Time for the fans to defend FFIX

[Araciel]

I don't feel the need to defend my second favourite FF game, since I know it's awesome and so does most of the -gaming- world. I think Spoony himself (the guy who runs the forum this came from) even said he liked FF9.

[Christmas]

I for one look more into the overall story than anything else and I notice you seems quite ok with the story too!

Anyway, to touch on some point:

*Redundant characters. Quina doesn't work because he doesn't have a back-story. He also doesn't work because he isn't smurfing funny. There is no wit to him. Constrastingly, Freya has an excellent back-story, but it is explored for all of five seconds. She barely says a word for the rest of the game after Cleyra. Both needn't have been playable characters (why not Beatrix instead?). Freya would have worked as a temporarily playable character. Quina can just die, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, Quina is a comical character. I mean judging for the way it looks, it is comical enough for me! And also cute and adorable!!

Maybe you dun find Quina funny, but I for one find Quina really funny to the extent that I wanted to buy a plushie of Quina. I think it depends on personal preferences!

As for background story, that's a bit about Quina's training and getting to fight his master after catching a certain amount of frogs? Although it is mainly for its ultimate weapon. Also, Quina seems to have reached a new level of attainment near the end of the game during Vivi's grandfather sidequest or something? (Sorry, been aeons since I last play the game!)

*An overly simplistic and boring weapon/armour/ability system. The characters' abilities are barely customisable, and the abilities and weapons are largely dull anyway. There isn't a single interesting Trance move, Eidelon animation or magic spell in the entire game. It's distinctly Pokemon-esque. In fact, I reckon eight-year-olds who play Pokemon would probably find the equip system too easy to usep

FF IX is suppose to be old school, so maybe that is why they choose the old school simple system?

[Iwrestledabearonce]

Personally, I generally do agree with what this guy has to say. Particularly with the whole switching characters thing; this game really does do it too much. I like to have my 4 characters that I level up and focus on, so when the game jumps back and forth, it kinda gets annoying.

I also agree with the whole Trance thing; it got annoying when you trance at the end of a simple, random battle, instead of being able to save it for future use when it would be more effective. For me, 90% of the time this happened in terms of trance... Frustrating.

In terms of the characters, they could have done a lot more with them, and a lot better. To me, most of the dialogue is extremely cliche and dull, and I absolutely despise the character of Zidane beyond anything; my most hated ff character, I think. Eiko is just this little annoying brat. Steiner seems to be bi-polar for he's so totally against Zidane, then all of a sudden, he adores Zidane and respects him.

Nonetheless, I still love the game, it just has a considerable amount of flaws; more flaws than any other ff game.

[charliepanayi]

You think the dialogue is cliche and dull, you hate the main character (and some of the others),and yet you say you love the game. I'd hate to see what you might say about a game you didn't like.

And Steiner doesn't suddenly change to liking Zidane.

[Iwrestledabearonce]

Well, I simply adore the music, and plus it's final fantasy; I don't think I could ever hate a final fantasy game :P It just doesn't add such an large impact as the others did.

And, I found that Steiner did, though it may not be true. During the first and second discs, he keeps on like yelling at Zidane for every little he does to Garnet and such. And then when they come back together in Disc 3 I think it is? I find he suddenly likes him, but I may be wrong.

[Trumpet Thief]

*CONSTANTLY BREAKING UP THE CHARACTERS UNNECESSARILY. I cannot stress enough how big a problem this was for me. Constantly your characters are broken up, characters you've invested time into, developing a bond with - growing, eventually, to love, and then they're broken up - often not be seen for f**king hours. This is especially annoying when Garnet and Steiner break from the group in Lindblum before you head off to Gizamaluke's Grotto. Zidane isn't re-united with either until the end of the second disc!

*Developing characters' personalities, and then just giving up. Steiner is a great example of this. Oafish and clumsy, but equally valiant and proud. His introspective moments are among the best instances of dialogue in the whole game, equally so are his early arguments with Zidane. Then, after defeating the monsters Kuja has sent to destroy Alexandria, you barely hear an original word from him for the rest of the game. He simply doesn't say anything of note after that. All you get is generic dialogue that could have been said by ANYONE. Similarly with Freya - exposition and then sod-all for the rest of the game. Instead we are treated to excruciatingly tedious, contrived and cliched soundbites from Amarant, who has a hard time figuring out why he's so fecking stroppy all the time.

