Why a lot of fans don't like this game *SPOILERS*

[Slothy]

While the music is lackluster

You know, it seems that almost everyone who says this mainly has a problem with the lack of battle music, which I can understand, but that doesn't mean the music is lackluster. In fact, there's still plenty of epicness, especially in cutscene music. After receiving my copy of the soundtrack last week, I'll also go on record as saying that this is one of the best soundtracks in the series. Even I'm guilty of not realizing how good it was in game, but it's easily better than half of the soundtracks in the series. I think another big problem people have is that they simply don't notice the music as much. I'l admit that the music doesn't stand out in a scene as much as Uematsu's work typically does. Instead, Sakimoto's themes are more supportive; meant to be more in the background and working with the scene. It doesn't mean it's not a good soundtrack, it's just something different for the series (which seems to be a common theme among the things people don't like about the game in general).

For my money, I think Sakimoto's soundtrack perfectly complements the game, and suits the style that Matsuno's games typically have.

[Roto13]

I liked XII's soundtrack. Specifically the songs that were taken from Tactics Advance.

[BG-57]

The music is not bad per se, but it didn't stand out as being particularly memorable. It worked adequately for its purposes, but I never felt like rushing out to get the soundtrack for this one.

But I'm glad that you enjoy it.

[empower]

I'm just going to pop in and say vivisteiner you are out of your mind for calling FFIX the best of the series.

The characters were completely overly cartoonish and often juvenile. The humanity and emotion of great games like FFVII and VIII were completely absent. Hell it was even humorless!

My favorite games of the series are Final Fantasy III(US) and VII. I could go about endlessly with my reasons but I'm not here to boast my favorites. I'm not a fanboy but I am an acute critic. I'm wondering exactly what is going on in your mind to boast FFIX above all of the games in the series. It makes no sense.

Compared to FFXII (and most other FF titles), IX:

1. Is shorter, by a LOT.
2. Is more cartoonish / abstract
3. Lacks characters with ANY depth
4. Lacks innovation or new concepts
5. Is too lighthearted for the most part. Good guys and bad guys alike seem completely un-frightening or powerful.


It comes off as a Disney-esque roster to me. I see criticism brought upon Vaan and Penelo of FFXII which I can understand in some ways yet in FF IX I was entirely bored until I acquired Amarant who is the only slightly threatening character in the game despite a lack of personality. Where other characters such as Steiner held the opposite I found an almost boring over-personality or melodrama.

IX lacks a strong hero figure and a dark enough or cool enough villain.

There's a reason it was outsold by both VII and VIII.

Final Fantasy IX was well received on 2 points

1. Graphical presentation
2. Nostalgia

I can appreciate the game play of IX as I appreciate the game play of essentially every FF game to date and have no arguments. There's no way not to like it because it's basically a recycled active version of the standard FF battle system which IMHO was basically solidified in Final Fantasy II (US) and completely polished by the time Final Fantasy VII was in our hands.

The game is also utterly without reward in side quests which is HUGE in Square RPG's all the way back from Chrono Trigger and early FF's. The ultimate weapon side quests are over complicated in execution and redundant to some. Otherwise there are a couple optional bosses with mediocre difficulty and little reward.

FFIX is simply an effort at nostalgia everywhere from from it's synthesized and reproduced score to it's recycled Final Fantasy themes.

[Slothy]

I'm just going to pop in and say vivisteiner you are out of your mind for calling FFIX the best of the series.

The characters were completely overly cartoonish and often juvenile. The humanity and emotion of great games like FFVII and VIII were completely absent. Hell it was even humorless!

You have no sense of humour.

FFIX's characters are some of the most human and relatable in the series, whereas FFVII and VIII featured some of the most rediculous and poorly handled character development I've ever seen. At least, when there was character development at all.

Compared to FFXII (and most other FF titles), IX:

1. Is shorter, by a LOT.
2. Is more cartoonish / abstract
3. Lacks characters with ANY depth
4. Lacks innovation or new concepts
5. Is too lighthearted for the most part. Good guys and bad guys alike seem completely un-frightening or powerful.

