By Stephen Vernon Smith on May 25th, 2004

Gender confused heroes, voice acting from hades, and long summoning spells that take an abundant amount of time for an insufficient amount of damage. With the recent Final Fantasy X and it’s ’sequel,’ Final Fantasy X-2, these may be a few of the things you’d expect from Final Fantasy XI. Well, fret not- because this Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG for all of you out there in lala land, and an even shorter MMO for those of you who are actually lazy enough to abbreviate and acronym.) contains none of the above. If you think you’re a true gamer, and would like to undertake the task of fighting against the odds with fellow players as your only true hope of survival- then give FFXI a chance.

Keep in mind, this game is not for you if you prefer to go it solo. For one, it’s a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Meaning that a good majority of your time is spent with a party, working you way through experience grinds and the next level of each dungeon. If team-based MMORPGs sound like your thing, read on. If not, I recommend reading on anyway, maybe you’ll find something of interest.

So it’s your first trip to Vana’diel, eh?

Your first trip into FFXI may be a bit disorienting. And it’s not for quite a while that you truly gather a sense of how absolutely massive the world is. You start off in the country of your choice. San d’Oria, Windurst or Bastok. Each country has it’s own unique characteristics. Windurst is a very natural style country. Abundant in giant trees and ancient folklore about the planet. Home to the tiny Tarutaru race, who specialize in magic- and those stylish Mithras, who specialize in purring and making it a point to purr in every sentence that contains an r...rrrr. Bastok is a midieval type community, home to those whippersnapper HUmes and their fancy technology, not to mention the bulking Galka and their mining and construction abilities. If you happen to choose San d’Oria, prepare to be blown away. The Elvaan race are geniuses at symmetry and polka-style folk music. They are a snooty and uptight race, so if you are one, be sure to demand respect. You, too, can be cool!

Regardless of which country you are now an inhabitant to, the basic premise lies true. Either head into a nearby "newbie" dungeon, or the killing fields right outside. Dungeons usually provide more experience at a slightly higher risk, but at your low level, this will be the best choice, as you won’t begin losing experience until level 4 or so. And even then, it’s not too much. Whichever way you head, be sure to first equip your weapon that’s bestowed upon you at the start of your journey. Hand-to-hand combat is not a wise choice, unless of course you’re a Monk. Before you begin all this, you should really take a look at all the options. Be sure to have your controls set (Especially if using a controller, my choice is a PS2 -> USB adapter with a Playstation 2 controller. Works brilliantly.) and your graphics tweaked to the optimum performance for your PC. This game takes a beast to run at it’s highest settings, so don’t be scared to go low for that extra framerate or thirty.

After you’ve finished the initial head-smashing parade that should take you but several hours, you’ll notice your experience is now dreadfully slowly rising. It’s time to head to new land. Ask a person who looks like they know the area and find out which way would be best for your level. Some people (Particularly myself, teehee.) find it hilarious to tell new folks where to go, sending them into a death trap. Consider the following before taking advice:

- Did they add an "LOL" or two onto their sentence?

- Did they misspell more than 50% of what they typed?

- Were they wearing a subligar?

If any of the above hold true; reconsider and get a second opinion.

This will be your first true test of sportsmanship. In this newfound area, you’ll discover that both solo and partied up seem to get decent experience. You’ll find that a party moves along faster, but you don’t always get the item you want and the experience may be chopped up pretty bad. Solo is incredibly slow but you get all the goods and big time experience. A party also bestows lovely healing and support for if you’re low on HP. Solo means you won’t have 50 minutes of downtime because someone died, or you had to run.

Beyond this small experience though- you’ll find that parties are almost always required. What becomes even more painfully obvious is your role within that party. Being lazy will get you nowhere, as you’ll often be fighting enemies that require each and every member on his or her toes at every moment of the battle, many a time you’ll scrape by with less than 5HP only to be healed by your trusty White Mage who wouldn’t think of letting you die. Or maybe you are that White Mage, and before that enemy can finish you off, the valiant Warrior will step in with his Provoke to take the damage for you. No matter which way it swings, teamwork is vital and all members must pull their own weight. You’ll find that many players are intolerant of laziness, though they may allow occasional "away-from-keyboard" time, as we all have to use the can or run to the store sometime. Just be careful not to get excessive, or you’ll return to your screen only to find you dead with a beast man playing kick the can with your face.

"Only 3,000 EXP to next level!"

Ah, one of the most debated subjects in FFXI. The experience grind, you either love it or hate it. You may appreciate it for being so demanding, yet not getting insane until the much higher levels. Or you may hate it for not letting you level fast enough or taking too much away when you die. Either way- you’re going to have to deal with it if you want to make it in Vana’diel.

Gaining levels remains the same for a good 30 (Or 60, depending on your main and sub class choices.) or so levels. You’ll be gaining anywhere between two to seven thousand experience per level depending on how high your level is. Each level is a few hours of work, and requires patience and appreciation for small boosts in stats. You’ll definitely notice that boost with each level, but you should never expect to just get an all-powerful attack with any one level. Dedication and perseverance will get you through.