Although this is based on opinion, I absolutely disagree with how breaking up the characters is a "big problem". If anything, breaking up the characters is probably the best way to continue developing all characters later on in the game (the party splits up many times in Disc 2, and at least once or twice in Disc 3, if memory serves me right). The good thing about splitting up the characters is that you get to see the side characters interact with people other than the main character-something that I loved about Final Fantasy VI (then again, there wasn't really a main character there). I loved how Garnet and Steiner went off on their own near the end of Disc 1, which left Freya, Zidane, and Vivi to develop together.

Also, I have to disagree with how "character personalities are developed, but then given up on". Final Fantasy IX has ATE's throughout the whole game, which allow you to see what most of your characters are doing at random points in the game. Final Fantasy IX's "You're Not Alone" sequence shows just how all of the characters have developed (except Quina, I guess). By the end of the game, Steiner becomes friends with Zidane, and it is done naturally, as the game progresses, much like the love between Zidane and Garnet. I have always hated how by the end of Final Fantasy games, when you have a full and large cast of characters, how generically everyone talks as you prepare for the Final battle. I feel as though Final Fantasy IX and X were the best at making your characters stay pretty consistent in their personalities. Maybe my memory is hazy, but that is just my opinion.

Bottom Line, Final Fantasy IX RULES

[Zora]

There are a few things here, such as Trance being stupid because it activates automatically (but, just pretend Trance doesn't exist except when it actually happens during a tough battle and count your blessings), and a few other trivial things. As far as the big goes, my general thought was something like this: "Want Final Fantasy game DOESN'T do that?" But, let's take each one one by one.

*'Trance' is such a bull. You get it maybe six or seven times throughout the whole game for your most used characters, if you're lucky. It almost invariably happens when you're fighting in a field battle, and its requirements are stupid. When does a boss opponent ever damage you enough to make Trance likely? It's pure chance. It is also not helped by the constant break-up of characters into different plot strands... but I'll be coming to that later.

Yes, Trance is generally useless except the few times it is. Like I said, don't treat Trance as anything big and you're good to go.

*The smurfing unending monotony of battle music. There are two types of battle music in the game. Normal battle music and boss battle music. So far, the only breaks in this trend have been when you fight Beatrix in Burmecia and when Zidane is having his pissy little strop in Pandemonium. For God's sake. How hard can it be to add maybe four or five different musical themes for a sequence that happens literally hundreds of times during the course of the game? And the theme doesn't necessarily even have to be different. How about a remix or change of instruments or something?

Here's a time where I was thinking "When does a Final Fantasy game not do that?" I mean, look at VII. You have the main battle theme; IX has its main battle theme. You have the main boss theme; IX does too. Final Fantasy VII has JENOVA as a character-specific battle theme; IX has Wavering Sword. Okay, so JENOVA gets two and Beatrix gets one, but still. I could go one by one, but I think you get the picture.

*The useless and uninteresting Eidelons. They feel tacked on. Whereas FF8 made them a big part of gameplay, in FF9 they revert back to FF7 mode and become what is, essentially, an uninteresting and overly magic spell.

I feel the point is valid, but for someone who rarely uses summons outside of VIII, X, and bosses in XIII, I didn't care. What erked my the most though was the fact the summoners and white mages were paired: That's the main reason I didn't use summons in IX, because I was too busy using white magic. But again, overall seems rather trivial.

*Redundant characters. Quina doesn't work because he doesn't have a back-story. He also doesn't work because he isn't smurfing funny. There is no wit to him. Constrastingly, Freya has an excellent back-story, but it is explored for all of five seconds. She barely says a word for the rest of the game after Cleyra. Both needn't have been playable characters (why not Beatrix instead?). Freya would have worked as a temporarily playable character. Quina can just die, as far as I'm concerned.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you love XII and one major reason is because it doesn't feel like it needs to trudge in character development but tell you what it needs to tell you. IX is very much the same. Quina is uninteresting and not funny, but he isn't a major character as much as someone who fills a void in your party.

