Room for potential notwithstanding, Final Fantasy XIV is a major failure on so many levels.
The realm of Eorzea, once blighted by centuries of civil conflict, has slowly recovered following the mysterious arrival of the Garlean Empire. An uneasy peace spread throughout, but left many willing soldiers without a means of employment. Fearing an influx of disparaged rogues and the resulting chaotic turmoil, three of Eorzea's major city-states proposed the creation of Guilds to accommodate these displaced warriors as useful elements of Eorzean society. Known as adventurers, they help those in the most need while receiving their share of viable reward through use of rectangular steel plates called Guildleves. As one of these budding adventurers, you have been given a strange gift---the ability to hear ethereal voices and foresee events past and present. Thus, a great destiny has befallen on you, one that may also determine the future of Eorzea and the world she inhabits.
But before you set off to seek your grand destiny, you'll have to build your character first. When you begin the game, you're given the opportunity to create your avatar from a template of five different races each loosely based on Final Fantasy XI counterparts. Afterwards, you'll choose one of two different "factions" individual to their race---each a determining factor in physical character growth. Expanding upon FFXI's basic character creation system, FFXIV gives you a wealth of new customization options; like adjustments to hair color, facial features, height, voice samples and even eye color. Once you've decided on the look of your avatar, you'll then choose your starting class to begin with (which can be changed at any time with a swtich of an on-hand weapon or tool) as well as your choice of three different city-states to owe your unflinching allegiance; the seafaring community of Limsa Lominsa, the forest-centric town of Gridania, and the walled desert city of Uldah. After several initial cutscenes introducing you to your character as well as several others, your adventure begins in earnest. The story itself is eerily similar to Final Fantasy XI and not particularly interesting in the least, but the cutscenes are where the game demonstrates its forte, and on many accounts, they're brilliantly done with the same level of care that you'd expect out of the series.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the game itself, and Final Fantasy XIV is loaded with serious problems and potentially fatal flaws. There is no immediate tutorial or walkthrough to guide you towards any set destination. In fact, there aren't any tutorials of the sort at all. The game expects you to have some knowledge of the system in the hopes that you'd carry on decently without any need for anyone to hold your hand. Worse still, various elements of the game that offer some snippet of clues or remote suggestions are never explained thoroughly. Activities such as crafting, weapon repair, and even the basics of combat are left for the player to experiment on their own terms, but without any decent tutorials to get them started, they are left with little choice but to rely on online help and other players willing to invest their own time to help them.
Combat isn't so dissimilar to the likes of Final Fantasy XI, but in Final Fantasy XIV's case, it is much more difficult to grasp properly. There is no auto-attack option, and you will expend stamina for each individualized attack that must be manually activated by repeated clicks (or button presses if you are using a compatible controller). Targeting an enemy takes some time as well, as you must be directly facing the intended target and initiate the cumbersome active mode; switching tirelessly between passive mode all the while. Fortunately, if you happen to get killed, there's no real penalty other than a state of temporary weakness that lasts only a few minutes, eliminating the cruel loss of experience and levels that angered players of Final Fantasy XI. Another key point of interest is the ability to switch classes on the fly, and it's as simple as equipping different weapons and tools. For example, if you would like to be a lancer, all you need do is find a Spear and equip it. Or perhaps you'd prefer to be a Gladiator----simply switch out the Spear with a Sword, and the honor is instantly yours for the asking. It is a brilliant idea that shows a lot of promise, especially in an MMORPG, and one of few notable highlights in an otherwise disappointing experience.
Your armor and weapons are also prone to breakage, and getting them repaired requires that you change into a Leather or Armorcrafter to get them individually fixed, or find an NPC or fellow player that can do the work for you. A chore in and of itself. And when you want to find items of importance during your travels, you must spend a good deal of time finding vendors that are clearly not marked, or deal with the incredibly unnecessary market ward---a system that replaces the traditional Auction House in the form of retainers. These are legitimized player-named mules that sell unwanted stuff to travelers as interim shopkeepers. The system was put in place to dissuade the efforts of would-be gilsellers and prevent the deliberate devastation of the in-game economy. Good intentions regarded, it should not have come at the expense of the Auction House, which would have made it a lot easier for players to find items that they need. Instead, the player is forced to manually speak to every available retainer; an enormous waste of time and energy. Adding insult to irritation, the stuff sold in existing, hard-to-find storefronts run by in-game NPCs are insanely overpriced. Given the fact that generating a steady income in FFXIV is difficult enough, these added obstacles are disheartening and unfortunate.
