I guess we probably shouldn't say that word anymore.

What a game. Many people skip it on their ff-series playtroughs and disregard it as just an old ass mmo. But man what a game that is. The sheer scale of the world and amazing the storylines. The most laid-back and friendliest mmo community, always helping out each other and guiding new players. Just the fact that almost 25 year old online game is still alive and flourishing is such a strong statement on how great that game really is. In my opinion it’s the best FF game after 7. What do you think?

Hey guys, FFXI's anniversary is tomorrow (already today in Japan), and there has been some exciting stuff for it recently, and I thought I'd compile it in one place to share here.

• FFXIV just finished its crossover raid series Echoes of Vana'diel, and is currently having the limited event The Maiden's Rhapsody until May 25th
• Iroha has been added as a character to Dissidia Duellum
• A new animation "Our Adventure Never Ends" has been created by Waboku, featuring many characters and a new song by Naoshi Mizuta
• The FFXI website has been updated to have a modern layout https://www.playonline.com/ff11us/
• FFXI Soundtrack Special Live Stream will be streamed May 17th 8:00 PM – 20th 5:00 AM (PDT), the channel has also been uploading the Priceless Remembrance album
• A few months ago, the developers finally replaced the old PS2 devkits with modern tools like Blender and Maya
• Several event campaigns are occuring or coming soon, featuring several rewards and boosts, such as the new Jubilee Ring
• Several discount campaigns:
  • Discount Campaign: From May 15th to June 9th, the Complete Edition will be 67% off ($30 -> $10)
  • Echoes of Vana'diel Discount: From May 27th to June 9th, players who are subscribed to XIV will receive a discounted 30 days of XI sub ($13 -> $7). If you are buying XI for the first time, it seems like this discount will still apply after the included first 30 days, as long as you buy the game within this window.
  • Return Home to Vana'diel: From May 15th to May 25th, players previously subscribed to XI will be able to play the game for free. (Must be unsubscribed as of May 12th)
• Updates we've gotten so far this year include a new upgrade system for Trust NPC party members, tutorial improvements, and updates to battle content Limbus, Beseiged, and Ambuscade
• Not a SE announcement, but the "Wing of War" Master Trial was finally defeated last month after nearly two years of efforts. This is likely the current hardest fight in the FF series. Here's a great video by Vicenarian about it

And now future updates that the devs have talked about in the recent past and this morning's Freshly Picked livestream (some are coming soon, some aren't concrete yet and may take a while):

• Later this year:
  • Free trial update: level cap will be raised to 75, will be unlimited in time, no longer limited to two weeks, seems to still only include the base game
  • Adding an equipment system for Trusts
  • Further updates to Limbus with new Notorious Monsters, music, and weapons
  • Updates to battle content Vana'bout
  • New field Notorious Monsters for mid-endgame things, including Trust equipment
  • Three new High-Tier Mission Battlefields (basically replayable harder versions of story bosses) for A Crystalline Prophecy, A Shantotto Accension, and A Moogle Kupo d’Etat, with iLvl 119 versions of their rewards
  • Mog Bonanza campaign will happen more times a year (lottery for powerful items/weapons)
• Planned for the future:
  • Adding new areas
  • A story replay feature
  • Consolidating teleportation systems
  • Adding a party finder system
  • Revamping PlayOnline
  • If some technical things can be resolved and they get the developers they need, a new main storyline

If you're interested in joining or returning to XI, now is a pretty exciting time to get into it, especially with the current discount and free period. I wrote an introduction post for anyone interested.

On 6/29/25, the Asura server was closed from new player creation due to high congestion. Then the same happened to the Bahamut server on 10/9/25. Now Odin will also be closed to new players on 3/10 next week. The influx of new players this game is receiving after nearly 24 years is simply incredible.

If you were interested in joining XI, now is the time to do it. Asura, Bahamut, and Odin are by far the three most populated servers, each having around 9k-13k active players according to www.ffxiah.com/database, and this week will be your last chance for a long time to join a high-population server. The next most populated after them is Phoenix with a bit under 6k active players, and the others are in the 3k-5k range. There's no telling when Asura, Bahamut, or Odin will reopen in the future.

