The Final Fantasy series has a proud and illustrious heritage. Even in the West, where Japanese RPGs are considered something of a niche market, Square Enix's creations hold a fond place in the heart of many a gamer. So it was with great anticipation that Final Fantasy XI, the first massively multiplayer entry into the series, was welcomed almost four years ago. However, the game all but flopped: disappointingly average, riddled with huge, glaring flaws, it was far from the game we had all hoped for. Decent enough player numbers allowed it to continue through four expansion packs and three formats, and helped by those loyal fans the game avoided the descent into MMO hell. Now a full package release, featuring the game itself and all four expansions, including the most recent Wings of the Goddess pack, has hit the shelves at a knockdown price. It may seem like a bargain, but for a game so full of holes on its original release, this could be a case of false economy.

First things first - if you don't have at least seven gig of hard drive space then you cannot play this game, so all of you arcade and core owners are out of luck, I'm afraid. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, if you are not of a patient disposition, then please, for the sake of your controllers, loved ones and sanity, do not attempt to play this game! Do not even think about attempting to play this game. If anyone suggests that you try it, admonish them for being a fool and then continue to go about your business. Trust me, if you get anything more than slightly miffed by long loading screens then you should avoid this game like a brain eating plague; only bad things will happen if you don't. Let my experience be a warning to you. First you have to install the PlayOnline viewer, the lobby from which you access the game. This will then update itself. Time taken so far: 30 minutes. Next you have to sign up for a PlayOnline account and if, like me, you don't happen to have a USB keyboard around, you will have to use the single worst software keypad ever created. It is evil and bad and every button press sucks out a part of your soul. I had to go through this process twice because the server crashed at the end of my first attempt. Time taken so far: 1 hour 20 minutes. By now I was weeping black tears.

Next up you get a brief, reasonably attractive piece of FMV explaining the background to the game. Then you have to wait over an hour for the game to install on your console. Time taken so far: 2 hours 30 minutes. Now you need a content ID, the subscription that allows you access to the game servers. I've seen four people set one of these up and it has never gone smoothly, usually warranting at least one restart. Time taken so far: 2 hours 50 minutes. Finally, after all of that, with the game so close you can almost taste it, you have to update it to the latest version. By this point I had all but given up on ever seeing the sky again, curled up in a ball on the floor and started to rock gently, whispering things to myself in a language I never learnt. Time taken in total: 9 hours. At least. It's an insane amount of time for a game on a console and, to add insult to injury, it's accompanied by some of the worst pop jazz synth I have ever heard. Sadly, when you finally begin to play the game, you soon realise that it's just not worth it.

First you're asked to choose a race and a class. The usual MMO character types are here: the sneaky thief, various tanks, casters and support classes, with the mages split into the usual FF divisions of White (healing), Black (killing) and Red (healing and killing). The talent trees are spread reasonably wide, allowing you to specialise later on in the game, as well as taking on a new, more specific role such as Paladin or, ahem, Bard. The races are reasonably distinct but they lack any of the individuality that you find in games such as World of Warcraft, often feeling like little more than different shaped avatars. With your character selected and named, you're dropped into a capital city and left to fend for yourself. Literally left to fend for yourself; the game almost seems to be mocking you for being new! There are no quest markers, nothing pointing you in the direction you need to go. A midget tells you to find someone near a place not marked on your map and that's all the help that you get. It's infuriating beyond words and unless blind luck is on your side you'll be stumbling around, grating your teeth, desperately trying to find out what you're supposed to do from the nonsense-spouting NPCs scattered about whichever city you chose to start in.

Once you do find your way, the game plays much the same as any other MMO. Either solo or in a party, you take on a variety of monsters, gain experience points and strive to reach the next level. As well as slaying beasts, XP can be gained from completing quests, tasks given to you by NPCs. These are your usual RPG fare; dropping things off, killing a specific number of certain creatures, bringing back a set number of gizzards from another creature and so on. Alongside these quests you can run missions for whichever nation you're aligned to, which gains you reputation and standing with your adopted country, in turn giving you access to harder missions with greater rewards. It's an interesting division between character progression and material rewards and with a better implemented quest log and marker system it could have been revolutionary; as it is however, as with so much of this game, it just falls short. The descriptions you have to follow are often woefully unhelpful, leaving you charging around a dungeon, hitting bats and bees but not achieving anything. Partying up does help; five sets of eyes are better than one and indeed some quests can only be undertaken in a group, but the servers are underpopulated, especially at the lower levels, often leaving you looking for more and finding nothing. The process of joining a group is a simple case of highlighting a character and asking them, which makes you wonder why the rest of the game couldn't have been built around this same model; simple and effective.

There's no PVP system as such, rather there are instances, almost Battleground-like, in which players can compete against others in a variety of frankly ludicrous games, including rock throwing and flame stealing! It's something different, but not in a good way - it's just odd and feels like a feature tacked on to the end of a game about to ship without really being thought through. One facet that deserves commendation though is the Conquest side game where players receive accreditation for slaying enemy forces and capturing strategically important places on the world map. Successes here translate once again into reputation with your home nation and while there's no real explanation of the system within the game itself, it plays well and makes you feel like you're actually involved in a war, at least briefly. The hobbies and crafts that you can engage in are, as with most MMOs, extremely addictive and time consuming. Once chosen, the levelling system is perfectly attuned to character progression, making sure you're never in too deep or having to track back to lower level areas to continue. The crafting itself is more of an aside than an integral part of the game, but it plays well and is possibly the most engaging part of the whole experience.

Graphically, the game is far from perfect, covered in dull browns and greys, with none of the flair and sense of fun that WoW is so famed for. It certainly looks like a four-year-old game, though the character models are quirky and fit well into the overall Final Fantasy tradition. There are no amazing moments visually, no set pieces or backdrops that make you stop and take stock. It's functional and well put together, but Final Fantasy XII on the PS2 looks an awful lot better, and when compared to true next generation titles, FF XI is bland and lifeless. The music is familiar, most of it lifted from earlier games in the series, and changes the mood more effectively than the utilitarian graphics ever could.

The worst thing about Final Fantasy XI, the thing that annoys me the most, the thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, is that underneath the bad design, far away from whatever idiot designed the front end of the game, somewhere deep, deep down, there lies a tiny spark of brilliance. The class system is ingenious, full of quirks and idiosyncrasies the likes of which the competition could only dream of. The professions, the crafting, all of them make sense, all of them piqued my interest and grabbed hold. The details here are breathtaking, the levelling system inspired, but far too often you feel utterly adrift in a sea of badly translated Japanese humour and lore.

With all of my heart, I wanted to love this game. I wanted to waste my life in a fantasy world populated by cat ladies and cat men and midgets that look like potatoes. I wanted a sword made of onions, I wanted to be happy killing bats and worms and wasps, but in the end, Final Fantasy XI is just too broken. There's too much darkness swimming about to let the brightness at the game's heart shine through. Whereas the other games in the series can rely on charm and narrative to pull you through when the mechanics of the experience break down, XI is left floundering, and so is the player. If you need an MMORPG fix on the 360 then at the moment Final Fantasy XI is your only choice, at least until Champions Online and Age of Conan arrive, and, for that reason, this package is value for money. But if you don't have the patience of a saint and the perseverance of a lion then you're not going to get much out of the game except broken equipment and a few more lines on your furrowed brow.

Reviewed by Harry Slater for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).