Why do you think this game is such an underdog?

[Wolf Kanno]

Most people remembers VII and VIII when thinking about the PS1 entries but only in the last few years have people begun to really take a look back and see what this game brought to the series. Why do you feel this is the overlooked PS1 entry?

[Christmas]

Not enough Quina I reckon. :quina:

Or they didn't specify on how Quina reproduces. :mad2:

[Neptunia]

Timing, the PS2 was all the rage when 9 came out. and FFX certainly helped to push it out of peoples minds until recently.

[Rez09]

I hear that people feel FF IX was the underdog or forgotten a lot, but this has never been true in my experience -- everyone I know that has played the PS1 era Final Fantasy games knows and (rather fondly) remembers IX; 8 seems to be the real underdog with all the hatred leveled at it.

That said, Neptunia does bring up a really good point, and I'm sure that people that missed 9 probably were swept up in PS2 hype. It is also possible that many players picked up the series with FFX, then went back and played VII, since it was the PS1 FF that got the most attention, for a sample and never explored 8 or 9.

[magemasher]

IX has always been the no1 FF for me. I remember when I was playing it I tried to get the vII fans at my School into it but they wasn't interested. It's popularity has certainly increased over the years. IX setting etc is perfect for what I look for in a game so I'm pretty sure it would of been my favourite game even if I played VII or VIII first. As I'm not MUCH OF a fan of VII or VIII it's possible I'd never play FF had I not started with IX.

[Madame Adequate]

Because it's not particularly good. :shobon:

[Pike]

I hear that people feel FF IX was the underdog or forgotten a lot, but this has never been true in my experience -- everyone I know that has played the PS1 era Final Fantasy games knows and (rather fondly) remembers IX; 8 seems to be the real underdog with all the hatred leveled at it.

Yeah, I have to agree with this - all I ever see is love for this game. If anything it's the opposite of an underdog! (Overdog?)

[Sephex]

I hear that people feel FF IX was the underdog or forgotten a lot, but this has never been true in my experience -- everyone I know that has played the PS1 era Final Fantasy games knows and (rather fondly) remembers IX; 8 seems to be the real underdog with all the hatred leveled at it.

Yeah, I have to agree with this - all I ever see is love for this game. If anything it's the opposite of an underdog! (Overdog?)

We see love for this game here, but in my experience people talk about FFVII, FFVIII the most. FFVI gets a decent amount of time in the spotlight. Same with FFX. The others don't seem to get talked about that much.

Anyway, I think the reason is because FFVII and FFVIII were the first two FFs that a lot of people started with when the series got mega popular. FFIX tried to go back to a classic formula, but the people who fell in love with VII and/or VIII probably were thrown off a bit from how FFIX was stylistically.

They wanted a mysterious or brooding character like Cloud or Squall to be in the spot light. Who is this happy asshole with a monkey tail? Damn it, I can't project my teen angst on to him! What's with this setting? This is like some medieval times crap! Where's the future/steam punkish stuff?

I loved FFIX, and I don't feel that way about it at all. However, I can see why people who only knew FFVII and FFVIII would be turned off by FFIX. Sure, hardcore fans and longtime series fans were down with it, for the most part, but other gamers don't remember it as fondly because of how they were introduced to FF.

[Ayen]

I agree with Sephex. I was a kid introduced to the series through VII and VIII, and I didn't like IX because it was so different from what I knew about the franchise from VII and VIII. I didn't come to appreciate it until I played the classic Final Fantasy games.

[Forsaken Lover]

IT SUCKS

VII was the Gold Standard of JRPGs. It had deep plots and characters and was a storytelling masterpiece.

Sure FFVIII wasn't as good but at least everyone looked normal and it was a very mature storyline.

Then IX and..,what's this? Why does our hero have a monkey tail? And he looks so gay. And then there's a fat guy and a kid with no face and a rat-person. The game is for goddam children.
sn6jKGVxTbk

What is this lameness? What happened to our fantastic, or at least grown-up, storytelling that they are shoving these talking animals on us? What is this, a frickin' Disney movie for little kids? We were teenagers dammit and we expected something a bit more on our IQ level than "a thief kidnaps a princess." Pft, Been done before, Square! Way to be completely unoriginal!

And then there's our villains. A fat lady, a transvestite and two clowns. OOH,S CARY SCARY. Where was Sephiroth? Why wasn't he in this game?