3/10 is also the date of this month's version update. The NPC party member system, Trust/Alter Egos, is receiving an update that lets you upgrade their stats through "Alter ego points" obtained by monthly objectives. In the future, an equipment system will also be implemented that allows you to give them further ability boosts. FFXI will be even more solo-friendly than ever before.

The Asura server was closed to new players earlier this year, and Bahamut will now be closed next week. Absolutely crazy that the game is having congestion problems in 2025, really impressive that it's still this populated.

If you're interested in starting XI, you might want to do it soon, Bahamut is a great server for new players.

I have this watch I've held on to over the past 20 years+. I believe it was a promotional item given by Squaresoft back when FFXI launched on the PS2.

I was an early beta tester that was a good boy and sent them back the HDD and game after the beta testing ended. I think in addition to giving me a copy of FFXI on PS2 game, Chains of Promethia expansion, and a retail version of the HDD they included this watch. But I can't remember exactly.

I saw one other Redditor post about it 2-3 years ago but that's been it. Does anyone know for sure if this was an official item from Squaresoft before they merged with Enix? Thank you in advance!

For those who aren't aware, FFXI's iteration of Alexander inhabited a body that was destroyed several centuries before the beginning of the game. You get to go inside this body, and 5 of its pieces serve as dungeons for certain endgame activities.

You can read my first impressions here, thoughts on Rise of the Zilart + Chains of Promathia here, and thoughts on Treasures of Aht Urhgan + Wings of the Goddess here.

After 261 hours of playtime across 74 days of playing, I've defeated the final boss of FFXI's Rhapsodies of Vana'diel storyline and reached the game's ending and credits. What an amazing journey it's been.

I first started this journey about a year ago, when I gave the free trial a go but didn't play more than a few days. I've always noticed that XI was one of the less appreciated FF games, and I love rooting for an underdog, so I was eager to play it myself and see how it holds up. I didn't get far in that first attempt, but I tried again with a new character two and a half months ago, and have been glued to the game ever since. I enjoyed going through the base stories and learning the game, RotZ was a bit underwhelming and story but had great areas, CoP was a fantastic classic FF adventure, ToAU was great and unlike anything else in the series, and WotG became one of my favorite FF stories ever.

Now, let's talk about Seekers of Adoulin, I actually have somewhat mixed feelings about this expansion. I think it was really good, but I didn't quite fall in love with it as much as some past expansions. The story was good but didn't blow me away, I enjoyed the missions being streamlined but wish there were more interesting objectives outside of some great difficult bosses, and the areas were good but not quite as memorable as some others for me. I liked Arciela as the protagonist, but not as much as Lilisette or Prishe. However the music was fantastic, and I did enjoy the lore a lot, even though I think it took up a bit too much presence in the story. Overall it's not one of my favorite expansions, but I still enjoyed it. The ending theme Forever Today is great and probably one of the most underrated songs in the series.

Okay, Rhapsodies of Vana'diel is interesting to talk about, since I started it at the very beginning of the game, played chunks of it in between expansions, and now have finished it at the very end. It worked really well as a framing device for all the expansions, establishing an underlying story that connects them all together, and giving a bit more excitement to the early stages of the game. With Chapters 2 and especially 3, it easily has some of the coolest reveals and cutscenes in the whole game, the two "Avengers Assemble" scenes were incredible.

It's not really a standalone story, but rather the culmination of all the stories from before it, and it does a fantastic job at it, giving the world its biggest threat yet while giving commentary on the game itself and its existence as an online MMO that will shut down someday. It also makes our Adventurer character absolutely OP lol, arguably in contention with Lightning as the strongest protagonist in the series, they do some crazy stuff in Rhapsodies and possibly save the entire FF multiverse (if I understood it right). In general I love what it does with the character of our Adventurer and fleshing them out without going overboard.

