Final Fantasy IX....What am I missing?

[Sheo_Dagana]

I used to really dislike FFIX, now I'm playing through it again and am wondering what exactly I hated about it. The characters are great and their dynamics with each other are fantastic. That's actually why I was so critical of Snow and Hope's story together. It all felt so shoe-horned and turned out boring. But in FFIX, Steiner and Zidane hate each other the whole time, but don't really come out as friends on the other side, they just kind of have a mutual respect for one another, rather than a hatred. It was much better put together than XIII.

However, I dunno if I'd put it in my top five, but I'm really weird because I have always preferred VIII.

 

[Little Gray]

It was one of the only final fantasy games to actually have characters in it that personalities beyond emo little bitches. It also had good atmosphere and humor which made it rather enjoyable.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

( was qaulity and did not suffer from the Jpop inspired watering down of everything. Tho it has issues with plot and soem of the characters but FF8 was worse, 7 was only a bit better. I think they got it good with X but the gameplay was off and the lead male was a dumb blonde who got stupid for 12 ><


All in all FF9's gameplay,equipment and everything mechanics wise was amazing more than any game since 6.

 

[Marik2]

Just got this game and started playing it for 2 hours.

Really like the charm it has with being whimsical. Loved the play and the characters that I play.

But not sure if I will live the card game, seems tacked on

Yeah, the card game doesn't have much use in the game. You don't get any major rewards for getting all the cards or winning a certain amount of games.

Really, all it is is a distraction. Nothing more.

There is a segment in the game in which you have to do a few card games, but so long as you save in between matches, you shouldn't have very much trouble with them.

That's good to hear, thought the card game would be really important in some battles or gaining valuable weapons or something

Don't like the format of the card battles

 

[Weaver]

Seeing as how I haven't liked a FF game since VI on the SNES, I really never got all the hype about them.

 

[Ryan Minns]

Nine had... well, this

I'm a black waltz Mother****** watch as I am all awesome and better than you... Vivi what are you doing? Vivi, VIVI STAHP!!!

Just one of my loved moments in the game

 

[Dreadman75]

FF9 was a love letter to the ORIGINAL fan base.

I started with FF1 on the NES, went to FF2(4) and then FF3(6) and then CT (not a FF game, but jrpg by square-soft).

FF7, to this day, is nothing but a mediocre JRPG.
But, when I was younger, I felt almost 'betrayed' because FF7 was such a LETDOWN.
-Mostly crummy cast, boring battle system, no epic 'World of Ruin' moment, no tugs at the heart strings 'on that cliff' moments (the white mage dying didn't really 'get' to me), and a mediocre OST.

After that you had FF8, which I have a weird love/hate relationship with, that skipped most of the 'fantasy' aspects and tried to hard to be 'modern'.

But then FF9...happened.
Out of nowhere Square made a JRPG that FELT like the older games.

It was presented as lighthearted, fantasy world, with graphics designed to not be realistic, but 'fun'.

The story was fairly well paced, and did its damnedest to hit every major event with gusto.
-
The characters, while basically tropes, were enjoyable (minus the CatSith wanna be 'whatever its name is').
-
The main, and even some of the side, cast grew into more likeable/hated as the story progressed.
-
The battle system was made with grind in mind, and each character was actually unique beyond just their 'limit breaks'.
-
The OST was just, fantastic, and nostalgia driven...even though I do prefer more of FF8's OST.
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About the only things 'wrong' with the game was the HORRID card game and the retarded final boss.
-Also: I kind of wish 'you know who' had STAYED dead, I think it would have had more of an impact.

This right here pretty much encapsulates what made IX such a great game.

To date Final Fantasy IX is the ONLY FF game that I have played through and beaten more than once. I loved the game that much. The story, the characters, the combat, the music. It is just phenomenal. I even enjoyed the card game!

To be honest, I think it's only gotten better for me over the years. You see I came into the FF franchise with 7. As the years went on and I either played or learned about the other games in the FF franchise I came to realize that FF IX was just LOADED with all sorts of easter eggs from past FF games.

IX is perhaps my absolute favorite game in the franchise, with VII taking a close second.

 

[Altorin]

it was kind of a celebration of final fantasy to that point and a last hurrah before final fantasy X took the bizarre choices of FF7 and FF8 and ran with them whole hog with FFX

 

[Orga777]

One of the best Final Fantasy stories probably ever. In my opinion, IX is second in that category only to VI. Most of the cast has a huge arc to them that makes them compelling, even more than in VII IMO. With Zidane trying to come to terms with who he is and where he came from, from Steiner trying to be a more complete person, Garnet going through hell to save her kingdom, and Vivi of course having some of the most complex issues ever presented in the series on a single character. Kuja (despite the... questionable design) is one of the most well-rounded and well structured villains.

Yeah, the gameplay is relatively weak compared to VII, but it is not broken or the worst in the series by a long shot. The care and detail that Square put into the world, its characters, and the whole entire story is what keeps people from coming back to it over and over again. Considering I played IX for the first time after almost every other main entry in the series (I didn't get it till a few months before XIII was first released) I can honestly say without nostalgia glasses, that the game has some of the best characters and story in the entire series. If VI wasn't so perfect in every way, it would easily be my favorite entry in my favorite series.

