-----When a collection of media grows as large as Final Fantasy, it becomes hard to tell where you should start. It helps that Final Fantasy is a collection of non-related stories with the only element that builds from entry to entry is the self-referentialism of certain symbols like “Cid” or “Chocobo.” Still though, mechanically and aesthetically there is still some difficulty on where to begin. For example the first entry in the franchise is a good suggestion. It’s simple, to the point, mechanically relevant to the franchise, and isn’t even that esoteric for an NES title. Then again there’s the latest installment of XV. That one’s more relevant socially, has updated mechanics that appeals to the action crowd, has more depth to it’s characters, and generally looks pretty. Well, may I suggest somewhere in the middle of that for a place to start with Final Fantasy: number 9.
-----
-----Going into Final Fantasy IX, I wasn’t that familiar with it. I wanted to play it through a recommendation of a close friend whose a Final Fantasy fanatic. This game here is his favorite. I did know a lot of others also hold this title in high regard. Contextually I knew 9 comes after FF (Final Fantasy) 7, which to this day is considered to be one of the most seminal entries in the RPG cannon. That would pin 9 as a continuation of the mechanics and tools the FF developers were working with at the time. I also knew Vivi, the most iconic black mage design in FF, was in this game. That’s about all I knew. Personally I didn’t know what to really expect from this, other than the usual hope for any game: that it’s fun.
-----
-----Fun is certainly what I would use to describe the opening of FF9. Images of an evil queen amongst a huge crowd waiting for a play to start. A theater of thieves plan to kidnap a princess using the play as a disguise. Meanwhile outside the castle a strange pointy hatted boy becomes the errand boy for a small rat. All these elements and more come together as the play starts, only for things to go awry for the thieves when the princess actively tries to escape the castle herself, convincing the thieves to take her with them. It’s thrilling and a perfect way to start the game proper. From this point the story continues to become more interesting as the band of characters that becomes the player’s main party trek across the continent, visiting other villages and kingdoms that adds a lot of character to FF9’s world.
-----
-----I feel it is important to take a step back from the story from time to time to appreciate the great art direction of the software. Almost all the background environments of the game are static frames akin to the matte paintings you would see in old films. In fact upon closer inspection of character models, you can see these little strokes in their texture work as if the entire world has been painted. I think this is further enhanced by the aspect of the color use in FF9 as it’s rich and varied. The style is cute, but never saccharin. It makes everything from the characters to the darker subject matter FF9 tackles in it’s themes more approachable. I also think the attention to detail here is to be admired as well. I can’t really think of a dull frame in the entirety of FF9’s runtime.
-----
-----Mechanically, FF9 is fine. It’s familiar, which can be good. The presentation itself is mostly static third person as you go from scene to scene, kind of like old Resident Evil. The only complex 3D aspects of the game are kept to it’s overworld. If you’ve played a FF before, you know exactly what to expect. The player goes from plot beat to plot beat with a party of character, each with their own traits, stats, and class characteristics. When necessary, you talk to key characters and townsfolk to learn information, and you use FF’s currency gil to buy armor, weapons, items, and more. FF9’s strength’s don’t necessarily lie in it’s higher mechanical levels, as much as what it does in-between them. For example, peppered throughout the body of FF9 are little mini-games like monster hunting, frog catching, balancing puzzles, and more. The biggest of which is this card game called Tetra Master, which you can challenge select NPCs too. I like this diversion, as it has enough depth to be interesting while promoting collection and strategy.
-----
-----Another small addition to FF that 9 boasts are the Active Time Events (ATE). ATE are like optional B-stories you can view at a press of a button. They’re never obstructive or even require you to sit through, but I always found these fun to watch anyway. Again these add a lot of character to the game. In fact, that’s the word of the day for FF9: character. The developers make sure to add where it counts for the majority of the game, really helping to sell you on what’s going on in a given moment. This includes the little side quests you can run into, or the random areas you come across in the overall, or even the moogles that save you game by slamming a book down a writing in it.