*Lack of FMV sequences. The FMV sequences in FF9 are really quite special at times, but they only seem to be used for major events (the destruction of Burmecia and Cleyra, Brahne's death, Kuja laying waste to Terra). The in-game graphics can be annoyingly vague at the best of times. I don't think I even know what Amarant's face looks like.

Uhh... again, what Final Fantasy doesn't do that? IX is by far the best graphically out of the PSOne era, and is certainly far clearer than VII. VIII might be a tad better in this department, but even then, I would put VIII and IX on equal footing. And again, the FMV frequency isn't that low.

*Lack of real interest in environments in the final half of the game. The first half of FF9 is absolutely stunning. So many different towns and cities, so many different races and cultures. But once you venture into the forgotten continents, the wonder and fantasy goes rapidly downhill. The Black Mages live in... er... a forest. Eiko lives with moogles (ANNOYING ES) in a canyon made of rock and nothing else. Oelivert and the Desert Palace were just tedious. Boring, boring, boring. Conde Petie was neat, but nothing we haven't seen before. Terra, again, looked stunning but ultimately had nothing to it and was destroyed before the characters ever really had a chance to explore it. The whole final half was a letdown, and even while Memoria was interesting-looking, it felt too much like the castle you had to explore before you fought Ultimecia in FF8.

I guess there is some merit here, but I didn't think about it until he pointed it out. So, not sure if this is a big deal.

*CONSTANTLY BREAKING UP THE CHARACTERS UNNECESSARILY. I cannot stress enough how big a problem this was for me. Constantly your characters are broken up, characters you've invested time into, developing a bond with - growing, eventually, to love, and then they're broken up - often not be seen for f**king hours. This is especially annoying when Garnet and Steiner break from the group in Lindblum before you head off to Gizamaluke's Grotto. Zidane isn't re-united with either until the end of the second disc!

Actually, Zidane and Dagger reunite halfway through the second disc, so he's exaggerating here. That said, the predetermined party's weren't thought out well gameplay-wise. During the second half of disc two, you have three mages and a thief 0_o. It's annoying, but it's also tolerable. But, this mechanic is sacrificed in favor of story development, so it's a fair trade-off IMO. And hell, at least you have a complete party most of the time.

*Developing characters' personalities, and then just giving up. Steiner is a great example of this. Oafish and clumsy, but equally valiant and proud. His introspective moments are among the best instances of dialogue in the whole game, equally so are his early arguments with Zidane. Then, after defeating the monsters Kuja has sent to destroy Alexandria, you barely hear an original word from him for the rest of the game. He simply doesn't say anything of note after that. All you get is generic dialogue that could have been said by ANYONE. Similarly with Freya - exposition and then sod-all for the rest of the game. Instead we are treated to excruciatingly tedious, contrived and cliched soundbites from Amarant, who has a hard time figuring out why he's so fecking stroppy all the time.

Again, like I said. You liked XII because it didn't feel like it needed to beat character development into you. Again, same thing here. Sure, they don't have any major development late game, but that's also because it isn't entirely necessary.

*An overly simplistic and boring weapon/armour/ability system. The characters' abilities are barely customisable, and the abilities and weapons are largely dull anyway. There isn't a single interesting Trance move, Eidelon animation or magic spell in the entire game. It's distinctly Pokemon-esque. In fact, I reckon eight-year-olds who play Pokemon would probably find the equip system too easy to use.

Sure, it's no Junction system, but the ability system wasn't that bad. Actually, it was fun for what its worth. It gets the job done, and it also allows the characters to stay rather unique. The attacks may not be OMG amazing, but again, not any less than the previous entries.


