You can make the graphics look a bit better if you play around in the Windows Registry (lol) - https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Graphics
I remember playing FF11 when my only serious MMO experience was RO/Lineage 2 and being blown away. The world felt alive, combat was really fun etc. I actually stopped playing because I thought I would get too into it and flunk my high school classes. I even remember arguing with a friend, that FF11 looks better than WoW (European release of 11 happened with Chains of Promathia, which was as someone here mentioned around the same time WoW released). Those were the times.
I actually bought the complete pack during one of the yearly sales a while ago, tried playing twice and very quickly gave up. I'm grateful for this write up - I'll read it again if I ever thing about playing 11.
What's interesting is that while SE went in a completely different direction with FF14 (although I don't know what direction that was supposed to be based on how terrible 1.0 was) and 2.0, there is a game which feels like a spiritual sequel to FF11 - Dragon Quest X. Never localized, also still going strong after being available only on the Wii and PC at first. It uses the menu based combat, but a lot of the design ideas feel like the direct evolution of FF11 (and some are using Dragon Quest UI almost as-is from the single player games). It's really good, and the story is one of the best in the series. Bummer it never got released in the West.
While I agree the conversation was very hard to hear for the first ~40 minutes, I feel like the biggest reason was Jeff facing his head away from the mic when playing.
Also, that Tundra quest - the bosses duo is a Snow Banshee + Snow Banther set, they're not 2 Banshees : p
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