This is strictly reviewing the base-game content of A Realm Reborn (not including the post-patch epilogue quests leading into Heavensward).

I COMPLETELY understand why most people will tell you to either play through ARR as fast as possible or buy the skip and watch a story recap, because, unfortunately, yes, it is a fairly substandard by-the-numbers Final Fantasy story. The game does NOT do a lot to make itself very engaging to play outside of a couple dungeons nearing the end of the story. If you're not familiar with the prior story of what this game was before ARR, most of the characters in the story will seem paper-thin and unimpressive. It's a shame really, because there's a ton of characters here that were given a good amount of depth prior to ARR that you simply will not see reflected here.

But honestly? All of these negatives, which in other games might be enough for me to drop them, did not really bother me all too much. It was probably because I was playing a Lalafell Warrior because the idea of being a tiny guy running around holding all the aggro was really funny to me, and I honestly had a pretty good time getting to play that out. I did a duty roulette once where I got put into a premade group of three Miqo'te girls and they all patted me on the head before leaving the instance when we finished. So that was pretty cool.

Much of me has been... 'trained', I guess, to really pay attention to the inner workings of games to evaluate them. My angle with games is often to analyze mechanics, understand what various systems exist in the game and see how they interact or don't. Yet, MMOs, a genre that I've only recently experienced through vanilla WoW private servers (rest in piece nostalrius) and like two weeks of playing Runescape on my second monitor, can't really be held to this standard. It might be more accurate to say that it isn't fair to hold them to this standard, mainly because the 'massively multiplayer' aspect of MMOs adds a lot of gray areas when it comes to forming a concrete 'objective' analysis of video games. In single player-games, regardless of how many different playstyles any single game might be able to account for in it's design, the ways a player interfaces with the game appear countably finite. Every player, regardless of specific choices in their gameplay, will encounter the same problems, story checkpoints and other scenarios that effectively funnel the immersion and agency of the player into predetermined outcomes. It's not possible for developers to create a truly unique outcome for every different way a player may approach a problem. MMOs, being intrinsically social games, are designed to truly offer a scope of choice most single-player experiences simply aren't equipped to replicate. What this leads to is several different strata and substrata of players who are all playing the same game, but for entirely different purposes and goals. This is how you get people like pure-crafters, immersive role-players, the Limsa Lominsa catgirls, and even player groups and discords solely bonded because they all chose to play as Lalafells. The scope of MMOs is something more traditional and technical frameworks for understanding games can't really talk about without missing the forest for the trees. I really hope i'm using that metaphor correctly.

Point being, I think Final Fantasy XIV is a pretty special game, through and through. For every part that

[We are announcing the end of this review of Final Fantasy XIV Online. We thank all readers of the review for the time and energy they have spent in reading and supporting this publication. If we had a cool seven minute long music video to commemorate this occasion, this is where we'd put it.]

Short review: Base game that feels like an 80-hour prologue, with an introduction to a huge, overwhelming world at the beginning and a story that stumbles for much of the game. Fun gameplay depending on the class you decide to use and the companions that accompany you in the dungeons. The final stretch is a love letter to the fans.

Long review: After 9 years trying to enjoy Final Fantasy XIV and letting it go out of boredom, mostly by the fault of the difficulty of the jargon used (English is not my main language nor do I have a great level) and the quantity of boring collection or research missions. 2 years ago I managed to invest 60h and reach the middle of the story of A Realm Reborn, but I dropped it again. Now, 10 days ago I decided that it was time to make the peace with the game and resume it, this time it seems that definitely. I have invested 50 hours more, finally completing ARR and enjoying the trip a lot throughout these days. The story throughout 80% of the game it's pretty mediocre, but once you manage to overcome that section it goes in crescendo for several hours, making many good references, especially to FFVI, FFXII and KH until the end. Dungeons and trials feel positive since they provide objects and equipment that help you progress with your character, regardless of the class you use and, lastly, the fanbase are mostly polite and comprehensive, which makes the game even more enjoyable.

Time to play post-ARR patches and continue my journey.

I've given it enough of a go. 50+ hours of walking between boring quest after boring quest. I try to pay attention to the story but drab writing makes it so easy to tune out.
Supposedly the community is great? But most people I saw were just idling in the hub, not a single person chatting. No real reason, at this level, to actually play with others - dungeons drop you in with 3 others, but once that's done you part ways.
Tab target combat was serviceable but has no weight. Which is pretty standard for such a system but still I'm not a fan. No sense of build freedom, pick a class and that's it. Equipment is all slight number increments of meaningless stats.
Idk, I might be playing it wrong. But after 50 hours I seriously found nothing of value :(

There's a lot of outdated gameplay mechanics and general problems, but sticking with the game has been extremely gratifying. I love this game to absolute death in spite of its current and growing pains. The story, while a slow burn at first, is phenomenal. The soundtrack between all expansions is godlike. Also probably the best community for a game I've experience. I can count on my hands the amount of times I've had a bad time dealing with another player despite putting thousands of hours into this game. Arguably the best game I've played since Persona 5 Royal.