-----
-----However, one area I think could’ve used a bit more addition are the battle mechanics. Like everything else before, these are fine. Familiar. In fact that’s the main problem here. Everything is so familiar that FF9’s battles never felt exciting to me. They felt kind of standard for what was going on for FF around this era of the franchise. For one, it uses the Active Time Battle (ATB) system that FF has been using since, I think, it’s fourth entry. Nothing wrong with that per say, but FF9 doesn’t expand upon that or anything. Any flaws or benefits of the system carry over into this game. For example, the length of battles certainly felt like an issue at times, especially with the camera sometimes taking it’s time showing the battle scene environment at the beginning of battles. Thankfully I was able to turn that feature off for the most part, however battle times could still feel too long. Loading screens into battles could also be an issue at times as well.
-----
-----Additionally, there isn’t a particular component of FF9’s battles that really defines the game for me. What I mean is that if I point to a part of the battle mechanics, I can usually trace it to a FF game that came before 9. Third Person perspective battles and Limit Breaks (called Trances here)? Final Fantasy 7. The ATB system? Final Fantasy 4 (I think). Summons? Final Fantasy 3. Magic, weaknesses, class abilities, status effects and such? I mean come on, that’s just an RPG. Even the one sort of unique attribute to FF9’s battles is very similar to the Materia of FF7. What I’m referring to here are the equipment abilities. You see, each piece of equipment in FF9 will come with up to three abilities that the character that is equipped with the item could learn. Each character can only learn certain abilities with certain equipment, so it’s best to swap equipment items around to see who can learn what with what. When a character is equipped with an item that has ability they can learn, a few things can happen from here.
-----
-----One, the ability is a class ability, and can automatically be used right away by the character. These are normally attached to the weapons that only that character class can use, so these don’t require any equipment swapping. However, there is outcome number two: the ability is a passive ability that needs to be assigned via the ability menu item in the pause screen. Each character has these gem points they can use to attach these abilities onto them so that they take effect during battle. Regardless if it’s a class ability or passive ability, each of these items aren’t permanent to the character right away. If you take off the chest piece, it’s abilities follow suit, and the character loses the right to use those abilities. However, each ability also comes with it’s own integer progress value that starts at 0, and can be filled up to a certain max value for that ability. Once this stat reaches it’s max value, the character permanently learns the ability, and can use it even if they take off the equipment item that ability originated from. This progress stat can be filled via the Ability Points (AP) earned through battles.
-----
-----Thus, these equipment abilities differ from FF7’s Materia in that Materia was it’s own item that needed to be found, then equipped to equipment slots, then leveled up. FF9’s equipment abilities streamlines that process by making equipment and abilities one in the same. This minimizes inventory, and makes the best case I’ve seen an RPG make in terms of keeping old equipment around. This especially helps legitimize synthesis, a process where you meld two items together to create something new. I like equipment abilities overall, but they’re not enough to make FF9’s battles feel fresh. Maybe if they were more of a focal point of the game and the equipment items changed the look of the characters, sure, but that’s not the case. I’m not asking for a reinvention of the wheel, but I think a little remixing goes a long way.
-----
-----The other big criticism towards FF9 I can think of does have to do with it’s story. That may come as a shock being as I praised the game’s beginnings, and in fact I would also like to heap equal praise on FF9’s mid-portion as well. The game’s narrative stays exciting and interesting up until the end of it’s second act. It’s at this point of the game things take a turn, as the main threat changes, as well as the game’s focus. We go from a continent sized adventure to a mutli-world sized one, and somehow things feel more shallow and undeveloped than ever before. For one, the overall threat changes from the queen to something more cliché and tired for FF. This isn’t helped by the usual routine of getting a boat, then an airship to travel a relatively bland overworld whose creators couldn’t even be bothered to give interesting names to other continents. If I said “Forgotten Continent,” “Lost Continent,” and “Outer Continent” I’m pretty sure somebody would think I’m talking about the same place, but these are all big swaths of land independent from each other.
