I won't say 9 was a bad game. But I don't think it was underrated. I played through it. And it was well made. But it was an absolute chore to actually beat it. And I really don't know why. But about 80% of the way through I just got bored with it. Plus I played straight through instead of ever stopping to level. Apparently that's a bad idea. I hate games that expect you to waste time leveling. If they want you to be at a certain level they should give you enough experience to get there. And using random encounters to increase playtime is old hat. Two or three boss fights I thought I was supposed to lose considering how badly I got trounsed. You go down in the first three rounds and then see game over, something's wrong.

Its not like I skipped anything. I never ran from any battles. There's no reason my characters should have been that under prepaired except they seem to expect you to find a spot with big bad guys and run around in circles. And that's a part of old RPGs I was willing to say goodbye to. They didn't have to throw that in there just 'cause they were looking back. They advanced on character depth and development and plot intricacies. They should have made advancements in encounters and leveling systems

But yeah. That's not what made me want to quit. The story just didn't have what it took to keep me enthralled. The characters were deep but there wasn't really anything worth caring about. To me Vivi was the only one anyone could relate to or get sympathetic towards.

Amarant had no personality. Steiner was cliche. Quina was just... there being weird. Eiko was just there being annoying... I dunno. Maybe if it wasn't so tedious. But there's my two cents. Maybe I'll trudge through it again someday