FFXI Opening- Now With More Cornrows!

26 Nov 2011
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Update: This is actually the opening video used in the Xbox 360 version of the game. Whoops!

Back in October, Square Enix opened up the Final Fantasy XI Youtube channel. While this hasn’t been ground breaking in anyway for North American and European players, in Japan, they’ve been releasing a constant wave of videos for VanaTV. But that’s not what this is about.

This is about something placed right under our noses that as of now, I can’t recall anyone ever mentioning to the point where a huge amount of players came out and said “whoa wait a sec! What is that!?”

On the FFXI Youtube channel there’s a video of the opening cinematic to Final Fantasy XI. We’ve all seen it a million times right? Because of this I’m sure many, like myself, simply passed over it. However, actually watching the video brings up two very interesting points. The video is of higher quality than the original, and it’s not the same video that has graced our presence for the past 9 years when we log-in.

The content of the video is still the same. You see Aldo and his sister checking out some soldiers outside of Tavnazia. Tavnazia gets attacked by Orcs, Aldo runs away from the city crying after assuming the Orcs have killed his sister in the attack. Then Aldo tries to pinch the city from afar 20 years later. However, now he’s not in the same company as before. It seems that fewer people are joining Aldo on the cliff this time around. A generic looking Hume on the left has now been replaced by our favorite cornrow sporting character model and the Tarutaru has not only switched sides, but has also changed their wardrobe! The fact that there are differences tells us that the video is simply more than an HD render. They’ve actually made changes.

Of course the big question we’re left with now is “Why did Square Enix change the video?”. There are two possibilities that pop into my head. This updated cinematic could be attached to the PlayStation Vita port that Hiromichi Tanaka has said Square Enix is working on. The second would be OMG FFXI HD REMAKE!

I think the first one is probably the more likely answer.