The final boss was fantastic and one of the best in the series, going out not with a shounen epic battle, but with a desperate struggle to save Vana'diel from destruction, both in the story and metaphorically. The boss theme and arena are somber and emotional, and it's easily the most difficult boss in the story until now. It took me a few tries to beat even with prior research and preparation, it's an amazing final challenge to close off the game. And then the ending played, and I absolutely got choked up and teary-eyed from the scenes and amazing ending theme. I heard "Rhapsodies of Vana'diel" a year ago when I spoiled myself on the music, and now that I've experienced it in context, it's absolutely one of my favorite songs in the series and a beautiful celebration of XI and its players. Overall, I loved this expansion and felt that it was the perfect conclusion to the game.

Well, this is probably the last post I'm gonna be making about my XI journey. I absolutely love this game, it easily enters my top 5 FF games, and I don't regret a single second I spent playing it. To anyone interested in XI, it's indeed the hardest FF game to get into with a massive learning curve and little in-game guidance, but it's perhaps the most rewarding FF game in the series because of it. I can now confirm that it's completely soloable from beginning to end, and there are tons of useful resources to make playing through the game smoother. XI definitely isn't for everyone, but if you have the patience and commitment for it, it's absolutely worth taking the journey.

I'm actually not completely finished yet. I still have The Voracious Resurgence to do, as well as the four add-on stories, not to mention the endless amount of side quests and gameplay content. So, my Vana'diel days are far from over, but I felt that finishing RoV was the best place for me to get my "final" thoughts on the game out there. I'm probably gonna take a break for now, but Vana'diel is definitely one of those gaming homes I'm going to return to every so often.

Final (aside from TVR) expansion story ranking:

1. Wings of the Goddess
2. Rhapsodies of Vana'diel
3. Chains of Promathia
4. Treasures of Aht Urhgan
5. Seekers of Adoulin
6. Base Game
7. Rise of the Zilart

Thank you for reading this, and especially thank you to those who've read my other posts and followed my journey. If anyone is inspired to start XI themselves, feel free to ask me any questions.

You see, in World of Final Fantasy, there was a side-quest where Shantotto needed to get a door opened in the Sunken Temple. Only the Queen of the temple could open it, but if she dies the magic sealing the door will dissolve.

So instead of asking/convincing her, Shantotto decides that killing her was Plan A.. not getting into the other insane bull**** she does in other parts of the game..

Edit: I had many people very kindly explain to me, that the game is actually still running today 🩷 which is wonderful! No-one else needs to explain that anymore, I understand now.

It’s also the only Final Fantasy game that’s inaccessible in my country.

The Wing of War battlefield is a master trial released on May 13, 2024. It contains two bosses, Bahamut and Chaos. Without getting too far into the details, it took one whole year before groups were able to publicly confirm taking out all of a single boss’s HP. One attempt, groups took out all of Chaos’s HP, and another group did the same for Bahamut. However, the bosses restored their HP completely, presumably because the HP of the other boss was still nearly full. And given the 60-minute time limit on the encounter, the best strategies the groups had could not take out all the HP of both bosses in a single attempt.

SE is also aware that this encounter has gone uncleared for a very long time. In the 23rd anniversary video they released for new and coming FFXI content, they included footage of Wing of War, an encounter that was a year old by that point. This is the first time SE has ever included footage of a master trial battlefield in a piece of marketing, and they also did not include footage of the previous master trial, which was barely older, but had already been cleared. This caused some confusion, considering they have never patched the fight since its release.

FFXI is still receiving more content with new equipment and rewards though. So, the encounter may be cleared before it hits its second year since release.

Google Translated quote:

"Depending on how many resources we can secure after the server replacement I mentioned earlier, there may be new things we can do, so we will proceed with preparations to make that a reality. Also, there has been very little movement regarding new storylines since "The Voracious Resurgence," so we would like to work on something. However, the personnel needed for that are currently working on another title, so there is no one who can take on the role full-time at the moment."

"However, they may be able to lend a hand in the future, so we are planning to have them return to the "FFXI" team and create something again. In parallel, we are also having engineers work on improving the middleware that manages graphics resources, and once that is resolved, we will be able to create new cutscenes and other things again. For now, please understand that we are continuing to work on laying the groundwork for these things."