 

[cerebreturns]

Did you play it when it came out?

Looking at a game series in retrospect isn't the same as when they come out.


FF9 came out right after 8, witch was wildly divergent and a overall bad game.

FF9 also went back to more classic aspects of the setting, art style, story and so on.

Most of it's fame is tied into those 2 aspects, and being a all around solid jrpg for the time.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

- Characters design were passable. I found that other FF games had much better character designs. I seriously mistook both the main character and villain for women when I saw them - and I play a lot of JRPGs so this usually does not happen to me.

Seriously? FFIX was the last main Final Fantasy title to use creative character designs instead of purely metrosexual effeminate dudes and soft-faced girls.

it was kind of a celebration of final fantasy to that point and a last hurrah before final fantasy X took the bizarre choices of FF7 and FF8 and ran with them whole hog with FFX

Well this guy already beat me to it. Basically, in terms of story, it was quite memorable even while it called back to previous final fantasy titles.

Other than that, I will buy that the ability system wasn't well implemented and that the final boss is strange as fuck.

 

[Xiroh86]

Did you play it when it came out?

Looking at a game series in retrospect isn't the same as when they come out.


FF9 came out right after 8, witch was wildly divergent and a overall bad game.

FF9 also went back to more classic aspects of the setting, art style, story and so on.

Most of it's fame is tied into those 2 aspects, and being a all around solid jrpg for the time.

Yeah, I actually picked it up about a week after release, and played it a few more times since. I'm not saying its bad by any means, I just kinda feel slightly shunned, and have been since day one, over the fact that I find it sub-par. I appreciate the game, it just doesn't resonate with me, and I'm just trying to find a different way of looking at it to get it to resonate with me.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

It was a once under appreciated gem that along with FF VI has gotten to point of being overrated with people saying that they dis like FF VII because it was average or ruined the franchise in some way. It was a very solid but safe game(just as much as the previous entry if not more so) that was basically the original FFs from the NES on the Playstation.

 

[Syntax Error]

FFIX was my favorite GAME for a time. Maybe I played VIII first, then IX, then VII is the reason that I don't hold VII in a higher regard. VIII was good, but the story kind of turned into a mess (I know, there's symbolism throughout the game and there's even a fan theory that Squall's dead and it's all just a dream. Look it up.) that even 12-year-old me had to give up any notion of it all making sense by the third disc (GF's made us forget!!! is a worse plot device than Necron, I assure you).

Now IX... IX just oozed charm on every corner. The world actually felt like a world, since there are different cultures in the different places you go. It had a great cast and even if you do feel like Vivi was designed to be a woobie of epic proportions, at least it didn't have a perpetually scowling, brooding, emo character (MOODBREAKER!). Vivi got sh*t done. Even in the face of his impending mortality, he got it done! The FMV's were very evocative (there's a silent film like quality to the scene with Black Waltz #3).

As for Necron, at first he came out of left field, but then I realized that he ties into the game's theme of life, death and rebirth quite nicely (the party ran out of stuff to kill that they had been put up against Death itself!). Plus, that final battle theme is just kick-ass, especially the Black Mages version!

And finally, it pit the Lord of Dragons against a Castle with Angel Wings. The Castle won.

 

[Wayneguard]

FF9 is my favorite final fantasy game purely because of the setting. Everything else about the game is just decent (except tetra master... fuck tetra master) but the setting seriously puts that game above every other ff. It is the quintessence of everything I imagine final fantasy to be. Every single background frame is just masterfully crafted. Look at this image:

LOOK AT IT! God dammit that game is so pretty. Now I want to go play it again (and I'll probably stop at the card tournament again too -_-). So to put it concisely, it is basically the definitive final fantasy game, or at least setting.

 

[Charli]

I like that it is an amalgamation of everything I loved about Final Fantasy. I am quite aware that it is a Frankenstein of it's predecessors but damn it's a pretty one. And there are no characters in that game that I hate.
None.

That is unheard of for me.

I like the soundtrack, I like the story, I like the interactions and relationships and the goofyness of some of the moments up to the parts where it gets serious, it is the very essence of a 'fantasy'. Lindblum is a steampunk wet dream as well. That city.

I'm not even a Vivi fan like so many. I rank Freya higher. A tragic female warrior done well, not scared of feeling emotion, well spoken and very powerful it seems. And she barely had much of a story arc past the 2nd Disc... But what was there was sublime. Also Beatrix and Dagger. Even Queen Brahne needed to be there for the story to function and she did it with such fervor and animation.

And the character designs were imaginative and diverse.
I am so tired of the 'cut out metro teen' protagonists and villains.

Kuja and Zidane skirted that line barely but had enough quirk to make them fit the rest of the world around them. Dagger also, but she had a part to play and played it well. Even surprising me at points.

