Cloud, Sephiroth, Tidus, Yuna, Squall, Kefka, Cecil, Kain, and, of course, Cid (and Cid, and Cid, and Cid, and Cid, and Cid, and, well, you get the idea). Names that spring to mind whenever you consider the legacy of one of the longest standing RPG franchises in history - Final Fantasy. Now, Square-Enix offers you a chance to place your name alongside theirs.

Final Fantasy XI is Square-Enix's freshman entry into the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Taking place in the world of Vana'diel, FFXI lets you enter the world as a citizen of any of three kingdoms: the noble kingdom of San d'Oria, the magical alliance of Windhurst, and the technologically advanced republic of Bastok. Each kingdom is locked in a struggle with the others for territory and power, and, as a citizen of one of the three realms, you'll serve as their proxy in this battle.

This conflict plays itself out in a novel way. Rather than directly clashing with representatives of the opposing empires, to participate in the battle for land and resources, you first tell a gate-guard that you wish to join the battle. He or she will cast the 'signet' spell on you. From that point forward, each monster you kill will add points to the running total of your empire in that region, sort of like a giant scoreboard. At the end of each week, the total scores for each empire in each region are tallied, and the empire with the highest score owns that region, and all its zones, for the week. If, at any point, one empire controls fifty one percent of all regions in the game, the other two empires are forced to ally with it, and the battle against the beastmen begins. There are other benefits to owning a region, as well - when your empire owns a region, guards there can bind you, allowing you to respawn at their position when you die. In addition, monsters killed in a region owned by your empire may yield crystals, valuable items required for all forms of crafting.

Or, if you don't feel like making anything yourself, you can take a quick trip down to the auction house, a fantastic feature of FFXI. Any major city or town will have one (or more) auction-house. These houses allow you to place items up for sale, up to seven at a time, or purchase items that other people have offered for sale. If you don't feel like trekking back to town, you can just activate your personal bazaar. The personal bazaar allows you to place a price for any item in your inventory. When people examine you, they have the option of seeing what you're selling, and can buy whatever they want, for the fixed price. These mercantile innovations make finding buyers for your goods simplicity itself, and as such, make crafting much less of a chore.

And speaking of chores, FFXI has also come up with a creative way to minimize the pain of the leveling grind. At any point in time, you can go to your 'mog house' (that's right - everyone gets a house, free of charge), and switch to any basic job. If you're a level 30 thief, tired of the thief gameplay, you can switch over to being a warrior, level it up for, say, 10 levels, and then return to playing your level 30 thief. No penalties, no lost experience, nothing but the freedom to be whatever you want, whenever you want. And there are benefits to leveling up more than one class: when you hit level 18, a quest opens that allows you to designate a "sub job". Familiar to players of the Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced game, a sub job allows you to use the skills and abilities of a job in addition to your main job. Of course, you can only level up one job at a time, and the bonuses from your sub-job are capped at a level equal to half the level of your main job.

Talking about leveling up brings us into consideration of the combat system. Combat in FFXI will be familiar to anyone who's played most other MMORPG's, but with a few new twists. The basic system has you targeting a mob (monster, for the uninitiated), getting close, and hitting your auto-attack key. This starts you swinging. While your character is engaged in combat, you're not just a passive watcher - you also must choose when and how to use your array of combat skills. Each profession learns skills that assist them in combat. In addition, as you gain skill with a particular weapon, you will learn "weapon skills", that can be used more frequently than your class skills. These weapon skills also have another use: if you are in a party, you can chain together skills to perform a combo, doing additional damage. Using the right skill at the right time can be the difference between victory and defeat.

Of course, defeat is a part of any MMORPG. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, something nasty will come along and bite your head off. No review would be complete without discussing the penalties assayed upon death. In FFXI, they can be fairly harsh. When you die, you lose one third of the XP needed to reach the next level. This can cause you to lose a level. If you manage to get resurrected in the field, the experience penalty is lessened. But you come back to life with very little health, low stats and must stay in this state for five minutes. If you return to your spawn point, you resurrect with full health and abilities, but depending on where you last bound yourself, you may be some distance away from the place you died. Thankfully, there is no need for "corpse runs" - any items in your inventory stay right there, in your inventory, when you die. While you may lose experience, you'll never lose your possessions.

Graphically, the game is a masterpiece. It is, without hyperbole, the most gorgeous MMORPG I have ever played. Characters look richly detailed, and the environment seems alive. Cities are full of NPC's, each with their own behavior and schedules. Merchants, knights, even a small circus, complete with knife jugglers, bards, and fire breathers, all can be found populating the cityscapes of Vana'diel. The sound is equally impressive, working with the graphics to make you feel as if you are in a living, breathing world.

There's more to the game - prestige classes, a detailed system of quests, a multi-faceted crafting system, and more - but the preceding is the essence of it. Final Fantasy XI is an impressive MMORPG, made even more so by the fact that it's the first sojourn of Square-Enix into this field. They've avoided a number of pitfalls common to the genre, come up with innovative ways to spice up the level grind, and created a world that is breathtakingly gorgeous. Will you be joining it?