One of our gaming consultants here at MMO Sanctuary, Rhyder, was kind enough to provide us with this review of the recently-released MMO, Final Fantasy XIV from Square Enix.  We'll see what has made FFXIV so hyped and popular in the many months preceeding launch, as well as the ultimate verdict on whether it was able to deliver on player expectations.

Character Creation: The character creation in FFXIV is much more immense than FFXI's character creation system. In FFXIV, the variety of customizations for your character can range from the height of your character to the color of your eyes, to the features that appear on your character. After you had finished customizing the look of your character, you can choose the date of birth of your character, followed by the Deity your character follows. Neither the birthday nor the Deity seemed to have any impact on your character.

Playable races in FFXIV

Then you pick between any of the classes in the 4 Disciples (Disciples of War, Disciples of Magic, Disciples of the Land, Disciples of the Hand). After you had chosen your profession and class, you can choose to pick between 3 starting areas (Limsa Lominsa, Ul'Dah, or Gridania). Compared to other games like World of Warcraft's character creation, FFXIV's creation system excels. However, compared to a game like Aion or APB (yes I know the game is offline) I would say the character creation system is mediocre.

Initial Gameplay: Once you create you character, you are automatically followed by a cinematic for whichever zone you may have chosen. The cinematic will introduce you to the story that pertains to that area. Now, I had tried both Limsa Lominsa and Gridania, and I have got to say, these were some of the best cinematics I had ever seen and really got me excited to finally get moving and learn the basics.

Upon finishing the cinematic for Gridania, I had entered the realm of FFXIV. I was introduced firstly to clicking the two NPCs that were lieing on the ground. After I had done so, another cinematic appeared as the wolves jumped out of no where and forced us to attack them. This is where the combat tutorial came into play.

The combat was fresh and unique and gave a feel of an action game. After I had finished the wolves off, another cinematic had appeared and a giant treant came out and finished off the remaining wolves and then started to chase the NPCs and I. I then was rescued by a group of NPC's and Moogles in the game and was told by them to follow them to the city of Gridania.

Once I had arrived in Gridania, the place looked as if it were a little village in a forest in the middle of no where which gave off this cool feel to it. I talked to the NPC in front of me and was sent to seek out this other NPC to start my story.

The first quest the NPC wanted me to do was to go meet some people in the village and then get back to her. Once I had done so, I was told by her to go to my first camp and do my first guildleve. I activated the guildleve at the aetheryte and followed the marker that told me where to go. I then killed the designated mobs and once I had finished, a aetheryte rift (forget the name) appeared and gave me an award with the offer of teleporting me back to the camp. I was then told by the NPC through a linkpearl (communication device) to return to her to continue my storyline.

In addition to the gameplay, the community was great when I had actually gotten to party with a few of them. However, not many people were talking in the chat channels at all it seemed, making it difficult or impossible to group with someone if you weren't in a guild with a list of members.

Customization: The character customization for FFXIV is where the game peaked at the most. You could pick a main weapon for your character (which would determine your class) and level it up and acquire that classes abilities. You could then change your weapon (so you can be a different class) and then import those abilities from your previous class to the current class you are using. This feature allows you to pretty much make whatever kind of class you can think of and is a unique feature not seem in many, if not any, MMOs.

Combat: The combat in FFXIV is different compared to your typical point and click MMO, though similar when compared to its predecessor FFXI as you can lock on and off to a monster. However, in FFXIV there is a stamina meter that recovers as you use it which is required to use all physical attacks. You have to continuously press the attack button once you have enough fatigue to keep attacking. The fatigue bar is used for all of your physical (not sure if magical) attacks and rebuilds while you are not using any of them. As mentioned above earlier, you can mix different classes together to form your own class which makes combat a little more unique than other MMOs because you will see different class combinations throughout your playtime.

Graphics: There's not really much to say about FFXIV's graphics besides that it easily tops every single MMO out there, graphically wise. FFXIV's graphics are just overall phenomenal. When I started the game, I quickly noticed how beautiful the game world is. It ranged from barren deserts, to a coastal area, to a lush forest. I just have to say that it will probably be a very long time before any game will ever top FFXIV's graphics.

Sound: Some of the sounds in this game were just simply amazing. When I was playing my character through the forests of Gridania, I could hear birds chirping and water falling. It definitely made you more immense into the game world.

Features: Some of the features in FFXIV range from it's Armoury System (Class Customization) to it's Guildleve system (quest system). As mentioned above, the armoury system is something you do not see in many, if not any, MMOs.

The Guildleve System is your typical quest system in an MMO, however, you have a limit of only 8 Guildleves you can do every 36 hours, which kind of takes away from the fun and resorts you to grinding or crafting or working on your storyline (if you did not finish the current part you are on).

Conclusion: FFXIV is not your typical MMO and leaves you with a lack of content after all your guildleves have been completed, along with your storyline quests and does not offer any other content besides grinding or crafting. The game sucked me in for the first couple of hours but after a short period of time I had easily lost my interest and ended up not feeling immense into the game world.

There were also some really bad lag issues with the UI that made it take much longer for you to sell/trade/buy/look for a party/etc. Another problem that stuck out was that I tried crafting once and it did not list any recipes anywhere.  Yes, I know it allows you to discover them on your own, but if you found out a recipe, the game would not save it anywhere for you to look up. You would have to write it down on your own.  It's just inconvenient.

The immediately noticeable lack of content and the laggy interface makes the game to appear as if it should still be in beta and that it may have just been released way to early. There are several points throughout the game that you also feel a complete lack of immersion. My recommendation would be to hold off on this title and see what changes a few months down the road. Right now it's a rather lackluster jog on the old fantasy treadmill...