-----
-----Then there’s the main characters, who were really done dirty in this third act. The main protagonist, Zidane, gets an unneeded backstory not very far from other FF narratives. The princess, Garnet, who finds out she’s been estranged from her real family quickly forgives her mass murdering false queen mother and decides to take the throne herself? Vivi kind of fades into the background for the most part, only showing back up time to time when the game needs reminding that it had a strong emotional vector. Steiner has been unlikable the entire time up until the 2nd act, where you think he’ll have a change of perspective and personality, only for him to stay the same static unlikable character. Freya, poor Freya, seems like she’ll have to rebuild a lost relationship from the beginning, but her story is just dropped after an amnesia reveal and never picked back up. Eiko seems like she might have something interesting going on, but she too is left in the dust. The game’s joke character, Quina, has a teacher that is introduced as having a connection to Vivi’s uncle, but nothing more comes of it. Finally Amarant is such a non-character that it completely flies in the face of a much better character for the main party: Beatrix. Beatrix even has an arc she goes through. Why she isn’t part of the team is beyond me.
-----
-----All of this is to say that it’s really disappointing and annoying to see FF9 build itself up so well with a really nuanced story just to fumble the ball at it’s last moments. It honestly reminds me of Dragon Quest VII with how miscalculated and poorly thought out this 3rd act twist is. I was having a conversation with another friend at the mall about this, and something he said stuck out to me: that Final Fantasy had to be “grand.” As if for Final Fantasy to be Final Fantasy, it needs to have the complicated origin stories, over the top God-like antagonists, world traveling, and all that jazz. I disagree, and I think the first two acts of FF9 prove my point. I think you can have a Final Fantasy game that takes place on one continent against an evil queen while still having a great story through things like reincorporation of story elements, tragedy, and character drama. Just once I would like to see a Final Fantasy game where we don’t face a God at the end of it. I’d rather be a band of regular people solving human problems. That’s much more interesting to me.
-----
-----However, don’t let my dower tone here define the review for you. First of all, the things I dislike here can be the exact reasons someone else loves Final Fantasy 9. As I argued at the beginning of the review, Final Fantasy 9 plays very much like the quintessential game in the franchise. It has everything that makes the franchise what it is. It’s just that, in my opinion, FF9 does that to a fault. That being said, there is still the beautiful, approachable painted aesthetic of the game that will help draw you in. Then once you are in, you’ll be treated to an incredible two thirds full of fun and interesting story bits. In the middle of which are pretty good RPG battle mechanics that, while not unique to this game, are still very well developed and balanced. Of course if you get tired of all that, there’s always minigames like Tetra Master to take your mind off things for awhile. Finally, the game as a whole, final third included, still offers one of the better experiences Final Fantasy has to offer. So why not start with Final Fantasy 9? It’s certainly a Final Fantasy crown jewel. A Garnet specifically. - [08/10]
-----
-----Going into Final Fantasy IX, I wasn’t that familiar with it. I wanted to play it through a recommendation of a close friend whose a Final Fantasy fanatic. This game here is his favorite. I did know a lot of others also hold this title in high regard. Contextually I knew 9 comes after FF (Final Fantasy) 7, which to this day is considered to be one of the most seminal entries in the RPG cannon. That would pin 9 as a continuation of the mechanics and tools the FF developers were working with at the time. I also knew Vivi, the most iconic black mage design in FF, was in this game. That’s about all I knew. Personally I didn’t know what to really expect from this, other than the usual hope for any game: that it’s fun.
-----
-----Fun is certainly what I would use to describe the opening of FF9. Images of an evil queen amongst a huge crowd waiting for a play to start. A theater of thieves plan to kidnap a princess using the play as a disguise. Meanwhile outside the castle a strange pointy hatted boy becomes the errand boy for a small rat. All these elements and more come together as the play starts, only for things to go awry for the thieves when the princess actively tries to escape the castle herself, convincing the thieves to take her with them. It’s thrilling and a perfect way to start the game proper. From this point the story continues to become more interesting as the band of characters that becomes the player’s main party trek across the continent, visiting other villages and kingdoms that adds a lot of character to FF9’s world.