1.It can be shorter if you know what you're doing. My first playthrough (and most peoples I'm sure) clocked in at about 40 hours. The only game in the series it's shorter than is FFXII, and only because it's incredibly long.
2.You claim FFVI and VII among your favourites and complain about this? It's no more cartoonish than any FF pre-FFVIII. Particularly the ones in the pre-32-bit era.
3.Play it again. These characters had more depth and development than any character in FFVII or VIII and it was better handled than almost any game in the series. From Zidane's relationship with Bikke and Tantalus, to Garnet having to deal with having to fight her mother while still caring deeply for her, to Vivi's struggle's with the revelation of his creation and what it means for him as a person. This is just about the definitive character story in the series.
4.I'll give you this one, but only because it wasn't trying to be overly innovative. I will say though that the return to a strict class system was a plus and made it a much more strategic game, and refined and balanced this system to play almost as well as FFV.
5.I actually feel that the villians are some of the best in the series. Kuja and Braane destroy entire cities, and kill who knows how many people. And the whole time the player is left feeling almost helpless. I think this struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds only added to the feeling that everything was on the line.

IX lacks a strong hero figure and a dark enough or cool enough villain.

I think Zidane was a stronger hero figure than the previous two games, if only because he was a good person who was fairly selfless in his desire to help people. Cloud and Squall were your steretypical apathetic soldier types who start to give a crap out of nowhere. And Kuja is also a very effective villian. So he's not overly dark in his look or in most of his dialogue even? He still managed to demonstrate a cold hatred for Garland and everyone else, and a willingness to destroy and kill to reach his goals that made Sephiroth look like he was a halfhearted pansy.

There's a reason it was outsold by both VII and VIII.

Because a lot of the fanboys who didn't play the series before VII were only interested in more of the same and blew it off before it even came out. Those who didn't were treated to one of the most mature and well done games in the series.

The game is also utterly without reward in side quests which is HUGE in Square RPG's all the way back from Chrono Trigger and early FF's. The ultimate weapon side quests are over complicated in execution and redundant to some. Otherwise there are a couple optional bosses with mediocre difficulty and little reward.

Of all the things you said, I think this is the one I take the most issue with. I could see you just not liking the characters, or missing some of the finer points in the story and it's development; everyone's tastes are different afterall. But to say that it has no rewarding side quests, or that they're overly complex is just plain ignorant. For starters, many of them, especially Chocobo Hot & Cold are downright simple, and more importantly, they are some of the most rewarding side quests in the series. Sure they don't give you things that are as game breaking as Knights of the Round, but that was almost refreshing in a way. And the idea that they were a major part of the series in early FF's is border line rediculous. FFVI was the first one to have a lot of them since the whole second half of the game was prety much optional. FFV had some, but not really that many, and FFIV before it had almost none. FF's I-III weren't any better for them either. FFIX is one of the most sidequest heavy games in the series. There's plenty there to keep anyone occupied well past the end of the game if they want.

[Crossblades]

This game exceeded my expectations. As much as I love the random battles in past FF games, I was very pleased with the battle system. And I love the music in this game, I don't know why people complain about it. I found the story to be pretty decent. It's the not the best, but it's not the worst either. I really enjoyed this game until SE released the International version in Japan. After playing through that, I could never go back to the original version.

[remnant1]

lol is the international version that muuch better?and about what vivi22 says previously,i can see what he means about cloud,how he isnt a great hero figure,but id have to say that squall is a good hero.it is pretty dumb how all the charecters just automatically apoint him as leader.the whole backbone of the story is the Seed fighting the sorceress.squall was assigned command to fight her,and he commanded well.of course he doubts himself,but thats what makes him a better charecter.he is in everyway a better hero than cloud,and better than zidane,too

[empower]

LOL.

Congrats. You've managed to make a LOT say so little. Nice side-stepping though.

It's silly of you to call pre 32-bit characters cartoonish also. Back then that was about as good as the game-makers could make them look. That was also a time where we could look at graphics like that and see real people rather than say 16 bit figures made of very few pixels. Nowadays artists and developers have the ability to shape characters into anything from Smurf's to real people. FFIX was more on the Smurf side.

