The reviews are beginning to trickle in for Final Fantasy XIV, and critics are unanimously panning Square Enix’s MMO.
Final Fantasy XIV fell through the cracks here at Game|Life; reviewing a massively multiplayer online game is always a daunting proposition and nobody had the bandwidth to take it on. Judging by what the major game enthusiast sites are saying, though, it’s probably for the best that we elected not to put ourselves through the wringer on this one. While reviewers note the game’s pretty graphics and stunning cinematic scenes, they also agree that all the fundamentals are broken.
The MMO is “an arduous experience that, in its current state, isn’t worth playing,” writes Charles Onyett at IGN, who gave the PC game a score of 5.5 (“mediocre”).
“I can’t help but feel that FFXIV is cosmic punishment, meted out by some avenging massively multiplayer online deity for my years of complaining about the state of modern online RPGs,” writes Rory Manion at GameSpy, who gave the game 2 out of 5 stars. “It is the definition of obtuse: poorly designed, aggressively underexplained, and shoddy in almost every respect that matters.”
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