Playing Final Fantasy 11 after all these years is a lot like returning to your hometown only to find it desolate and different. All the old buildings are still there, but the faces aren’t the same. And that feeling I had—that indescribable sense of belonging—is gone too. It’s a bit alienating and tragic, to be honest, but really what else should I expect from an MMO that’s almost 20 years old and clearly nearing the end of its days?
Though I was never as obsessed with Final Fantasy 11 as I was other MMOs like World of Warcraft, I can still vividly remember the summer months I spent playing it. My love for Final Fantasy 11 is the definition of a summer romance. All I wanted to do was spend my time adventuring across the lush fields of Vana’diel, but my parents decided that wasting my break playing videogames was a bad idea, so they regulated my playtime to a few precious hours each day. But I wasn’t going to give up that easily.
