasting Appeal
Despite the strength of the class system, the game's economy and questing systems need a lot of work to keep players coming back for more.

5.5
OVERALL Mediocre

 

[Dead Prince]

4/10? wow.

 

[Regulus Tera]

Reboot Final Fantasy goddamn.

Actually put it on hiatus for a few years and revive it later with a huge fanfare.

 

[Brazil]

That sounds very nice.

Fortunately Cataclysm will be here for us to hug in a few weeks.

 

[trejo]

Woah, that's harsh.

 

[DaBuddaDa]

Reboot Final Fantasy goddamn.

Actually put it on hiatus for a few years and revive it later with a huge fanfare.

You mean like FFXIII?

 

[Eaten By A Grue]

Tell us how you really feel Gamespot.

 

[Yoshichan]

It deserves 4/10.

 

[Regulus Tera]

You mean like FFXIII?

Damn you got me there.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

I disagree with the review. The game has obvious performance issues, but I really like it.

 

[Crash Station]

Such a waste of a talented team

 

[mysteriousmage09]

Serves Square right. Maybe now they will get back on track by making quality over quantity.

 

[jiggle]

Updates may address a multitude of flaws, but "fun" is not a feature that can be added with a simple patch.

funny, i thought the game is hella fun/addicting, and only hampered down but a bunch (a TON) of fixable design flaws

 

[Kandrick]

Sounds about right.

 

[Kandinsky]

It really is a terrible game at the moment, needed like 6 more months in the oven at least :/

 

[Fredescu]

Reviews for MMOs have always seemed kinda pointless.

 

[Alucrid]

Reviews for MMOs have always seemed kinda pointless.

I'm finding more and more that reviews for video games are pointless.

Spoiler

for me.

 

[Regulus Tera]

Updates may address a multitude of flaws, but "fun" is not a feature that can be added with a simple patch.

funny, i thought the game is hella fun/addicting, and only hampered down but a bunch (a TON) of fixable design flaws

Final Fantasy XIV International: Online: Patches of the Reparations Expansion Pack

 

[Effect]

Reviews for MMOs have always seemed kinda pointless.

I don't think so. Content(it being good or bad), community and fun are subjective things. Everything else you can review the same way you'd review any other game. Many systems in a MMO either work or don't work. You can judge them on technical merits.

 

[Londa]

Never considered gamespot as a good source for game suggestions. I don't even check reviews anymore before buying a game. I research and decide. Lots of times reviews are bias and its clear gamespot didn't get any money from SE to make this review.

 

[TheSeks]

Reboot Final Fantasy goddamn.

They don't really need to do that. Just put in actual fucking effort.

FFVIII's customization system, FFXII MMOfflineRPG, FFXIII battle system with GAMEPLAY. Whatever one of those. Refine it, put more effort into the world and side quests and BOOM. Done.

 

[Alucrid]

I don't think so. Content(it being good or bad), community and fun are subjective things. Everything else you can review the same way you'd review any other game. Many systems in a MMO either work or don't work. You can judge them on technical merits.

I play video games to have fun. If fun is subjective then video game reviews are useless, no?

 

[Rahxephon91]

Well, all I can say is maybe the PS3 version will include a game that's improved by the time of release. I mean that's whats I'm hoping on getting.

 

[YuriLowell]

I play video games to have fun. If fun is subjective then video game reviews are useless, no?

Reviews are always useless. They only give technical details. Everything else is subjective to the person.

 

[theinfinityissue]

yeah, harsh reviews are deserved.

From the open beta, it seemed to me that they hired tons of hugely talented visual designers, had them build a beautiful, believable world, and then when they were about to leave told them to design the gameplay also.

 

[apana]

Well at least the opening cinematic was good.

 

[Cheech]

This one may actually be the Final Fantasy.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

Inafune redeemed!

 

[Jeels]

Serves Square right. Maybe now they will get back on track by making quality over quantity.

What are you talking about, this IS what the FF11 team has been working on for YEARS.

 

[Lonely1]

Well, all I can say is maybe the PS3 version will include a game that's improved by the time of release. I mean that's whats I'm hoping on getting.

The only thing we can be sure about is that it will perform worse.

 

[KaYotiX]

It deserves 4/10.

Agree...so many ass backwards shit in the game you could of sworn it was made during the EQ days

 

[DaBuddaDa]

I play video games to have fun. If fun is subjective then video game reviews are useless, no?

