Final Fantasy IX is the culmination of JRPGs, plain and simple.
Developed by the last of the old guard at Squaresoft in 2000, Final Fantasy IX stood as a love letter to every single game that came before it. Seeing as how it was a bit of a watershed moment for Squaresoft mainstays like Hironobu Sakaguchi, who was planning to leave to engage in other ventures during the development of this game, it is truly the Final Fantasy game of Final Fantasy. It's most potently-FF game imaginable.
You have high fantasy, lovable characters, and cartoonish delight that make this game the most lovingly characterized video game of the 1990s. Few video games hold a candle to FFIX's truly unique identity. And as you can imagine, that identity not only extends from its legendary... uh, legacy, but also to the experience of playing it.
I had a bit of trouble following IX once I got to the third disc. Like with VIII, the first and second discs are AMAZING. AMAAAZING!!!! It reminded me almost of the extremely well-designed pacing of The Witcher 3, which is in my opinion the greatest RPG experience available. But FFIX's genius focus on cities/locations to create memorable story moments out of them allowed for an intriguing story to unfold almost flawlessly. It wasn't until the third disc, or rather, when the party arrived at Conde Petie that the pacing started to take... well, a nosedive.
One of FFIX's greatest strengths was its worldly plight. To me, the firstly-developed antagonist was much, MUCH better than the bait and switch typical of FF storytelling that is given to players around the 2/3s mark of the story. This is unfortunate, as the gameplay experience for me, especially as someone who had played EIGHT of the series' games up until this point, made playing the game exhausting.
It wasn't until the very end of FFIX where I felt it had came all together. Something about its ending made it feel like a closing-of-the-book to the old era of FF, and into its middle period. For someone like me who has now fully finished the NES, SNES, and PS1 era of FF, that felt like an amazing release of the ATB system, into new and rockier territory. As a player of these games, I truly do appreciate left turns artistically and mechanically.
But considering the previous entry, VIII, and its incredibly deviating junction/GF system, something about IX's simplicity was appreciated. The most complex the gameplay gets is with item-abilities, which at first seem interesting, but get very annoying to deal with as crucial spells like float, protect, shell, and thundaga are locked behind items that you don't know even hold them when purchasing them from vendors. I did not like this feature. It led to me choosing to use this version's special features to make every battle a cakewalk.
Still, had the game literally done one thing and showed item descriptions in vendor screens, literally all of this would go away. I just hate the hassle of going into your cluttery item screen only to realize the hat you just bought has a completely useless ability for your playstyle.
And whats more -- FFIX has the slowest combat ever in the series. I am not joking about that. Even I-III were quicker considering its turn based combat systems. The ATB bar fills soooooo slowly in FFIX that it might as well be considered a complete design misstep. Had the porting devs changed up this stuff, and somehow optimized FFIX's offensively slow pre-battle load times, we would have one of the best FF combat systems imaginable. No joke! Literally all it would take for me to love this game's combat are:
1.) Show item abilities on purchase screen
2.) Speed up ATB bar filling even past the max battle speed option
3.) OPTIMIZE LOADING TIMES!!!
But other than these undeniably harsh gripes, I have to be honest. FFIX's story was second to none in the entire series. It may not have a Kefka-quality villain, and its mid-story switchup may be undesirable, but what this game has to say about life, what it means to live, and love, is simply some of the best storytelling in video game history.
I will not go into detail about it, but just know -- the characters of Steiner, Garnet, Eiko, Freya, (definitely not Amarant), Brahne, Beatrix, ViVi, and of course, ZIDANE!, are now my favorites in the series. Not in JRPGs, because DQXI still takes that cake... but for what its worth, this game's story is the most heartfelt in the entire series up until this point. And for that, I have to give it chops. Had the game's combat system been tweaked, and its story quality improved upon its second half, we would truly have an all-timer contender when it comes to deciding the best RPG.
But for now, I have to give it its rating.
