How you gonna have such beautiful background art and set pieces and clash them so wildly with those goofy chibi character designs man. Needs more 4KUHD orange Garnet butt!!

Okay more seriously, I didn't enjoy the ATB combat much and I didn't find the characters too likeable (Vivi was great but Quina, Eiko, and Amarant were so lame) which unfortunately caused the story to sorta just wash over me as standard JRPG flair. I really wanted to appreciate this classic more but alas. I even replayed FFX recently so I know my fondness for it isn't nostalgia biased

[used Moguri mod 8.3 // no cheats except for 3x speed battles & disabled random battles // toggled turn-based battle mode on about 1/3 through]

Install the Moguri Mod first, it's almost essential for PC I'd say.

The game itself is a flawed gem, a whimsical meditation on the ephemeral nature of life, the inevitabilty of death and the necessity of finding meaning. Vivi, Dagger and Steiner have top tier arcs. The backgrounds are incredibly beautiful and the music is yet another Uematsu masterwork.

I recommend it knowing it is flawed (some of the characters are lightweights in terms of development; some of their designs are questionable, to say the least; the game's tone might not be what you expect/want after VII and VIII; the battles are slow as hell -which can be fixed in this remaster and even more with the Moguri Mod; how 'Trance' works is half-baked; Tetra Master isn't a very good minigame tbh), because I felt a lot of its better parts are very good indeed. I was able to look past these flaws to discover, and be amazed by, a beautiful labor of love.

Undoubtedly the best Final Fantasy game I have played. Incredibly endearing characters who all revolve around the central them of finding personal meaning to make life worth living. Each characters motives and development are great. The addition of ATEs single-handedly makes the game better than it’s predecessors as we finally get more opportunities for character interactions regardless if they are in the party or not. The gameplay itself is pretty standard for FF turn based, but I found the gear/skill abilities to be a great system for each character. Everything about this game delivers and I can’t wait for a future replay.

When I was a kid, i remember playing Final Fantasy 4 and Final Fantasy 6 without any knowledge on what to do or how the game was supposed to play (turn based RPGS). Neither my english was so good at the time but, kinda got the ropes of what was going on based on what events that went through the game. I didn't completed them and just, left that in the past.

Now at 25 years old, I was interested on Final Fantasy 9 just because of one track that I heard one time on a video that right now I can't remember and, I am really glad I picked up Final Fantasy 9.

Waiting for your bar to allow you to attack reminded me to the classic that it was Chronno Trigger and while in some instances it got me sighting because of my party members dying because I was not more stronger than the other enemy on some times, I have really been liking what the game has thrown to me.
Each of the characters starts believing or behaving in a certain manner and after events that the party members go through, the mentality and behaviour changes in a more reflective way in each of their cases(with Quina is debatable in some sort in my opinion), and I really enjoyed how each character surpassed the struggle that they personally had.

Music didn't had me angry nor bored at any time.

Gaining abilities through your weapons is a curious thing, I mean...one would expect to gain abilities by leveling up only and while that isn't an issue, nor gaining the abilities with the armors and weapons that you have. Granted, you have to grind monsters and the Ability points that you gain do not help when some characters need a huge amount of AP to gain abilities, but it isn't THAT grindy (or at least in comparison with how it feels in other games).

Its amazing that this game originally came out on playstation 1 especially when comparing it to ff7. I don't necessarily think its a better game than 7 but it does a lot of fun and unique things while also returning to a more clasic final fantasy feeling game.
By the later stages of the game many of these novel mini games and side quests become tedious especially chocobo hot and cold. I think the story is a pretty standard fantasy with all the expected tropes. I don't think I was really surprised by anything in the story. The main villain and their motivations feel pretty weak. However I think the world building and set pieces in the world are amazing and really lead to a feeling of a lived in fantasy world.
The ability and synth system are really great and make you feel like you are getting meaningful upgrades for your characters however again like most things they became tedious for me in the last 20% of the game.
Overall I think FF9 is a great game and worth playing for anyone that's into classic feeling JRPG's

What to say about this video game.
It is the best JRPG ever created.
The story is deep and mature, the characters are amazing, everyone has a good background and an interesting objective that goes along with the story.
The music is beautiful and the world in which everything unfolds is wonderful. 10/10❤️
I recommed using the Alternate fantasy and Moguri mods for an even better experience.