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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."
What happened to Final Fantasy? I grew up with it, the original Final Fantasy was my first RPG, and then Final Fantasy 2, and then, what I believe to be the greatest RPG of all time, Final Fantasy 3/6 came out. Final Fantasy VII was great, and breathtaking, but since then, it's been downhill. Nine was a quick breath of fresh air, but VIII is the only Final Fantasy I've never played past the first hour. Ten was super linear (geez, *another* cutscene?), and X-2 was a joke (please stop making intrepid adventurers act like tween girls, it's insulting to everyone except tween girls). XII seemed to be on the right track, but that's because they used an established world and mythos from the Tactics series, and the biggest problem was it's abrupt ending and auto-gameplay, but at least there were some compelling characters and power struggles, although it fell short in that area. And then XIII I haven't played yet, because I took one look at the map, and lost all interest (hint, it's a straight line), and nothing I read said that the story made up for that lack of exploration.
It seems to me that the problem, more than anything, is the failure to dream up a really compelling setting, characters, and plot, and then let the player loose in it. Earlier games had those, but it seems that lately all that they're interested in is new systems of combat and leveling up. There are no villains like Kefka, no tragedies like Rosa's attempted suicide, no big reveals like Cloud's backstory, no tortured protagonists like Cecil.
In a lot of ways, it's as if they've substituted "cool" for "good". They want a cool story, a cool main character, a cool setting, not good ones, not well developed ones. The potential for storytelling in videogames, from a technological standpoint, it's all there. There's nothing really holding anyone back, but instead, we get flashy graphics and a new battle system, instead of characters we care about. When I was 14 years old, watching Rosa throw herself off a cliff, or Terra almost decide against saving the world, or even the NPC orphan teenage couple obliquely considering an abortion because Kefka had turned the world into a wasteland, that was good storytelling, and I expected it to only get better as technology improved, and it really didn't, at least not for the Final Fantasy series.
It's a shame, and maybe this is harsh, but I consider the Final Fantasy series to be like M. Night Shyamalan movies. Sure, "Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" were epic, and "Signs" was pretty decent, but at some point you have to give up on things and count yourself as no longer a fan, but a harsh critic.
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.
Every time a new MMO launches, I've got this baggage of playing WoW for 2-3 years. I expect the game that comes out to be as polished and as good as WoW. It's unfair but my logic just ends at "why don't I just play WoW instead." I hope other people are different but that's what I keep thinking and what leads to my termination of game play.
Actually "why don't I just play WoW instead." is exactly the question the games devs/execs should ask themselves. Because their games don't exist in a vacuum, they exist in a world where WoW has 12 million subscribers. If they want any share of that market, they have to give players a reason why not just to play WoW. And just "different" does not cut it if the game is basically beta or worse on launch.
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.