More Info on this GameBy Miguel Lopez | Feb. 10, 2006
Square Enix's enduring MMO makes it to a Microsoft console. In other news, the sky is falling.
Spiffy
The first game ever to bring players from two different consoles and PC together in the same online world.
Iffy
Some of the game?s elements are decidedly archaic.
You can't mess with Final Fantasy XI's staying power. While this may have a lot to do with its title, it's not fair to attribute its long-term success to this alone. Back when it first came out in the U.S. for PC, many doubted that the product of by-the-book developers of Japanese RPGs (albeit hugely successful ones) would "get" the MMO thing. But soon after its release, many of these very people ate their words, as they found themselves hopelessly addictive to what was, in many ways, the best MMO at the time.
When FFXI for Xbox 360 was announced at last's year's E3, the game was about three and a half years old. This didn't deter Microsoft from accompanying its announcement with much fanfare. Really, though, why would they? The game has proven to be a success on both PC and PlayStation 2, sniping cynics and jaded journalists be damned. In any event, it was almost immediately apparent that FFXI would come to the 360 effectively unchanged. The recent open beta that Square Enix has invited us to participate in makes this even more evident.
FFXI has always been a bear to install. The fact it can take upwards of three hours from the time you insert your disc to till you get to login isn't indicative of its age; it's more to do with Square Enix insisting that players access the game by means of PlayOnline, a proprietary (and utterly superfluous) suite of internet tools. It lets you e-mail, read in-game news, manage buddy lists, and the like. In short, it does what Xbox Live already does better. But hate it or love it, you have to install it along with the game, and register both pieces of software separately. And it can take a minute.
Once you're done with that, you have to update to the latest version of the game. If you haven't played these kinds of games before, know that they'll go through incremental changes at least once a month, which requires you to download files that are sometimes very large. Of all the MMOs I've played, Final Fantasy XI easily takes the longest in this regard. 
"Don't ruin the skill chain, nub."
Rest assured, though, that once you're in the world, things get better. It's easy to see why FFXI was regarded as highly as it was, back in the day. The developers put in a lot of work to make sure that Vana'diel, the game's world, actually felt like a world. When the game first launched, MMO worlds were like wax museums -- static, and requiring insane amounts of fortitude-of-imagination to become immersed in. But Vana'diel was different. Its cities were populated with characters who felt fully in place within the world, with dialogue that was well-written and often amusing, and animations that were emotively human. The environments themselves were richly detailed and believable, as if every square foot served a purpose more significant than upping your travel time. The outside world was most impressive; most other games of its time had areas that felt featureless, and randomly generated. Vana'diel's lovingly-crafted, landmark-rich vistas were a breath of fresh air in comparison.
Though the graphics aren't very likely to knock your socks off at this point, you'll still certainly appreciate the stylistic flourishes that permeate everything about it. Chances are, anyway, that if you can get into this sort of game, then you'll probably stop caring much about the graphics after your first eighty-or-so hours.
If you choose to delve deep into it, you'll find FFXI to be a deep and complex game, easily among the finest in the genre from a systems standpoint. Make no mistake: there's nothing "modern" about it. FFXI is an MMO in the EverQuest sense of the world. After your character advances beyond the earliest levels, it's next to impossible, in most cases, to do anything without a full group of players. One could argue that playing alone is anathema to the spirit of this sort of game, but that doesn't take into account the fact that sometimes, players might not want to make the kind of time commitments that grouping up tends to require. To be fair, Final Fantasy XI has gotten better about this over the years, but it's still no where near the level of "modern" MMOs -- games like World of Warcraft or EverQuest II. 
Now this is going to throw a huuuuge monkeywrench into the whole "Pirates vs. Ninjas" debate.
Where Final Fantasy XI shines, though, apart from its excellent world design, is in the area of character customization. Basically, the character you create the day you start playing will never become obsolete, regardless of whether or not you become bored of the job you chose for it. If you get tired of being a Warrior, you can simply run to your house, talk to the adorable little Mog housed therein, and change into whatever you want: a Thief, a Monk, a Black Mage, anything. Some of the more special jobs -- the ones like Dragoon, Summoner, Ninja, and Dark Knight -- are only attainable after attaining level 30, and completing difficult quests to unlock them. Pretty early on, you also gain the ability to designate a second job as your "sub-job." It'll stay at half the level of your main job, and grant you both statistical bonuses, and access to the abilities of its effective level. Similarly, this requires you to enlist the help of fellow players, and complete a difficult quest.
Final Fantasy XI is far from the most cutting edge MMO out there, but as far as its fundamental design goes, it's one of the best-conceived games of its type. Xbox 360 players might be put off by some of elements -- most notably, the excessive set-up process, and the lack of voice-chat support (the game more or less requires a USB keyboard to play effectively). In the end, however, it's the only game in town so far as MMOs go. It's also a game that has managed to earn itself a substantial playerbase on every platform that it's been released for, and that must count for something.
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