Genre: RPG
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square
# of Players: 1
ERSB: E
Released On: March 22nd, 2004
Also On: PC
Features: Online, HDD, Keyboard
Website: FFXI

Introduction

It all started back in 1987, when videogame companies were still struggling to establish a serious market. Like a lot of these companies, a company known as Square was going through some hard times and were on the verge of bankruptcy. Legendary designer Hironobu Sakaguchi decided he was tired of making action games, what he wanted to do was tell a story. He began creating his game, Final Fantasy, the game that would make or break Squaresoft.

Now over fifteen years later Squaresoft is one of the biggest, most successful and most influencial third party developers in the world. Hiro’s game was a monumental success, bringing Squaresoft out of finacial trouble and spawning over a dozen "sequels" and spin-offs. Most recently Final Fantasy X-2, the first true sequel in the Final Fantasy series, and Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles on the GameCube. Final Fantasy XI is the latest incarnation to hit our shores, and it’s quite a departure from many games before it. Online RPG’s are really nothing new, they’ve been insanely popular for years. From Diablo to EverQuest on the PC to even EverQuest and Phantasy Star Online on the consoles, every gamer has atleast 1 option for this growing genre, regardless of their gaming rig. But a Final Fantasy online RPG? Fans have been waiting for this for years, and it’s finally here. Was it worth the wait?

Cheapest Final Fantasy Game Ever

First let’s discuss exactly how you get FFXI. In case you have been living under a rock for the last year or so, Sony planned to have the HDD out in March of this year with FFXI bundled with it for free. They delivered. For $100 you can pickup the hard disc, which comes with FFXI (among other things) pre-installed. You’re basically getting the game free, as well as the expansion pack "Rise of the Zilart". You’ll need those savings too because after the first month online, you’ll start paying a monthly fee to play the game. However, I’m not gonna get into those details because FFXI just so happens to also include the biggest manual in the history of videogames and these issues are explained in great detail.

I’ll just say, if you are a fan of Final Fantasy, the HDD is easily worth the pricetag. You’ll get FFXI free and the expansion pack free, and there are plenty of reasons to use it in the future, such as SOCOM II, Gran Turismo 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, Syphon Filter: Omega Strain, Rainbow Six 3, Killzone, etc etc. However, if you are NOT a fan of this type of game, you might want to hold out on buying the HDD, atleast until downloadable content is enabled for a game you do enjoy.

Presentation

Taking the biggest and best RPG franchise online is no easy task and it shows in FFXI. Everything people love about the series and everything your typical MORPG should include have mated and the result is a tedious interface with way too many menus, options and alerts. I mean, has the genre really evolved this far since Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast a few years ago? I long for the days of simply logging on, joining a server, finding a room and playing. Not really even needing a keyboard for any reason aside from communication.

It takes me longer to log onto FFXI, on cable, then it did PSO on dial-up. That’s how many useless menus and useless programs you have to log in to simply to get into the game. And if you want to log out? Don’t think about just simply turning your console off. You might corrupt your character by doing that. You have to sit there for 30 seconds idling, the log out of menu after menu after menu until you’re finally safely logged out. The menus are just needlessly difficult. Bringing up the command menu, you’re immediatly given no less than 24 options, each one with many more sub-menus. Simply no need for so many. Much of it could have been slapped together or done more effeceintly. Also, why is it that if a friend and myself go and buy the game, unless we know someone already on the game we will basically be screwed if we were wanting to go through the game together? If you want to choose the world you spawn on, you must have a World Pass, which costs gil. I’m sorry but what happened to that "Community XI" feature I’ve seen on that FFXI commercial that plays a thousand times a day?

In case you cannot tell, I’m not much of a PC gamer and FFXI’s presentation feels like it was designed for PC users as opposed to PS2 users. That said, eventually you WILL get the hang of the insane amount of menus and options you have to go through, and the game becomes much more enjoyable. Atleast they did a good job with the control, as commandeering the huge menu is not too difficult.

Graphics

FFXI is naturally a bit different looking than traditional versions. The environments in XI are HUGE, no joke. It takes a nice chunk of time to walk from one end of the town to the other. The framerate stays solid, even with loads of monsters and of course tons of gamers running around at once. Special effects are amazing, such as spells, and the textures are also very solid, especially for a PS2 title. Because the game loads off of the HDD, you’re also rarely sitting there waiting for the game to load.