Final Fantasy IX is nothing more than the old, outdated, fogies forcing their way onto the main scene. Listen up pops, the days of your stupid clowns are over. It's time to let better writers take over and take the lead. Gamers today have a certain standard of quality that didn't exist before VII set the bar so high.

FFIX was "a love letter" to a subpar era in gaming that was simply no longer wanted or needed.

[Ergroilnin]

BS

Lol I don't even know where to begin.

I could say such a shit about FFVII as well. What the hell is this game? For 10 years olds playing soldiers?

What the hell is with that antagonist? Sephiroth my ass. He was just crazy person wanting to destroy everyone because he couldn't deal with his origin.

The party full of depressed and miserable people, in oh so "original" steam punk world.

Don't get me started on VIII, the worst FF from 1-10.

I just don't like FFVII and mainly FFVIII at all but I am not blind to the good parts of the games.

I am not really sure why the hate. It feels like you just want to hate FFIX so you completely overlook the good and feel afraid to enjoy the more cartooney graphics or something because it isn't as manly as playing soldiers lol.

[Fatal Rose]

Character designs was a huge departure when compared to the previous two games. Also the super-deformed look may have turned many off.

I however regard this and VI as the highest quality FF games.

IV is my all time fav though.

[Psychotic]

At EoFF people love it. I think as others have said the exaggerated character designs and whimsical nature put many people off. I appreciate that's also what drew a lot of its fans in too.

[Sephiroth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9I-kPH_OKk

[Vyk]

Omg, I don't hate FFIX, I just don't enjoy it. But I think Forsaken Lover pretty much nailed it for most of the people I know

As a lover of older RPGs and anime and whatnot, I can't say that those excuses are what made me want to never return to the game

I think my problem was the lack of enticing or relatable characters. The very light and pastel world they lived in was a turn-off. The music was very light and not engaging to me at all. Pretty much everything about the atmosphere just didn't interest me. Music, art style, story, antagonists, etc. Nothing grabbed me. It was a boring slog that I only went through out of obligation to the series. And it was the last time I forced myself to complete a FF I didn't enjoy

A few years ago I ported it onto my PSP and tried again. But still no dice

So I don't think it had anything to do with being an adolescent who was too desperate to be an adult to enjoy childish things. I just plain don't enjoy very many childish things. I thought FFVII was way more mature. In that regard I thought FFVIII was quite juvenile. So to each their own I suppose

[black orb]

Why do you feel this is the overlooked PS1 entry?
>>> Easy, FF fanboys are stupid..:luca:

[Pumpkin]

Its the first one I played and I absolutely love this game. I'm not sure why it gets overlooked, its easily the best one in my eyes. But I guess ~different opinions~

[Shiva95]

I don't know why FFIX is such an underdog because, for me, it is the best in the PS1 games. I really enjoy the story (much more than the twho others) and I like the characters more as well.

[Bright Shield]

I thought FFVII was way more mature.

Define mature. IX was full of far more death and destruction than VII and VIII combined. Genocide is even a theme in IX.

[Forsaken Lover]

And then after your genocide you had a princess hide herself in some smelly pickles.

So mature.

[Vyk]

I guess you're not really forced to sit there and see the people die, or see the aftermath. The colors and music and stuff just make even the most tragic things in the game seem campy or upbeat to me

When towns and people were destroyed by Eidolons you don't see anyone you know getting affected. The only impactful "death" I think was in the beginning with the thief buddy

Random townspeople are statistics, and Eiko and Dagger's forebears were like precursors that we had no part in or were not witness to

I'll have to answer the actual question in a bit though. Just fired up a game ^_^'

Edit: Okay, let's see if I can do this

FFIX starts off on the wrong foot for me by having super-deformed/chibi children as the lead characters, while FFVII has almost entirely a full cast of adults. And right there it gets an unfair advantage in my book because I had become (and still am, honestly) quite tired of child leads and their coming of age stories in JRPGs

Dealing with a corporation as a villain speaks to adults. Dealing with an evil queen speaks to children settling in for bed getting read sleeping beauty and snow white story books and whatnot

Watching one of your companions die from a murder seems way more impactful to me than watching nameless citizens and soldiers die in explosions brought on by unbelievably large and mythical creatures (on that note, I don't think Aerith's death would have had near the same impact if Jenova were in fact in Jenova form)

Call me close-minded or a bigot or anything, but I almost canNOT take Kuja seriously x_x People prodded Sephiroth for needlessly showing his chest. Kuja takes that concept a billion times farther. Not to mention, even if I did enjoy him as a villain, I don't imagine his death would have meant anything to me. I had built up a hatred for Sephiroth when I killed him