 

[Maximum Bert]

To be quite honest - it's one of my least favourite FF games so I think the top 5 got it right. Except that if they were going to include games outside the main series FF:Tactics should have been number 1. Beyond that, the list was okay.

FFIX:
- Very slow battles compared to the others.

- Stealing from bosses for 30+ minutes is not fun.

- Terrible back-asswards ability learning system means that I'm usually equipped with items 2 - 3 levels lower than the best I have available. I hope they never put abilities on equipment ever again.

- Characters design were passable. I found that other FF games had much better character designs. I seriously mistook both the main character and villain for women when I saw them - and I play a lot of JRPGs so this usually does not happen to me.

- The last boss is a giant space flea from nowhere that really had nothing to do with anything until the very end - which is why I couldn't bring myself to care.

It's not a bad game - just not as good as the other games in the series. Others may tell you different, but having been an FF fan since the original on the NES, FFIX was a step backward for the series. Of course, they were going for nostalgia as it was to be "the last of its kind". In my opinion - they did not succeed. The older games were far better.

Personally its not one of my least favourites XII and II hold that honour but I agree with your points especially the combat but not only was it slow it felt very imprecise and basic (like FF1,2 and 3 basic) I would select attack then my character would sit there and maybe the enemy would attack first and so I should have healed instead whereas at least in FFIV at onwards this problem was largely alleviated I have no idea why they did this it made combat a chore in this game.

As for the character designs I quite liked their personalitys but the weird chibi art style didnt gel with me I also wasnt a fan of the setting it felt very stale overall.

And yeah the last boss as soon as it came up I just thought ffs here we go again its just like FFIV and it ruined the ending to that game as well imo especially as Golbez would have remained the most badass villain in FF history apart from that ending I was so annoyed they ruined him.

To me it felt regressive while all the other FF games at least felt like they were trying to be progressive.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I'm not even a Vivi fan like so many. I rank Freya higher. A tragic female warrior done well, not scared of feeling emotion, well spoken and very powerful it seems. And she barely had much of a story arc past the 2nd Disc... But what was there was sublime. Also Beatrix and Dagger. Even Queen Brahne needed to be there for the story to function and she did it with such fervor and animation.

And this is one thing that really makes the characters stick out to me. You don't care how the characters look, you care about the role they play in the story.

Vivi barely has a face, yet you care about him and what he goes through.
Freya is a giant humanoid rat, but you don't need to describe her appearance when detailing her character, you also care about her and what she goes through.
Brahne looks fugly as hell, but you only care about her actions. You hear Dagger talk about her when she was a good mother, and you wonder if you got the full picture.
Same with Beatrix, first nothing more than a side-character, then she obliterates your party along with a haunting soundtrack.

I'm thinking I liked this game more than I remember.

 

[Gypsyssilver]

What did I miss when I played through FF9?

Well, apparently we both missed it.

I clocked it pretty quickly. That, in itself, is telling. I still haven't finished FF7 or FF8. I love those games so I don't want to finish them all the way - I like knowing I've still got some parts left that I haven't seen yet - that way I can keep playing them over and over, flirting with the idea of finishing them, but then backing off because I don't want to have nothing left to experience. Yeah, alright, that might be a bit weird but it's how I roll...

FF9 though - meh. I hated the reversion to cartoon-like characters. For me it took away from the emotion of the story. I find it hard to take cartoon kids with tails seriously. Also, slapstick? Not such a big fan of that either.

I did like the gameplay - I thought it was well designed and it was a large part of why I was able to finish it instead of just leaving it in a pile of cobwebs while I played something else. The card battles were fun as well.

The story just left me cold though. The story of a Final Fantasy game is what makes you play it over another RPG. Well, it used to be. These days if I want an RPG with a good story - I'm going to look at Bioware first (which is a real shame).

FF10 is my hands-down favourite. God I loved the story in that one. I went against type and actually finished it. I HAD to know what happened.

FF10-2 was... uh... interesting. I did like playing with the Sphere-outfits (total guilty pleasure - flashback to playing with my Barbie dolls as a child). Mostly I keep it because of the 100% completion ending (they really should have just put that ending in FF10 though...)

Then came FF12... I stopped playing them after that one. Again, the gameplay was well done. But the story, God the story...

I can't believe they had the gall to try and create a game that was based on the story of a poor, blonde, male teenager who leaves his home to join a space pirate and his non-human sidekick to fight an evil empire that is represented by a man in black armour...

Really? If I want to watch Star Wars... I'll just watch Star Wars.

I know that there is 'nothing new under the sun' but come on...

I didn't bother with FF13. I thought about it. I looked at videos. I read reviews. I passed on it.

I'm cautiously looking forward to the next one. But I'm definitely not going to pre-order it. I'll wait until the reviews have come out to see whether they've reclaimed their story-telling mojo or (more likely) not.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

*Ignores thread intent to crack a bad joke about the title sentence*

You're missing Ophiuchus. It's in the same place you found Scorpio.

I'd say what a lot of people liked about it was the dramatic shift in tone back to mostly light after 7 & 8 went heavy on the heavy. Also the major NPCs got considerable fleshing out.