I'm having a hard time taking you seriously when you rip on FFVII's characters compared to IX. VII has by fact the best and most memorable characters in I would say any RPG ever. Sephiroth, Cloud, Tifa, Vincent even are phenomenally more popular and once again more human / interesting than the blank tablet characters of IX. Steiner brought some great personality but more as an ongoing comic relief if you ask me.

By the by - the material I presented was not simply my opinion but it was such as well as a large portion of reiteration of mass opinion about the game. Trust me I do my reading about how games are received as well.

I'm just going to pop in and say vivisteiner you are out of your mind for calling FFIX the best of the series.

The characters were completely overly cartoonish and often juvenile. The humanity and emotion of great games like FFVII and VIII were completely absent. Hell it was even humorless!

You have no sense of humour.

FFIX's characters are some of the most human and relatable in the series, whereas FFVII and VIII featured some of the most rediculous and poorly handled character development I've ever seen. At least, when there was character development at all.

Compared to FFXII (and most other FF titles), IX:

1. Is shorter, by a LOT.
2. Is more cartoonish / abstract
3. Lacks characters with ANY depth
4. Lacks innovation or new concepts
5. Is too lighthearted for the most part. Good guys and bad guys alike seem completely un-frightening or powerful.

1.It can be shorter if you know what you're doing. My first playthrough (and most peoples I'm sure) clocked in at about 40 hours. The only game in the series it's shorter than is FFXII, and only because it's incredibly long.
2.You claim FFVI and VII among your favourites and complain about this? It's no more cartoonish than any FF pre-FFVIII. Particularly the ones in the pre-32-bit era.
3.Play it again. These characters had more depth and development than any character in FFVII or VIII and it was better handled than almost any game in the series. From Zidane's relationship with Bikke and Tantalus, to Garnet having to deal with having to fight her mother while still caring deeply for her, to Vivi's struggle's with the revelation of his creation and what it means for him as a person. This is just about the definitive character story in the series.
4.I'll give you this one, but only because it wasn't trying to be overly innovative. I will say though that the return to a strict class system was a plus and made it a much more strategic game, and refined and balanced this system to play almost as well as FFV.
5.I actually feel that the villians are some of the best in the series. Kuja and Braane destroy entire cities, and kill who knows how many people. And the whole time the player is left feeling almost helpless. I think this struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds only added to the feeling that everything was on the line.

IX lacks a strong hero figure and a dark enough or cool enough villain.

I think Zidane was a stronger hero figure than the previous two games, if only because he was a good person who was fairly selfless in his desire to help people. Cloud and Squall were your steretypical apathetic soldier types who start to give a crap out of nowhere. And Kuja is also a very effective villian. So he's not overly dark in his look or in most of his dialogue even? He still managed to demonstrate a cold hatred for Garland and everyone else, and a willingness to destroy and kill to reach his goals that made Sephiroth look like he was a halfhearted pansy.

There's a reason it was outsold by both VII and VIII.

Because a lot of the fanboys who didn't play the series before VII were only interested in more of the same and blew it off before it even came out. Those who didn't were treated to one of the most mature and well done games in the series.

The game is also utterly without reward in side quests which is HUGE in Square RPG's all the way back from Chrono Trigger and early FF's. The ultimate weapon side quests are over complicated in execution and redundant to some. Otherwise there are a couple optional bosses with mediocre difficulty and little reward.

Of all the things you said, I think this is the one I take the most issue with. I could see you just not liking the characters, or missing some of the finer points in the story and it's development; everyone's tastes are different afterall. But to say that it has no rewarding side quests, or that they're overly complex is just plain ignorant. For starters, many of them, especially Chocobo Hot & Cold are downright simple, and more importantly, they are some of the most rewarding side quests in the series. Sure they don't give you things that are as game breaking as Knights of the Round, but that was almost refreshing in a way. And the idea that they were a major part of the series in early FF's is border line rediculous. FFVI was the first one to have a lot of them since the whole second half of the game was prety much optional. FFV had some, but not really that many, and FFIV before it had almost none. FF's I-III weren't any better for them either. FFIX is one of the most sidequest heavy games in the series. There's plenty there to keep anyone occupied well past the end of the game if they want.

