Final Fantasy XI ReviewI played Everquest for about three months when it first came out. I was addicted for a while, but eventually lost interest and decided it was not worth paying the subscription fee to continue playing. I had pretty much sworn off MMORPGs after that, simply because they take up so much time and money to enjoy, not to mention I didn’t find Everquest any fun after a couple months. Damn those broken quests. Ahem…Anyway. In a cruel twist of fate, fast forward a few years to find my editor has sent me Final Fantasy XI and asked for a review. Within three hours, I was hooked all over again, and as a result missed quite a few meals, appointments, and hours of sleep. I’m here to say that this game is good, and it’s consuming my life.   First of all, the North American version of FFXI comes with a total of five CDs. Two contain the basic FFXI, and two more install the Rise of the Zilart expansion pack. The last is a basic installer for PlayOnline – a game service from Sony for their online games and services. The PlayOnline system, while has its bad points (which we’ll delve into later), is a fairly useful program. It serves as a general launcher for FFXI (and Tetra Master which is also included), but also allows you to send e-mail, messages, chat, and find all sorts of information about any of the supported games. When you load FFXI, you’ll feel a bit nostalgic due to the familiar Final Fantasy theme music. After the very long installation process of five CDs and the inevitable online updates, I was ready to play. Almost. First I had to create my character. I had a few options, so I decided to take my time because, after all, in a game like this you’d better like your character because you’ll be stuck with it for a long time. You can choose between Hume, Elvaan, Tarutaru, Mithra, or Galka. Hume are, as far as I can tell, human and the most well-rounded race. Elvaan are tall, skinny, pointy-eared swordsmen and swordswomen. The Tarataru look like living Cabbage Patch dolls. They’re a tiny, round-headed race extremely proficient with magic. All the races I have mentioned can be selected in either male or female versions. The Mithra, on the other hand, can only be female characters. They are slender, cat-like creatures with the best agility of any race. Lastly, the Galka are thick and hairy ape-like creatures that have the most strength of all. They can only be male. Once you’ve selected a race, you get to customize it – size, face type, hairstyle and hair color. Finally, you choose between six different jobs or class types. You can be a Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, or Thief. Each has its own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. Later on, you can choose between some advanced jobs, including Paladin, Dark Knight, Beastmaster, Bard, Ranger, and Summoner. Also, since the American version comes with the Rise of the Zilart expansion, the Samurai, Ninja, and Dragoon advanced jobs will also be available. One of the best things about FFXI is the level of personalization given to your character. I didn’t see other players who looked exactly the same as my character as often as I at first expected. This is partly due to the fact that almost everything that you can acquire and wear is graphically represented on the screen. All the robes look different when you put them on, as do gloves, boots, pants, helmets, shields and weapons. Add to that the fact that different job types can wear things that others cannot, and you’ve got a wide array of characters running around, so it’s tough to find someone who not only created the same character as you, but also has the same equipment. There’s only one more step once you’ve got your character created and fit with a job: choosing a home country. You can choose San D’Oria, a medieval-type kingdom of stones and castles, Bastok, a mining town populated by great metalworkers, or Windurst, the academic center of the world. I created an Elvaan Thief and decided to begin in San D’Oria. After orienting myself with the city, my adventure began. Each city has a few essentials. Each and every player is assigned a Mog House, where you can go to store items, collect deliveries, and change jobs. I decided to check that out first, and headed in the direction some NPCs ("non-player characters" or computer characters) directed me. Since it’s impossible to physically render a space for every player to have a house in the town, you simply enter the "zone" and will be automatically transported into your one room house. Unfortunately for me, there isn’t much to do in your house when you first begin the game. Walking around some more, I met several NPCs who asked me to perform favors for them (quests), which is a great way to learn the basics of gameplay and earn a couple items or gil (currency). Besides the usual shops and vendors, each town also has an auction house, which is one of the most innovative features of FFXI. The auction houses can be easily spotted because there is almost always a mob of people standing in front of it. The auction houses are like a miniature, FFXI-specific Ebay. Any items you want to buy or sell can be bought or sold here. Items put up for auction will remain listed for three real-time days. If unsold, they will be delivered to your mog house. The word “auction” is a bit misleading, because items aren’t sold to the highest bidder. Instead, the seller chooses the price, and the first person to offer at least the specified amount gets the item. That magic number, however, isn’t shown, so you simply have to guess and keep raising your bid until you bid high enough to purchase something you want. The auction house was a bit intimidating to me at first (there are literally thousands of items up for sale at any given time), so I avoided it for as long as I could, but once I began to understand it, it was invaluable. I suggest players become familiar with it as soon as possible. If you don’t want to use the auction house, but have items for sale, you can create a “bazaar.” Simply select your items you want to sell and set the prices. After that, players will see an icon next to your character’s name signifying that you are running a bazaar. Anyone passing you can see what you’re selling and perform a transaction without you having to worry about it any longer. The only downside to using this option instead of the auction house is that those items for sale must be carried in your inventory, which leaves less space for new items. I noticed something interesting while wandering around the streets of San D’Oria: people talking with Japanese characters. The servers for FFXI are not country-specific. The