Final Fantasy XI Online Review
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Now push the salad aside and tuck your napkin into your neckline. A great feature in FFXI is that your character can switch jobs to whatever you want from town. To clarify, one can play a Warrior for the day, gain a few levels, then switch over to playing a White Mage. Finally! A game that doesn't lock you into a (gimped) character class or punish you for wanting a change of pace. Each level you gain is stored on your character, so you can theoretically be Level 20 in all possible jobs but you can only choose from one of the jobs to play. You are your own twink if that happens to be your cup of tea. Point of interest, your skills carry over from job to job so if you were good with knives as a Warrior you will be good with a knife as a Thief and vice versa. Downside, you will not be able to wear the armor you would as a White Mage that you have accumulated as a Warrior. The majority of items are job specific so money and bank inventory will limit you quite a bit. The other end of the spectrum is probably asking, Why would I want to build up a job and waste my time leveling up another? I told you, gazpacho. At level 18 you will have a quest that allows you to have a (Sub Job.) Basically turn your character into a hybrid of any of the six starting (jobs.) It is every advantage for you to have a Sub Job. An example of a Sub Job is a Warrior/Thief of White Mage/Black Mage. You will get the bonuses and skills of your Sub Job so thinking that a straight Warrior is better than a Warrior/Monk would be wrong. Monks have damage modifiers that would make your Warrior more deadly. The downside of this is that you will have to start at Level 1 whether you want to or not, unless you want to (gimp) your character. The way this works is that your Sub Job Level cannot be more than Half of your Main Job Level. For example, you have done what I mentioned before and are Level 20 in all of your jobs. Whatever Main Job you choose to play your Sub Job will only be Level 10. As I said before, you will get all the bonuses and spells of your Sub Job added to your character. Making some sense?
It's not over yet. At level 30 you will have access to quests that will reward you with Advanced Jobs. The Advanced Jobs in FFXI are: Bard (music and support extraordinaire), Beast Master (tamer of animals to help in fights), Dark Knight (Scythe wielding, insane damage and tanking like a wet paper bag is the name of the game), Dragoon (Spear users with wyvern pets to aid in combat and the popular Jump Attack from previous FF's), Ninja (dual wielding and a line of Ninja Magic), Paladin (the titan of tanks but mediocre in killing potential), Ranger (long range and most lethal killer in the game that needs coffers of gold to maintain an ammo supply), Samurai (avid swordsman and specializes in gaining Tactical Points to unleash special attacks) and last, the Summoner (conjurer of Elementals and Beasts to deal heavy damage). These Advanced Jobs again can be used as Sub Jobs, which doesn't make much sense but can have a Main Job subbed underneath them. For example, Samurai/Warrior or Black Mage/Summoner. Each one you achieve you will start over from Level 1 and a good deal of new weapons, items and spells will keep things interesting for you.
Now what is FFXI in a nutshell? In my opinion, FFXI is a good addition to the MMORPG line of titles grappling for supremacy. The music at times is annoying but that can be turned off. The camera can take some time to get used to if you like to play in the third person. The graphics are good and being the world of Vana'diel is an even bigger plus to Final Fantasy fans. The character development and possibilities are what a lot of hardcore gamers are looking for. There are hundreds of quests to participate in, just about everything you will do in FFXI will revolve around a quest; items jobs and even ranks in society. There are tons of dungeons and zones all with different themes to them to mix things up. You will never find yourself with lack of something to do.
Given all this, FFXI is a time-consuming venture, depending on your will power of course. There are both long and short term senses of accomplishment. Hardcore gamers will find it difficult to quench their need to attain the highest levels and best items. The occasional gamer will find it entertaining because just about every level or two there are new weapons and items to strive for or buy. Starting from Level 1 several times does tend to smack a coat of glaze on your eyes when you find yourself jumping through the same hoops easier than previously to churn out the levels for things to start getting interesting again.
The community makes the game interesting, as there is an Auction House where all your wares are bought and sold creating a capitalistic player driven society, definitely cool. If you are starving for a new spin on an Everquest-style MMORPG in a more popular gaming universe this worth giving a try. If you are looking for PvP or exploration, look elsewhere. There are no new American servers so you will find yourself surrounded by Level 70s that have been there and done that. Anything you do has already been done, a pretty big drawback at times. The bottom line is that FFXI is an above average MMORPG that should, at the least, make for a fun game to play while waiting for highly anticipated games like World of Warcraft or EverQuest II.
