Imagine if the world was intensely overpopulated as it is today, but 99% of the world was left alone, and remained untouched. You'd have stacks of people bickering and argueing all the time, while the best areas of the world could be empty for no good reason. Hello, and welcome to Final Fantasy XI, the first MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) for the Playstation 2, and easily in the top three, which is no easy feat, let me tell you.
This review is going to be done in the form of what your experience would be like if you bought this game, but let's start this off with a story. Joe Gamer (that's you!) goes to the store. Buys Final Fantasy XI, a network adapter, and a lot of soda to keep him awake during the "all-night fun rampage" he'll be having with his brand new game. Said gamer goes home, puts the hard drive in, puts the network adapter in, places his shiny new game into the disc tray, and turns on his PS2. Expecting to download the patch's that he expects within a few minutes on his expensive cable connection, he inputs his username information, and is on his way. But whats this? The 50 megabyte patch's estimated download time is...two hours? Well, that's because one of the great minds at Square had an idea. The meeting went a little something like this:
Square Executive 1: Hey, I've got this idea, we make this game, right? It's this really boring game, and it has no redeeming qualities. And then we charge people monthly for it, and then to top it off, we put the name Final Fantasy on it, just like with that Crystal Carnival game or whatever we made for Gamecube. It'll sell like hotcakes!
Square Executive 2: Hey, that's good, but I've got the icing on the cake. We'll make the entire server run at 56K speeds, so the two people who haven't upgraded to cable can play it and not feel saddened! I'm sure nobody will mind, Americans LOVE equality!
Yes, that's right. The entire server runs at 56K speeds, even the actual game server. After you download the first patch, then three more, than one more to finish it off, and your weekends already over and ruined, you finally get to log on to the game. Hey, didn't your friend Bill Genericlastname get Final Fantasy XI last week, and wanted to play with you? Maybe you guys should look each other up. Except that's impossible, because the game throws you onto a random server, until you can get a ton of money and buy your way off the server into his. But that won't be that long, right? This feat can be accomplished within days! Except that you have to start over from scratch on your friends server, so you'll be even farther behind. But let's ignore that, and focus on the game for now.
After picking your class (let's say you went with Warrior), the first thing you'll do when you enter the game is hear the fantastic sounds of FFIX. In what could be the only good feature ever implemented in a Final Fantasy game since number three, they kept the old sounds from the classic games. When you level up, you get the "dododo do doooo". Yes, you heard me right. The "dododo do doooo", no lies. Sadly, the music must end, and so does your enjoyment with the game. You're thrown into a city with nothing to do but run around aimlessly until twenty hours later, you figure out there's a map function. But luckily, you can talk to the NPC's before you leave for your first area to kill some dangerous rabbits, and life-threatening worms who can't move. With such fun chats such as "Go away, I'm busy" and "I wish I had some flowers", you're immediately compelled to go away, and grab some flowers. So why don't we do that, and embark on our first quest: Find some girl some flowers!
Minutes later, you finally arrive at the gates to the first fighting area. You exit the city, and voila, you're thrown into West Ronfaure, home to previously mentioned rabbits and worms of doom. The first thing you'll notice are players who grab incredibly strong monsters, and run to the gates with them, so once you enter, you die. This is what is known as a "train", and isn't nearly as pleasant as a real train, which I am quite fond of.
Now that you've respawned, and you're back at the gates, enter Ronfaure, and run for your life as you're chased by the monsters. Eventually die, because somehow an ogre with just his fists can hit you no matter how far away you are, and respawn. Run back to the gates from your respawn point, and enter the Ronfaure. By now the ogre should have killed roughly ninety people, seventy of them being you, and over the numerous "1" damages that it has been dealt by level one players, it should have either died, or gotten bored and left. Either way, you're now safe, and can slay worms. Walk around a bit, find a worm, and after five minutes of confusion, finally realize how to attack it. Run up close, sit idly for two to three minutes, and revel at the awesome foe you hath defeated. Congrats: you've now completed the most exciting part of Final Fantasy XI, and gained fifty experience points! Rinse and repeat for roughly thirty hours, and you'll be level ten. But let's assume you died on the next worm, because I don't think anyone here has the intelligence to beat two worms.
