FINAL FANTASY XIV [Download]

by Square Enix

Product Details

• Downloading: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address.
• Note: Gifting is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B006IUVDOS
• Release Date: September 22, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (203 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,814 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #88 in Video Games > Digital Games > PC Game Downloads > Role-Playing

Product Description

Platform: PC Download | Edition: Standard

From the Manufacturer

Product Description
Embark on the myriad journeys of an epic in FINAL FANTASY XIV, the revolutionary MMORPG from Square Enix. As denizens of the new and visually stunning realm of Eorzea, players will actively engage in compelling storylines narrated through high-definition, real-time events featuring the players' own highly personalized and versatile characters.

While exploring even the farthest reaches of this magnificent world, adventurers are given the freedom to entirely alter their gameplay experience by simply swapping out equipment, and realize objectives with or without the aid of others. The entire experience is crafted to accommodate the widest variety of play styles-from the lone mercenary with only moments a day to spare, to the legion of comrades campaigning for days on end, and every combination in between.

Join players from around the world in an adventure of infinite possibilities.

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Story The guardian gods and goddesses known as the Twelve watch over the city-states of Eorzea. These tiny nations carved out a history of blood and betrayal, forging and breaking alliances as each warred over territory and sought to impose uncompromising interpretations of their patron deities' will. The fate of the land would, however, soon change. Not fifteen years past, a new threat appeared from the north and east-the mighty Garlean Empire. With its fleets of behemoth airships and warriors brandishing weapons that spewed streams of fire, it crushed Ala Mhigo, the most powerful of the six Eorzean city-states. Galvanized by fear of a common foe, the remaining nations joined in a clandestine alliance. Fortunately, the dreaded invasion never came and an uneasy peace prevailed. Thus it was that Eorzea slipped into the Age of Calm. As the city-states continued to develop regular standing armies, a growing number of mercenaries and hedge knights found themselves without employment. Concerned at the rise in number of armed men and women resorting to acts of villainy to survive, several respected leaders gathered together to form a network of guilds. The guilds provided these lost souls with the chance to utilize their talents for the benefit of themselves and others. Through the foresight and resolve of these leaders a new industry had emerged-and the Age of Adventure had begun. Features A persistent and evolving world with immersive storylines and well-developed characters HD-quality, real-time cutscenes Guild-based activities focused on catering to players with different gaming styles Both quick and extensive gameplay sessions, accessible in solo and group play The freedom to entirely alter the gameplay experience by equipping any of a wide array of weapons and tools in the Armoury System, one of the foundations of the FINAL FANTASY XIV experience and the driving force behind character development A breathtaking musical score by renowned FINAL FANTASY series composer Nobuo Uematsu

System Requirements   Minimum Specifications: OS: Win 7, Vista and XP Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.0 GHz); AMD Athlon X2 (2.0 GHz) RAM: Windows XP: 1.5 GB; Windows Vista / Windows 7: 2 GB Hard Drive: 15 GB Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 series with 512 MB VRAM or equivalent; ATI Radeon HD 2900 series with 512 MB VRAM or equivalent Additional Info: DirectSound compatible sound card (DirectX 9.0c); Broadband Internet connection (DSL, cable modem or other high speed connection); Subscription fee required for play

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

246 of 290 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not sure if this technically qualifies as a game October 9, 2010

By Leo Trevino

Platform for Display:PC| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

Going to get the strong points out of the way first. Graphics and music. As far as I can tell, that's about it. The cut scenes and story are nice, but they make up such a tiny fraction of the game they're barely worth mentioning.

As for the bad... it's pretty much every thing else.

UI/controls - This has been beaten to death, but I want to hit it one more time. Quite simply the worst UI for any PC game in the past decade. UO and EQ1 were leaps and bounds ahead of FFXIV in terms of the interface. There is no drag/drop, clicking rarely does anything, limited keymapping, and everything is buried behind several menus.

Combat - Sluggish and consists 90%+ of hitting 1111111. Threat is extremely broken in groups, ie you can get aggro for casting 1 spell even if you don't jump in until the mob is half dead. There aren't any special mobs or mechanics to deal with. You just stand there punching each other in the face until somebody dies. It's like Rockem Sockem robots online. Although the music kinda works against the combat because you're rocking out to a pretty hardcore battle theme while fighting tiny rodents and insects well into your 30's.

The world - The cities are actually really well done, albeit inconvenient. Once you get outside though you find a barren, empty world. There are essentially some random mobs thrown around and aetherite camps where you can activate guild leves. The few actual buildings and settlements are not functioning. They have NPC's who don't do anything and all the doors are locked. There aren't any really dungeons, unless you count being underground as in a dungeon. It's just the same mobs as everywhere else but now underground....

Economy - Sweet zombie jesus, this is quite possibly the biggest game breaker. The entire game is centered around the crafts based economy. Problem is there is no way to find what you're looking for except running around spamming or searching every retainer in the game one by one. The lack of a search function and mail system are killers. Weapon repairs are also a huge hassle. I've taken to buying multiple of the same weapon because you can only fight for about 2 hours before you have to go back to town and find a crafter to repair your weapon or pay astronomical fees to NPC's later in teh game.

