PROS
+ Primals
+ Dungeons and alliance raids
+ Select cutscenes were really great and powerful
+ A few great, fun and lovable characters
+ Character customization features (glamours, dyes)
+ Collectibles (minions, mounts)
+ Emotes and the general virtual social atmosphere
+ The Golden Saucer

OK
o Voice acting is hit or miss - both in quality and how interesting the parts that are voiced are; most of the time it's not even available which is fine because things aren't important but then there are a handful of really cool moments towards the tail end of ARR that aren't voiced? Oddly inconsistent.

CONS
- High amount of filler in form of fetch quests such as having to go back and forth between places multiple times or collecting 2 animal skins and what have you.
- Lots of cutscenes. They get better in the later part of the game (Lv 45+) but for the most part, you're better off skim-reading or skipping them entirely because it's really not interesting and will burn you out.
- Gating of unlocking mechanics and classes via progress with the Main Story Quest // I really wanted to take a step back from it every now and then and play some other fun-looking classes but they were locked behind finishing ARR, so that made things more annoying as well. It gates people dedicated to crafting classes as well, so keep in mind you'll have to progress with it if you plan on getting to the higher levels of crafting.
- The monetization. Playing as a free trial account means you're severely inhibited (no party creation, joining Free Company or accessing the market), therefore requiring you to have friends with full accounts to make parties. Once you've bought the game, you won't have those problems anymore but there's still a monthly sub fee AND a cash shop. Yikes.

----

I reached the end of ARR with 4 days 5 hours and 11 minutes of playtime, which of course included some idling, job quests and playing around in the Golden Saucer to a certain extent but is still a considerable amount of time to get through this seeing as I mainly powered through the MSQ. It would've taken even longer if I didn't have friends who had full accounts either to make parties with as the Free Trial is so limited that you can't make parties, join Free Companies or use the market. Definitely don't start this game alone because chances are you're gonna burn out hard and preferably bring along friends who have already bought-in or are willing to buy in to actually make it possible for y'all to play together. I do recommend anyone getting it to push through with the Free Trial as long as they can before buying in. My personal breaking point was Lv 52.

Looking back with the knowledge and the experience I had, I would've opted to buy an ARR story completion for $10 and then looked through the important cutscenes myself as the MSQ, despite some great moments, wasn't really a great experience as a whole.
All that being said, while I cannot endorse ARR and think it is overbearingly a slog, I do really love a lot of things about this game and consider myself quite hooked - which should tell you how strong the game is in other aspects. Looking forward to experiencing Heavensward, which is a highly-praised expansion in comparison, and having a better time story-wise.

It’s hard to really accurately describe this, but I think this game ranges from a 6 to a 7 for me. The beginning is alright at first but it really starts to drag out. Littered between all the genuine story and cool areas is a lot of unnecessary quests that really detract from the game. It’s a shame that this is the beginning of the game, especially since it deters many from getting into the game. I believe it is an issue and there should be a fix to make it easier to get interested in the game.
However, the positives of this game come from the final missions, the dungeons, and the community. A very weak start but I kid you not once it picked up near the final act forward, everything has been fun for me.

*review is of the base game A Realm Reborn, up to the completion of Main Scenario quest "The Ultimate Weapon" (completed 2nd May 2022)

with patch 6.1 introducing major changes to A Realm Reborn's main scenario dungeons, including duty support with NPCs and overall quality of life changes, i felt it was worth revisiting A Realm Reborn to see how it shapes up, especially after Endwalker concluded the story that begins in. i'm going to be discussing the story, the gameplay of quests, and the dungeons.

