Is Final Fantasy IX better than Final Fantasy VIII?

[Bolivar]

I look at it like this: FFVIII took many more risks, FFIX played it safe, but delivered an extraordinary experience in the process. I consider VII, VIII, IX, and sometimes X as all candidates for the best in the series, and on any given day I could say that any one of them is the best.

I also have to note just how damn corny FFIX is. When I read some of the dialogue, or think about the situations, I feel like I'm playing a children's game. The scene where Caraway shows you the assassination plan in FFVIII delivers a sharp contrast, with Squall thinking to himself about how complicated the real world is, whereas IX jumps headfirst into simple-story absolutes.

It's also a pet peeve of mine every time I hear someone say "FFIX stuck to the roots", "goes back to the roots", "roots, roots, roots & root beer". On one hand, yes, it goes back to cartoony-styled characters (not bashing it, IX's designs were awesome) and is stylistically perhaps more analogous to the earlier ones. However, it takes its cue from the work done in FFVII and FFVIII - 2d pre-rendered backdrops positioned at different angles as the background for the field screen, 3d battle screens as opposed to horizons, 3d world map with rotating camera. Final Fantasy could have transitioned into 3d in any number of ways, but FFVII set the precedent for its successors. Also, if big castles and pretty princesses are what you need to define the roots of FF, I think that's a really shallow way to discount some of the other games. It also overlooks how you battle mechanized warriors, with robots running around operating computers in the wind shrine in FFI, the highly digitized dungeons in FFIV, the advanced race and technologies in FFV. I love FFVII and VIII because they took the series to explore different sub-genres of fantasy, VII resembling the harsh irreconcilable aspects of nature & technology, with VIII showing the two in harmony.