So once upon a time, this game was my favorite FF. However it's been many years since I last played it and my affection for it has waned. However, over the course of the last couple years, mods have gotten me to reply FFVII and FFVIII. And so I thought "maybe it will be the same for IX." And here we are.

http://www.insanedifficulty.com/boar...-ix-unleashed/

See, even when I was a mega FFIX fanboy, I didn't like the gameplay much. I'm hoping this mod will remedy that.

Funnily enough, I bet this mod is for people who have 100%'ed FFIX and know everything about it. Me? I never did much of anything except the main story.I never beat Ozma, I don't have the faintest clue where the ultimate weapons are... No wait! I did Chocobo Hot n' Cold all the way to the end I think... Do you get an ultimate weapon from that? God it's been so long.

Don't tell me where the ultimate weapons are though! I wanna try and do some of this stuff on my own. Do tell me though, are they intuitive? Like, will I find them if I do a healthy bit of exploration? Or will I absolutely have to end up consulting a guide?

Well I know all about Excalibur II but I don't even count that at Steiner's ultimate weapon. That's just dumb.

Anyway, this is where I'm at in the mod at present. I just beat Black Waltz No. 1 and Sealion.I was worried about that fight since it's no joke in the original and this is a difficulty mod.

1. I was Level 5

2. I made sure to go into the fight in the back row ('cuz of Sealion's Wing attack)

3.I made sure to go into the fight right at the edge of Trance. I had it picture perfect too. First attack from Sealion sent me right into Trance Mode.

4. In this mod he actually has you start with the Dyne skill Scoop Art, probably to compensate for situations exactly like this. You also get Tidal Flame but while that kills BW#1 and does serious damage to Sealion, Sealion WILL immediately kill you after this because it will use Tsunami and then another move before you can do anything else. Combined with the initial attacks from Sealion and BW#1's only attack, you are a goner.

5. So plan was to kill BW#1 immediately with Scoop Art, then steal Ether and Myhril Dagger from Sealion. Don't even TRY to steal items from both BW1 and Sealion, if they start to double team you, you are screwed.

6. I tried to beat down Sealion normally but there is a problem. A little thing called Blizzara + normal attack. Combo pretty much guaranteed to kill you if you aren't at absolute max HP. I ended up just feeding Zidane Potions constantly until he got Trance again and then using Scoop Art to kill Sealion in one blow.

Also if you read the mod description, it talks about how he wanted to make more weapons viable for later game.It's a pretty neat idea. He put a lot of really useful Abilities on starter equipment. Steiner's Broadsword has Counter! So I'm gonna be using that for a good while to learn that.