FFIX was the last great Final Fantasy

[Flying Arrow]

See, I really can't take this person seriously. Not after statements like this:

Yes, Final Fantasy VII will always be remembered as the classic entry in the series, but let's be completely honest here - it hasn't aged well. Its jagged backgrounds and blocky character models make it harder to feel the same rushes of emotion now that you did when playing it back in its heyday.

Did anyone actually feel this? Does this person actually know what made VII enjoyable at all, or even "moving"? It certainly was never because of the blocky character models. They're just as silly now as they were in 1997.

Here is where I stopped reading:

Meanwhile, even the madcap chef Qu has more personality than Final Fantasy X's brainless Tidus.

I get the Tidus hate because he's absolutely insufferable but we're straying into some pretty stupid terrain with this kind of thinking.


My own opinion of IX is complicated. I really, really wanted to like it for all these years. Just looking at it, it's wonderful. But I can't get past how overprotective it is about its story progression. FFX and XIII are very linear to the point of literally being uninteresting straight lines, but IX can get pretty agonizing in its own way. I realize that the story is important, but even playing the game back in 2000 I'd ask myself, my god why does the game have to keep splitting my party up? Why do I have to be stuck with a thief and three mages when I've already been building up a badass knight? Why do I feel like I'm being interrupted by dialogue boxes (albeit well written dialog in amusing boxes) in each screen? The Alexandria scenario at the beginning is a great beginning to the game, but why do I have to keep running back and forth talking to NPCs in Evil Forest before I can get a nice chunk of uninterrupted playtime in?

My problem with IX is that I feel like it just won't let go of me and let me play it. The throwback thing really is kind of BS, because older FF games never stuttered like this. Sure, IV did the member swapping thing quite a bit, but IV had a ton more flow than IX, which stops you at every opportunity and loads battles in no fewer than 15 seconds a pop. IX is actually more like VIII than a lot of people like to admit. I'd argue that if you really want an old-school styled FF game with PSX pre-rendered graphics then your best bet is actually VII. VII has some kick-ass pacing that only really falters in a few sections (reasonably forgivable considering the size of the game). On top of that, it only gets really verbose on two occasions (the Kalm flashback and the Mideel Lifestream sequence) and both times the most important element of the game's plot are on display - a plot that has been slowly building from the beginning, mind. IX just has a tendency to chip away at my patience with moderately-long talking parts far too often. These sections are certainly charming and full of "character" but I still feel like they don't add up substantially enough to justify being so pervasive. The ATEs are a great idea, but I also wish I could just stumble on my party living it up in towns (think of Costa del Sol) instead of having to relinquish control lest I miss the admittedly charming character- and world-building. Dali is a beautiful little location but an old school FF would have me buying weapons, recharging my resources and moving on sooner rather than later. Instead, IX's first real town in a huge production that ends with an airship taking off and a battle against a murderous black mage.

None of this is inherently bad of course. Hell, I don't really think FFIX is a bad game. I recognize that a lot of people like it and I've played it probably more times that I should have in order to be able to enjoy it in the same way. Thing is, I just can't really. A lot of FFIX is for me, but at the same time too much of it isn't.

[Pumpkin]

Splitting up the characters was one of my favorite parts of the game. I am an obsessive builder-uper so it gave me time to grow each of my characters as the story progresses instead of spending hours building up on the side. I think it also put more importance on all of the characters instead of having some you don't even need to use, ever.

Also, story is THE most important aspect of a game for me, followed by characters. I can very easily forgive horrible gameplay and graffics and music and whatever else if it has a good story and good characters so I was very happy with the way it progressed. I cared about the story. I cared about the characters. In fact, there were some points where I just wanted to skip the dungeon and go on with the story. So I would save my game, rush through the dungeon escaping all battles, just to see what happens and then go through the dungoen properly. I realize not everyone agrees but these are the reasons that IX is my favorite title, the reason that I've played it more than any other game I've ever owned and I will continue to do so.

[Bolivar]

I agree, I like splitting up the party, if anything it adds to pacing for me. It drags out more importance for the more obscure characters instead of just whoever's in your party at the time. And because FFIX's characters are all very unique, it adds a lot of variety to the game. When you throw in the customization options of the ability system, you get a really awesome gameplay package from FFIX.