FFIX gets...
a 95/100
Developed by the last of the old guard at Squaresoft in 2000, Final Fantasy IX stood as a love letter to every single game that came before it. Seeing as how it was a bit of a watershed moment for Squaresoft mainstays like Hironobu Sakaguchi, who was planning to leave to engage in other ventures during the development of this game, it is truly the Final Fantasy game of Final Fantasy. It's most potently-FF game imaginable.
You have high fantasy, lovable characters, and cartoonish delight that make this game the most lovingly characterized video game of the 1990s. Few video games hold a candle to FFIX's truly unique identity. And as you can imagine, that identity not only extends from its legendary... uh, legacy, but also to the experience of playing it.
I had a bit of trouble following IX once I got to the third disc. Like with VIII, the first and second discs are AMAZING. AMAAAZING!!!! It reminded me almost of the extremely well-designed pacing of The Witcher 3, which is in my opinion the greatest RPG experience available. But FFIX's genius focus on cities/locations to create memorable story moments out of them allowed for an intriguing story to unfold almost flawlessly. It wasn't until the third disc, or rather, when the party arrived at Conde Petie that the pacing started to take... well, a nosedive.
One of FFIX's greatest strengths was its worldly plight. To me, the firstly-developed antagonist was much, MUCH better than the bait and switch typical of FF storytelling that is given to players around the 2/3s mark of the story. This is unfortunate, as the gameplay experience for me, especially as someone who had played EIGHT of the series' games up until this point, made playing the game exhausting.
It wasn't until the very end of FFIX where I felt it had came all together. Something about its ending made it feel like a closing-of-the-book to the old era of FF, and into its middle period. For someone like me who has now fully finished the NES, SNES, and PS1 era of FF, that felt like an amazing release of the ATB system, into new and rockier territory. As a player of these games, I truly do appreciate left turns artistically and mechanically.
But considering the previous entry, VIII, and its incredibly deviating junction/GF system, something about IX's simplicity was appreciated. The most complex the gameplay gets is with item-abilities, which at first seem interesting, but get very annoying to deal with as crucial spells like float, protect, shell, and thundaga are locked behind items that you don't know even hold them when purchasing them from vendors. I did not like this feature. It led to me choosing to use this version's special features to make every battle a cakewalk.
Still, had the game literally done one thing and showed item descriptions in vendor screens, literally all of this would go away. I just hate the hassle of going into your cluttery item screen only to realize the hat you just bought has a completely useless ability for your playstyle.
And whats more -- FFIX has the slowest combat ever in the series. I am not joking about that. Even I-III were quicker considering its turn based combat systems. The ATB bar fills soooooo slowly in FFIX that it might as well be considered a complete design misstep. Had the porting devs changed up this stuff, and somehow optimized FFIX's offensively slow pre-battle load times, we would have one of the best FF combat systems imaginable. No joke! Literally all it would take for me to love this game's combat are:
1.) Show item abilities on purchase screen
2.) Speed up ATB bar filling even past the max battle speed option
3.) OPTIMIZE LOADING TIMES!!!
But other than these undeniably harsh gripes, I have to be honest. FFIX's story was second to none in the entire series. It may not have a Kefka-quality villain, and its mid-story switchup may be undesirable, but what this game has to say about life, what it means to live, and love, is simply some of the best storytelling in video game history.
I will not go into detail about it, but just know -- the characters of Steiner, Garnet, Eiko, Freya, (definitely not Amarant), Brahne, Beatrix, ViVi, and of course, ZIDANE!, are now my favorites in the series. Not in JRPGs, because DQXI still takes that cake... but for what its worth, this game's story is the most heartfelt in the entire series up until this point. And for that, I have to give it chops. Had the game's combat system been tweaked, and its story quality improved upon its second half, we would truly have an all-timer contender when it comes to deciding the best RPG.
But for now, I have to give it its rating.
FFIX gets...
a 95/100