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.