Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy XI Official Strategy Guide for PS2 & PC (Spring 2004 Version)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This book containes information on Final Fantasy XI for both the PS/2 and the PC. This version improves in all Areas it list crafting skills all the was up to level 79. A full map of how to get to every location. Much for detail and helpfull information includeing a more complete list of items, quest, food effect. a Must Buy! If you Own Final Fantasy XI for Ps2 or PC BUY THIS BOOK! I never buy guides but a friend talked me into buying the previous version and it was extreamly helpfull and this updated guide is ever more so!

This seemingly updated version of the original FFXI official strategy guide was highly anticipated by many of my friends. When this guide was issued I hurriedly ran to the nearest EB and bought this guide thinking it would unravel more of the countless mysteries that surround FFXI and would not disappoint me like the original had. What I received was the exact same FFXI official strategy guide whose pages I had been using as padding material for packages with only about 50 pages of new content added in.

PLAYERS BE WARNED, this guide is NOT worth the money you spend on it, all the information contained within is extremely basic and can be found out from numerous websites or by simply asking ANY lvl 50+ person within the game. This guide is COMPLETELY useless. It does not profile HNMs, gives no information on DYNAMIS, <<<NO RANK MISSION INFO AFTER RANK 5>>, gives absolutely no system for lvling craft skills or useful info on ANY craft. It gives a player NOT even a conception of how the aggro system, renkei system 50+, conquest system work or how the night and day cycles, moon-phase, affect a player's performance both on the battle field and while crafting and harvesting!!!. This guide does not even give basic lessons in EFFECTIVE PARTY STRUCTURE, something that should be on page 1!! of any guide dealing with a game as party reliant as FFXI (They EVEN SUGGEST making 4 man parties to challenge VT monsters if you cannot make a 6 person group!! That's fine and dandy in the first 15 lvls!! of a 75 lvl game but after that, this advice will HURT you more then help you and your friends will laugh at you for even taking it). This guide does not even offer practical pros and cons for jobs and advanced jobs and even suggest TARUTARU as a race choice for a first time through Dark knight. This guide could be the INSTRUCTION MANUEL for this game and not a strategy guide because it barely gives anything away. Every time I walk through a wall and find a "strange device" and am asked for a password, I curse at this guide and rip another page from its spine. THIS GUIDE DOESN'T EVEN SUGGEST GOOD LVLING LOCATIONS PAST LVL 25!!! There is no mention of the Maat fight nor any real help with ANY GENKAI! a MAJOR part of the game when a character reaches 50+. ANY experienced player knows that this game only BEGINS at lvl 60 and this guide ENDS at lvl 50. 90% of useful game info is MISSING from this guide. It is as if I made a walkthrough of the first hour of a regular console RPG and then leave you to figure out the rest. This is supposed to be a strategy guide. Its supposed to give me answer not leave me with more questions then I went in with!
OH, you want MORE things that are missing from this guide... hmmm lets see: BCNM 30,40,50,60, garrison, kindred seal BCNM, coffer locations, Artifact armor gear locations, Relic armor descriptions and info on obtaining them, Relic weapons info and info on how to upgrade them, garrison, ballista, the LVLS OF NMS!!!! and HNMS, info on Zilart missions, info on the sky pass, info on Tu'lia and the hall of the gods, info on the GODS, profile of forced NM pops, tricks and secrets such as how to walk on the rail of an airship, info on mining and ifrit's cauldron, info on the AVATAR BATTLES! and fenrir, info on QUESTED RARE/EX items like the Opo Opo Crown, not to mention info on ANY serious quest in the game. So what are you left with: a guide full of "oh this is a sword.. you have to attack enemies for experience"! and other nooblette things like LISTs of weapons and armor in the game... oh , wait they have that list already up in the Jeuno AH you fools!, any noob can check it and see almost ALL the available items in the game, their stats and lvls, and *gasp, even how much they have been selling for! If lists are your fetish then by all means spend the money, you might even take this guide to bed with you! I have seen poor guides before, but this is by far the most infuriating of them all, even 90% of the players in the PICTURES of this guide have armor less then lvl 20 and not one has armor greater then lvl 50.
But I must confess this guide has served a purpose... It has kept me warm on a particularly chill summer's eve when I used it as kindling to start a fire in my fireplace.

For one of my favorite games, I really don't like to bash it like this. However, this guide was, and is even moreso now 3 years later, pathetic. Back in the day, it was decent, but the lack of maps, real strategy for quests and the exclusion of things including skill caps for crafting really killed this. Not to mention there are only strategies listed for missions until you reach Rank 5. There's still 5 more levels to be reached afterwards.

To add insult to injury, there's nothing on any of the expansions, and at the time of this guide's release, Rise of the Zilart had already been released, yet there was no mention of the Zilart missions here. While it's understandable there wasn't anything for Chains, Treasures, or Wings, they still could've included something for this, let alone continuing the trend of releasing new volumes of the guide quarterly to keep players up to speed, but alas.

