In your first several hours with Final Fantasy XI, you will be overwhelmed with buyer's regret.

"Oh, for pity's sake," you will mutter out loud, "did I really spend 130 bucks for this?"

Yes, you will realize sadly, you really did. You spent $130 for a hard drive that plugs into the back of your PlayStation. You spent $130 for a hard drive that, you believed, came pre-installed with Final Fantasy XI. You eagerly took it out of its anti-static packaging. You slid it into its docking station with happy anticipation. You fired up the power and sat back, controller in hand, giddy at the thought of the fun you were about to have. And then you learned about something called "PlayOnline" and the wind went out of your sails.

PlayOnline is a network service run by Square Enix, the company that developed Final Fantasy XI. It is the gateway to the world of online Square Enix games. (A world that, for the moment, consists only of Final Fantasy XI and a little card-trading thingy.)

PlayOnline wanted you to sign up. OK, you thought, that is reasonable enough. Then it told you that your PlayOnline software, the version that came pre-installed on your brand-new, just-released PlayStation hard drive, was out of date and needed to be upgraded. So then you sat for an hour and a half, watching the little progress meter and hoping your cable modem would not melt under the strain. This was not as much fun as you had hoped it would be.

At last PlayOnline was installed and current. You created an account and gave it your credit card number. Then it was off to Final Fantasy XI! Hurray! It was time for some online fun!

No it was not. Apparently the version of the game on your brand-new, just released hard drive was also out of date. So you waited for another hour and a half, and you watched another series of little progress meters, and your cable modem gave off a little more smoke. How, you wondered, could anything so stupid and frustrating hope to become the Next Big Thing?

Then, just as your patience threatened to burst in a horrifying orgy of shattered electronics, the game began. The vein on your forehead settled down to only slighter larger than its normal size.

Some games have steep learning curves. That is OK. Complicated games demand time and attention. Complicated games can be hugely rewarding. It is OK for them to ask a lot of you up front. But everything about the Final Fantasy XI installation and sign-up process screams incompetence and contempt for its audience. Somebody should be embarrassed. Or fired.

Coincidentally, the game itself has a steep learning curve and demands a prodigious time committment. It is what they call a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG. Basically it is a great big fantasyland where you can set up house and go adventuring with others from around the world. (That's the real world, not just the fantasy one; you play alongside people from across North America and Japan, some of whom are using computers and some of whom, like you, suffered through the set-up process on the PlayStation.)

All the action is set in a land called Vana'diel. There are three big kingdoms, all living in uneasy peace. Humans live alongside elves and cat-women and bear-men, and also alongside a race of little mini Keebler elves. You have to live there too, so you create a character from one of the available ethnicities. Then you choose a job ("Warrior," "Mage," etc.) and you start looking for adventure.

This is very slow in the beginning, for you are inexperienced and not all that good at fighting or magic or whatever your new job consists of. But the process of learning your craft and growing your skillset is engaging, at least, if not outrageously fun. In time you move up from one "level" to another, and soon you are highly powerful and everybody wants you to join his adventure party.

Before you get to that, however, you will experience more buyer's regret. Final Fantasy XI is essentially menu-driven, meaning it plays more like Windows XP than like, say, a video game. You have to do a lot of chatting with your online companions, and this is pure drudgery using only your controller. So before long you will bite the bullet and buy yourself a USB keyboard and mouse. And your free month will be up, so you will pony up the $12.95 (US) charge for another 30 days.

After a while, when your character is up at level 14 or 15 and you have devoted countless hours and dollars to the task, the game will begin to let you into its heart and you will be glad. Or maybe you will wonder where your life went.