Okay, time for ~~opinions~~

IX was and remains a clattering disappointment. It is not a bad game as such, but it is so utterly lacking in daring and imagination (in gameplay) that it winds up being tremendously uninteresting. It tries to capture the magic of the old pre-32 bit games, but it totally fails, both because it doesn't understand what it was that made them magical or that making a sincere attempt and falling short is much more commendable than playing it entirely safe and doing so competently. This is why I credit XII much higher than IX even though I think IX is a more solid game and I still don't like XII one bit. Much of the charm of the earlier games is that they always butted up against the limits of what they were trying to achieve, and succeeded anyway. IX plays it so safe in every respect except aesthetics that it can't even fail - it doesn't make the attempt in the first place.

Also, the characters I like - Freya, Quina, and Beatrix, mainly - are given very little screen time outside a couple of specific points, whilst ones I either don't care about - Vivi, Garnet - or those I actively dislike - Zidane, Eiko, every single villain - get a lot more. The only one who I both like and gets plenty of time is Steiner.

The villains are all trout. Every single one. When the old NES and SNES games were made, a villain who wanted to destroy everything just because he was a twat or couldn't handle some bit of news about their origins was good, but by the time IX rolled around things were a lot more sophisticated, and Sephiroth was probably the last villain who got away with that.