Writing: 3/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Art Design & Visuals: 4/5
Voices & Sounds: 5/5
Atmosphere & Immersion: 4/5

Easily the best Final Fantasy of all time. The memorable cast of characters (Except Amarant) carry a narrative of genuine weight. The world is impeccably well realized and there is plenty of side-content for the explorer to get comfortably lost in. This game is bursting with things to discover and despite the slow battle speed the narrative pacing is comfortably brisk and alleviates any frustration.

The music is in a class of its own and visually it is stunning, especially if you have a taste for the pre-rendered style.

Both an homage of the series to date while pushing things forward in equal measure, FF9 is a true timeless classic.

Somehow it took me over ten years to actually beat this one, but I think after having finally completed the main game I feel more than confident enough to say this is one of the best games of the Final Fantasy series - and an instant all-time favourite.

As a series retrospective, bringing back many familiar elements from the older games while mixing them together with mechanics that came from the preceding games, Final Fantasy IX feels like an entirely new game on its own. Yet just like the best of its series it always remains a highly engrossing narrative experience.

But if anything else best sums up what these games can do best, there's a bittersweetness to the journey of Final Fantasy IX that hasn't quite been matched by other games in this series. When it comes to how this game approaches the concept of what it means to live, especially as one knows their lifespan is limited, it's bound to make any player feel misty-eyed - even as you get a taste of the satisfaction that comes forth from beating its final bosses, this mood still lingers and just creates a more emotionally resonant epilogue, especially if you found yourself so deeply attached to these characters (all of whom have magnificently crafted arcs, as one can expect from Final Fantasy).

If it weren't for Final Fantasy VII, this would easily be my favourite of the series.

Three answers is a lot of them to have for a question that you've only been asked once or twice.

In the elusive scenario wherein someone actually asks me which among the Final Fantasy games is my favorite, my first answer might be Final Fantasy VII, as it was my first and it's the one I've played the most. I have read several terrible novels and played numerous bad spinoff games to 100% completion because of my love for Final Fantasy VII. I might then correct myself to my most practiced answer: Final Fantasy X. It is my firm and solemn belief, after all, that Final Fantasy X is The Best One for a litany of well-considered reasons, and I find myself with a ravenous hunger for it at least once per year.

Ask me on my most honest days, however... in my tender darkness, when the mind is powerless to stop my heart, and I will tell you that my favorite is Final Fantasy IX.

Final Fantasy IX is the only one in which the ATB system Gets In The Way, and while I can dock a point for it, I will never be able to make myself care. Drag as they might, no battle in Final Fantasy IX can dampen my love. No, not even you end up queuing commands too far ahead and the battlefield changes in frustrating ways before your attack goes off. If it really bothers you so much, play on PC where there are mods to get around it. I truly do not think that it is enough to get in the way of having an incredible time with Final Fantasy IX.

I don't even want to talk about the story. If I have to explain to you why the story of Final Fantasy IX is good then you're not going to appreciate it anyway. Yes, it would be nice if Freya has one or two more spotlight scenes and Amarant wasn't such a transparently tropey Zidane foil, and it would be nice if trance were better integrated in ALL respects, but look... Final Fantasy IX is so good that it made me immune to Persona 3. It is the only game whose ending consistently forces me to cry.

If you like anything about anything Hironobu Sakaguchi has ever done and you haven't played FFIX, please just do it. He deserves that much.

It took me a bit (longer than I expected tbh) but I'm finally finished. I gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed with this one. Especially after how much some gas this up as the most underrated Final Fantasy game or some shit.

Let me begin with what I did actually like. First off the world design and general aesthetics. They were incredible. Especially with mods on the PC port. This is one of my favorite world's to explore out of the games I played in the series at its core. Beyond that, I also liked the characters that make up the party in terms of their designs and the diversity shown (not so much what is actually done with the characters but more on that in a minute). In a game with more palatable story/character developments and general gameplay feel this could've been one of my series faves.