But naturally as seemingly every MMORPG before it, FFXI does suffer from some graphic problems such as clipping and pop-up. And when running through the cities I swear it looks and feels like your character is just power-walking and not running. It’s SLOW. They seem to move faster in the battle areas. Overall the graphics in FFXI are some of the more impressive the systems ever seen and rank right up there with the Dynasty Warriors, SOCOM’s, GTA’s and Norrath’s as far as framerate during action and huge, sprawling levels are concerned. And those Tarutaru’s are just so damned cute.

Sound

Being a Final Fantasy game, it’s a given that FFXI has a great soundtrack. While it is certainly not as good as any of the traditional games, it’s still got that Final Fantasy sound and is easily the best in the online RPG genre. What’s there is good, there simply needs to be more.

While the music is not up to par with other Final Fantasy titles, the sound effects are probably the best I have ever heard in a Final Fantasy game. Every weapon smash and enemy roar and spell effect is topnotch.

Gameplay

We’ve all played online RPG’s before, so we all know what they’re about. You pick a race, pick an ability and get online and start hacking and slashing. FFXI is no different. After installing your HDD and downloading/updating the many, many, many required files, you log on and pick a race. The races naturally vary, and all the cliches are represented well. You got the humans(Hume’s), the elves(Elvaan’s), the cat-women(Mithra), the big muscular guys(the Galka), and the wimply little runts(Tarutaru race).

After you have picked your race, you will select a Job. The Jobs are important, as each one affects your characters growth and abilities immensely. One of FFXI’s key positives is the fact that after you choose a Job, you are not stuck with it. Say your Elvaan Thief is level 30 and you’re getting a bit bored with him. Change Jobs, become an Elvaan Monk. You’ll drop down to level 1 and become a n00b again. While the races vary, the Job system makes the race you pick pretty insignificant. Even a big Galka can be a mage and even a midget Tarutaru can be a warrior. There are plenty of Job types though, and those do matter. Everything from a Monk to a Warrior to a White Mage to a Thief, and more. You also can later choose special classes such as a Bard or a Samurai or a Ninja.

Ok, so you’ve got everything installed, downloaded and updated everything and picked your race/job. Now it’s time to actually start playing. Unless you’ve got someone on the game giving you a World Pass, you’ll be spawned on some random world. Then you’ll choose your city. There are three cities: Bastok, San D’Oria and Windurst. Each city is different and you’ll get different quests depending on the city you’re in. If you pick the city your race is "naturally" supposed to be in(for example, Bastok is a Hume/Galka city), you’ll get a ring for your character, boosting your stats.

The first thing you’ll notice is the HUGE size of the cities and how slow your character runs through it. What you do from here is up to you. Going to one of the monster areas will result in combat. FFXI handles combat rather well, except that you don’t actually do the attacking. Rather, your character stays in auto-attack mode and you choose when to cast spells or use items. I think of it as playing a turn based Final Fantasy game except once I start attacking the "attack" option never comes back. It is ind of boring at first but once you level up and more options for attacking become available to you, it’s not bad at all. You can join parties online and the combat gets even deeper. Limit breaks are in FFXI except they’re known as Weapon Skills. You can use them individually, or chain them together with party members for even more devastating attacks. Some of the bigger monsters can only be beaten this way.

Like any other MMORPG there are tons of different weapons and equipment, as well as quests and missions to partake in. The game’s totally open-ended, you can tackle it any way you see fit. The only gameplay problems I had was the size of the areas and your characters incredibly slow speed. You can get Chocobos later in the game and they’re faster but it takes a LONG time to get places up until then. I’m talking literally 10 minutes + to get from the battlefield, back to the city and back out again. Ridiculous. It really breaks up the action. The AI could be a bit better too.

Overall

FFXI is truly the benchmark title Square hoped it would be. Easily the best of it’s kind on consoles, the userbase for this title is huge and growing by the day. Join up soon. The online play is as smooth as any title I have ever played and with so much depth there’s no reason to wanna play anything else.

Overall 9.0
Graphics 8.5
Sound 9.5
Gameplay 9.0
Lasting Appeal 10.0