...and suddenly, Final Fantasy lost it's charm.
Background:
The game throws you into a character creation screen with the ability to create one or two characters. You sadly enough have to pay 0.5$ for each character you want to further have.
The client that runs Final Fantasy XI and another game that's included (Tetra Master) is quite catchy. Unlike many other clients to other MMORPG's, this client actually makes you believe that the game itself will be just as pretty as. You are terribly mistaken.
Character creation:
I may be a bit shallow, but since I'm reviewing a MMORPG game I'm expecting to have somewhat of a freedom when it comes to creating your "alter-ego". This game offers eight hairstyles and faces, along with two, three different hair colors at most. No extreme hair colors or hairstyles you'd so bad want to have to make your character stand out are included.
It goes so far and painfully that the hairstyles and faces aren't even separated. You can't for example combine that pretty androgynous face with that short-cutted hairstyle you saw. Oh no.
It goes as far as it doesn't even allow you to edit the character face. You can't choose the eye color or if you want facial beard or not. Not even the characters physical appearance. Meaning - the dream you've had about the flat-bearded man with wrinkles and white medium long scabby hair you've always wanted to train to become a legendary hero.. sadly enough doesn't exist.
There are quite a variety of different races, all charismatic and expressing their personality in one way or another, but with just as limited options.
Gameplay:
After you've thrown together your character, you get to pick a name and the server. Here's another of the games many downs. You can't pick which server you want to play on. So if you and your friend want to go on adventures together you are forced to buy a world pass from a local store and give him the code to your server.
You also get to choose from three starting locations, whilst the fourth main city comes later on.
We are now standing dropped off in a town square, introduced by the background story our city has, which is followed up by a conversation 3 NPC's are holding. You do get some starting money, but where the location of the NPC that supposed to give you the information isn't really pointed out. You have to try yourself through the menu of the game to find the map, scroll through the different types of pins there are to find out that the NPC is actually less than 50meters away from you. So.. if you desperately ran around the town looking for the NPC, feel free to run all the way back.
There is also no tutorial in the game that should guide you to how all the functions, different menus or where to start looking for what. Another aspect of the game that's a total "down". MMORPG's are often big, broad games, and if you have no idea about how everything functions, it can get very frustrating.
Solo/Party & Level system
Up to lvl 10 you are really free to run around and kill enemies without limitations. Once you get to lvl 10, you HAVE to party, or else you won't get anywhere.
Simply stated: FFXI is a game that forces the player to team up with others, because some enemies are too strong to take on your own. Makes sense.
Then again, it's a game, and even if it's supposed to be realistic, you should be able to interact with others when you want to, not when you want to get further in the game.
Once you die in combat you basically lose 1/4 of the experience bar, and can even get a lvl DOWN. This can be very frustrating to players lvl 10+, since the ammount of experience you lose takes a great ammount of time to recoperate. Another frustraing aspect of the game is the distance you have to travel between towns and experience spot. Mounts and faster travel services aren't avaliable until around lvl 20. You can rent a Choccobo, but it costs money, and it runs off as you unmount it.
The many cool subclasses of the game such as Dark Knight, Dragoon, Ninja and so on aren't avaliable but after lvl 30+ which takes quite some time to reach. Once you've changed class you have to start all over from level 1.
A good aspect is that your primary class is a solid ground for your new class, meaning you can get benifits from both classes, creating one unique class.
Graphics
The graphics are simply put - gorgeous. The areas and enviroments are wide, nice detailed and vivid. Nothing, absolutely nothing beats seeing Bastok at night or at sunrise. It's simply beautiful.
The game can however tend to look rather dull and grey once alot of players are on the screen at the same time, since they tend to look alot like eachother.
Overall:
Final Fantasy is a mixture that fails most of the time as it tends to be too challenging. You can't enjoy the game yourself, since you actually have to party up with others to get somewhere. Sadly enough Final Fantasy departs itself from the other games in the series, not delivering a unique character creation similiar to the other games, which according to me would make this game unique. Who wouldn't want to look like a cool mixture of Cloud and Sepiroth?
The game becomes yet more frustrating when you find yourself to spend more time on running back and forth between cities and areas than you do on enjoying the game itself.
I may be another one of those hardcore Neverwinter Nights people that loved servers such as Siflige, but what I'm seeking in an MMORPG is that you should be able to take a break from all the action, chat and socialize. And roleplay your character. I think that's a valid point many MMORPG's these days are missing. It's all "slash, slash, rinse, lvl, repeat", and FFXI sadly fails to stand out in it's category.