Game you like gets good score, reviews are great!
Game you like gets bad score, reviews are useless!

That's all that needs to be said.

From the open beta, it seemed to me that they hired tons of hugely talented visual designers, had them build a beautiful, believable world, and then when they were about to leave told them to design the gameplay also.

Even that isn't the case. FFXIV has been proven to be filled with lazy, rushed copy/paste landscapes.

 

[Blueblur1]

Never considered gamespot as a good source for game suggestions. I don't even check reviews anymore before buying a game. I research and decide. Lots of times reviews are bias and its clear gamespot didn't get any money from SE to make this review.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Beautiful game, but if the open beta was any indication, it fucking sucks.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

What are you talking about, this IS what the FF11 team has been working on for YEARS.

Really? How was FFXI interface compare to FFXIV? I never played it.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

I dont get the gameplay bitching. The battles are really fun, the gathering is good and crafting is easily the best Ive seen in an MMO.

People have been brainwashed by WoW and see anything different or not super quest based as "bad" I actually like XIV better, I have more stuff to do than just grind .. I just wish it ran better

 

[Regulus Tera]

They don't really need to do that. Just put in actual fucking effort.

FFVIII's customization system, FFXII MMOfflineRPG, FFXIII battle system with GAMEPLAY. Whatever one of those. Refine it, put more effort into the world and side quests and BOOM. Done.

Just give Final Fantasy to Yuji Horii. Bribe him with women or something.

This one may actually be the Final Fantasy.

Nah, the cow still has milk left.

 

[Londa]

This one may actually be the Final Fantasy.

lol this is a good one. :lol

I like how people continue to say this game fails, when they keep adding more servers and servers are getting over crowded.

 

[MikeE21286]

wow, so DOA unless you liked XI then?

 

[Liquid_Bike]

I've been wondering what the GAF consensus is on this one...

 

[SimpleDesign]

FFXI Massive Offline RPG

Fixed. I'd love to play that.

I really couldn't get into the FFXIV beta which is heart breaking for me. Maybe in a year or two it'll be more enjoyable, I didn't start FFXI until it came out for the PS2.

 

[mysteriousmage09]

What are you talking about, this IS what the FF11 team has been working on for YEARS.

Doesn't mean the game wasn't rushed out, pretty obvious they wanted to beat the WoW ride over actually making every aspect of the game solid.

 

[Wallach]

I've been wondering what the GAF consensus is on this one...

This game is still in "desperately try to like new MMO" phase. Most new MMOs go through this at launch.

It's in a pretty sad state right now. Comparable to AoC's first month.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

wow, so DOA unless you liked XI then?

Its pretty different from XI, its, you know, a new game.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

Oh well. Still buying the PS3 version day 1 to at least give it a shot myself. Hopefully some things will have been ironed out by then.

 

[KaYotiX]

I dont get the gameplay bitching. The battles are really fun, the gathering is good and crafting is easily the best Ive seen in an MMO.

People have been brainwashed by WoW and see anything different or not super quest based as "bad" I actually like XIV better, I have more stuff to do than just grind .. I just wish it ran better

Its more the fact that they made a shitty interface and control scheme when FFXI was pretty damn good towards its latter years. Its like they never learned anything from 11 and started over from scratch...its VERY VERY upsetting. There is a good game there but its buried deep under a bunch of design flaws.

Im sure in 6-8 m onths it will be where it needs to be but atm its not good

 

[brain_stew]

Well, all I can say is maybe the PS3 version will include a game that's improved by the time of release. I mean that's whats I'm hoping on getting.

I'd be more concerned about it being in anything approaching a functional state, personally.

 

[Effect]

I play video games to have fun. If fun is subjective then video game reviews are useless, no?

They have their place when it comes to the technical aspect of a game. I try to take opinions outside that with a grain of salt. However if the features are broken in some way I don't see how one can really have fun.

IGN is doing a LONG review. I'm really curious as to what their final score is going to be.

 

[MikeE21286]

Its pretty different from XI, its, you know, a new game.

but it probably won't bring in new people outside of those who enjoyed XI

 

[TheFatOne]

Don't disagree with the score. The combat sucks, UI sucks, performance sucks, menu lag is horrible, market wards suck(the dumbest thing in the game IMO), leves suck, anima regen is a joke, it takes forever to travel anywhere, you have to level three or four crafts to make things you want, etc... the game needs a ton of work.