An MMORPG that is not for the faint of heart, but rewards the patient and dedicated players.
Let me get the easy stuff out of the way. The game looks GREAT. I will admit, it does not live up to today's standards, but considering how old this is (over 5 years now?), it still looks pretty darn good. The thing that helps this game hold up is the wonderful art. Almost every area looks absolutely wonderful, and you will be drawn in by all the little effects that add up to make this game look great. There are a couple of issues with this game's look though. First of all, a lot of the earlier areas don't look anywhere near as pleasant as the higher level areas (you'll spend a lot of your earlier levels in craggy, desert-like areas). This is an easy way to turn away new players, but be warned ahead of time, the rest of the game is not as boring as the earlier areas. Still, each of the main nations' cities look absolutely magnificent and are amazing to just run around. Another issue is with monsters. Though the monsters all look great, you will fight mostly the same monsters, merely with different names to signify higher levels. It would have been nice if there were more of a monster variety (once again this is an issue that plagues the earlier levels, because at the later levels you have access to the expansion content, including new monsters). Besides those gripes, this game does look wonderful, something that Square-Enix seems to be good at in their games.
As much as I'd like to praise the sound as much as I do the graphics, I won't be able to. Let me tell you right now, where there is music, it is absolutely beautiful. Nobuo Uematsu has made another masterpiece collection out of the music in FFXI (including all the new music in the two included expansions), but the problem is that you will oftentimes find yourself in areas without any music. The worst part is, these areas are usually the areas you spend your most time in. So as a result, the wonderful music seems to go to minimal use. When it is there though, it is great. The sound effects are a little more acceptable. The ambience is wonderful, from the footsteps to sandstorms, they all sound nice. The spells sound good as well though combat in general sounds convulated and repetitive sometimes. Overall though, this game sounds good.
Aesthetics out of the way, let me get to the hard part, how the game plays. There are two main problems with FFXI. The first is that you are thrown into the game with little instruction (the manual is next to useless), and are expected to know how to do everything. I figure this was done to force you into feeling more like an explorer, but considering how much there is in an MMORPG, this can be a little harsh on new players. The other problem has to do with levelling up. This game can be very brutal on players. Monsters are oftentimes very deadly, even when you have the best of equipment, and earlier on, when you don't have any friends, it is often the case that you will find yourself dying over and over again while just trying to get to level 5. Once you get to that point, things get even uglier as you have to leave to areas PACKED with other players who try and steal the monsters from eachother for experience, and from that point on you can't really play by yourself. After you get past level 20, the game picks up quite a bit, and most of the downfalls fall aside.
You should keep in mind that this is not a game to be played by yourself. You will have to join a Linkshell Group (kind of like a mini-community) within the community in order to have fun, and you will likely spend a lot of time with friends, since it is nearly impossible to do anything important by yourself in this game. There are a ton of quests to do, and a bunch of missions. The story is pretty interesting, though sometimes it is hard to keep up with, since you have to pay attention to little details that don't seem important.
First and foremost, this is a community game. You get toegether and get along with a group of people, and you will have a blast from this game. You don't, and you will likely quite before the trial even ends. This game offers a lot of depth, due to the various character classes, equipment possibilities and combat strategies, not to mention all the competitive fun in the unique style battles (like Conquest). Another issue that pops up, now that levelling up has been mentioned, is dying itself. You will find respawn points to be at inconvenient locations and there is a very brutal experience penalty for dying (yes, you can drop levels). The thing about this game, is that every good is balanced out by a bad, which holds it back from being exceptional. For its time, this game was great, but 5 years later, it may not appeal to everybody, especially with games like Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft out there.
What about all the extra content though? This package does not just come with FFXI, it comes with 2 expansions after all. Well, Rise of the Zilart was a fairly balanced expansion. It provided a couple new jobs (Ninja and Samurai, both of which are awesome) that can be obtained at reasonable levels (even as low as 20) and the extra missions and quests were spread out so that people of varying levels could enjoy it. Chains on the other hand, was a brutal, hardcore expansion pack, that really only catered to the higher level players with new areas and such. Together though, as a package, this set provides a LOT of gameplay value, and you will not likely be able to complete everything even in a year, depending on how you play. It is also nice that Square-Enix has full support for this game still, with pretty good updates coming all the time (the kind of recent addition of Chocobo breeding comes to mind). Because they still support the series, and because new content still comes out, and because the community is pretty good overall, this game still holds up as being an acceptable MMORPG.
Does this mean you should spend your money on it though? Well, considering you can get FFXI and its first 3 expansions for no more than 30 bucks, along with a month free trial, it could be worth checking out. If you are into the Final Fantasy series, and it's specific style of mythos and story telling, then this is a game worth checking out. Just know what you are getting into ahead of time, which is a game that has an extremely slow and brutal start, but picks up to become a highly addictive and fun adventure later on. Enjoy.
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Value: 10/10
OVERALL: 8.0/10.0