![]() ![]() Nonetheless, to return to an earlier point, there were more than a dozen or so quests that gave me magical-based items that were all but useless on my character. And before you ask, yes, I used a Dexterity-based race for a Strength-based class. For those who may have forgotten, my Final Fantasy XI character is a warrior catgirl because if I am going to play a nigh twenty-year-old video game, then I want it to be as much a teeming nightmare as possible. Finally, we have the map, which you can now buy outright from a nondescript map merchant RIGHT NEXT TO THE MAIN QUEST GIVERS! It simply amazes me how Square-Enix has taken the time to make the end-user experience objectively easier without updating any of the older missions in the game!Įven worse were the times when the game would doll out rewards that were entirely irrelevant to my specific build or character. Likewise, Gil is useless as the in-game economy has utterly de-emphasized it in favor of guild specific currencies. For those wondering, two thousand experience points is a drop in the ocean, and you can get a comparable amount of experience points just by setting up three to four Records of Emminence. In one such pursuit, " Her Majesty's Garden," the primary rewards for this nigh SEVEN PART MISSION were a map of the Northlands Area, 2,000 Gil, and 2,000 EXP. As mentioned in the previous episode, my starting hub world was San d'Oria, and most of my vanilla quests involved helping a prince modernize their crumbling empire. Because the current meta skews so heavily towards the game's newer systems (i.e., Records of Eminence, Field Manuals, Trusts, etc.), any mission or quest from the game's launch feels like a complete waste of time. This rambling leads me to a point I made in my first post: you should avoid the vanilla questline like The Plague. ![]() And no matter what, the combat is always a hot mess of blurry incoherent nonsense. Every waking minute you play it, you see distinct styles and teams that have come and gone trying to keep the game alive. Final Fantasy XI is a game stuck between different eras that much is not up for debate. Instead, I was stuck fetching documents for foreign ambassadors as I wallowed, trying to make all of the bolted-on post-launch quality of life additions work in a game that is now eighteen years old. At no point did I open a secondary or alternate job. Speaking of inventory management, while Final Fantasy XI taunted me with greyed out inventory slots and a promise I could somehow unlock those slots, I never knew where to make that happen. Nor did the game clue me into how to stack items or manage my inventory. I did NOT get a tutorial on how to set up macros. What I did NOT acquire in my thirty-plus hours was a full understanding of how to play it efficiently or with any sense of satisfaction. I had an excessive amount of raw materials for the smithing mechanic, crystals I could utilize to enchant equipment, and a myriad of class-specific weapons to use if I intended to switch things up with my character's job. I spent upwards of thirty-five hours completing the initial suite of quests and was left astonished at what little I had to show for it. Even Final Fantasy XI's most ardent defenders will struggle to say its "vanilla" storyline is its best effort. However, these plotlines were tried and true tropes I have seen in countless prior Final Fantasy games. Sure, the base game provides an exciting story about kings and queens trying to restore their decrepit nations' former glory. I felt as if I had seen broad brushstrokes hinting at an epic story or world, but nothing ever transpired into something grand. After concluding my time with the game's original questline, the game left me with an empty and unsatisfying impression. First, no game quite like Final Fantasy XI has ever made me feel like a useless sack. I want to weave you all a tale regarding why the highly anticipated "conclusion" to my series on Final Fantasy XI has taken as long as it has to write and publish. Part 11: I Completed All Of The Starting Quests, And I Want My Goddamn Time Back Easier said than done.
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