Anyways, all and all, it feels too trivial to me, and a lot of "What Final Fantasy doesn't do that?" feel. I recommned you go ahead and shell out ten dollars for Final Fantasy IX: Even if some of this is valid, it's no reason to pass up Final Fantasy IX.
___________________________________________________

The loading times are horrible even on the PSN version that I'm playing off of my PS3 HDD. That coupled with the slow pace in battle are my only two real complaints.

Seriously, FF8 loads faster when played from the CDs than FF9 does from a HDD.

Because you[re playing them from a HDD

HDD store a lot of memory, and its their storage that makes them useful. However, they are not best at uploading memory stored on them, where flash and CDs are more useful. Perhaps if you can load Final Fantasy IX from a flash drive (not sure if you can) that might work better.

[Old Manus]

Each of this bloke's points are correct, just a bit exaggerated.

Useless trance and weak summons were implemented after the last two games where they were horrendously overpowered, with KOTR, Eden etc, and the last third of FF8 turning into RENZOKUKEN: THE GAME because all the other moves became pointless.

Unfortunately, Square just did it horribly wrong and turned limit breaks into a joke. Summons (as a battle mechanic) were cool at the beginning, but barely mentioned after you get Ramuh and towards the end of the game they become just a few pretty colours doing minimal damage. The first time I played through the game, the only summons I learned were Ramuh, Leviathan and Bahamut (they were the only ones pointedly referenced in the game), and the experience was made no more difficult.

[charliepanayi]

I never much cared about the summons and trance aspects of FFIX - I liked the ability system, and I loved the story and characters. Stuff like limit breaks is small fry for me in a FF game.

[Crossblades]

I only thing I agree about this review is the Trance system. I just don't like how it activates automatically in the most random times. But like how others already mentioned, the game is simple enough that you don't really need it. But I felt the ability system, the character development, and the fact that the game went back to it's original roots was the game's strongest points.

*CONSTANTLY BREAKING UP THE CHARACTERS UNNECESSARILY. I cannot stress enough how big a problem this was for me. Constantly your characters are broken up, characters you've invested time into, developing a bond with - growing, eventually, to love, and then they're broken up - often not be seen for f**king hours. This is especially annoying when Garnet and Steiner break from the group in Lindblum before you head off to Gizamaluke's Grotto. Zidane isn't re-united with either until the end of the second disc!

This guy probably doesn't play enough RPGs since characters come and go in almost every RPG until it gets to a certain point where they join you for good.

[Leviathan_Whale]

FF IX was my fav, but I really loved XII too.

[Elskidor]

Replaying this currently as well, and I'm sure there are things I've forgotten about in disc 3 and 4 but I disagree with alot of this critic. Critics just like to exaggerate their pros and cons is all.

Breaking up the party: It's awesome as far as I'm concerned. It is one way to make sure that all the characters have a role to play, and not sitting on the bench for most of the game, because they won't be the ones the player will be using in the endgame. Granted, if Quina dies I usually let him stay dead because I have never much cared for s/him outside of the funny scenes in villages and what not. If is it's a he though I had fun seeing Vivi and Quina have a gay marriage.

Trance: Trance happens plenty for me so I'm not sure what critic is complaining about. One thing I wish it would do is last for about 5 rounds and if it's still active when the battle is finished then let it roll over into the next battle!! I hate it when I go into a trance mode, and directly afterward Vivi casts a spell and finishes off the enemies, thus making Trance completely useless.

Lack of FMV sequences Not bothering me as much as it use to. When the playstation titles were first coming out I looked forward to these a lot, but now they don't seem nearly as important and they are not NEEDED.

I can't stand the load time for random encounters, but other than that I don't have many complaints. I find myself disagreeing with almost everything this guy posted.

Edit: After finishing up I've decided that the fighting in this game is it's worst flaw, and the summons should have been more powerful. Ark was just laughable. Got that summon and cast it for a 2 minute long summon scene (way too long and annoying), and once the the bad ass finally cast his damage it hit for a silly 5k. Very sad considering Zidane, Vivi and Steiner were throwing out 9999 attacks for a nromal strike/nuke. Other than some fighting flaws the game is just about perfect.

