when the simple act of creating an account for the massively multiplayer online game you just bought is a convoluted mess, you know you're in trouble. It's unfortunate that the first impression you have of Final Fantasy XIV is so indicative of the experience at large. It's hard to miss these gaffes--the bizarre and unfriendly method of getting an account set up, the troublesome patcher, having to exit the game if you want to adjust the graphics settings, and so on. These might have been forgivable flaws had developer Square Enix provided an excellent reason to overcome these obstacles, but in fact, they set the stage for a misguided effort that uses its atrocious interface and tortuous mechanisms to veil its core simplicity and unending repetition. The brighter aspects speak to the MMOG that might have been. A robust graphics engine gives your travels some razzle-dazzle, an open-ended class system offers welcome flexibility, and a focus on storytelling makes the initial hours more bearable than they may have been otherwise. But these minor peaks are outweighed by abyssal valleys

Once you get past the confusing process of opening an account and endure the arduous patching, Final Fantasy XIV puts its best foot forward. Character creation offers a slick look at race and class choices, showing off a number of fantastic character models and dividing them into subcategories. There aren't a staggering number of ways to physically customize your character, but there are enough selections to keep you content, and the races are visually diverse enough to get you excited about exploring a new fantasy world. After you finish making an avatar, you choose one of three starting cities and get treated to an impressive, competently voiced cutscene featuring the game's expressive character models and idyllic music. It's a strong first statement, though it's a fleeting one. Other cutscenes feature more of the same solid voice acting, though most are eerily silent and showcase characters that move their lips but make no sound. Nevertheless, this is a good way to set the stage for what would seem to be a great-looking, narrative-focused online role-playing game.

                   Unfortunately, Final Fantasy XIV dampens the goodwill this opening might inspire from almost the moment you take control of your character. You might wander off after this introductory sequence, only to respawn where you started with a simple message that you left the zone, though the game makes it unclear where you should be going in the first place. "Where should I go?" "What should I do?" These questions will be constantly on your mind in the first hour--and the fifth, and even later--as you struggle to figure out what the game expects of you. Once you finish up your first story quest, you never get an indication of how to further the tale. As it turns out, you can pick up the next main quest from the same non-player character once you reach a certain class rank requirement, but the game never tells you when that is or even whether you should be talking to the same character or not. You can view the quest objective on a map, but this gargantuan eyesore is separate from the main map and labels nothing but the quest goal without giving you a sense of relative location or direction. It's meant to be used in conjunction with your main map, which is an equally monstrous disaster that fails to label any number of important locations, doesn't allow you to zoom out, and requires you to use the keyboard to scroll. 

Crafting is a big part of what there currently is to do in Final Fantasy XIV. You harvest basic resources by fishing, mining, and the like and then combine them into products you can sell or use. Weaving, carpentry, and goldsmithing are among the many crafting options open to you, and both crafting and harvesting require you to perform a minigame. When weaving, you choose your raw materials, select the recipe, and then attempt to synthesize the highest quality item before its durability reaches zero. When mining, you must pay attention to the text feedback to determine how close you are to getting useful resources. These minigames seem like a nice change of pace at first, but they soon become a real drag. The interface, normally sluggish anyway, is particularly poky when crafting and gathering, and the animations are excruciatingly long. And be sure to have a pad of paper close by or a Web browser window at the ready because the game does not store the recipes you learn. There is a bright side to the emphasis on self-discovery, though: It's mildly fun to experiment in the hopes of learning a new recipe. Most recipes you learn, however, will come from completing local levequests, which are focused exclusively on crafting. You just need to be careful you don't miss any recipes because they are displayed in your chat channel and can be easily overlooked in all the clutter. 

                     Final Fantasy XIV is a notable entry to the genre but only for what it lacks. It lacks character; bare-bones quests and audiovisual repetition fail to instill a sense of fantasy wonder. It lacks cohesion; communication failures, economic oddities, and stringent limitations leave you constantly directionless. And it lacks joy; the abysmal interface and boring monsters make it a struggle to stay invested. The open-ended classes, the stunning graphics engine, the focus on story--these elements deserve rightful praise. It's a shame they weren't put to use in a game worthy of the Final Fantasy brand. Certainly, Final Fantasy XIV will improve as features are added, yet the failures go beyond the superficial. Updates may address a multitude of flaws, but "fun" is not a feature that can be added with a simple patch.