Japanese players who have been playing since 2002 are on the same servers you’ll be playing on. They’re usually easy to spot because they are naturally much higher levels than the Americans who haven’t been able to play as long. FFXI comes with a pretty interesting text converter, which translates several commonly used words from English to Japanese, or vice versa. It’s a slow and painful process to select your words one by one, but it’s nice that it’s there. I also found a few guilds around town. Players can join as many guilds as they wish, with no penalties. Guilds will help you by telling you what items to mix in order to create other things, and thus increase your ability skill. I quickly found that several different types of crystals are needed when attempting to progress through a guild. Crystals, it turns out, are tied in with your nation’s (town’s) conquest campaign. Guards are stationed near the entrance to the towns. By talking to them, you can partake in the campaign. In essence, all this means is that when you kill anything out in the wilderness, your nation gains "influence" in that area. In any area where your home nation is the dominant power, you can collect crystals off of slain monsters. You also gain points that can be used to purchase special items from the guards. Even from the very onset, I had access to about 10 or so quests that I located in San D’Oria. Quests, again, are a good way to explore and learn about the game, so I suggest doing as many as you can. You can also obtain missions from certain guards by the entrances to your town. The missions are not much different from quests in content, except they serve as the way to progress the storyline. Of course, once you begin taking on quests and missions, you’ll have to leave the comfort of town, and actually learn to fight. Long gone are the days of under-detailed, lifeless polygons of Everquest’s day. Nowadays, a MMORPG can hang with the big kids, and while FFXI isn’t the best looking game on the market, you won’t give a damn. They’re very impressive for the scope of a game like this. Characters are intricately detailed and are brought to life with expert animations and attention to the little things. Hair bobs and sways as they run, along with their armor, and similar detail is shown out in the fields, where grass dances with the wind, and individual blades blow around in the sky when there’s a strong gust. Fighting is, thank goodness, real-time. Once you target an enemy, you can choose to use your physical attack, magic attacks, items, or "check" it. "Checking" a creature gives you a general idea of how powerful it is in relation to your character. Unlike usual Final Fantasy titles, you don’t have a timer to wait for, and you don’t have to keep telling your character to attack. Simply target the creature, select "attack," and you’ll beat away at it until either you or the creature dies. Meanwhile, however, you can use an item or magical ability, after which you will automatically continue your physical attacks. Different job types also have certain abilities that you can use in combat. As a thief, I began with "Perfect Dodge" (all physical attacks would miss me for 30 seconds) and "Steal" (which is pretty useless but steals usually worthless items off the enemy). These abilities all have different recharge times, during which you cannot use them. The recharge times can differ greatly. I could attempt Steal every five minutes, but Perfect Dodge could only be used once every two hours. As you reach higher levels, your character gains more special abilities. Of course, working in groups is almost always more successful than going at the world of Vana’diel alone. I made a few good friends during my time with FFXI. For the most part, I always adventured with one player I met when I was a very low level, as we were both obviously new to the game, and were interested in the same missions/quests. FFXI has a "Buddy List" incorporated into the menu, which is a great way to keep in contact with your online friends. It can tell you their status (online/offline) as well as what area they are in. There is also an option to put an icon next to your character’s name to signify that you are seeking a party. It’s a great way to find a group in a hurry. When you create a party, all members split the experience gained from killing monsters (regardless of who deals the most damage), although higher-level players gain slightly more than the lower-level members. You should only group with players who are within a level or two of your character, as if there is a five-level difference, the weaker characters won’t gain any experience from battle. Items or loot from creatures is distributed through a lottery system, in which members select which items they would like, and are randomly assigned a number from 0 – 1000. The highest number will get the item. There really is a lot to see in the world of Vana’Diel, and I sadly have only seen a portion. As you increase your levels, you’ll travel farther and farther from your starting city. This is extremely time-consuming, but once you reach level 20, you can rent a Chocobo, thus cutting traveling time into almost nothing. Alternatively, you can use your nation’s airship port to travel to other nations. If need be, you can apply for citizenship at any of the nations, thus changing your allegiance for the purposes of the conquest campaigns, and you can change you "home point," which is where you respawn if you die. On the topic of death, I was relieved to see that the nightmares I experienced in Everquest of other players looting my corpse and stealing all of my hard-earned money and equipment are gone. In FFXI, death means only two things: that you have to respawn at your home point, and that you lose some experience. If you are lucky enough to have somebody in your party who can revive you (via magic or items) within an hour, you only lose a quarter of the amount of experience you’ll lose otherwise. The higher your level when you die, the more experience you will lose, so it gets particularly frustrating as you advance. Finally, I was generally impressed with the sound effects in FFXI. When in battle, the slashing sounds of a dagger or sword were perfectly fleshed out. The "whoosing" sounds of a magic spell is a great way to know that your party’s white mage is alive and healing your character. I also noticed that when it begins to rain out in the fields, you can even detect the sound of squishing mud when you run, which shows great attention to detail. It may not change the gameplay at all, but it’s the little touches like that that can really solidify a great gaming experience. |