Final Fantasy XI

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XI quite a bit since I picked up the game last Wednesday.

The game is quite immersive, every NPC has something to say, quests are all over the place, the missions (epic storyline quests) are numerous and contain console RPG style cutscenes, many of which are quite unexpected. Each country seems to have its own mission storyline… I can’t even begin to think about the other two countries considering this one country will probably take months to finish. Oh… and the auction system has to be the coolest feature. The system is very simple in concept but extremely well done and does the job of filtering high end player money down to low level players quite well.

This game has all the makings of a game as addictive and group focused as Everquest. It could be considered EQ++ by some, a view I partially agree with. The downsides of the game so far are its unrealistic minimum requirements (I already have plans on upgrading my motherboard and CPU when money allows) and craptastic controls. The game is very much a port from the PS2 and (in my opinion) is best experienced with a Playstation controller with the Radio Shack $10 USB adapter. Other people claim they like the keyboard and mouse setup but I quite frankly don’t.

Ignoring the retardation of the lack of server select screen and the world pass system, one major complain about the game is the fact extra characters (aka Content IDs) cost extra money. At first this worried me also but now I see there is no point to having additional characters unless you have absolutely no life. You can switch classes at will and by the time you reach high levels you will have invested so much time into your character. Who is going to want to give up their rank within their country, redo all the quests to enable chocobos/airship/etc, give up all their hard earned combat and magic stat gains when you can go to your Mog House and just change your job (class) and not lose any of those?

The only reason to have other characters is to play as a different race. Considering all races can play all classes, the only reason to change race is if you absolutely must have the max number of hit points allowed. Personally, I couldn’t give a flying flip, I’d rather take my existing char and buy items to boost his hit points then give up all the progress made on the character. At least thats my newbie point of view formed from experiences so far. (Besides, TaruTaru’s look cute in Paladin AF armor.) But then again, if you choose to, the cost of two characters per month in FFXI is still less then the cost of other games like Star Wars Galaxies per month.