Of course this doesn’t mean you won’t be without your uber techniques. On every few "milestone" levels, you’ll gain a special job attribute such as poison resist, or increased defense, and of course new attacks. Some of these become vital to your class, so be sure to check with each level. These make it very satisfying for all the work you put into gaining levels, so keep at it! This aspect of the game really pulls itself together once you get going. Very rewarding and extremely clever uses of techniques later on in the game.

Variety of Visuals

All three countries have their own unique outset, yet feature eerily similar layouts. Early on, this will feel like a cheap trick, but once you really get out to the later worlds, you’ll enjoy coming back and seeing the ol’ familiar homeland. The later places you visit range from catacombs with missing floor tiles (Which you do NOT want to fall through at a mid-level.) to vast jungle mazes to even alternate dimensions. It gets intense and you’ll have to make sure the phone is disconnected and the doorbell’s wire is cut, this is a time consuming task that is hard to immediately "escape."

Obviously, you don’t want to spend your entire life in the game, so be sure to take breaks and keep the playing in moderation. Gaining levels is fun, but gaining pounds is most certainly not. Obligatory cautions aside, be sure to talk to as many townsfolk as you can, they often have valuable quests that not only lead you to even more exotic locations, but also boost your fame, meaning you’ll be able to get lots of little extra trinkets and even better quests that lead to some great special items or scrolls. Plus, they’re a great way to get some cash, assuming they don’t cost money themselves.

Speaking of visuals, the graphics for the PC versions are pretty nice. At the default resolutions it’s terrifyingly similar to the vastly inferior PS2 version, but if you’re able to crank the details and resolution up, it’s quite beautiful. Ranging from bump mapping to advanced shadows and of course the great weathering effects. One of the things that makes it so difficult to judge this section is that it takes quite the machine to run FFXI at nice settings. Obviously it would be unfair to give it a harsh score due to a crappy machine, but the end consumer must be taken into consideration, which doesn’t seem like the case here. The average PC will be able to run at the default settings at a relatively stable framerate, but at such a low resolution (Not to mention they have a foreground and a background resolution, what the hell?) the jagged edges could cut through diamonds. Nice when settings are high, plain ugly when not. Sloppy, sloppy...

What makes up for this, however, is the fact that almost every piece of equipment in the game has it’s own look and feel to it, so you can mix and match and find the perfect armor combo of your choice. The armor starts off rather bland, as you’d expect, but with each new passing level, it gets spiffier. It’s always best to fit this into your budget, as you may also need new scrolls, or maybe even warps from other players. Never buy armor just because you can.

Clang, Clang, Tshing!

So, we know how the visuals stack up, how about them sound effects? The audio is nice, with all the great Final Fantasy style scores you can expect, and the basic banging of swords and slashing of monsters. There’s no apparent surround sound support, and there aren’t really many sound options to begin with. But what’s there is nice, crisp, clear and soothing or adrenaline pumping, depending on the on-screen action. The Rise of the Zilart music is also a nice touch later on in the game. Not much else to say here, same sounds you’d hear on the Playstation 2 version.

Ah, the main course, actually playing the game. Controls are simple, you can move with the keypads, or your controller, or just plain use your mouse and drag the cursor around. Travel early on is relatively slow, which is countered at level 20 by a Chocobo lisence, and even later still, an airship pass. Depending on how you set up your controls, battles will take place slightly differently. Mostly in the field of targeting opponents. Auto-targeting hot keys will lead you to the nearest battle target, or you can go it manually and attack in correlation to your speed as a gamer.

Battles are carried out slightly different than other games, you choose an enemy and hit attack, and you’ll attack automatically. You can dodge around, which doesn’t really do anything, but I’ve found that I get hit less when I’m moving a lot. Through dumb luck or hidden programming, that’s the case for me. Sounds boring doesn’t it? Just hit attack and wait? But no, there’s lots more to battling. If you’re a fighter class you must constantly watch your TP for your chance to attack, your HP in case of emergency 2-hour skill usage, and of course your parties’ stats. Also, keeping an eye on your surroundings is vital. Many enemies -especially the widely hated Goblins- are aggressive, so if your healing buddy doesn’t have time to type that he’s getting the snot beat out of him, your keen eye watching his health bar or his on-screen position may save his life, as you can easily pull the enemy toward you with a skill or spell.

This level of teamwork really brings a sense of pride to the player, as you feel useful, but at the same time you feel defended. United you’ll stand, together you’ll fall. Of course there’s the occasional coward who runs at the first sight of getting hit, but you can always kick them out of your party. Winning a battle and watching your party gain levels also provides a nice sense of accomplishment, your hard work was put to use well, and another victory made in your name. You won’t always win, but the victories will far outnumber the defeats.