But I do agree with Arrow about the story pacing somewhat. Some of the best RPGs are so great because they know how to be respectful of your time. That means getting a point across or serving a purpose in all the time you need to do it, then keeping the player moving. While FFIX has a lot of story elements going on at the same time, it could have been achieved a lot quicker. I guess to me, the visuals were so wonderful and music was so endearing that I didn't mind when the game stopped to show me a scene. It's one of my favorite games of all time and some of my favorite characters.

That's another reason why this game needs to be left alone and not have any spin-offs.

[Depression Moon]

Yeah I don't mind party members splitting up when it doesn't seem like they're doing just to do it or keep you from having to switch party members early or at all. I do feel like they did that to Quina in IX though. The first time they left her at Madain Sari and Zidane responded that "he/she'll be fine on his own". I feel that was a clue that Zidane doesn't like Quina at all and regretted allowing her to come along and at the same time I felt like the developers were just doing it to prevent us from having to switch party members before they wanted us to.

No actually, the first time was at Cleyra when Quina decided not to jump into one of the orbs because "I no like heights". I felt like that was just another cop out and Quina surviving that seemed unrealistic considering that Brahne destroyed it like a minute after that scene. There was no way Quina could've made it to safe distance in that time.

[Raian the Fallen]

I really love Final Fantasy IX, but the battles take a really long time to load for some reason. Compare it to VII, where you were instantly handed control within a few seconds of the swirl. In IX, it takes a bit to load the characters, and you have to see the monsters, and then you're finally handed control.

In fact, though, I kind of liked it when the game switched party members. It brought attention to the characters that I wouldn't ever use. It was also really pretty, and was what Final Fantasy should be, in my opinion.

The completionist part of me despises Excalibur II with all my heart, though.

[Kyros]

Screw Excalibur II. Ive never gotten it, never tried, and never cared b/c I'm going to speed run through this game just for some stupid sword I dont need when Steiner does max damage just fine without it. Not to mention I didn't even use Steiner last time I played through the game and think he was like lv12 or something when I was at the end.

[Darylisgogo]

I just started playing this game again because it didn't leave a good impression on me the first time around and i would like to reshape my opinion of it and first thing that pops to my mind as i began playing was how painfully slow the battles are. i am playing it on an emulator to speed up battles and slow it down when reading through storyline, watching cuteness whatnot to make it a little bit more tolerable. storyline wise i forgot a lot about this game which makes me think if it didn't leave a big impression on me for me to remembera lot of the storyline then I must not of cared for most the characters or the plot. i remember there was a lot of humor throughout the game and a friend of mine told me it was one of the best final fantasies for sidequest and mini games I didn't take the time to explore that side of the game last time. i like doing sidequest and trying to complete ff games 100%, so i will have to really explore that this time around . Last time i think i was in such a hurry to beat it because I wasnt as interested in the game. If the battles were not so ridiculously slow on the ATB timer even with haste I would definitely rate ff9's battle system over ff8 and ff7 because it did bring that classic final fantasy feel to it and they actually relied on armor instead of silly materia like ff7 or gawd awful junction system of ff8. To me this game had all the gameplay features that a good final fantasy game should have but lacked on storyline and battle speed. the battles were just too slow and i'm playing it again to try and captivate my interest on the actual characters and story plot this time around. I notice a lot of ff6 fans also love this game they seem to get paired as 2 of the best final fantasies of the series, and i definitely love ff6 so i figured i might should give ff9 a 2nd chance despite my previous experience.

[DMKA]

It's a great game.

[Silent Warrior]

I kind of see his point. I won't go so far as using the words 'last' or 'great', but the open world map is a VERY strong argument. On the whole, I liked other games in the series better (oddly, though, no other FF was as enjoyable to play), but the main thing is that PS2-FFs and onwards were seemingly designed with a different goal in mind. I will admit I have no idea at all why they REALLY skipped on the world map, but the post-PSX games do feel more cinematic - which, I understand, is what puts the R in JRPG. *Shrug*

[Today's flamebait: Which means FF13 is a whopping champ! ]