[Vivisteiner]

@Empower: You're a fool who should be shot with a very, very sharp gun.

The characters were completely overly cartoonish and often juvenile. The humanity and emotion of great games like FFVII and VIII were completely absent. Hell it was even humorless!

Juvenile characters eh? Lets look at Rinoa and Squall - juvenile as hell with their fake love and silly dancing 'Oooh you're the prettiest guy!'. Compare them to all the other characters in FFIX (bar Quina) and they are blown away. Vivi is among the deepest of all time, as is Steiner (although it probably didnt get through to you). Amarant is well developed too, if you examine his analogies in detail. Instead you probably ignored them and thought 'this involves brain power - screw that.' Zidane's evolution throughout the game is also intriguing to behold. Garnet and Freya also channged undeniably. I think you're confusing design with personality. Maybe its time you learnt the difference.

Compared to FFXII (and most other FF titles), IX:

1. Is shorter, by a LOT.
2. Is more cartoonish / abstract
3. Lacks characters with ANY depth
4. Lacks innovation or new concepts
5. Is too lighthearted for the most part. Good guys and bad guys alike seem completely un-frightening or powerful.

It's not shorter. At least not by much when I play through it.
You probably rushed it. Notice how it has four discs - that's a lot.

You say its cartoonish - how shallow are you! That's like saying that Vaan is the worst main character solely because he's not wearing a t-shirt.

The characters have the greatest depth ever. Their developement probably just didnt get through your thick skull.

Innovation is one point Ill agree on, but it does deal with some topics such as life in a way that no RPGs have done before. It also perfects what an RPG is supposed to be. Go listen to gurus such as Sakaguchi and Uematsu - they'll tell you its the best game ever. Believe it or not, they know what they're talking about when they make statements like that!

The light hearted nature of it makes it more real. It adds contrast and provides a more balanced view on the world. The story is still serious, deep and interesting though. For those who can look deeper than the simple plot points of course. It deals with issues such as life and death, control and manipulation, fear and bravery and even the meaning of life - hardly light hearted topics.

IX lacks a strong hero figure and a dark enough or cool enough villain.

Talk about cliches. Oooh lets add a badass villain - how original! Then add a strong, angsty main character to the mix - what a revolutionary combination. /sarcasm

There's a reason it was outsold by both VII and VIII.

There's a reason why over half the people in America cant even locate Iraq on a map.

Seriously though, look at the reviews for a fair analysis. Sales figures ride off the success of previous sales and other complex factors such as it being the last release on the Playstation. Its not a fair analysis. Not to mention the fact that there are loads of inane fanboys who'll fall for badass villains, angsty teenagers and soppy love scenes.

FFIX got the highest reviews ever for any Final Fantasy game if you go and look on Metacritic. That score (94/100) is composed of 22 objective reviews from leading gaming sites. It also sold over 5 million copies.

Final Fantasy IX (psx: 2000): Reviews

The game is also utterly without reward in side quests which is HUGE in Square RPG's all the way back from Chrono Trigger and early FF's. The ultimate weapon side quests are over complicated in execution and redundant to some. Otherwise there are a couple optional bosses with mediocre difficulty and little reward.

Thats rubbish. The rewards in FFIX are better than in FFXII. At least give a concrete example. The only weak sidequest in FFIX is perhaps the mognet central one.

Anyway, Im fed up of your baseless crap. Not to mention I find your last post hilariously ironic. You say that Vivi22 made a lot say so little, well the rest of your post says absolutely nothing of any worth and contains no examples to give your points any credence.

Well then good day to you. And when gold slaps you in the face next time, try looking in the right direction.

[empower]

This is why I love the internet. You guys type out a full page worth of rebuttal and try to sound as intelligent as possible but you're really saying nothing to actually counter what I said. Like I said, a whole lot of nothing!

