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March 29, 2024, 09:52:37 AM

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Final Fantasy IX

Started by bgmnts, August 25, 2021, 12:13:02 PM

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bgmnts

Okay, in my mind this is the daddy of all Final Fantasy games. I'm aware the place that VII has for people who grew up with it but IX just has everything; great fantasy setting, fun characters, fun plot, robust FF gameplay.

Very little to say about this beyond it being the best FF and probably one of the best FF games ever made.

This will be my third playthrough and I will see how it goes. Then maybe onto VII.

One thing about these though, why do they always go from relatively normal and interesting settings to falling to absolute shit in the final act? There's always some weird cosmological or incorporeal element that is shoehorned in. Is there an FF game where it's just 'heroes defeat baddies'?

C_Larence

This was my first FF and I half joke that it basically taught me how to read. I've bought and completed it on pretty much every possible console and each time I love it as much as the last. The OST is one of the greatest of all time.

It's not without its faults, Amarant and Freya have no story past Disc 3 (although I love the latter's Sir Fratley sub-plot) and as you mention it descends into chaos at the end, the final boss seemingly plucked from thin air. The trance system can be annoying too. However, I can easily overlook all these issues due to the sheer magnificence of everything else.

Is Quina the first non-binary character in video games?

The Culture Bunker

After playing VII and VIII, I really didn't like the revert to a more 'fantasy' setting. I did finish it at the time but I've never revisited and felt much happier with the FFVI on PS1 that came out not long afterwards.

On the other hand, it was the last Final Fantasy that wasn't voiced, meaning you could change the character names. That I finished IX shows it must have had something - I completed X but after that every FF game (X-2, XII, XIII, Type Zero and XV) I've played I've quit well before the end, FF7 remake excepted.

bgmnts

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on August 25, 2021, 03:40:51 PM
After playing VII and VIII, I really didn't like the revert to a more 'fantasy' setting. I did finish it at the time but I've never revisited and felt much happier with the FFVI on PS1 that came out not long afterwards.

On the other hand, it was the last Final Fantasy that wasn't voiced, meaning you could change the character names. That I finished IX shows it must have had something - I completed X but after that every FF game (X-2, XII, XIII, Type Zero and XV) I've played I've quit well before the end, FF7 remake excepted.

Bizarrely, the Xbone port removes this feature. So you have to walk around as fucking Dagger and Vivi instead of Cuntflap and Analfist.

Cloud

As much as I actually really enjoyed Cloud and Squall's characters, Zidane's more cheerful "cheeky rogue" personality was a bit of a breath of fresh air when this came out.

Like all of the VII-X era I loved it and have played it many times.  The more simple battle/levelling/skill system was nice after the drawing/junctioning stuff of VIII.  The graphics were an amazing achievement on the PS1.  Some great music especially the overworld music (which was crap in VIII). 

Speaking of which, one of the fondest memories I have of the FF series is the first time I finished IX and heard the tune I'd been hearing for 100-odd hours suddenly gain a voice and lyrics.  I thankfully remained unspoiled on the ending song (unlike X which I listened to before even playing it and kicked myself for the entire way through) and had no idea it was going to do this so I was totally blown away by it.  Admittedly VIII did similar so maybe 'not expecting it' was kind of dense... that one had an impact too (first vocal ending song of the series so that was pretty big)... but the difference is the Eyes On Me melody only really popped up now and again in romance scenes etc.  Melodies of Life, meanwhile, was woven throughout the whole of IX in numerous styles (including "la la la la la"), which for me, is what gave me that "wow" moment when it found a proper voice at the end.   I've played it enough times now that it'd be impossible to forget it and ever relive that moment, but yeah, it stuck with me.  May seem dumb, but to me it's a fond memory.

Loved most of the characters and some of the development like how Steiner gradually warms to Zidane throughout the game from originally hating his guts (to the point of wanting to see him hanged!) to trusted friend. Romance was still there (Zidane/Garnet) but took a back seat compared to VIII which I think we were all ready for at the time as well.  Couldn't get my head around Quina for a while despite an open mind and was determined to think of them as female, which just really shows how much of an uphill battle non-binary people have in being understood by wider society.  (Incidentally "They" is a much nicer term that works far better for reading the dialogue in your head than FFIX's "S/he" and I'm wondering if there's actually a fan patch for it, there probably is)

The main criticism I have of it, is it's basically one giant mish-mash of references to the NES and SNES games.  If you've not played those games, which I hadn't at the time, it's all a bit weird as the references go "whoosh" over your head.  Some weird out of context stuff about 'shrines' that doesn't make sense until you play FFV and realise it's a reference to that just to pick out one example.  Or the sudden riddle thing out of nowhere where you have to piece together a story about someone called Joseph who it turns out is from FFII. Now I'm grinding my way through V and have I-IV behind me, I can probably appreciate IX more, but I imagine it was WAY better if you played it for the first time having already played all the older games and could enjoy all those references unspoiled.

