Others say...

"After a year. "
I bought this game shortly after Christmas in 2005 and in March of 2006 I am still an avid fan. Yes, through the months I would get irritated at the excruciatingly large amount of time it took to level a job to 75... but now that I'm here I realize that I've had a lot of fun and adventures just getting here.

Everyone likes to focus on the leveling... but the game has so much more than that. This game was created to have a near infinite realm of possibilities as far as fun is concerned but like life, it makes you put in the time and effort of creating a character before you're allowed to partake in the end-game rewards.

Vana'diel is an ever-expanding world of people and quests and if you're bored there's every chance that you've not ventured far enough abroad, or gotten lost in a place more dangerous than your scant amount of levels. Days when I was tired of the 'exp grind' were the days when I've had the most fun. I still remember wandering blindly through Carpenter's Landing and stumbling upon the Barge there. I remember getting mauled by a random Notorious Monster on that barge at level 45 (we almost had it ;) ). I remember the first time I went to the Sanctuary of Zi'tah and my first trek through Beaucedine Glacier.

Final Fantasy XI is a beautiful game, with a LOT to do. Get yourself to level 60 and a whole world will open up. This one's not about the instant gratification, it's about earning your way to the top. The best of everything goes to those that stick it out and in the end you'll find that whether you're helping a new player through his Kazham Key quest or farming items to spawn Gods in Sky... there'll always be something to do.

A previous reviewer said that there was never a sense of accomplishment in this game. I believe the opposite to be true. I believe that you feel the accomplishments more... because you've had to work for them.

Buy the game.

It's great fun.

"Fun, but gets old"
Final Fantasy XI amazed me. The size of the game is enormous with thousands of people playing and numerous places to go. It is one of the most addicting games to play when you first buy it, but over time it gets boring. Hardly anything ever changes, and there's not a lot of action in it. But, for such a large game, the visuals are fantastic and it's great that you can create and personalize your own character. It has catchy music and creative events from time to time as well. It is fun, but since all you really do is level up your character, after awhile it just gets old.

"Review after 80 hours."
I played this game for about 80 hours, then quit completely. The reason for this is because the game is so boring in the beginning, it makes you want to tear up the disk and throw it at the creators.

Ok so I'll be fair and give you some pros...and of course cons.

Pros------------------
1.Nice graphis with high res, and fair battle engine.
2.Rewarding game after you play for about 200-300+ hours.
3.Fast load.


Cons------------------
1.If you want to play this game with a friend, your friend has to go in-game and spend a considerable abount of gil (money) on something called a 'World Pass'. This allows you to make your character on their server, but can only be used once.
2.Very slow traveling and leveling.
3.Expensive fee.
4.Need a friend in real life before you start this game to help you.

As you can see in my review, the cons overshadow the pros.


"An honest review by a gamer"
Ok - by the tiume you have reached my review, you'll have a good idea of what this is all about.

Forget the payment methods, even forget the graphics and music and actual gameplay.

Lets get right down to it.
What is it that you want from a game? For me, there are 2 options; 1. to have fun, or 2. To burn time.

FFXI really doesn't offer much in the form of fun - it is a real grind to achieve anything, and when you think you have - bamm! You realise you haven't at all, or even come close. Its quite simple; you will spend a LOT of your time, just finding out how things work; but these are things that you will NEED to know, to function properly within this virtual world.

