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The sheer volume of areas/mobs/strategies that we all had to learn made it incredibly challenging at the time, which was a lot of fun. Was it because it was substantial, or was it just because the dev team knee-capped the player base to keep them busy longer? Looking back, I think it was a little bit of both.Д¬OP was hands down the best expansion. Vanilla FF11 was tough, but its second expansion took ages to beat. Whenever I speak with my former FF11 linkshell (read: clan) members, all I have to do is utter the words вЂњChains of PromathiaвЂќ and I can feel the shudders across the Internet. It was like deciphering the Matrix.Д®ven so, breaking through the UI was but the first step. The more I played, the more the once-impenetrable wall of options became clearer. It felt like low-level programming, letting me assign actions as shortcuts to hotkeys or controller shoulder buttons, complete with text announcements. Editing macros was really impressive at the time. Over time this menu gauntlet revealed itself to be quite powerful in terms of customizing the game to my liking.

If you grew up playing Final Fantasy games, your menu memory for attacks, items, and spells was basically useless here. I was bewildered by the gameвЂ™s slow, deliberate pace.ДЄnd by my character constantly whiffing attacks (the lowest dexterity class-elvaans-on the lowest character level using the worst gear is a terrible combination).ДЄnd by the endlessly cascading menu options. Rabbits, beetles, crabs all took turns murdering me in the wild. The game canвЂ™t be this hard, I thought to myself. Check out our review of its latest expansion, Shadowbringers, to find out more. Though it isn't as complex as FF11, FF14 is gorgeous, fun, and tells a shockingly emotional story. If you're itching for a Final Fantasy MMO to play that isn't 19 years old, Final Fantasy 14 has been our choice for best MMO a few years in a row. I was running out into the starter area of West Ronfaure smacking every orc I encountered, getting wrecked, and home-pointing back to my Mog House in Southern San dвЂ™Oria.

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At the time I didn't know how to read Japanese, so I didnвЂ™t realize that I could check each individual mobвЂ™s difficulty before engaging with it. I needed FF11 to satiate my cravings for an online action-RPG.ДЄfter spending hours setting up my Japanese PlayOnline account, my initial entry into Final Fantasy 11 smacked me down hard. I was impatient to fill the void left by PSO and didnвЂ™t really care for the Western aesthetics of EverQuest.

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I started my FF11 career with the Japanese PC version, which preceded the North American release by a full year.

On PC you needed a capable graphics card, not a cheap proposition in 2002. On PlayStation 2 you needed an add-on hard drive and a network adapter.

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The usual series tropes of character classes like White and Black mages were present, but beyond each classвЂ™s iconic abilities, it was a whole new open world.Д®ven playing the game at the time was demanding. By comparison to PSO, it was like signing up for MMO boot camp: FF11 threw players headfirst into loads of systems, menus, and game mechanics weвЂ™d never experienced before as Final Fantasy fans. First steps Hunter's PreludeДЇF11 was likely most players' first Japanese online game after Sega's user-friendly Phantasy Star Online. They can't quit now: the 20th anniversary is just 12 months away.

But that time won't come this month, or this year. Someday it will be their job to shut the game down. The development team are caretakers, satisfying the hardcore fans who stick around. A planned smartphone version was canceled. Yet they still maintain a dedicated team to continually balance the game. At this point in FF11вЂ™s lifespan, Square Enix could probably get by with just keeping the servers running. The crowds (typically around the gameвЂ™s auction houses) are diminished, and the framerate is smooth without hundreds of players idling in the same spot. The expansions that once felt so new and exciting now feel retro and distant. To see how the game had transformed: what had stayed the same, and what was still annoying. But to celebrate its 19th anniversary with a retrospective that would do it justice, I decided I had to play it again. I played Final Fantasy 11 for a full decade before walking away. (Image credit: James Mielke, Square Enix)

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