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Disclaimer: As usual, there will spoilers all over this post.  You have been warned!

Placing my nostalgia aside and taking a fair look at each Final Fantasy game has easily been the toughest part of this countdown.  Final Fantasy IV was the first Final Fantasy game that I have ever played, so it of course holds a special place in my gaming heart.  I have bought this game more times than I care to admit thanks to its several re-releases (and thoroughly enjoying every playthrough).  Despite all of that, I do release that this game does not quite come up to the same standard as the games still remaining in this countdown.  While I would love to gush over this game for the entire post, I will stay true to my original plan and give this game and post as much of an unbiased look as possible.

Originally release in Japan in 1991, the States soon saw Final Fantasy IV come to the SNES a few months later; however, it was called Final Fantasy II at the time as Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III never saw the light of day on the NES Stateside.  At the time, the game was much easier than its Japanese counterpart, and was similar to the Final Fantasy IV: Easymode re-release that Japan saw.  The game also suffered from heavy censorship as well, with all religious references stricken (“praying” was referred to as “wishing”), many references to death were either toned down or completely removed, and even some sexual content was removed from the game (the dancer in Baron strips down to a bikini and the animation of the Cecil and Rosa sprites kissing, was replaced with a hugging animation).  On top of all of that, the game was also horribly translated and some abilities, like Cecil’s “Darkness” ability were completely removed.

All of this was rectified in 2001, as the game was re-released for the PlayStation as a part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles package (which also featured a non-Final Fantasy game, Chrono Trigger).  The game was redone to feature a more faithful translation, a difficulty that mirrored the original, ridiculous censorship completely removed, all original abilities included, and the title was renamed back to Final Fantasy IV.  Thankfully though, some things still remained from the original U.S. version:

The ultimate insult--Japan missed out.

The game has been re-released a few times more since with versions being released on the Gameboy Advanced, Nintendo DS (which featured a complete face-lift), and the Wii Virtual Console.  While these re-releases, especially the DS version, featured many changes and some additional dungeons to the game, for the purposes of this review, I will be looking back on the PlayStation version of the game as it most directly mirrored the original Final Fantasy IV.

Next Page: Story

Final Fantasy XI was the first of the Final Fantasy series to move into the realm of online gaming.  Not only was this Square Enix’s first attempt at a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), it was also the first MMORPG, as well as the first Final Fantasy that was simultaneously cross-platform, spanning across the PlayStation 2, PC, and eventually the Xbox360. In hopes of creating a truly global community, Final Fantasy XI also featured an auto-translate function that would allow for certain phrase to be entered and then displayed in the player’s local language.

Final Fantasy XI first went live in Japan in 2002 on the PlayStation2 and American gamers got their first taste of the game in 2003, but it was released first for the PC (PS2 release came in 2004).  European gamers were then later able to join this online adventure in 2004.  Finally, in 2006, the game was released world-wide on the Xbox360.  Despite the announcement of Square Enix’s next MMORPG, Final Fantasy IV (which is set for release near the end of this year), the game is still up and running and still maintains a rather respectable sized player base–not too shabby for an eight year old game.

Set in the world of Vana’diel, players are able to create their own character from one of five races and pledge allegiance to one of the game’s three nations (of which I will go into detail later).  From there, players must select from one of six basic jobs as the Job System from Final Fantasy III returns in a modified form (again more on this later!).  After that, the players are quite literally dropped into the big online world and are on their own to make friends, level up, do quests and missions, as well as possibly taking up a craft or two.

Now since Final Fantasy XI is structured quite a bit differently, this post will cover details in a different manner.  I will run down some major parts of the story that surrounds the game, but since there is so much detail, it will be a general overview and brief.  Instead of a discussion of heroes villains, as there are far too many to write about, I will instead discuss character creation, including a look at the game’s races and major nations.  Discussion of the game mechanics will remain the same as I will explain in detail the workings of the Job System.  I will also add in some sections that are not normally in my other posts as they are a large part of the game, yet do not appear in other titles.  Such topics will include a look at the game’s economy, which will include a look at the crafting system.  I will also take a look at the many events available for a player to take part in during their adventures.  Finally, as with all my posts, I will close with a discussion on why this game landed here.

Ranking this game was quite difficult, as I had to decide just how much to include in my judgments.  In the end, I decided that since this is very much a living game, I would consider all of the expansions and updates added to the game (in the end, I’m not sure this hurt or helped the game at all).  While I have not even come close to completing or participating all of the content in this game, I definitely believe that the six years or so that I have been playing this game will give me quite an accurate picture of this game.

Yes, that isn’t a typo. I started playing in the spring of 2004 and still play occasionally to this day, although my playing time has plummeted significantly since my college years.

Anyways, enough rambling, time to get through this very lengthy post!

Next Page: The World of Vana’diel