so how is the story? well. it's not great. A Realm Reborn is in a strange place where it's both a sequel and prologue and also neither, and doesn't quite fit any mould. it's a sequel to Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, the longdead game that nearly wiped out the Final Fantasy franchise. it's a prologue to Heavensward, where the REAL story begins (or at least gets good), and is neither because it is telling a "whole" story, that of the Garlean Empire's third attempted conquest of Eorzea, while the Eorzeans themselves and the Warrior of Light (you!) contend with "Primals", the summoned gods of myriad tribes who have a corrupting aura about them, that turns any mortal into their slave forever. so whats wrong with it, why is A Realm Reborn's story bad per se? the problem is in its characters i think. we spend the majority of our time with the scions of the seventh dawn, including Minfillia and Alphinaud as the two main characters. Minfillia is a true mary sue, i dont really like the phrase because it has a ring of mysoginy to it but Minfillia is truly without personality, she is just a nice lady with a magical gift who gives us quests to do. She is boring! Alphinaud is better at least, he is characterised as the snobbish grandson of the legendary wizard Louisoix, with delusions of grandeur in saving the world. he means well, but his background of extreme wealth is clear. Even though the WoL is the one to being slaying primals left right and centre, Alphinaud still has the audacity to refer to us as his manservant. and that's at least good characterisation. in the second half of the game we spend a lot of time with Cid nan Garlond, the defected amnesiac master engineer from the empire of Garlemald. Cid is supposed to be a bit cheeky, a bit cocky, and a genius, who has a complicated relationship with the game's facist villains, Gaius van Baelsar. Cid is wholey uninteresting, and the latter half of the story becomes frustrating in the Praetorium dungeon when so much time is spent having villains tell us how much Cid pisses them off while the WoL is just standing there gawping like an idiot. there are more characters, other scions, but they do not really have a personal relationship with the WoL, and are essentially only important in the story in certain "arcs". Thancred only matters in the Ifrit arc, and right at the end (and even then hardly at all), Yda and Papilymo only matter during the (boring) sylph arc, and Y'shtola only matters during the Titan arc. we dont really get to develop meaningful relationships with these characters, who are otherwise pretty one dimensional and not interesting anyway. how's the plot then? well the WoL starts from humble beginnings as an adventurer, and works their way through myriad dungeons and adventures, much to the amazement of the three governments of Eorzea and the scions, and to the ire of the evil wizards who are the puppetmasters of it all, the Ascians. none of what the WoL does in the early parts of the game particularly matter, they are of fleeting importance and excitement. we fight pirates in La Noscea, ancient entombed giants in Thanalan, and cultists in the Black Shroud. if it sounds like these things bore me, its because they do. they are not inherently boring topics, but they just arent done any justice at all. the moment to moment plotting feels tedious and without interest. the actual important story moments come when the Empire kidnap our scion accomplices, and we wake Cid up from his amnesiac state. when the story IS important it's margianally better, it's at least engaging, but when the characters involved are as flat as they are, it leaves you wanting for a lot more. if I have to give the story and momentary plot beats any credit though, its that they do serve a purpose, one that you at least have to buy into. they do a lot of world building about how Eorzea is handling itself 5 years from the calamity, and about the politics within each of Eorzea's nations. we learn about the wealth discrepancy of Ul'dah, its horrid treatment of Ala Mhigan refugees. We learn about the xenophobic andd racist Gridanians, and their obsitance in following the will of the Twelveswood spirits, and we learn about the strange coalition of pirates that form Limsa Lominsa's government, and their hypocrisy in dealing with the kobolds. Eorzea is fleshed out, and it is interesting, but sometimes its delivery of these facts is not good, and that dampens the worldbuilding itself.

how is the quest to quest gameplay? in a word, mixed, i suppose? I've played ARR three times now. my first playthrough was back in January of 2020. back then, there was more busywork than anything else. there were SO many quests where the story paused to have characters go "can you right click this pot to add onions to it, right click it again to stir it, right click it again to dish it out, then right click 5 NPCs to give them soup?" i am particualy fond of the quest wherein I had to right click a bucket in a stream three times in a row (with a cast bar for each one!) to fill it up, so i could pour it on some guy's head. this had literally nothing to do with the rest of the plot lmao. in August of 2020, patch 5.3 came out, which included a major revamp to ARR's questline, removing 31 quests in total, as well as a myriad of quest objectives, and simplifying others. this was a WELCOME change, and streamlined the entire process. it's not perfect by any means, there is still pointless busywork involved that only serves to elongate the experience, but it is so much better than it was. sometimes, as the quests go on, you will have to take part in an "Instance", which is essentially where you are put into an arena within the story to fight a specific combat encounter. it's more than just a monster on the overworld. you might be fighting a specific named enemy, or having named NPCs like Thancred fighting by your side. at their best, Instances can be some of the most fun, exciting, and interesting parts of this game. at their worst, they are dogshit boring, tedious, and lame. with patch 6.1's ARR improvements we saw two previous boss fights (Cape Westwind and Lahabrea) go from trials to Instances. these Instances were brand new, made in the way that the game is designed in 2022. as a result they feel fresh and are engaging, as they've been designed by devs who know what FF14 at its best looks like. as a result, ARR now is filled with a bizarre mixture of ancient, terrible instances where you have to run around looking for tiny shield barriers while an invincible robot chases you, as well as the excellent ones like Cape Westwind, that is now both engaging, fun, and even emotional! ARR's questline could do with being made up from the beginning again and i would suspect it would be way better.

