As-I-played notes:

• The installation was rather long, but it came with the initial game and demos of a couple of the expansions.
• The PlayOnline system requires what I consider to be way too much information just to get into a game and play a demo for a couple of hours.
• One of the first things I noticed was that if I were to Alt-Tab out of the game, it crashed it. I find this extremely disappointing.
• Finally getting into the game, after a hour of installation and setup, I was instantly confused over how to control the game. I didn’t get a manual and the game does not mention how to control the character. I finally figured out most of the controls and found that, although they work for the game, I am not a fan of using a mouse to “drag” a character towards a direction.
• I spent a hour wondering around trying to find an enemy to fight or mission to accept. I finally found an enemy, a Bumblebee, that managed to kill me after several minutes of exchanging attacks with each other. After that game over, I went right back and fought another one. I won that time.
• I wondered around more, the action that took up most of my experience, and finally listened to an explanation on how gatehouses work and accepted my first mission. I got lost trying to figure out where to go and my review time ran out.

Final Thoughts:

• Although this is a Final Fantasy game, I didn’t really find it to be that fun. This probably has more to do with the series of long waiting and frustration moments that I experienced leading up to the game than actual game content.
• I don’t really recommend this game to people. From what I played I can see how this game could be immersive for people and that that immersion could last for hours, but other games that have come out since then have better controls, better graphics and more players in their virtual worlds.