Ok - Lets set this out.
1. To play this game you need to be in a team.
2. People within this game are very strange; you will come across very weird, angry, obsessed, nerdy ( or a combintation )
3. There is (believe this or not) a racism within the game linked to the inherent abilities of each race. I.e, A Tarutaru can't make a good warrior, or a Galka a good mage. Other players will identify the oddness of these combinations with varying results. Often negative.
4. When teaming, you will NEED to be properly kitted out with the appropriate gear for your race and job and level - which will improve your abilities and thus the team's ability to defeat mobs and gain xp. It should be noted that the gear you will need is not easy to find, make or purchase and will get progressively tougher as you gain levels.
5. Everything in this game take an inordinate amount of time. People have mentioned how you have to walk everywhere, or ride a chocobo (Once you have done the time-consuming mission to gain a licesnse ) - what I would like to add, is how SLOW walking is - even by chocobo, the speed isn't greatly improved. However, by the time you are able to ride chocobos, you will appreciate the a pace which otherwise you might feel was pointlessly long.
6. The mobs you fight look the same. You will fight the same mob over and over and over and oevr - again. SOmetimes you will be defeated doing this, sometimes you will not. But while you level, you will kill, face, fight, be beaten by - the same type of mob again and again.
7. The game ecomony is over inflated. When you kill a mob, sometimes it will drop Gil (in game currency) This amount of Gil it drops, even for a difficult mob that you have had to take down in a team, is minimal. You cannot buy anything with it - it is peanuts. The same for anything in this game, in game returns for effort put in are not rewarded appropriately. To gain what you will need, you will need to put in hours and hours of your time, just, for example to purchase a sword, or a pair of boots - so your character will be able to function properly when fighting, for example.
8. You are on your own. The game offers no inforamtion whatsoever on how to make the best of the experience. You will need to search websites to obatin VITAL inforamtion on what you will need to do in most situations. Failure to be aware of the infinte possibilities, will likely end up with yourself being called a n00b.


I could go on -

What I would like to say is that if, for whatever reason, you are unable to form a social life, you are house-bound or for some reason are able to sit in front of your PC/Ps2 for 5-6 hours pers day (This is the amount of time you will need to feel a sense of achievement with each sitting) - then this game will be for you. You will be able to immerse yourself within it, and find that the only thing you will need from the real world is food and sleep (although, you will probably go without on many occasions and blame the real world for this)


For those that want a fun experience - go elsewhere, I implore you and warn you to do so. You will never get a sense of accomplishment from this game, and so this game for you will never be fun. It is aimed at being something just beyond your reach to induce you to continue playing - that is all. It is a grind beyond all reason, unless of course, you are not playing it for the end-game, becasue you don't want to finish it.

Gaming is a recreational pastime, don't make your life become one.

"Not worth your time, fair but negative review."
I am a fair reviewer of games, and this game is extremely time consuming. Once you gain experience and levels you will be forced to go on a death march just to get to an area worth your time in fighting. It can take as long as 45 minutes just to go from your home base to an acceptable location. There are no personalized mounts, so you must use paid mounts that are only available around level 25 or so and after doing a quest that again is about an hour walking time away. They also charge you on a monthly basis rather than a cycle. For example if you activate your account on October 31st you will end up paying for the entire month of October without a pro-rate. You will then be rebilled on November 1st. I for one re-activated my account on October 19th, 2005 and cancelled on November 1st. I was charged $25.90 for 12 days of game play. If you plan on re-activating a character, you should consider doing it at the beginning of the month. If you are new to the game, they will pro-rate you for the month after your free trial is up. Please note that they also take down the registration servers at the end of the month so you cannot cancel on the last day of the month. This is very shady of Square-Enix to do although they do tell you in advance. This is still not acceptable. Square-Enix also charges $1.00 for each additional content-ID (used for each character), the competiton typically allows for multiple characters for the same monthly cost. The auction house does not have a search feature and you will have to go through each catagory 1 at a time and forget it being in alphabetical order, it is randomly assorted and painful to navigate. After 2 years of this game making its debut, the graphical glitches such as grid seems on the terrain are still evident and it feels as if no content has been added. The company only creates added content for extremely high levels, so if you didn't get in the game back then, it is very difficult to work your way to the top since the starting and midrange realms are desolate. You are required to be in a party most of the time and just trying to gather a party can be a painstaking task. The PlayOnline client is awkward at best and will require at least 5-6 clicks just to enter the game. FFXI has had more down-time lately, constantly DDoS'd (Denial of Service from rogue people purposely trying to tax the server by hitting it with massive bandwidth attacks. Basically you cannot log in) and they do not reimburse you in anyway like Blizzard does (they offer extra playtime for free to the end of your billing cycle). If you are going to pick a MMORPG to play. Go with WoW. Hands down!