ill admit the High Fantasy tone might have quite a bit to do with my distaste of this game...
i started JRPG gaming with Phantasy Star, im a Sci-Fi fan, ive seen every Star Wars and most of the Star Trek movies in theaters due to my dad being a huge Sci-Fi fan, he'd take us kids to the theater with him to see the movies, thus i grew up on Science Fiction and not much High Fantasy, anyway back to games...
when i first tried FF i was initialy turned off by it, i was used to Phantasy Star I-IV at that point and to me FF seemed silly with their standing on opposite sides of the screen waving their weapons at each other, never actualy fighting, i didnt give FF another chance till FF6 after i played Chrono Trigger and thaught "ok SquareSoft is an amazing company, guess ill give FF another try"... this time with FF6 the characters no longer did that weapon wave thing from across the screen all the time they finaly got into the fight mostly, sadly i never finished FF6 though, damn ADHD, anyway years later i played FF7 and was blown away its become my 2nd most replayed game ever, Chrono Trigger being my most replayed, ive seen every ending in every possible way, anyway later we get FF8 and i loved it FF was finaly going in a direction i liked leaving behind the High Fantasy silliness for Sci-Fi, Steampunk, and some hints of Cyberpunk...
then comes FF9, at the time i didnt know it wasnt originaly supposed to be a numbered entry, i just knew it was more a tribute than anything as there was a quote from one of the guys from Square in PlayStation Magazine saying so, so being a tribute i was hoping for some referances to 6,7,&8, nope, barely a nod at either of them, it had taken a huge leap backward off a cliff and into the overused over-cliched High Fantasy and to top it all off the art design went all to hell, they superdeformed them, not in any installment has the characters been superdeformed, just mearly shown with forced perspective from a birds eye view, and the release of the artbook showed me what they would have looked like had they not changed art direction, i felt let down, the company i had faith in for moving forward and embracing change had just gone backwards, luckily they didnt continue this route as they got better, X was awesome, XII was ok, and i simply adore XIII & XIII-2, and i dont give a flying flip what the haters say The Spirits Within was an awesome movie...
but, FFIX just doesnt do it for me, despite all the problems i and others have mentioned, i think stepping backwards into High Fantasy is what killed it for me initialy and from there the problems just kept stacking up...