There is no mention of Dynamis, Beseiged or Sky, as well as guides for Level Limit Breaks.

I've come to love Brady Games and, while I do get some help out of this guide, I would much rather use a website like Killing Ifrit, Allakhazam, or FFXIclopedia.

***3 stars for occsional usefulness***

In my opinion, this book isn't worth the price you pay. I made the mistake of buying it because I thought it might be useful.

Pros:
-It has plenty of information on quests, missions, and jobs.
-There're pretty pictures! :\
-There's a big list of all the spells.

Cons:
-Alot of the information is incorrect, or vague, at best.
-There're many things that aren't even covered that are important, and very useful, including, but not limited to: Residence furnishings, Artifact Weapon information, and certain special job abilities(Wide-scan, anyone?), just to name a few.
-Some of the "strategies" seem a bit opinionated. In some cases you need an experienced opinion, but not in most. Example: His belief that ninja is not particularly a good support job. Many players do think that it is.
-Lack of ANY maps aside from the four main cities and the port towns, Selbina and Mhaura.
-Lack of much real...er.. Strategy. Particularly for areas. The only "strategy" in the guide comes from the Job section, where he mentions things you should do as a <insert job here>.

All in all, this guide is not worth the buy, heck, Elshimo is like an afterthought in the guide, despite the fact that you spend way too much time there, in many cases. I think that this guide could be actually good, given that it had alot more real information, and some real strategies for alot of other things.

The good:
For getting started and getting your fame up, it has a good selection of quests for each nation--though it gives you no idea of the minimum level you should be to take on those quests. It also gives some (very short) crafting recipe lists that will help you get started. It gives you an idea of what each job is about, as well as listings of spells & abilities and when you get them, but be sure you read the rest of my review.

The single most helpful thing in the book is the little chart of monster family weaknesses. FFXI has an elemental system, but it frequently violates its own rules, and this table does help to keep some of that straight.

The bad:
Some job combos suggested are just horrible. The writers don't really seem to "get it" as far as what Ninja is about, for example. They make claims that Ninja doesn't make a good subjob (so why is EVERYBODY subbing nin?) and that parties that are light on healers will likely not invite a Ninja (on the contrary: the Ninja's ability to avoid taking hits makes them ideal for a party light on healers, provided you go against the right targets). They give no real in-depth info on how to play any of the jobs. I get the feeling that none of them played any of the jobs past level 30. All the cool stuff happens later in the game. The Red Mage section doesn't talk about Refresh, or emphasize enfeebling, or let players know that they aren't really a substitute Black Mage or Warrior. The Dark Knight section doesn't caution players against trying to be a melee'ing Black Mage, but even suggests BLM as a sub (only workable in the right situations with Taru, and even then I'd rather see /WAR or /THF).

It gives NO info on artifact armor, level caps, Zilart (I can excuse Promathia because this was published before then). Stopping missions at Rank 5 is a travesty, as the original (pre-Zilart) release of the game went up through Rank 6 (defeating the Shadowlord) and level 50 to "complete" the storyline.

A lot of info is wrong. Flash, for example, is not a RDM spell. It flat-out doesn't talk about the real pros and cons of the races and what jobs suit them best. It instead tries to find something good to say about all races for all jobs. While I'm not about to say that a Taru can't be a Dark Knight or a Galka can't be a White Mage, it would be nice to see more guidance given in that area--so that new players could at least start out with a combo that isn't going to take a million gil to get through level 25. On that subject, some much more detailed crafting info and general gil-making info would be useful to the novice.

In short, this guide is ok for looking up quests quickly, or looking up monster weaknesses or what element Fragmentation is, or at what level your job gets its next cool ability, but that's really about all it's good for. I don't know anyone who uses the lists of equipment. They are so outdated it's a joke anyway.

If all the useless fluff were taken out and it were published in a ring-binding that you could lay flat or fold back on itself, and cut the price in half, it would be worth that. But for this price, I can't really recommend it. There are plenty of websites that will help you more.

This is an update to it's Fall 2003 edition, which was it's first run through. As owner of both, let me give you a quick rundown. The first book was geared toward the newer player: enemies, spells, abilities, etc did not exceed a certain level (50). Also in the first book were thumb-sized images of maps of most areas (quite helpful) which sadly, are missing from this book. However, that's about all I have problems with. Keep in mind this book is up to date as of April 2004 (an update hapened in May), but don't discount all the wonderful information. More quests, abilities, spells that go up to 75, A little more detail in some of the missions, this is the 2nd edition. Not found in the first is an expanded meal effects and some excellent beginning strategies that will be used well into the advanced levels. All in all, a great resource, for the PS2 and the PC!

While overall I'm disappointed with this game guide, combined with asking questions of other players in the game, it has assisted me in advancing to Level 56 and completing various quests. But there are many, many errors. Oftentimes the locations of quest items or quest "???" points are incorrect. Some monster attributes are incorrect, which got half my party killed once. Some bats were listed as non-aggro and non-linking, but they did aggro and they did link. On some quests, NPC names are given, but no coordinates. Some areas are listed briefly, but no maps are supplied at all. Furthermore, this book is horribly out-of-date. Chains of Promathia has been added, as well as various quests and areas added through game updates.

