ffIX underrated for ps1

I think the problem with FFIX is it didn't really make you question anything like the other games around it tried to. You didn't question your character's faith, or sanity, or emotions, or anything. It was all neat and polished with very little drama between characters.

In Seven you have to wake Cloud up from years of delusional fantasy by literally getting inside his head with the person he cares about most, and the person who cares most about him.

In Eight you have to follow Squall as his life-time worth of an anti-social shell completely breaks down and see him deal with being emotionally naked and vulnerable for pretty much the first time since he was like five and how he manages to cope with that and grow from it

Ten you get to watch Wakka's discriminating bigotry crumble away as he realises his faith may not be morally justified and he (and most of the population) was turned into basically a racist by political fear-tactics. And you have to question if your main character is even REAL

Nine made you wonder about Vivi's sentiency and Zidane was made in a lab or something, but both were just kinda accepted and shrugged off. The only plot or character element I think that compares this game to the rest is having a meglomaniacle psychopath for a villian.

Ever since Kefka bad guys have been manipulative and/or power hungry freaks. Sephiroth loses it. Ultimecia lost it long ago, and manipulates others numerous times. Kuja loses it and manipulates the queen. And Seymore is pretty much the top of politics in Spira, his views are pretty skewed, and he can manipulate anyone because they pretty much accept anything he says as law. Except Wakka, which is a nice turning point in character development for him.

IX just doesn't stand out. It's too... safe? It could have used more drama I guess and less antics. In my opinion. I think that's why it never really grabbed me. And probably the same for some others that prefer games around it over it

Edit: and don't get me wrong. I loved the atmosphere of the game. I just think it could have challenged the characters and the gamer's thoughts a little bit more. None of the characters grew through the game. They pretty much just were who they were. Even after certain self discoveries

I think you make some good points Vyk, but many of those things is actually why I liked it. Maybe I was just ready for a different than VII and VIII.

While I enjoyed Squall and Cloud's development too, the rest can't be said for the rest of the cast in those games for me, although I do like all of X. IX made me care about everyone except Quina (comic relief what can you do), and I typically like games to be very focused and not all over the place. I really felt like they did good job keeping the spotlight on Zidane and Garnet while giving everybody else a chance to strut their stuff. Not everybody got equal treatment, looking at you Freya, but it was much more balanced than most RPGs I've ever played. I guess that's why I liked it so much.

I didn't mind the plot either... I think IX's plot is less debatable simply because it's clearer and doesn't use so many metaphors and hoopla to explain itself. Which is good in a lot of ways, since we have theories like Laguna is a Shumi or some crap running around out there. I don't really want Vivi = Quina theories.

But I do like the more expansive and complicated plots too... IX is kind of a throw-back in many ways. It was more complicated than I ever expected it to be at least. Now if only that trance system didn't exist :lol:

Still, for me it goes 1)X 2)VII 3)VIII 4)IX and I have a feeling XII is going to bitch-smack itself into the number 2 all-time favorite spot. So I can't really argue that IX is the greatest of them all because I don't think so either... But I can say many people don't give it a chance or are unfairly harsh on it.

I agree with a lot of what you say too. Which is why I point out I love the atmosphere. And watching the characters interact. It just didn't grab me for a 60 hour inter-active haul. But I did enjoy them. I don't think I would have changed anything. Just added to it, to make it more (for lack of a better word) "interesting" :] but yeah, it was deffinitely more fair to the side-characters. I wish Beatrice could have joined the team. I think she'd have made the whole thing a little more ...uh awesome?

Frankly, it was all the "religon is false" atmosphere in X that made me turned off to it. IX kinda stayed away from trying to project any "anti-business" or "anti-religon" messages into you head. In VII, you're fighting against a big corporation, in X you battle the "preists" of that day, but in IX... You save kingdoms.
Sounds more fantasy to me. :/

About the game not making you question many things... Like i said before, people that don't like a game, don't try to question it. This is why some people think that the game is so simple. You want questions?
Why was Mt. Gulug sealed? What is the Gulug Stone and why it was in Oeilvert? How the Eidolons(Summons) are created, and what is the connection between magic and memorys in FFIX? What is Ozma? What is Necron?
All of this is mentioned and explained in the game. You just have to pay close atention to the game, and analyze it.

This is one of the most complete FAQs that i readed about the game, and everything that say in it, is proved with images and dialogues of the game: http://faqs.ign.com/articles/657/657330p1.html

Seriously, after you read this, you will see that this is one of the most complex games in the series.
Hell, even Quina have a reason in the story(and is not only comic relive).

I've always thought Quina was important. :) She nd Steiner are my favorite characters.

I thought it was overrated, except the exquisite graphics it had.

You can make anything 'more complex' if you over-analyze it. Which a majority of those 'plot analysis' do. It's true, FFIX is very straight-forward as compared to FFVII and VIII, chock full of symbolism and other ambiguous things. Nothing needs to be thought about. Indeed, you only need to think a little to understand the things in the other mentioned games. Another reason for this is because of FFIX being a tribute to the older games, it doesn't really use any new story elements or have a particularly innovative battle system (which isn't a bad thing).

Edit: This was in response to The Crystal, before rubah and auhin posted.

The Crystal, I'm not saying Quina doesn't have a place, but 95% of the character is nothing but spitting out lines about being hungry and needing food. That's 95% comic relief.

And people overanalyze the Final Fantasy games way too much. None of them are that complicated. I don't really have trouble understanding any of them, and I definitetly dont need a FAQ to tell me about IX.

All anybody needs to know is that Vivi exists in FFIX and that's enough to warrant a playthrough http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ViviSprite.gif

Yep, Vivi was a cool. I prefer Palom better (because he's basically me) but Vivi still ownz. There's not really any characters in IX that I hate. IX has a great knight, dragoon, and blue mage. Plus, it has the best battle system.
I liked FFTA because they used it as well.

It's not uderrated at all, it gets just as much praise from its fans as the other FF games. The reason why some people dislike it is mostly because of the cartoonish and doll like character designs and the world it's set in. FFIX stepped away from the innovation of VII and VIII, and returned to a more traditional look and feel. The story is set in a mostly medieval society, as opposed to VII and VIII's futuristic settings.

I still think that people pick the plot holes of the other two games, and over-analyse them, making VII and VIII, BECOME complex. But people don't want to analyze IX, so they just say that the game have plot holes and is straight-forward. This is my opinion.
Anyone that want to see how this game is complex, can read that FAQ in my last post. You just have to click in the link.

after reading some comments, i still do believe that ff9 is underrated. if you think about it, ff7 came out with advent children, dirge of cerberus, and that other game about shinra or something. we see the romantic ff8 pictures everywhere. squall and rinoa. i've been to so many myspace with the squall and rinoa banner or backgrounds. they come out with X-2 because everyone loved X so much. if you visit the site called www.trueswords.com , you can see that they have the squall's gunblade, clouds buster sword, sephiroths long sword, tidus's water sword (yes, real metal). and guess whose weapon is missing from the list. yep, zidanes. i thought his double sword thing were pretty cool. and i'm sure the sword makers would make it along with the other FF swords, if they even heard of zidane or seen zidane. i've never played kingdom hearts 2, but i can probably guess that theres no ff9 characters in there.

Vivi. :) :cat:

Tetsuya Nomura, the director and concept designer for KH2, didn't do the character designs of FFIX, he only did it for VII, VIII, X, and X-2. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that there so many FFVII and FFVIII characters in KH2 yet so few FFIX characters. And Vivi only appeared in KH2 due to fan requests.