finally, the dungeons. As previously mentioned ARR has seen multiple improvements since I first played in January of 2020. I suspect that even when I played it was better than it was a few years ago, let alone at launch. ARR's worst dungeons in the day were Copperbell Mines, The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, Castrum Meridianum, and the Praetorium. in the original Copperbell Mines, enemies would tether to a spot so you couldn't tank them wall to wall, the first miniboss was one to three incredibly weak adds at a time, the second one being a slime that was impervious to damage except for a mechanic which only the tank needed to handle, and so on. Totorak made you explore its labrynth looking for frustrating Magitek Photocells that would dismiss a barrier, as well as having a sludgy floor that slowed the player when they walked on it... which was impossible to avoid. Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium were incredibly long and tedious, both with meandering objectives in them that required teamwork to be done that wasnt fun to complete, but annoying to not complete. On top of this the bossfights were pitiful, and they were both riddled with unskippable cutscenes. Praetorium by itself would last an entire 45 minutes! the improvements we got in 6.1 fixed the bosses in Copperbell Mines, making them actual bosses for everyone to fight. the enemies still tether for some reason, so you can't win them all. Totorak is totally streamlined, no longer a maze, with no sludgy floor. And the vast majority of cutscenes were removed from Meridianum and Praetorium, with only the "necessary" ones still in place. Furthermore, the bosses were made far more engaging with actual mechanics that felt worth acknowledging. again, nothing is perfect, but it feels bizarre to say, these days, that Castrum Meridianum is actually fun now, whereas it used to be a slog. When it came up in roulettes you'd roll your eyes and groan because it was so bad. Not anymore. one of the problems with talking about ARR's dungeons is that hindsight doesnt do them any favours. The first time you play them, especially if you're new the MMOs, they're not so bad because you don't have anything to compare them to. you're also still getting used to your miniscule moveset, so the 3 buttons you press in Totorak wont dismay you your first time. When you're level 90 and have just completed the final trial that Endwalker introduced, then you pop levelling roulette and get Sastasha, and can suddenly press only 2 of your 20 buttons, it doesnt MATTER how good the dungeon is now, because you're left with the worlds most boring, easy, mind numbingly unengaging gameplay. it's good that old content still gets played, but it puts a negative spin on any old dungeon. Even the good Heavensward and Stormblood dungeons suffer from this at this point, and it's a shame.

so what's my conclusion? It's okay. It's better than it was, and will presumably only get better as they continue to make improvements to it. In 6.2 we're expecting improvements to the ARR patches, which are overdue. I wholeheartedly believe that if you can tolerate or even enjoy ARR, you will have an absolute blast with everything that comes after. Literally everything is improved after A Realm Reborn; the story becomes very good, the voice acting is significantly better, the quests are fun and have way less busywork (but not none, unfortunately) and the dungeons/trials are exciting, tense, memorable mini-stories that you are excited to see when you come back to them again. A Realm Reborn is where we started, and it's not perfect, but at least it let us get to the good stuff.

A brutually honest rating from me.

The gameplay at the start of ARR was probably the worst gaming experience I've ever had...

However!

That changed in the last parts of ARR and post ARR. The cutscenes were compelling, and storytelling for me was a lot easier to understand. It redeemed itself, and I can't wait for Heavensward.

Edit: I will also mention, my friends were the ones who spurred me to play this game. If it wasn't for them, I would've never touched it or been persuaded to continue.

To call this a slow start would imply that it picks up before the build up to Heavensward. The entirety of ARR felt like a struggle between telling a coherent story and making sure fans got enough fetch quests for their dollar. Most players will likely spend their time questioning whether the current main story quest has anything to do with the main story. Any semblance of momentum, pacing or tonal consistency is absent. Between the narrative pretending your dungeon quests were completed without other players and a questionable story structure, it becomes painfully clear that this story does not want to be an MMO. Were this a concise narrative that focused primarily on contributing to the worldbuilding and storyline, it would be adequate at best . There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about what it accomplishes. Utilizing familiar JRPG tropes, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The scenes themselves range from decently done to what the FUCK is this voice acting.

