They are quite a new mainstream genre to the gaming world, never mind the 360, are MMORPGs and that is Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games. A long sentence to say and a tough acronym to pronounce, two traits Final Fantasy XI on the 360 suit to well. Final Fantasy XI originally started off on the PC and PS2, nearly four years ago now and has come to the Xbox 360. There are three add-ons in this pack, the original Final Fantasy XI and a hell of a lot of content; sounds like a good deal, the problem is it isn’t as you have to pay more than the standard console price of about £40, you’ll be paying a lot more if you want to get the full experience out of this game. The biggest problem with FFXI isn’t the game itself, no way, the game isn’t half bad, but the stuff you have to do before hand to play it is. Being a port from the original PC version of the game, it might as well be the PC game though as you have to install it on your console. This means you need a hard drive and plenty of hard drive space as it takes up a third of the standard 20 gigabyte HD, much of what you’re installing is completely unnecessary because what it also installs on your ‘what was reserved’ space for demos and extra content is now being taken up by a nice helpful service called ‘Playonline’. This is an ironic name really since it basically takes forever to sign up and install the service making you feel like you’ll never get to play online. I had never felt so insecure when going through this registration service, the amount of details it asks for to sign up for an account and ‘content ID’ is ridiculous, I can imagine the majority of people taking the game back when they get to this stage, and if they don’t then they definitely will by the installation stage which took me three hours. The play online viewer offers news, updates & messaging options for the game, yes everything which the Xbox 360 menu already offers. Why the developers included this I’m not sure, probably because they couldn’t be bothered to re-introduce the game to the 360 so instead took everything which was already included within the PC/PS2 version of the game and only changed things which were needed to make it playable on this platform. Not a very good first impression. But now that you’re four hours past putting the disc in the drive you can actually start playing the game, this is the time when all the players who haven’t played MMORPGs before take the game back.

Gameplay:

That sigh of relief when you start up the game is now replaced by confusion and constant questioning why the graphics are so outdated and the controls are so complex. The reason being is that the game is a port of the PC version, so FFXI looked and played great four years ago is now on a next generation console up against such games as Elder scrolls: Oblivion and Gears of War. Before entering the enormous and never-ending world of Final Fantasy you must create your own unique character, you must choose carefully however as this is the character you’ll be sticking with for the next seventy plus hours of your gaming life. Not only that, but it costs to make extra characters as they are ‘Content IDs’, and if you’re over 10 hours into the game then you really don’t want to be starting over again. There are a number of options to choose when creating your character, first you must choose your race and these range from; Hume, Elvaan, Tarutaru, Mithra & Galka, and then you must choose your class/job which consist of; Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage & Thief. Now that’s all well and good but I was fairly disappointed with the character customization, there really wasn’t much choice in ‘look’ and when you have thousands of online players you’re bound to see another version of you running about, probably more than once, it just loses some of that unique identity found in most RPG’s. (This may seem like a never ending rant, but there are many points a casual player may be concerned with before signing up and dedicating their time, and wallet, to this game, so bear with me until we get to what this game actually offers.) FFXI probably uses the most awkward & complex controls I have ever seen in a game, this is because it takes the PC controls and assigns them to every available button on the 360 controller, this includes the keyboard for signing up and communicating. It is possible to talk without a keyboard but extremely cumbersome and slow, you will almost definitely have to buy a USB keyboard or game pad. Controlling the character is fine, if not a little slow, but doing anything else like joining parties & moving about your inventories is very fiddly, making the learning curve that much harder to get over. It really feels as if this game doesn’t belong on the 360, and the developers ported it due to the request of Microsoft wanting more Japanese RPG’s on the system. Now, the learning curve is the most irritating part of the game, it makes it even worse when you play straight after you’ve just installed and registered. The game’s beneficial content isn’t really shown until you’ve played for about ten hours; you will need a lot of patience and dedication, and if you have that then the game is worth the monthly fees. Final Fantasy becomes decent when you join things like a guild and other parties, then you’ll be constantly busy doing something interesting and you’ll be awarded more often, the first 10 hours however feels quite the opposite and is awfully slow. The reason being is that the majority of other people have already had the game for about four years now as you’re all on the same server. At first this seems like a good idea, all platforms sharing the same world, but for the later 360 players it isn’t, as they have no idea what they’re are doing and no one is interested in helping a lower level out. This means you’re on your own until you reach a reasonable level, and because this game is really designed for you to be in a party it’s difficult to level up. What is really nice about this package though is that you do get three add-ons included along with the original game; these three are The Rise of Zilart, Chains of Promathia & Aht Urhgan. And these come at no extra charge within the installation, so if you’re willing to dedicate your life to this game it’s definitely, in the long term, worth it. You do have to register the add-ons separately though, I forgot to do that at first and so I was running around for a couple of hours thinking it was the whole game, you can do this when signing up your ‘content ID/s’. When I say you need to dedicate your life to this game for it to be worth it, I do mean it as you don’t really notice any difference until you’re a higher level, because that’s where all the good stuff is. To sum this long winded section up, many players who play consoles and 360 games will most likely be put off by the way this game presents itself as it’s very different to what the 360, or any other console for that matter, is used to. If you can afford £9 a month, can get through the huge learning curve and have the patience of the awkward start, and what may seem a waste of time, then you may find yourself experiencing what this game really offers, which is some quite decent material.