Baseless crap? I'm sorry that a person such as myself with a broader perspective and likely more experience in the series has angered a couple fan-boys that are so dedicated to a single game.

This is like the Mac vs. PC argument and I'm Linux. I never said FFIX was a bad game; I pointed out why it wasn't the best. If you hopeless romantic's could get over yourselves you'd notice I'm not exactly flaming the game. I could pull a near or equal list of flaws from just about any RPG really but that's not what this is about. I'm telling you flat out that Final Fantasy IX is very distant from being the absolute best of the Final Fantasy series and you have yet to actually correct me. You've answered facts with beliefs. You remind me of a traditional creationist almost.

When I question it's sales, you fail to respond but simply show me good reviews. Whoop de doo. It's a good game of course it got good reviews. 5 million copies sold? I hope so, it was a good game. But you're dodging the fact it still sold less than it's predecessors.

When I point out it's nonthreatening and general cartoon-ish characters you bawk at the opposite for being too cliche' / recycled when you're really defending a game which was built on recycled ideas and the like. Hypocrisy that I know you didn't intend but managed.

When I point out the lack of rewarding / good side-quests you call it rubbish. What sort of argument is that? There's a reason the game is as short as it is. Redundant, short, rather unrewarding side-quests. You cannot debate that without pure fallacy. The Tetra game was severely criticized and was a poor unrewarding attempt to mimic Triple Triad. Mognet, as you submit, was pretty bad. There's a couple optional bosses with little reward and there's the few ultimate weapons. Yay? I will one at a time go through at least 3 other FF games with both better, longer and more rewarding side-quests.

When I point out characters you tell me I am confusing design with personality. You sir are confusing personality with design. I find their design juvenile most of all. Pardon the confusion. Personality I am not so much hawking on though I would award personality superiority to other FF games. Pay attention because I am not saying FFIX is weak in this aspect but it is not BEST. This is where your blind love for the game is angering and misguiding you. I'm not sure of your age and I'll try to be as little prejudiced as I can but as someone who was in my teens playing FFVIII and now in my 20's I can much better appreciate both the character and design of Rinoa and Squall. Personally I loved their story. It's common knowledge and criticism that Squall had some annoying traits but once again I'm not proposing he is the BEST main character. I don't believe it at all but Zidane and Garnet don't fit that bill either.

Finally, when I say it's short you tell me I rushed through it. Big assumption. You also say it doesn't take you much longer when you play through. Through and through I capped 50 hours into the game. A grand portion is also attributed to long conversation, cut-scene's and the like. Like I said the game was VERY good in terms of graphical presentation and environment. Add that to the clock. Expanding on that, you argue that somehow being 4-discs long attributes some sort of testament to it's length. I say once again: great graphical presentation and new age (at the time) RPG graphics makes for a LOT more disc space than we are used to so your argument here is entirely invalid right to the top of this paragraph.

I need to be shot with a very sharp gun? I'll pretend you didn't bother saying that just to save you some face.

So I'll leave you with that. Try not to explode or break anything in your room. Final Fantasy IX is a great game. I boldly state it is not the best in it's series and with patience and calmness await rebuttal that makes sense rather than just mask length and wit as true argument.

[Finola]

I didn't read every replies to this thread but i must say i got shocked about things that were said about how poor game IX is... or at least the lacks of it since i love it. Yeahyeah.
It's nonsense even to talk about IX in a thread whose (?) main subject is XII. Anyway. I totally agree to everything that's said in the first post. The music, characters and the plot were the biggest reasons why XII can't develop itself into a classic. And i'm not saying that it can't be a classic to someone but those are the reasons why it can't be that to me.

[Loony BoB]

I agree regarding the music, but Nobuo is his own man and he wanted to change company. You can only accept that, really.

I also agree regarding random battles. Surely there is a way to mix in random battles without needing a swirly screen a la FFVII, but I do think they're still needed. Maybe have them come from 'invisible' to visible at a very late moment, so you can't really plot your way around the enemies -you just go straight into the fight. Random battles were also great in that when I went into a battle, I'd be like "Oh, crap." Whereas in XII, you see the enemy from a distance. You go up to it. It's like you're volunteering to battle and that's just boring. When you play other FF's, it's like you didn't intend on battling and they just appeared while you were camping or something. I like that. None of this "Oh, there's that enemy. Well, I'll just heal myself, put on the appropriate commands and then go over."