Respawn. Again. Rather than kill some worms alone, you decide to check out the "multiplayer" part of this game, by finding a party to slay worms and hares with. SSJGOKU_PIMPSLAYER69 invites you to play with him, so you guys party up. You are the fearsome Warrior, he is the pansy White Mage with some stupid robe and a cane. He points to a worm using the complex pointing macro, and he charges after it, and dies. Apparently nobody told him White Mages weren't the ones who absorb hits, but hey, thats okay. After he respawns, comes to the gates, enters Ronfaure, locates you, and sees you battling a worm, he decides to play it safe this time....by standing far, far away from the battle.
The next thing you notice is the experience points gotten from the battle. "Two". Yes, you got an almighty two when paired with the amazing White Mage of Autisticness, and fifty if you had been alone. Good thing the White Mage was there to help, though.
But what was that we were doing earlier...the flower quest? Right. After giving you absolutely no hints at all of even where to find a flower, you are expected to go get a flower. The first thing you should do is check the auction house. Going to the flower section is a good start, if you can manage to find it in the horrible menus. Granted you do, which you won't, you'll notice there are about three hundred different flowers, all selling for about 500 gil. Maybe she wants any flower? Could be right, eh? Buy a random flower, give it to the girl, get rejected, try again. It's total trial and error here folks, and thats the way every quest is going to be. If you finally find the right flower, don't worry, you've got all the time in the world to do more quests just like it! Except of course, if you get disconnected, what with the blazing fast server speeds.
I've been on FFXI since it came out, but recently quit the game for the obvious. The monthly charge. The game is pretty good I give it that, however if you don't have people to REALLY interact with it can be frustrating. I haven't played many MMORPGs and don't intend to, but this one I got into. SquareEnix did do a decent job in presenting the game to the public, but killed most of the fun with downloads, character fees, Japanese time gap, gilfarmers (FFXI term), and crappy GMs. They could have done much better with more time in preperations. The waving of the fee couldn't hurt much either. I agree with the rant, but I also disagree.
First of all, I'd like to say, you're as dumb as a box of rocks...did you even play FFXI? you probably have an attention span of a goldfish if you did,and second of all, the game is the BEST MMORPG out there, i played every one and FFXI is by far the best,i actually hated other MMORPGs. Hey guess what, in EVERY RPG the first monsters you fight are weak helpless monsters like rabbits and worms. So I'm assuming you play Wrestling games and Sports games and Tony Hawk, yeah you should probably play it a little more, and get past level 2...... anyone else who disagrees, probably enjoys watching two large men in super tight shiny underwear hug each other as well. Enough said.
I must wonder if the person Reviewing this game ever even played it. Granted, it did take me 4 hours to install the game, 2 expansions, and update the entire game. But could that possibly be because it has more content than any other game in existance? This game is true to Final Fantasy in many ways. Including the whole "work together as a team" theme that has been highlighted in every FF since the first. However, you can't really party untill lvl 12 or so (10 if you're a mage), perhaps that's why you got 2 xp. the game dosen't even really start untill you get one of the 6 Basic Jobs to lvl 30. At that time, you should have already unlocked the Subjob slot, got a kazham airship pass, got a choco pass, and joined a Linkshell(guild). Furthermore, anyone who says there is no storyline has never done any missions. There is indeed tons of story line, so much that it dosen't come together and make sense till rank 4 or so. In short, this is the worst most inaccurate review eve
The game's graphics may not be to great on appealing but its fine for it.
Sound could be better.
Gameplay is great but could be better in some ways.
I've seen some better games, but this is fine game.
the review was incredibly merciful, cuz this game sucked buffalo nads, not even close to the fun of the original, after renting it, i realized i had wasted $5 from my wallet and 15 minutes of my life i am NEVER getting back.
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