Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

Alright, let me start by saying that this is going to be a mixed review. As someone who played, quit, and then played again only to quit again, I can say that this game is a great idea but a little flawed in some of the execution. Secondly, I can state that the customer support for this game has been 2 for 2 on being unpleasant (as noted on my gamespot blog).

The Good:
-The graphics are beautiful (for the PC, that is) and the world is huge! Until you hit 20 and get your chocobo license, plan on spending at least 10 minutes to a half an hour just running around from place to place.
-The people range in terms of helpfulness and maturity during groups. I've had experiences where bored high-levels decided to power-level our group just because they could. I've also had people join a group only to try to do nothing but stay close enough to get some xp ("Hey guys, I'm gonna go AFK for a bit. I'll be really quick! I promise"). Essentially, it's no different than any other online game.
-Flexibility and creativity is central to this game. Don't like your job class? Switch it out! Once you get the sub-job class open, you can have fun creatively mixing and matching your classes to your own playing style.
-The music. Some of the best zone music I've ever encountered. Great for enhancing the mood.

The Bad:
-The party dependence. Enjoy solo'ing? Too bad. Very few jobs can solo in this game effectively, and trying to gain levels without a party is an exercise in tedium. Sure, online games are meant to be "social games," but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to be social all the time.
-The low population. Unless you pick a highly populated server, getting a party together is going to be more difficult than it should be.
-The length of time since the initial release. This means that there are a lot of higher levels on each server. So trying to get a party at any of the low to mid-levels can be tricky. The only plus to this is the availability of power-levelers and randomly generous players ("You look new to this game...here's a 100K zeny! Buwahahahaha")
-The aggro range of mobs. This is a difficult game for us explorers since the mobs in this game are tenacious! They don't quit until you're dead, zoned, or they're dead. Thankfully, the number of aggressive mobs in the lower levels aren't too high...

The Ugly:
-The customer support for this game. If you do any of the following: Go to a third party website, use anything not licensed by SquareEnix, use the internet for anything but playing FFXI, then anything that happens to your account is your fault. Period. The customer support hours nicely coincide with the average work day so if you have an issue that needs to be resolved, you need to use up your lunch break or take time off work. There is no weekend support.

If you like Final Fantasy and Online gaming, than this is the ultimate game for you. Need something quick and fun though? Than look elsewhere. This game is for the patient.