Far Side Virtual was met with polarizing but generally positive reviews, with most critics commending its conceptual underpinnings and noting its ambiguous relationship to its subject.

[5][6] Ferraro explained that his original idea had been to release the sixteen compositions on Far Side Virtual as a set of downloadable ringtones,[11] but wanted the songs to have the impact of a complete album.

"[15] Ferraro created Far Side Virtual with the Apple audio software GarageBand,[11] which brought out the "cheap digital sound" he desired, and called it a "[r]ubbery plastic symphony for global warming, dedicated to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch".

[19] Commenting on the production style, Joseph Stannard of The Wire wrote, "In contrast to the audio soup of Ferraro's earlier recordings, these tracks have a spacious, architectural feel that recalls Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass and Rush.

"[11] The album was retrospectively tagged as one of the most influential releases to vaporwave, a genre mostly spread via the Internet and identified by its adoption of dated electronic "corporate mood music" and ambiguously ironic attitude.

[27] Andy Battaglia compared the feeling of the music to the online virtual world Second Life, the city-building game SimCity, and the work of experimental filmmaker Ryan Trecartin.

[30] A Fact writer said, "there's no distortion, no tape-hiss, no obvious underground signifiers... [but] this new cleanness and clarity to the Ferraro aesthetic hasn't diminished the hallucinatory power of his music... [the songs] will terrify you to the core even as they evoke the soundtrack of a third-tier Melanie Griffith rom-com or a forgotten Phil Collins B-side.

"[20] Another critic said, "while Ferraro is interested in issues of distance and impermanence, there is no lo-fi fuzz or warm nostalgic haze to temper how flat and ugly the music he's referencing on Far Side Virtual is.

"[31] Like Ferraro's previous albums Night Dolls with Hairspray[28] and Last American Hero,[8] Far Side Virtual expressed as one critic noted "a pre-DVD, Reagan-straight-to-Clinton aesthetic full of neon vulgarity and deteriorated sonics.

"[32] A writer from French music blog The Drone described Far Side Virtual as a concept album inspired by the ideas of hyperreality and simulacra from the post-modern cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard.

Reynolds wrote, "Far Side Virtual seems to undertake an archaeology of the recent past, conjuring the onset of the internet revolution and 90s optimism about information technology.

But that recent past could equally be a case of 'the long present' in so far as the digiculture ideology of convenience/instant access/maximization of options now permeates everyday life and is arguably where faint residues of utopianism persist in an otherwise gloomy and anxious culture.

Just over a year after its release, Marc Masters at Pitchfork wrote that Far Side Virtual "became Ferraro's most discussed and divisive effort, landing on year-end best-of lists as often as it got dismissed as a joke.

"[41] The Wire published a favorable review by Joseph Stannard, in which he wrote "If it is an elaborate put-on—and I suspect Ferraro isn't averse to a chuckle at the expense of his audience—Far Side Virtual still feels like the culmination of numerous releases' worth of research and development.

"[36] Steve Shaw of Fact called the album "an intense immersive listening experience that is both deeply comforting and unsettling at the same time" and said "arguably, it is more a piece of art than a collection of music.

"[42] Music critic Jonah Weiner cited Far Side Virtual for his end-of-year article on contemporary protest songs, and called it "antagonizingly, alienatingly, wondrously bland.

[43] Tiny Mix Tapes named Far Side Virtual the 21st best album of the year, summarized it as "hyperreal... frivolous... eerily familiar and scarily comfortable: pop structures moving one step closer toward the 'synthetic music box' from Huxley's Brave New World.

"[44] Fact named it the sixth best album of the year, and called it "[t]he finest, most accessible example yet of James Ferraro's ability to turn the detritus and dreck of US pop/commercial culture into gold – or, at any rate, something stomach-turningly psychedelic, mentally disturbing yet oddly celebratory.