Quick travel is handled by means of Aetheryte Crystals interspersed in important areas within Eorzea, but they cost Anima to use, you are limited to 100 anima on hand, and its recovery is ridiculously slow. To its credit, this makes traveling a lot easier in some instances, especially when you complete quests and need to return unabated to your Aetheryte Crystal home point.
The Guildleve system was designed to narrow the gap between casual and hardcore players in an attempt to create a diversified, streamlined gameplay experience that supposedly gives ample opportunities for character growth to either audience. Known as levequests, these are timed missions that players can perform on their own or with friends---with adjustable difficulty settings. While it is an admirable feature, you are only allowed eight quests every two days or so (36 hours), and that hurts both casual and hardcore players in equal measure. It doesn't help matters either when these quests are cookie-cutter grindfests that require the slaying of uninteresting monsters that seem to repeat one after another as you make progress; some easy to take down, others that may slaughter you in a single strike. Outside of these simplified, boring levequests, you won't immediately find much else to do as the realm of Eorzea seems to have been stripped to its bare minimum with an egregious lack of compelling content. Furthermore, the added strain of crowded servers hinders these quests considerably, requiring a greater degree of effort than normally allowed. For both the casual and hardcore player, this will prove most frustrating especially given the early release stages of the game when servers are expected to be crowded. This problem might have been solved if the game offered separate, personal play servers similar to the system found in Guild Wars and the instance dungeons of World of Warcraft.
Character development parlays much of its emphasis on individual classes and how often you use them, but surplus experience and fatigue occurs if you spend too much time on any one class, prompting you to use another until some time elapses before you're able to effectively use the former again. This will disappoint those who enjoy playing only one particular class, but in all fairness, skills that you learned in one discipline can be daftly employed in another, providing an interesting flexibility to your characters. These stringent limitations were intended as a countermeasure towards gamers who would develop their avatars much too quickly, limiting growth along a fair and adequate frame of time for every player involved. That all sounds good on paper, but in practice, it doesn't bode well to the overall experience as these components are so poorly executed and clumsily wrought that they are more along the lines of incessant contrivances than idle pleasantries.
And through it all, you must deal with a horrible user interface that confounds your screen in a cesspool of unnecessary, numerous menus. The simplest tasks, such as equipping weapons and armor or managing items, can take several minutes to a half-hour when you are trying to navigate through thick jungles of unsavory text and windows. Going back to being able to switch classes on the fly, the perplexing UI layout is an utter contradiction to the relative ease of selecting between gameplay styles that Final Fantasy XIV promises. Macros can alleviate the madness somewhat, but you need to be knowledgeable in the fine art of text command prompts and, chances are, not everyone is. The oxymoron here is that it takes something so complex to make things simple.
Unquestionably, Final Fantasy XIV looks absolutely gorgeous. Even if you don't have the most powerful computer in the world, the game can still look fantastic on decent settings. Travel on foot between towns and fields are seamless with few to no loading screens getting in the way. What does get in the way is the fact that you're unable to jump or swim, nor can you leap off steep cliffs as you could in other MMORPGs, severely limiting your exploration. Uematsu helms the entire soundtrack for the first time since Final Fantasy IX a decade ago, and most of it sounds wonderful even if it doesn't particularly stand out. Character models are much more interesting than ever before, with some neat cosmetic changes to familiar races. You will definitely be immersed in all the splendored beauty of the Eorzean continent.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and Final Fantasy XIV's heart is an ugly, flawed beast. Understandably, most MMORPGs begin their lifespan in a vegetative, unflattering state, but regular updates and response to player feedback are often attributed to improving their infrastructure into something worthwhile. To that end, Final Fantasy XIV still has a dearth of room to develop and evolve in the years ahead, but only if Square Enix is willing to return to the drawing board and listen to the growing cries of dissatisfied, angry players. However, many of its issues cut deep; something no patch can heal quickly---if ever. The game is not garbage by any means, nor is it the worst game ever made. It's simply broken and in dire need of repair. Until then, fan of the franchise or not, don't bother playing Final Fantasy XIV.