I certainly missed having a massive world that you could explore on a global level. I know that people say "but you can, it's just broken down" - I just don't like the breaking down bit. I prefer walking around on a COMPLETE world, where you can grab a boat or an airship and watch it spin beneath you.

Love interests are nice. I don't mind that this one was missing it, but I'll be eagerly looking forward to the return of one in a future Final Fantasy, I have to admit. Preferrably where you can choose who your character falls for. That would be neato.

What else was there? Hmm. Oh, the plot. The plot was okay. Not bad, not good. Not good enough to make me want to end the game to see how it went, sadly, but whatyagonnado. Only a very small percentage of games ever get finished by me, nothing tends to hold my interest long enough. I've finished two FF's, though. :P

[Skyblade]

I also agree regarding random battles. Surely there is a way to mix in random battles without needing a swirly screen a la FFVII, but I do think they're still needed. Maybe have them come from 'invisible' to visible at a very late moment, so you can't really plot your way around the enemies -you just go straight into the fight. Random battles were also great in that when I went into a battle, I'd be like "Oh, crap." Whereas in XII, you see the enemy from a distance. You go up to it. It's like you're volunteering to battle and that's just boring. When you play other FF's, it's like you didn't intend on battling and they just appeared while you were camping or something. I like that. None of this "Oh, there's that enemy. Well, I'll just heal myself, put on the appropriate commands and then go over."

Chrono Trigger! Battles were semi random, and the transition seams only involved monsters rushing in from off screen.

I certainly missed having a massive world that you could explore on a global level. I know that people say "but you can, it's just broken down" - I just don't like the breaking down bit. I prefer walking around on a COMPLETE world, where you can grab a boat or an airship and watch it spin beneath you.

Agreed, but it's not that dissimilar from the world of X/X-2, so I wouldn't blame that element on this game.

Love interests are nice. I don't mind that this one was missing it, but I'll be eagerly looking forward to the return of one in a future Final Fantasy, I have to admit. Preferrably where you can choose who your character falls for. That would be neato.

BoB, sometimes, you're a genius. That would rock.

What else was there? Hmm. Oh, the plot. The plot was okay. Not bad, not good. Not good enough to make me want to end the game to see how it went, sadly, but whatyagonnado. Only a very small percentage of games ever get finished by me, nothing tends to hold my interest long enough. I've finished two FF's, though. :P

Other times, you're a bit crazy. How can you not finish most of the games you've played?!

Anyway, I think the plot itself was ok, but, as I said before, the character development during the plot, and lack of emotional involvement in the plot dragged the game down (and removed opportunities for a lot of good music).

[Loony BoB]

Other times, you're a bit crazy. How can you not finish most of the games you've played?!

Either I get bored with the story or I know what's going to happen. Bad person goes away, good people live on (more often than not). That's about it. There's very rarely any more to the story once that happens. I finished VIII because I wanted to know what would happen to the compressed world afterwards and I finished VII because, well, it's my favourite game and after months of playing around I figured I may as well see the ending. Otherwise I enjoy the game, not the fact that it's over and I can't play it anymore. This is why I think the dumbest idea video game designers ever came up with was that the game ends. It shouldn't end - the story should, but you should be able to walk around the world afterwards, basking in the praises of men and the embrace of women.

[Bolivar]

i just wanted to say empower i know what you're talking about, while IX has some of the most mature themes in the series, there's no way of getting around the fact that it is the cheesiest game in the series.

When I first beat it i thought it was the best, but having played it as well as the others since then, especially recently, it is indeed as you say. So don't let the swarming horde of fanatics get to you (im sure it hasn't)

On topic, I think its been the opposite with XII to me. When I first beat it i thought it was seriously lacking but enjoyed it alot the second time, after learning to accept it for what it is - the newest installment in the new direction FF is taking. Looking back it is a great game and i look forward to playing it again