An impossibly hard to recommend MMORPG that is very dated in the early game with there being no plans to renovate it.

Game is cool and all, but if you have nobody that is willing to stomach 100 hours of absolute slog with you throughout the first chapter(ARR), then may the heavens above grant you the patience of a Tibetan monk.

Does it get better after ARR? ..yes, kind of.

Heavensward is no saving grail that the community loves to paint it as, if you've ever talked to a FFXIV player they will swear Heavensward and the expansions later are the godsent invitations straight into heaven in terms of storywriting like George Orwell came out the grave to explain the difficulties of living in the world of FFXIV, but no, not even close. Yes, it's a massive step up, and the game starts to actually feel like a decent MMORPG with story, but that's it. It's the average story you'd expect from an MMORPG. The absolute horrors of ARR inflicted literally every player of the game with stockholm syndrome into thinking Heavensward saved the universe from bad storywriting.

It's still a good game if you're fine with looking like a farmer until you reach expansion number god knows when where you actually start getting decent looking armor, or willing to splurge some extra in cosmetics.
It's not gonna blow your socks off, it's not gonna insult you as you play, and it DOES get better. But my god is it a time sinker. I'm 182 hours deep and I haven't even scratched the surface of any expansion past Heavensward because I like to actually read and try to immerse myself.

Do not buy this game if you don't have much time to waste unless you will buy a skip, buy it if you want the classic JRPG/RPG feel. Though do note that multiplayer options are super limited and it feels like a singleplayer game that just has the features of online play. You won't get to play with your friends on 99% of missions. Give the game a shot on the 30 day free period, see if you like it, if you don't, don't buy it. It won't get a crazy amount better past the demo.

excellent story and game play not for weak this game test players.

It's k