Graphics:

I had mentioned the graphics earlier; there isn’t too much to highlight within this department. MMORPG games have been known to be not that great with their graphics and their graphics engines are generally quite basic, and that’s fine as nine million people from WoW (World of Warcraft) can admit that it’s not needed. Here it’s no different, minus the aesthetics from World of Warcraft and even Guild Wars, the graphics are very plain. The textures are quite bland, the characters and surroundings included, although there are variances within cities and landscapes, there really isn’t much artistic value to it, making exploration worth avoiding potentially ruining a big chunk of the game. It looks very much like Guild Wars, if you’ve ever played it, but worse. In Guild Wars there were colour and basic shaders to the character models; here it’s all very dark & miserable to say the least, the trailer wasn’t dark & miserable! This is all really because the game was two years too late to the 360 and was shrouded by the highly graphical next gen games; even if it isn’t about the graphics there could have been some sufficient tweaks just to brighten it up a bit.

Sound:

Now the music splits into two sections here, the application music and the in-game music, both aren’t particularly special. Actually the application music is special; it’s awful, without being too critical. This is the music which plays when installing the ‘Play online’ viewer and when you’re logging in to play the game, yes, you have to sit and listen to cheesy tunes for over three hours while you’re trying to install the game. It really adds to that bad impression. The in game music isn’t as bad, can be quite irritating though because it seems that the orchestrated pieces are constantly playing, this can fixed by turning the music off or popping in your mp3 player and playing your own tunes over it. Ambience and sound effects are all that you can imagine from a typical Final Fantasy, if you haven’t played Final Fantasy then it’s not too different to any other RPG/MMORPG with a Fantasy setting. Nothing sticks out in this category, but again this really isn’t an MMORPG priority seeing as fans probably wouldn’t be that interested.

Longevity:

The longevity of this game is huge, quite expected from an MMORPG really, but here you’re getting plenty of content for your money as there are three add-ons on top of the original, that’s if you get that far. If you enjoy MMORPGs, or deep RPG’S for that matter, then you can easily put in at least 70 hours into a single character and of course you’re not going to explore everything in a single play through. Basically this game will end when you lose interest or become poor; it’s as simple as that. Any regular MMORPG player will know that even if you’re familiar with much of the content, every play through can be a different experience if you want it to be. Yes, there are better ways of doing things, but different jobs, factions & parties will change the game for another interesting play through Expansion Content The expansions of this game don’t offer much in the ways of gameplay changes but they do offer more of what’s already there. The extra content is quite small in contrast with the whole game, but they do apply to specific areas allowing variety in ways of playing the game and expanding the world of Vana’diel. You won’t be experiencing a lot of the extra content until you’re a higher level, so don’t go thinking the add-on’s will brighten the dull experience of the start of the game. Rise of the Zilart The rise of the Zilart brings several new areas to Final Fantasy for players to explore, including battlefield areas for players and parties to fight. Rise of the Zilart also includes three new jobs and these are the Samurai, Ninja & Dragoon. Chains of Promathia Chains of Promathia being the second expansion pack brought to Final Fantasy XI; this pack also introduces several new areas and battlefield areas to explore. This expansion however doesn’t introduce any new jobs like the Rise of the Zilart had being the smallest expansion of the three. Treasures of Aht Urhgan The Treasures of Aht Urhgan is the largest expansion of the three, it brings a new continent called ‘Aradijiah’ with the nation of Aht Urhgan and three new jobs; Blue mage, Corsair & Puppetmaster.

Overall:

As an overall this game takes two extremes, a must have and a must not have. The ‘must have’ goes out to all the players who really enjoy Final Fantasy or MMORPGs but don’t have a PC or play games on their PC. The ‘must not have’, however, goes out to all the players who are new to the RPG genre, have just bought a 360 or a casual 360 gamer as this certainly isn’t suitable for you. It’s also a ‘must not have’ if you have World of Warcraft because it doesn’t offer anything more than what World of Warcraft already offers, and it doesn’t take over three hours to install. But to any player who is thinking of buying this game, ignoring the above, then you must ask yourself, are you really interested and is it really worth the initial hassle. Not only does it take an extraordinary amount of time to register and install, but the actual game itself is very slow pacing for the first ten hours, slower paced than most other MMORPGs; and to put all that time in and to find out you’re not interested would be an incredible waste. This isn’t at all a bad game but it is poorly presented on this platform, and to be perfectly honest it doesn’t belong on this platform, but if you’re really wanting to play this and you hate PC games then go ahead and buy it.