Fun moment: Naming Garnet "Garnet" when she asks to change her name to Dagger (FFS was a stupid name) and she's like "that's it!  From now on I'll be known as Garnet!" (I do the inverse to Nanachi in VII)

bgmnts

Not saying this to be retroactively woke but U was so thick and blank as a kid as I just thought Quina was an alien frog. Not even joking.

bgmnts

Oh man just playing through the first hour again and it's just so fun and engaging and lovely.

I played through a few Final Fantasys (all for the first time) over the last year, nostalgia free, and can confirm that IX is indeed the best. Utterly charming, with the perfect tone. Yes, two of the secondary playable characters (Freya and the guy with the big hair) don't have much of a story, but the many strengths easily outweigh the minor weaknesses. Vivi's journey and existential angst was actually quite affecting. It seems there was some backlash against the cartoony art style at the time, but it's visuals have aged a lot better than VIII and maybe even X. Special shout-out also goes to that village where they all speak in Scottish slang.

Poobum

Replayed it last year for the first time since I had it on PS1. Absolutely loved it. For me it has the most interesting and well constructed characters of all FF games. Kuja is a great villain and his relationship with Zidane really raised Zidane above an annoying rogue to someone who is genuinely good at heart and compassionate. I do like that Kuja has a moment of redemption, he is a victim, a stunted child created to be used and discarded, in possession of apocalyptic powers. Dagger is great at not being a damsel, but a strong character who grows and leads.

FF8 will always be my favourite though, despite being worse in everyway, because it was basically my childhood and opened my mind to a whole other way of gaming. I thing it as some of the best set pieces, with the assassination attempt of Edea and the Battle of the Gardens just being epic.

FF7 is perfectly good and I love it too, am currently on a halted playthrough on the Xbox, but what I've realized is I just don't have the will to grind. FF9 definitely cemented this for my completing the Chocobo treasure side quest, where I'm aware that I should be doing less enraging and tedious things in between trying to research and write uni papers on animal behaviour.

I still have my beloved strategy guides in reasonable condition that I like to leaf through, remembering playthroughs hoping that Odin turns up and Zantetsukens Malboros so I can collect their tentacles for Lionheart (once had to do it with Gilgamesh because bad planning, was hell).



Love that each monster in the FF8 guide has a little description, might be the same as the in game scan blurb.



FF9 guide is of course prettier littered with nice drawings.




Mobius

I loved that guide.

FF8 is my favourite too, just the one I really clicked with as a kid. Loved the card game, fucking my thumb up smashing the button boosting those ridiculously long GF sequences.

I had a pirated version and it froze on the end FMV :( Couldn't be arsed to redo the last battle as it took forever.

The music was so nice. I've tried to replay Final Fantasy recently but just can't seem to handle the random battles any more.

peanutbutter

Is that the infamously bad FF9 guide or was it US only?




I'm a bit weird about 9, played it directly after 4, 5 and 6 and it never felt as engaging as I found them. Iirc I ditched it at this card game tournament it (seemingly) expected me to win outright to proceed with the plot?
Looks amazing though, maybe the best looking PS1 game. Feels like its built from the same tools as 8 but with an aesthetic that's far more suited to the machine. The advance from early PS1 games up to what was coming out near its end is pretty crazy.

brat-sampson

If you have it on Steam, I highly recommend the Moguri Mod which retextures basically the entire game above and beyond the up-resing of the original elements in the 'HD' version. Just a vast improvement across the board without losing any of the charm.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/9uMcim5KEi8

Steam:


Moguri:

Poobum

Quote from: peanutbutter on August 30, 2021, 12:15:22 AM
Is that the infamously bad FF9 guide or was it US only?


The big problem is that it hides a lot of miscellaneous stuff on some website that it keeps trying to send you to. Don't think they every tried that again.

Mister Six

Quote from: brat-sampson on August 30, 2021, 07:46:10 AM
If you have it on Steam, I highly recommend the Moguri Mod which retextures basically the entire game above and beyond the up-resing of the original elements in the 'HD' version. Just a vast improvement across the board without losing any of the charm.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/9uMcim5KEi8

Steam:


Moguri:


That looks amazing - tempted to revisit it now.