Teamwork is also essential while attacking as well, as each character will have his or her own set of moves that need be used in conjunction with others if you want to successful defeat enemies in a timely manner. Fighters will use their TP to use special techniques that can be chained together into special "Skillchains" that have even more powerful damage, and even elemental effects against enemies. Even further still, are magic bursts; spells that are casted just right to take effect immediately after a skillchain, these lead to extraordinarily powerful magic attacks. As you can see, the game’s emphasis on teamwork really pushes the boundaries in cohesion and timing.

Your party itself will also reflect how well you make progress. A team of fighters will kill enemies fairly easily, but once the damage taking rotation is done, the downtime can take quite a while. A party of all mages could inflict major damage in very short times, keeping taken damage to a minimum, but MP recovery would be major downtime. A well-balanced team is always the best option.

An even team will make or break your experience with this game, so always be sure to experiment, playing by the book can get nice things- but finding out something new is always much more fun. Speaking of which, you don’t really have to fight to have fun in FFXI. Just exploring different scenery can be a lot of fun, especially if you bring along a few close friends for some laughs, I’ve spent hours just goofing around. And mass conversations in the Auction House areas can be hysterical. So never miss your chance to just kick back and enjoy yourself.

Now that we’re on the subject of buying and selling, let’s not forget the infamous notorious monsters. These beasts exist only at certain times and have a chance of dropping very rare items that are worth a fortune. If you’re dedicated to it and have a quick trigger finger, you might kill a few. But the items aren’t call rare for nothing, killing 15 in a row may bring nothing but frustration. However, eventually, like myself, you’ll get one of these items. And boy, does it put you on easy street. This really puts some leverage on all the hardships you may have with cash on the game, and makes you feel rich for a bit. Very nice. Just try not to let your Linkshell members know.

Linkshells are like guilds, or groups of people who aren’t in a party, but are willing to join you in one or just plain chat. You may be in as many linkshells as you wish, but you can only chat to one at a time, and at the same time only receive messages from that same shell. Linkshell leaders have things called Linkpearls, which they give to members, this allows everyone to chat on the same frequency and makes things very convenient. Also, if a Linkshell holder wishes for you to recruit more members, he or she may give you a Pearlsack, making you a sackholder (Shush.) and therefore giving you some control of the entire Linkshell. Very nice, and can be quite fun.

Parties themselves are groups of up to 6 people, who can make alliances with up to 2 other parties forming a group of 18 people. Which means one huge party. Obviously the experience lost from this would be made up by fighting extremely powerful monsters, yet such a thing is rarely done as it’s hard to keep track of everyone, and can create quite the scene of lag. They are however, required for various missions if you wish to survive. Such a feature is mainly used by high level players in very formidable areas, so be advised that this function may not be of much use to you until later on.

On top of all this, you may still do other activities, such as craft various items based on skill levels, fish, or just partake in missions to advance the story, and your rank, earning conquest points and very powerful items. There is much to be discovered, and you won’t need me to tell you every detail. All in all, very solid, fun, and entertaining. It’ll definitely garner your money’s worth.

Pricing System

The game has a monthly fee of $12.95 + $1 per extra character, yes. But as I just stated, in my case it was well worth the cash and most likely will be to you as well, if this happens to be your type of game. It comes with a very sharp looking PlayOnline interface with an e-mail account, messaging system and for a measly $1, Tetra Master online, which you can still message player in FFXI from. This amounts to quite the bargain if you add it up, and compare to similar prices for other games.

Solid.

’Lastability’

With the game having a high level cap of 75, a new expansion pack coming out, and new updates every few months, it doesn’t appear that there will be a stop to this goliath game anytime soon. So you may as well give it a try, don’t avoid the hook, let it sink into you! You know you want to. There’s so much to see and do, you may not ever see it all.

Customer Service

This is one the areas FFXI really shines in. There’s constant in-game and in-viewer (The PlayOnline Viewer.) support from extremely friendly and helpful Game Masters. If there’s a problem with abusive players they’ll help out immediately, if you’re having issues with some relatively common bugs in the game, they’ll explain it to you, and they’ll actually talk to you, not just at you. It makes the atmosphere very comfortable and gives you a sort of respect for the PlayOnline and Square Enix staff.

An incredibly solid MMORPG with excellent features and all at a reasonable price. It has the classic Final Fantasy feel with that new-age taste. If you have the time, and a little free cash, then this will definitely garner your money’s worth. A few problems lie here and there, but they’re almost always fixed in a timely manner.

If you’re up for the task, go for it. I highly recommend this to anyone who’s a Final Fantasy, MMORPG, or online gamer fan. Lots of fun, deep story (For what it is.) and plenty of action. The first 30 days of play time are free, and they are pretty quick to shut off your account if your payment is even the slightest bit late. Don’t worry, they’ll keep it in the database for 3 months afterwords, but make sure to get it paid before that time is over, or else it’s lights out for that account.

There’s a lot I haven’t even had a chance to cover in this review, so be assured, this game is massive. If you’re one for extras, you’ll love every moment of discovery found in FFXI.