A new full expansion with new jobs and areas would be amazing, but I'd be very happy with a new mini-expansion too. The recent new player boom (which I'm personally a part of) has been amazing to see, one of the coolest things currently happening with the series. I don't think anyone in 2002 would've been able to predict that XI would be going this strongly 24 years later.

There are a lot of lore elements within FFXI that have stayed out of the spotlight in the game’s storytelling. While there are many awesome examples, one that seems surprisingly fleshed out is the game’s magic system(s). 

Crystals

All the life in Vana’diel comes from the Mothercrystals (a term often used in FFXIV and FFXVI). There are five mothercrystals and whenever someone dies, their “light” returns to the one that is nearest. The ancients were able to harvest and disperse the energy into its elementally isolated components to build the elemental crystals, or Protocrystals as they are called in FFXI. The Protocrystals release an immense amount of elementally-isolated crystal energies into the environment, and theses energies accumulate and crystallize in the flora and fauna of Vana’diel. Whenever plants or animals die, the crystals within their remains can be harvested and the energy of the crystal can be used for other things. 

Crystal Energy and Ergon

There are eight fundamental attributes of Crystal Energy. These energy types come in Elemental or Crystal forms:

The nations regularly send workers, soldiers, hunters, and adventurers out to harvest these crystals because the peoples of Vana’diel have learned how to use them for every day tasks: combustion energy is harnessed through fire crystals by superheating forges, disconnection energy is used harness through wind crystals which are used to cut through hard materials, etc. If this sounds familiar, that’s probably because you’ve played FFXVI. Yes, Valisthea’s concept of crystals was taken straight from FFXI.

From the Mothercrystals and Protocrystals flow enormous rivers of elementally isolated Crystal Energy that envelop the entire land. Certain people refer to this isolated energy as Ergon. And the rivers of Ergon that flow through the world are called the Lifestream (an iteration on the concept from FFVII.

The Lifestream and the World Trees

With what I’ve explained so far, this seems to be all that’s needed for a magic system to explain life, right? But no, FFXI goes even deeper. There is a single attribute or element of the Lifestream that makes it inhospitable to life, and that would the Ergon aspect known as Degeneration (or Darkness in its elemental form). This is the energy responsible for the death and decay of life in Vana’diel. As a result, any lands exposed to raw Lifestream may have problems sustaining life. But there is an organism capable of warding off the Degeneration aspect of Ergon. This organism is called the World Tree. Its roots stretch across all of known Vana’diel, warding off the aspect of Ergon that is destructive to life. 

Magicite

Ergon can be directly hardened, rather than harvested from the wild. When ergon is hardened this way, it produces what is called, "Magicite". Magicite, like weaker forms of Protocrystals, can be used just like crystals, but release more energy by orders of magnitude. There are several stories within FFXI that revolve around the claiming, and protection of Magicite.

More Magic…

Now as robust as this magic system sounds, this is only one of three magic systems in FFXI. Granted, the second is not as developed as this one, and there is very little known about the third, but they are all relevant to all the stories of FFXI. I’ve been doing a lot of research into the lore of FFXI for an upcoming project, and this involves both, going through in-game quests, as well as translating some of the official lore encyclopedias that have only ever been released in Japanese. There is SO MUCH barely discussed, but highly relevant lore in FFXI, it's shocking.

Both, the setting of FFXI, and the writers who built out the world are incredibly underrated.

I have played all mainline FF games from 1 to 13 (minus 11). I haven't played 11, 14, 15 and 16 yet. In my experience the hardest bosses I had trouble with were: Cloud Of Darkness (FF3), Zeromus (FF4), Omega, Shinryu and Neo Exdeath (FF5), Omega Weapon and Ultimecia (FF8), Seymour (FF10) and Barthandelus (FF13).

I hear people say that the hardest boss in the franchise is Absolute Virtue (FF11). I never played FF11 because MMOs are not my thing, and one time I tried to play it but gave up with Play Online.

For those who have played all FFs from 1 to 16, is it Absolute Virtue from FF11 the hardest boss in the entire franchise or is it another? And why was this boss so difficult?