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Final Fantasy XIV Launches To Scathing Reviews
RogueyWon writes "Now that the massively-multiplayer Final Fantasy XIV has been on the shelves for a couple of weeks, the reviews are starting to arrive; and it appears that the game is the subject of a critical battering unprecedented in the history of the main Final Fantasy series. First it was the Amazon user reviews, then Gamespot weighed in, describing the game as a 'step backwards for the genre,' and now IGN has described it as 'an arduous experience that, in its current state, isn't worth playing.' Given the general dissatisfaction that surrounded the release of the (offline) Final Fantasy XIII earlier in the year, many long-time fans of the series must now be wondering whether the magic hasn't departed."
If you look at many successful games, you'll find a lot of consistency, both MMO and non-MMO alike. I'm going to focus on UI here, because it's one of FFXIV's biggest flaws, and it's the easiest example.
A user interface needs to be designed in such a way that it communicates information clearly. Furthermore, the interface needs to be designed in such a way that accomplishing any particular task is straightforward, quick and intuitive.
The UI for Final Fantasy XIV is excruciatingly poorly designed and fails on all aspects of this. Everything is accessed through a main menu that has a mess of nested sub-menus. There are no assigning of simple hotkeys for most actions (though you can assign combat and skill related actions to 0-9), and the entire interface responds VERY slowly, often taking 3-5 seconds to open each sub-menu.
Changing options such as screen resolution, detail settings, or controller configuration (if you have a game pad) is done by closing down the client entirely, running a separate configuration utility, and relaunching the client when you are done. Running the game in full-screen prevents you from alt-tabbing, else you crash the client entirely. This is particularly bad because these are chief complaints people have had about their own previous MMORPG, so they should be painfully aware of them -- but they appear to have learned nothing.
Square-Enix is just not in touch with what makes a game good as a game. They have a knack for compelling stories, and they have a solid art-design team, but these aren't enough to make a good game.
Just for a quick bit of info, from what I understand in the Japanese culture the effeminate looking bishounen (prettyboy) with the heart-shaped face is actually an ideal of masculinity. The massive square-jawed body-builder a la Zangief is actually their stereotype for gay.
Not quite. Although bishounen are considered an ideal of beauty, they aren't considered an ideal of masculinity, per se. That has a different archetype with its own name (otokomae), and it's much more similar to what most Westerners consider manly (though there are still some cultural differences, of course). To give some examples in FF terms (specifically FF6), Edgar is a bishounen while Sabin (Mash, if you go by Japanese naming) is otokomae.
You're right about hyper-muscular bodybuilders being a gay stereotype in Japan, though.
-NPC do not give any directions at all. They'll say things like "go get some materials from xyz". You then have to open a help website if you want to know where XYZ is because the game gives you no help at all.
I have to expand on this because it's actually so much worse than you're saying. First off, they in fact do show you where the next NPC is. For story quests. And nothing else.
Which means the feature is there. The game supports it. It works. They just don't allow you to use it for your every day "only thing there is to do in the game" quests.
But wait, it's worse!
So you've decided to go look for the NPC yourself. You've searched every nook and cranny, but failed. So finally you look up where the NPC is. Wait, but you've been there. WTF?!
Well, see, it takes a good four to five seconds for NPCs to load when you - well, stop moving, basically. So the only way to find the NPC by yourself is to basically walk a "square" forward, then stop and wait for five seconds to see if the NPC loads in.
And then repeat. And these zones are massive.
-Worthless maps.
This also needs some expansion - there are a ton of obstacles that block you while you travel from one place to another.
These are not on the map.
However, there are obstacles on the map that simply do not exist in the game world.
Then there are the roads on the map that are drawn between areas. These roads do not exist in the game world, and exist solely on the map. Combine this with obstacles that do exist but aren't on the map you've got an incredibly worthless map.
But wait, it gets better! The map is also subject to the four-five second load time before it adds the overlay that displays useful things like the location of quest "camps" (although not the NPCs in the camp).
To recap: the map doesn't cover things that do exist in the game world. Some of these are slightly important like paths between zones. However, it also includes things that don't exist in the game world. Some of these are slightly important like paths between zones that aren't, in fact, there.