That wasn't meant to be though. So looking back on this it seems that there's three major sticking points with me and this game. The first of which is the story and everything tied to that (the pacing, the development or lack thereof of the characters, and so forth). Final Fantasy IX after the previous few games in the series seems to have taken it back a bitsy with a less futuristic based framing and the plot shows through in that also. It's mostly serviceable for what it is but the pacing is an absolute disaster. The game feels like the wheels fell off after the end of Disc 2 and it never really picked back up. This is only exemplified by the way characters are constantly being introduced then dipping in and out of the game constantly. We have this huge set of characters making up the party but most of them get little to no development because everything is spread so thin. At times it felt like certain ones would fuck off for 5+ hours of gameplay before they returned. Some characters do get decent development but more often than not it was the ones I wasn't a fan of. Funny how it works like that.

The second of my issues was the sluggish feeling of everything in the combat. Thank god I played this on a recent port with the speed up boosters because the game feels like you're walking through quicksand or something. Even with the speed boost it felt a bit sluggish at times. The combat system at it's very core is acceptable and I enjoyed playing around with teaching skills to everyone in the party but it's hard to find any enjoyment when it moves so slow.

The last of my issues come down to the mini-games. This is kinda a no-brainer at this point. The Final Fantasy series isn't known for good mini-games and this didn't do anything to change my mind. I know they're optional (or at least most of them) but that doesn't take away from the fact that they're still bad and in the game lmao. Say what you will about some of the stuff in X (and oh I have...) but nothing approaches the mess of the jump rope or sprinting mini-games here. And for what? There's no decent reward.

This review probably reads a bit more negative than my score comes off. I really did enjoy this, I just didn't have my existence erased like I had hoped. Either way, I'm glad I played it and it's one more mainline FF game down in my series playthrough project. I think next I'll work on VIII.

This is not my first Final Fantasy, it's actually Final Fantasy VII so this 5 star rating is not a biased nostalgic score. I originally watched my older brother play this on the OG PlayStation 1 then I was able to finish it during my High School years on the PSP and PS Vita, I used a PS1 emulator then finally I replayed it again as an adult on the Nintendo Switch and it's still a masterpiece. The remaster is great but is still with its very very minimal flaws, refer to the list.

Pros:
-Upon completing the main gain you unlock the movie gallery and a blackjack mini game
-Has auto battle (if you're into that. I don't like it because I prefer the old school grinding)
-built in cheats:
in the pause menu: Battle Assistance (ATB filled instantly), 9999 (all attacks deal 9999), High Speed Mode (fast forward), Safe Travels (disables random battles)
in game settings menu: Master Abilities, Lv/Mag Stone Max, Gil Max

Cons:
-no disc indicator. I would've appreciated it if it stated that I was already on disc 2 or 3, because it kinda affects my flow in gameplay but that's just my opinion.
-annoying flaw—after every battle, the field music track will start from the top.
So if you run into battles every 10 seconds on the world map, you’ll only get to listen to the first 10 seconds of the world map theme—a excellent musical piece —before it starts all over again. This bug has been prevalent not just in previous ports of FFIX, but in other new Square Enix ports of Final Fantasy games. For Final Fantasy X, they patched it out. It’s a bug that’s not easy to notice, but once you do spot it, it’s impossible to stop hearing the problem.
-That's all, so see, the cons are basically just nit picking.

Bottom line if you missed this PS1 gem, give it a go on the Nintendo Switch. You will not regret it.
Years down the road that ending still gets to me, FFIX is so under appreciated.

The best one. That's really all there is to say about Final Fantasy IX as a game. It's a love letter to the 16-bit era of the series especially, which makes it something of a departure from the more sci-fantasy styles of the other PS1 FF titles, but I'd argue that works to its advantage.

I think it helps that it looks the "cleanest" of all of the modern releases of the PS1 FF titles, even if the pre-rendered backgrounds aren't... great looking, the art direction has definitely held up amazingly, helped by it having some of the most advanced real-time 3D seen on the PS1.