[loza]

I'm not too bothered about these arguments because I still like the game, it is my favourite game. I can't blame a person for hating a game, if that is why they don't like it, let them. I do like to give my view point on these kinds of things though...

*Trance
I agree that the trance isn't used very often for someone who doesn't like to grind. I don't see it as much of a problem, it isn't at the centre of the story.

*Music
Music is different. I agree that it doesn't seem too different but if you try and listen to it, not keep it as background music, it is definitely different.

*Eidelons
It is not so much the Eidelons themselves that are a part of the story it is the tribe. Also keep in mind that the two summoners in the game are children, they shouldn't know many right?

*Quina and Freya
Quina is a pile of as a character really. I can agree to that. I do think she is needed to show more of a race difference. Freya on the other hand, I feel needs to be there. She does have a back story and effects it's movements at the start of the game, and in her character sees what she has started through to the end.

*FMV's
I remember reading a log for an interview where they said that they were trying to place the FMV's differently to give it more of a movie feel. While there may not be as many of them their placings are just fine.

*Lack of real interest in environments in the final half of the game.
I thought it was made clear that the Mist continent was the most populated. The others were called 'Forgotten', 'Outer' and such and can't be accessed easily. The popular airships can only be run on Mist right?

Memoria was long yes, but as you went though you came across parts of the story.

*Breaking up of characters
As someone said before: Using different characters brings diversity to the game. It also is in how the plot moves. Hey, at least you don't have to switch junction every time eh?

*Developing characters' personalities
That happens with most Final Fantasy's though. However, hey tend to focus on one character at a time, so while Zidane is saying something like "Trust me", Dagger is in turmoil going though character development.

*Simplistic and boring weapon/armour/ability system
Weren't they trying to go back to the old fantasy setup? FFVII and FFVIII had huge new systems and were set in futuristic times.

As said, love Final Fantasy IX.

[WhiteStorm]

I think it's not exaggerated in the least. I felt the same about the battle music, it's so damn tedious. Everytime I had to go in a battle I got so bored, they lasted ages!!!! And since when magic misses? I don't really remember a time when your spells missed the enemy (maybe the other way around they did, like in FFVI, especially with status-inducing magic, such as sleep), but Vivi's Meteor keeps missing everytime I use it. And it wastes MP like crazy.

Quina, Amarant and Freya are so undeveloped that it's a real shame, especially in Freya's case, because she's got so much potential. Amarant and Quina could literally disappear and that wouldn't affect the game in the least. They're just SO irrelevant!

The plot.... well, how can I put it? It's wonderful in the first two discs and it has you entirely engaged until you reach Terra... then everything turns weird and confusing and reach a point where I didn't know what was going on anymore. Turns out Kuja was not the big baddie after all, but neither was Garland, was he? Because Who - or WHAT - was the boss at the end? Really, Square lost me there.

I absolutely loved the ending, btw, just didn't enjoy the second half of the trip.

The CGs were amazing and I enjoyed every one of them. I think Square did a pretty good job not overusing them because it causes expectation. I, at least, was eager to watch the next cutscene.

The battle system is ok. They tried to return to the basic, but after the materia system in FFVII, it felt kind of lazy.

The sidequests were annoying, but I have to admit racing Chocobos in the Golden Saucer or playing cards with practically everyone you met was not thrilling either.

The design of the Eidolons, especially Ifrit (he looks like a hybrid between a cow and a monkey) were terrible. The only one that came out looking good was Bahamut. The only possitive aspect to them was that the sequences for their attacks could be shortened, because frankly, in FFVIII you could practically paint your house while Eden was attacking (btw, Ark doesn't fall into this category. He/She/It takes so long to attack I can also groom my dog waiting for the sequence to finish)

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I think that's it. Or at least, that's what I can think of right now. In any case, I enjoyed the game for the first two discs, still play that part, still find it amusing, interesting, fresh, classic and wonderful. And when I reach the third disc, I just turn it off and go out.

[Xalibar]

Honestly, it just sounds like the guy didn't like the game and wrote a hate speech about it. Usually when you don't like something or a disappointed by it, you see everything wrong with it. Even the small things are blown up to big things.