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final fantasy XI
Since Square Enix revealed that Final Fantasy XI would be an MMORPG,
series fans have been crying for them to rename it Final Fantasy
Online, to save the enumeration for a "real" Final Fantasy
game. The game will certainly challenge series fans about what
a Final Fantasy game is, and MMORPG fans are in for a similar
challenge. After surmounting two very different learning curves,
however, both camps will find Final Fantasy XI to be a beautiful
and well-crafted game if they can get over some of its shortcomings.
A lot of Final Fantasy XI's gameplay trappings will seem familiar
to MMORPG fans, but feel different than you might expect -- if
two words were to sum up the game's differences from other games
of this type, they would be "flexibility" and "focus."
Probably the biggest difference is how the game's character classes,
or "Jobs," are handled. After picking from one of the
game's five races, there are six classes available to you at the
start of the game, and you're free to move between them however
you please. Levels are tracked on a per-job basis, so while you
effectively start over when you change jobs for the first time,
a pool of cross-class skills make the second go around much faster.
Once your character reaches level 18, you'll be able to equip
a "Support Job," which grants stat boosts and access
to a portion of their skills. While some races are better at some
jobs than others, the flexibility of this system allows for hundreds
of possible character types.
Try and guess the tank in this group. Each of the starting six
classes has a distinct role in a party, with advanced jobs taking
on more specialized roles. This system not only allows for lots
of character customization, but also lets the player adapt to
his party if he's willing to put the time into another job. And
in a uniquely Japanese take on party ability interactions, complimentary
special attacks and spells can combine to deal extra damage with
the proper timing. It's details like this that spice up the traditional,
EQ-esque auto-battle and help make it feel less automatic.
Virtually all of the game's numerous gameplay systems feed into
and stem from one: the conquest system. The three nations of Vana'diel,
one of which you will join at the start of your journey, vie for
control of the world. Each of the three nations are pretty much
the same, although each has a few exclusive crafting guilds to
join, different stores, and one or two favored races that receive
a nice item on joining.
Your nation's adventurers' monster kills will be compared to
the total number of deaths and tallied once a week, at which point
the world's regions will change hands accordingly. Crystals are
dropped in regions your nation controls, and are the center around
which the Rank system and economy are built. By donating crystals
to your nation's cause, you'll acquire Rank Points, which in turn
unlock new missions, giving you incentive to keep on competing
for kills.
Kweh! Rent a Chocobo and travel in style. Crafting is a key component
of the game's economy, which is largely player-driven though the
four cities' auction houses. Since crafting is as reliant on crystals
as the Rank system, they affect that economy. There are stores
that regularly stock items, but there are enough holes in the
selection that players will inevitably turn to the auction house
to stay properly outfitted. It all works rather well, with new
players providing much of the raw materials to the experienced
crafters, which are turned into saleable items and then sold at
a profit -- rinse, repeat. While losing a region can be a setback
for your nation, the Conquest system succeeds in letting you feel
like you belong to a group and competing even though you're not
directly fighting other players. And while it's not available
yet, PvP play will be rolled out in a limited, conquest-centric
form in the coming months to sate those with a taste for human
blood.
So how will the gameplay stack up for this game's two audiences?
As Final Fantasy XI has only been live for a little over a year
and left to develop in the Japanese MMORPG vacuum, experienced
MMORPG players will either love it or hate it. It doesn't have
five years of expansion packs to benefit from, and the focused
gameplay may feel limited to genre veterans. Most notable, however,
is the game's interface. As the game was designed for a PS2 and
ported to PCs for an audience without knowledge of MMORPG conventions,
the interface will challenge dyed-in-the-wool players to overcome
their expectations and muscle memory.
Final Fantasy fans, on the other hand, will have to learn a whole
new set of gameplay ideals. With so much to learn, it's unfortunate
that the game's manuals and design don't try harder to help people
settle into their new world. Both groups, however, will benefit
from playing the game the way it was meant to be played: with
a controller. Not only will this help MMORPG standbys get accustomed
to the controls faster, it's also a faster way to do most everything
one does in the game. Still, one can't help but feel this is a
MMORPG with training wheels, and if the core gameplay systems
don't sound interesting to you now, you probably won't enjoy it.
Character creation -- limited, but attractive. Final Fantasy XI
also introduces a new dynamic to the genre: the Japanese. Square
Enix decided to not boot up any new servers for North American
players, requiring us to play alongside innumerable Japanese players.
This rather odd decision has its ups and downs: while this has
denied us that "virgin world" experience we're used
to at the start of a game, we are stepping into a fully-realized
economy right away and benefiting from the experience of the Japanese.
Personally, I've had a great time with the ever-helpful Japanese
players and their established economy, but Square should probably
have set up new servers to give people a choice. Fortunately,
there are options to help deal with the Japanese players -- a
clunky "auto-translate" feature which lets you try and
communicate or a language filter which helps you ignore them.
Related to this controversial server allotment issue is the oft-maligned
"World Pass" system, by which you pay for your friends
to join you in the game for a small fee of in-game currency. While
it's not as much trouble as some have made it out to be, picking
your server is another thing that we take for granted that apparently
the Japanese do not. Still, with so much competition out there,
these stand out as wrongheaded inconveniences. While most people
will be able to get over these once they start playing, for some
it will remain inexcusable, like with me and the N-Gage's cartridge
removal method. In general, however, dealing with Square's servers
has been a breeze -- unlike the tumultuous Japanese launch, the
U.S. launch went off without a hitch and there is almost no lag
to speak of, even though all of the game servers are located in
Japan.
The stately Elvaan. People often times complain about the standard
MMORPG treadmill ... but what if that treadmill were really, really
pretty? While it may not push your system to its limits, Final
Fantasy XI boasts gorgeous art supported by a solid engine. The
system requirements are surprisingly slim for a game this beautiful,
especially when compared to suspiciously bland, yet system-throttling
games like LucasArts' Star Wars Galaxies. As one has come to expect
from Square Enix, Final Fantasy XI is a lavish production, sporting
wonderful locations filled with lovingly animated characters and
monsters, over-the-top particle effects, and great music. While
there is the usual array of stat-, name- and color-swapped monsters,
they all look fantastic and have great animations to go with every
attack. The game's art style is an odd mixture of traditional
fantasy and Japanese aesthetics, with monsters ranging from cute
to gruesome. Everything, though, is a visual reward -- you'll
be excited every time you enter a new area, see a new monster,
or cast a new spell because they all look so cool.
Final Fantasy XI is certain to divide players over many issues,
ranging from the focused gameplay to the server allocation, but
a majority of players will find a lot to like here. A true test
of this game is to see how it adapts to the addition of American
players, the influx of PS2 players early next year, and how quick
Japan is to respond to each audience's needs. For the time being,
though, Final Fantasy XI is a great multiplayer game that promises
months of fun -- it's beautiful, it's well-designed, and I can't
wait to spend more time in it.
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