I will say that having this book by your side is better than not having it at all. I fully intended to play this game without a game guide, but the world is so huge and there's so much land to cover that I was finding it very difficult to complete quests without more information about where parts of quests could be completed, where to find quest items or where to find monsters which drop the items needed for a quest. If you have an extra computer besides your gaming machine, you might be better off just keeping it up and running so when you need information, you can simply get it from the web. I plan on getting a laptop computer for this specific purpose, and at that point, my books will probably not get much use.

If your buying this book as a basis for the FFXI world then ok yea it might give you the basics. If your buying this book as a end-all info source. BE WARNED! #1 there are many "rumors" that this guide spreads. (BST kill xp and are not involved in xp parties. *BZZZZZZZZ* wrong!) #2 They give a nice over view but lack the indepth accuracy that will create really stupid players. Go on and say "Brady Guide says...." in any party, alliance, or chat channel. You'll be laughed at by players. #3 There is so much to this game you can't fit it in a book. Nice attempt brady, but try again when you get facts straight.

Even though it is two years old (and I've been playing for about that amount of time) it still has some helpful info. Of course it doesnt have any of the recent higher level things because when this guide came out there were'nt that many high level players. Also SE does not want to give away too much end game information. SE wants people to keep paying money to find out for themselves. Even though some of the quest are a bit dated it gives me a starting point. Without this guide to show me certain quests I wouldn't even know where to start to look online for it. Oh, and about the job info, the guide was written the way SE intented the jobs to be used, not the way the players use them now (Ninja was never supposed to be a tank you know.) But anyway...to the real points >>>

1) The guide IS 2 years old going on 3.

2) It does have a nice list of guild recepies. (I have level 49 Clothcraft and I love this list!) (However there are NPC's in game that can tell you everyhting you can make up to your current skill level.) On a side note: The way you actually have to fish has changed because of an update, so ask a fellow fisherman for help if you are just learning :-)

3) It has a decent mob list. No mobs from the past 2 years. Most of the ones that people level off of are in there, and it does show weaknesses,how they aggro, their jobs and their levels. Has no Notorious Monster information though.

4) Has a good gear list too. Yes you can see it in Jeuno if you just search through the Auction House. But it's still nice to have on hand at any given moment. It shows which jobs can use the gear and all the status info on the items. It also shows some Rare/EX gear which cannot be found at the Auction House.

5) Only covers the orginal version with the Rise of the Zilart expansion pack (although Zilart Missions are not actually mentioned in the guide. Which would have given away secrets to the then new expansion pack at the time.) It does have a decent quest list for these cities (I still can't do some of them because my fame is too low XD)

6) There is a skillchain chart. However it does not show all the skillchains (even some of the lower level SC's are missing.)

7) Only has maps of the 4 moajor cities. These maps are easily obtainable in the game itself. It does have some key NPC locations based on the quests that the guide provides so you dont have to hunt for Tapoh Lihzeh (she is an NPC that provides a low level repeatable quest that can actually help build Windurstian fame)or any other strangely named NPCs.

9) Some of the job info is no longer correct due to updates in gameplay. Most of these updates are on the advanced (unlockable) job classes, so by the time newer players are introduced to these jobs they should already have been made aware of these incorrections.

In all this is a fairly decent guide that is still useable (for how much longer is unknown.) I would still recommend it to new players ONLY if they can buy it at the suggested retail price of 19.99 or lower.

This guide is a waste of money and very much out of date. It also appears to have been composed by a team of players who never got their Limit Break 1 to get past level 50.

Does not include the Chains of Promathia expansion missions.

Includes no missions past Rank 5.

No Rise of Zilart missions (an old expansion that comes bundled with the US version). Considering this is an 'Spring 2004' edition, this is inexcusable.

A skillchain chart that is incorrect.

Job guidelines that will quickly get you blacklisted or at least give you a negative reputation on your server. Just ask any Warrior what they think of the book.

The quest and mission guides it does provide are extremely abbreviated to the point of being deadly in some cases, when you'll wander aimlessly in a dangerous zone because the instructions are incorrect or not detailed enough.

No maps. There's a useless large map of Vanadiel. You'll never need it, though it makes a cute poster I guess. What's really needed is a set of detailed maps for each area and dungeon.

Crafting guidelines are a joke. There are recipies, but that's about it. And not all of them are there. Also, there have been several updates to crafting since this was published: new food, new recipies, adjusted food effects, adjusted yields on certain syntheses.

In sum, a terrible guide. I understand that this game is always getting updated and the world changes every few months or so (economy, job trends, party strategies, crafting), but there is simply too little information in this guide.

So how do people get guidance in this game? Consider googling 'final fantasy allakhazam' for the answer. It's what everyone uses and will probably continue to use until the game dies.