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41 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Average at Best, June 2, 2004
Now that I've swallowed the price tag, ventured my way around the fabled world of Vana'diel, paid my first monthly fee and had a couple of months to really sink my teeth into the famed series' first expedition into internet gaming, I feel I'm justified in saying my first impressions were ultimately correct; there's something missing. Taking nothing away from the game itself, the mechanics, the graphics, the diversity or the community, this is as much Final Fantasy as it is Everquest. Somewhere in the transition from Tidus, Yuna and Auron to the millions of participants in the story of FFXI, Square-Enix's trademarked personality was lost. Seeing this massive world hustling around you, encountering all these varied player-controlled and CPU-controlled characters and just trying to find your way from one end of a small city to the other is INCREDIBLY overwhelming. There's so much initial information to absorb, so much going on at any one time that even the most capable of minds will spin within moments of their first connection to the FFXI servers. Now that's a flaw I've noticed with several MMORPGs in the past, so I'd be lying if I said I was surprised to see it in full effect here, but I was hoping the bigwigs and creative geniuses behind the legendary FF series could devise a solution. Instead, you meet half a dozen non-playable characters with a penchant for lengthy monologues and strikingly similar names, gain a brief quest or two and are immediately thrust into the fray. I was stuck in a corner, confused, infuriated and utterly lost within five minutes, and I've been playing digital role playing games for most of my life. Another thing this title shares with its online-genre competition is the notable de-emphasis on any real, compelling, interwoven storyline. There's always this sense hanging over your head that something big might just be about to happen, but it never does. You'll catch little bits and pieces of information from NPCs in various parts of the globe, but it's mostly inconsequential and not all that interesting. There's a very loosely-illustrated theme of competition between the planet's three dominant countries that surfaces from time to time, yet there's no drama. These three nations seem to be on the brink of war with one another, but they're all afraid of the risk involved with making that first move. It's like they built an entire game around the non-playable characters who didn't matter in previous Final Fantasies. Gameplay is actually very quick and easy to learn, but seems to rely much more heavily on luck than previous titles. If you're in combat with an enemy, it's not uncommon to miss one another for upwards of three or four turns in a row. Random encounters have been done away with entirely, and you can see (and, if the situation calls for it, avoid) every hostile creature in the field. The endless mashing of the "Attack" option has been removed from play, as once you've drawn your weapon and begun a fight, your character will continue chopping away until you tell him to do something else or either he or the monster is dead. Both dealing out and receiving damage builds up your "TP" meter, which has taken the place of the traditional "Limit Breaks," and can be used to fire off a special attack once it's filled sufficiently. Using magic is a much more strategic factor in this title, since it's possible to have your chant interrupted by a well-timed attack. Thus, you won't want to hold off on casting that life-saving Cure spell until a second or two before the enemy strikes. That hypothetical sword is double-edged, though, and if you're lucky you can halt an enemy's spell in precisely the same fashion. Online play through Square-Enix's servers is an absolute triumph. The sheer number of players in the world at any one time is amazing, and I can only recall one or two instances where I experienced any lag whatsoever. Additionally, they're always throwing in little bonuses, events and surprises to keep the world fresh, exciting and unpredictable. I signed on one evening to find three moogles floating in the middle of town square, surrounded by literally hundreds of players. When I spoke to the moogles, they gave me an egg with a letter printed on the shell. I was dumbfounded until I realized it was the week before Easter. They were simultaneously distributing and hiding little easter eggs throughout the city, and if you gave them the lettered eggs that matched up with the first three letters of your character's name, they gave you a prize. It's a really nice side effect of putting the whole game online; you can customize the experience for any reason imaginable. As a whole, though, I was disappointed. The magic of the entire line of Final Fantasy games is missing from this title, and even attempting to associate it with its brethren was a mistake. Don't let that fact mislead you, however. As a standalone title with no ties whatsoever to the FF universe, this still wouldn't have knocked my socks off. It's full of unrealized potential, moments that stopped just short of being spectacular and long, dull periods of nothingness. The vast majority of your game time is spent running along an empty path, healing in a corner or participating in a boring, pointless conversation with one of the million useless non playable characters. Its successes are few; the successful transition from full-blown fantasy to a more reality-based setting, the tremendous capabilities of the Square-Enix servers and the gorgeous visuals, and its failures are many; the lack of story, the stale taste of almost everything in the world and the unnecessarily difficult battle system. I've got no problem calling this is an above average game, but claiming it's much more than that would be something of a stretch.
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