This isn’t to say I hated absolutely every minute of the game. The towns offered enough variety to keep you interested in seeing what else the game had in store. Narrative aside, some of the dungeons toward ARR's climax were solid. Beyond that, it’s hard to praise anything about ARR that can’t be attributed to the systems that are present for the service as a whole. While I don’t hate FFXIV as a whole, I'd hardly call this a compelling introduction to Eorzea.

I have been playing this basically nonstop for a few months. As far as a review goes that's pretty succinct, but God help you if you think I come here to be succinct.
The big thing you will hear about the Fourteenth Finals Fantasy repeatedly is that is has "The Best Final Fantasy Story." It will be worded in that exact way, an implicit admission that the standards we are judging it by are so low that you need a whole archeological team to find it. I am writing this review about specifically A Realm Reborn content, but I've gotten all the way through to the postgame story of Stormblood, and I have yet to obtain the elusive "best final fantasy story" despite having 300 hours in this thing. The fans who try to sell you on it this way are doing the game a disservice, and that's a shame because it's good! I like it a ton! But if it doesn't get good until Shadowbringers you cannot sell it to people who don't like MMOs. You just cannot do that.
This is most evident in ARR because the story is simply terrible. I will write about Heavensward next, which is where I actually start liking the main story, and I think it's starting to get there by the time you hit the expansion, but there is just nothing good to say about anything pre-credits here. There's ungodly amounts of filler. The villains are completely not a factor until three seconds before you fight them and they spill their entire Deal on you, which are all broadly-drawn cliche'd motivations. Very few of your pals or other important NPCs really have much development. Everyone is just constantly praising you to absurd hights for doing things like "delivering two letters" so that even when you start killing gods the reaction is exactly as strong.
On that note, there was definitely like one writer on this thing who noticed how incredibly gross the whole "beast tribes" thing was because every once in a while someone will correctly note that the city states' governments are incredibly evil and it's just kind of brushed aside because the plot has to happen. Or sometimes it's all about mind control but other times it's about them being afraid or whatever. This inability to deal with its own themes will continue through the expansions, I suspect.
BUT since this is an MMO, it's not all about the mains story. Final Fantasy is kind of always at its best when it is an unholy mix of melodrama and comedy, and there's plenty of room for smaller scale stuff that has a lot more fun with both here. The Hildibrand questline in the postgame, in particular, manages to take a genre of slapstick that I have literally never had work for me anywhere else and just nail it. There's a shitty "man in a dress" bit but otherwise it's very funny and good. The crafting and gathering storylines are pretty astonishingly fun for having your superhero main character just do extremely normal stuff for a while.
Frankly all of this is secondary to the real game: fighting big bosses while cool music plays. And the music kicks ass. The Shiva trial? Astounding music. Amazing stuff. Even manages to portray character through the musical transition. There are so many absurdly faithful homages to other games in the series, which I like because I am a brainless oaf who claps like a seal when I see they put the cerberus boss in the world of darkness like in FF3. I can live my dreams of being a catboy twink in the game. This is all great. This is all upside. I have never gotten deep into an MMO before so most of the mechanics are entirely arbitrary nonsense to me but gradual changes over the game's long life, and cultivating a reasonable community, has made that not much of a problem! These are all great accomplishments.
This is a big enough game that I don't feel the need to sell anyone on it. You can already play the free trial featuring the award-winning Heavensward expansion. It's also too big to really cover in the sort of extreme depth that part of me would like. The real purpose of this document is just to whine about the fanbase needing to calm down and stop pretending this thing's the greatest of humanity's literary achievements and since I will never accomplish that, I am at peace. Go with Hydaelyn my friends.

It took me three separate tries to finally get hooked on this game, but I'm so glad that something clicked this time around and that I managed to get through ARR because it is so beyond worth it!

I've loved the story so far, especially the 2.x patch content which just seemed to get better and better the more I progressed. There's so many characters that have so quickly become incredibly important to me and I can't wait to see how they'll grow and evolve as the story goes on (they'll probably all make me sob multiple times, they like to do that).

There's definitely been some issues, for sure.There's the very typical MMO pitfalls like fetch quests or the running back and forth speaking to the same 3 NPCs for 15 minutes that have you wondering how this is even remotely relevant at all. Even worse is when they're shoehorned in after emotional cutscenes that have left me a sobbing mess and suddenly the tone has just shifted completely and left me floundering in the aftermath. It thankfully doesn't happen all too often, but it's definitely something that I hope gets smoothed out in future expansions.

Overall, it was such a wonderful experience for me. I can 100% understand the gripes with it, especially in the very early game, but it is so rewarding to push through that for this incredible story.