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.
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.*'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.
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 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?
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.*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.
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.*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.
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 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.
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.*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
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.*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!
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.*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.
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.*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.
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.
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Because you[re playing them from a HDDOriginally Posted by Mirage
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.
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