IX was an amazing game. The story was amazingly charming and philisophical. The gameplay was spot on and I really enjoyed the character specialization, rather than just open ended job creating. Don't get me wrong I love being able to customize my character's jobs, but sometimes it can get too messy and detract from the story (I was not a fan of the Sphere Grid or XII's thing.) I'm not saying that the other Final Fantasys were bad, but IX just stands out in my mind as the most memorable and overal enjoyable.