Content - Content? Simply not there. The closest you'll come are guild leves which are essentially bare bones "Kill 6 of these things" dailies on a 36 hour timer. The story is interesting but you can only do the one for your city state and SE stated that you can't do the other 2 without creating a new character which would require an insane amount of time. Just watch it on YouTube. To compound the story problem the missions are relatively short, requiring you to do little more than run from cut scene to cut scene. There are no epic battles and all the mission mobs are tuned to be killed by crafters whos only take is Throw Rock which deals 1 damage.

Overall - It's no where near ready. Having played other MMO's in their beta phases I would have guessed that this game is still in alpha. Maybe in half a year to a year it may be fun but right now it is simply an exercise in frustration and what looks to be the longest grind to nothing since Lineage. Read more ›

159 of 187 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars An exercise in frustration October 2, 2010

By Nockolisk

Platform for Display:PC| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

I wanted to like this game, but I just can't do it. I've heard some people try to defend the game by saying that it's challenging or that it has a steep learning curve, but so far it's been easy. It's just been frustratingly slow and tedious.

Interface:
Horribly slow. Painfully convoluted. Everything is menu based. You'll have to wade through lists to do anything. Unfortunately, every new menu that appears takes a few seconds to appear. When you've made your selection, be prepared to reconfirm your choice up to 3 times, and wait again for your selection to take effect. Waiting seems to be the theme of the game.

Change equipment? Wait a few seconds. Also, be prepared to wade through your entire inventory, rather than just the items available for the particular slot you're changing.
Activate combat mode? Wait a few seconds.
Attack an enemy? Wait a few seconds.
Initiate a trade with a vendor? Wait a few seconds. Choose buy or sell? Wait a few seconds.
Want to walk through a door? Wait a few seconds.
Want to store some of your items on your retainer? Wait a few seconds for each item, after you've waited the few seconds for each of the several choices leading up to summoning your retainer.

Gameplay:
Oh, how I wish I could jump. Or that I wouldn't stop for half a second every time my character comes in contact with another. Or that npc's were processed separately from players so that I could actually talk to the npc I need without waiting tens of seconds for it to load in under the crushing server lag.

Tradeskills are largely similar to each other. Gathering skills are largely similar to each other. They're all very slow, and feature enough randomness to make them very frustrating....

Battle is a bit more fun, but there's nothing really special about it. It's a bit slow and I wish the camera wouldn't automatically swing behind my character when I start combat. Combat in other MMO's I've played feels more dynamic, mostly due to the interface lag present in this one.

I could probably go on, maybe I'll insert some positive?

Graphics:
It's pretty. There is an issue with repeated graphical elements in the environments.
The enemy designs are fantastic. There are many adorable creatures wandering the environments, though not much variety to them in the initial zones.
The animation is very well done for the most part.

Overall impressions:
I regret spending my money on this game. Read more ›

118 of 138 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars At a complete loss. October 9, 2010

By Broktune

Platform for Display:PC|Edition:Standard

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

I'm at a complete loss at what Square was thinking. Have they played ANY OTHER mmo's in the last five years? I say this because the UI is so, so bad. I am a veteran of the original EQ. That game's interface was entirely more user friendly than this piece of garbage. People constantly bring up WoW as a comparison. Shoot, bring up a free to play Korean mmo and you will find a better control scheme and UI. Sure, nice graphics.....big deal when the game is completely barren with nothing to do. For those who have played Fallen Earth, that game has more going on in the environments than ffxiv.

Square is lucky that they have the ff name to cling to and all the fans of the series. If this was a new mmo, like APB or Tabula Rasa, it would be shut down within a month. Shame on the people who blindly defend this game and all the flaws it contains. A company like Square/Enix needs to listen to their fans and not completely depend on brand loyalty.

48 of 55 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Do NOT waste your money on this game its not worth the headache. October 6, 2010

By snager

Platform for Display:PC| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

Installing: Went without any problems at all. But once you install the game you need to get the updated patches. This is where all the issues started to show.

Could not even start the client up. It keep on crashing as soon as I double click on the shortcut. After hours of searching google found something about changing the display configure in the FF XIV config program. Why in the world would they put the config program on its own instead of with the client launcher is beyond my understanding.

Now that i got the client started..game started to try and update..i leave the house and come back 5 hours later and its only 20% done!!!!! More googling to find out that you need to open up your bit torrent ports on your firewall (your router). Most customer WOULD NOT know how to do this without a good documentation.

6 hours after installation. I go online on their site to create an account so I can logon the the game. Their account management site is just horrible, who ever designed it should be fired. After a lot of time spent looking around and finding out what needs to be setup. I'm all ready to get into the game and start playing.

I start up the game and find the resolution on it is not what i want it to be so I close the game and start up the config program (cant run it if the game is running) so i change the resolution. I start up the game again and login, and press play.

I see the square enix logo and my screen stays BLACK!!! I google again to find a solution to the problem. I find out all these things you can try to fix the issues and I try them all. None seems to work other then to restart your computer!!! HOW LAME IS THIS! You have to restart your computer every time you quit out of the game!!...

After all these issues i finally get into the game and create my first character. The user interface is dog poo. Worst out of all the MMPORG I've every played. (ultima online, DAOC, EQ, Lineage2, AION, WOW, Warhammer) By far the WORST UI and configuration out there.

At this point I've lost all interest in playing FF XIV. I will try and see if I can get any kind of refund since the game to me is NON-Functional. (having to reboot my computer each time i start the game is a broken game to me) Read more ›