It also probably doesn't help that the one and only time I beat FFIX back when it first came out, and the internet wasn't quite as big to get explanations and whatnot, I was one of the people who did NOT get the impression that Vivi had died at the end. In fact, it blew my mind when first hearing about that here. I swore I had actually seen him in the ending, that he was rounding a corner in town, coming to the play, and all his little kids ran past him. That was the image etched in my mind. The ending monologue could have been a little less vague and been a lot more impactful, especially considering he was the only character I liked

On that note, I think he was about the only character with depth. Him, Zidane, and Garnet are about the only ones who aren't one-dimensional. Everyone else is either too silent and brooding or weird to matter. I honestly STILL have no idea what Freya or Amarant's personalities were ever supposed to be. And I pretty much new all the ins and outs of everyone in FFVII. The only character I didn't really watch grow was Vincent. And as a writer, I appreciate that. The characters and their development were really flat to me in IX and I think that makes it more of a kids game to me. I need a little more meat in my characters

I should stop rambling though. I really don't intend on derailing the thread and dogging on it. I really appreciate what Square and Sakaguchi tried to do with that game. I'm just disappointed it didn't speak to me the way it was meant to. I'm jealous of the people who love it. I want to. I just can't

But at least it has that going for it. I also don't like FFX and XIII. And for those, I don't want to

[Bright Shield]

And then after your genocide you had a princess hide herself in some smelly pickles.

So mature.

No less mature than Cloud cross dressing, and taking a bath with a bunch of buff gay dudes.


Anyway, Vyk your problem seems to be that you haven't played IX in a while. It has the most developed cast in the series bar none. A lot of what you said is wrong as well.

Dealing with an "evil queen" is no less mature than dealing with an evil corporation. Ever read A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones? That is one of the darkest series ever made, and the characters have to deal with an "evil queen/king".

Having younger characters also has nothing to do with maturity. FFT is widely considered to be the darkest and most mature FF by far. Yet, most of the lead characters are 15-17 years old. Hell, the IX cast wasn't even that young.

Zidane - 16
Garnet -16
Steiner - 33
Vivi - 9
Freya - 21
Quina - 89
Amarant - 26
Eiko - 6

Two children, two teenagers, and four adults is hardly a group of kids.

Even the way the IX characters deal with death is far more mature than VII. Garnet was traumatized by her mother's death, and couldn't even speak afterwards. The VII cast just forgets about Aerith 5 minutes after she dies... real mature.


You seem to have confused "maturity" for "your specific preference".

[arenzi]

It's different and overshadowed by X maybe. I have to admit when I first played 9 I thought it was so different from 7 and 8 and didn't really get into it. It wasn't until a little later when I played it more that it grew on me and it's still one of my favorites.

[Vyk]

Yeah there is definitely a biased preference in me. I was just attempting to articulate what might be causing it. It's entirely possible I missed key scenes somehow and completely obvious at least one scene was read completely wrong by me so there's likely other scenes as well. But sadly that doesn't change the fact that I've played this game three times and only felt invested enough to beat it once. Sadly no matter the reasons it just doesn't jive with me in its presentation. And I do wish I could get past it. I've tried. So I'll just enjoy the game vicariously through its real fans. More than I could do for Eight and Ten. I outright hate those games and have no interest in changing that. For all my issues with Nine I have complete respect for it. It's just not for me. Kudos for the Game of Thrones analogy though. It's a very good point.

[Bright Shield]

Yeah there is definitely a biased preference in me. I was just attempting to articulate what might be causing it. It's entirely possible I missed key scenes somehow and completely obvious at least one scene was read completely wrong by me so there's likely other scenes as well. But sadly that doesn't change the fact that I've played this game three times and only felt invested enough to beat it once. Sadly no matter the reasons it just doesn't jive with me in its presentation. And I do wish I could get past it. I've tried. So I'll just enjoy the game vicariously through its real fans. More than I could do for Eight and Ten. I outright hate those games and have no interest in changing that. For all my issues with Nine I have complete respect for it. It's just not for me. Kudos for the Game of Thrones analogy though. It's a very good point.

I can respect that dude. I've got a buddy that also isn't a big IX fan because of the art style.

I was just stating that it doesn't make the game less mature though. Off putting to some people sure, but how something looks doesn't really affect the maturity level of the story or themes. That's all I'm getting at.