Well, it's still a numbered Final Fantasy title, and it would be crass to have a big gap (or an X-2) on that cool Flash menu between X and XII. So why cover XI if it's not really a proper Final Fantasy game? There's so little resemblance between it and the ten titles preceding it, the name Final Fantasy Online would have probably been more appropriate (not to mention farsighted).
it really doesn't behave like one at all.
Aside from having the ostensible markings of a Final Fantasy game - moogles, chocobos, the pantheon of summon monsters, the familiar classes, spells and items, etc. This is because XI, unlike every other volume of the Final Fantasy series proper, is an MMORPG. For a long time, even I wasn't sure what I was going to do about the entry between X and XII. 'Are you going to do X-2 or jump right to XII?' they'd ask, as if XI wasn't even an option. Sometime after the VIII writeup, I started getting emails and messages from people asking me what I was planning to do after X. As far as most fans seem to be concerned, it exists outside of Final Fantasy canon sort of like how Mystic Quest was considered in the Nineties.
Both distinctions actually belong to Final Fantasy XI. If I ever said Final Fantasy II is the black sheep of the series or that IX is the most-overlooked Final Fantasy game, I was incorrect.