-----
-----I feel it is important to take a step back from the story from time to time to appreciate the great art direction of the software. Almost all the background environments of the game are static frames akin to the matte paintings you would see in old films. In fact upon closer inspection of character models, you can see these little strokes in their texture work as if the entire world has been painted. I think this is further enhanced by the aspect of the color use in FF9 as it’s rich and varied. The style is cute, but never saccharin. It makes everything from the characters to the darker subject matter FF9 tackles in it’s themes more approachable. I also think the attention to detail here is to be admired as well. I can’t really think of a dull frame in the entirety of FF9’s runtime.
-----
-----Mechanically, FF9 is fine. It’s familiar, which can be good. The presentation itself is mostly static third person as you go from scene to scene, kind of like old Resident Evil. The only complex 3D aspects of the game are kept to it’s overworld. If you’ve played a FF before, you know exactly what to expect. The player goes from plot beat to plot beat with a party of character, each with their own traits, stats, and class characteristics. When necessary, you talk to key characters and townsfolk to learn information, and you use FF’s currency gil to buy armor, weapons, items, and more. FF9’s strength’s don’t necessarily lie in it’s higher mechanical levels, as much as what it does in-between them. For example, peppered throughout the body of FF9 are little mini-games like monster hunting, frog catching, balancing puzzles, and more. The biggest of which is this card game called Tetra Master, which you can challenge select NPCs too. I like this diversion, as it has enough depth to be interesting while promoting collection and strategy.
-----
-----Another small addition to FF that 9 boasts are the Active Time Events (ATE). ATE are like optional B-stories you can view at a press of a button. They’re never obstructive or even require you to sit through, but I always found these fun to watch anyway. Again these add a lot of character to the game. In fact, that’s the word of the day for FF9: character. The developers make sure to add where it counts for the majority of the game, really helping to sell you on what’s going on in a given moment. This includes the little side quests you can run into, or the random areas you come across in the overall, or even the moogles that save you game by slamming a book down a writing in it.
-----
-----However, one area I think could’ve used a bit more addition are the battle mechanics. Like everything else before, these are fine. Familiar. In fact that’s the main problem here. Everything is so familiar that FF9’s battles never felt exciting to me. They felt kind of standard for what was going on for FF around this era of the franchise. For one, it uses the Active Time Battle (ATB) system that FF has been using since, I think, it’s fourth entry. Nothing wrong with that per say, but FF9 doesn’t expand upon that or anything. Any flaws or benefits of the system carry over into this game. For example, the length of battles certainly felt like an issue at times, especially with the camera sometimes taking it’s time showing the battle scene environment at the beginning of battles. Thankfully I was able to turn that feature off for the most part, however battle times could still feel too long. Loading screens into battles could also be an issue at times as well.
-----
-----Additionally, there isn’t a particular component of FF9’s battles that really defines the game for me. What I mean is that if I point to a part of the battle mechanics, I can usually trace it to a FF game that came before 9. Third Person perspective battles and Limit Breaks (called Trances here)? Final Fantasy 7. The ATB system? Final Fantasy 4 (I think). Summons? Final Fantasy 3. Magic, weaknesses, class abilities, status effects and such? I mean come on, that’s just an RPG. Even the one sort of unique attribute to FF9’s battles is very similar to the Materia of FF7. What I’m referring to here are the equipment abilities. You see, each piece of equipment in FF9 will come with up to three abilities that the character that is equipped with the item could learn. Each character can only learn certain abilities with certain equipment, so it’s best to swap equipment items around to see who can learn what with what. When a character is equipped with an item that has ability they can learn, a few things can happen from here.
-----
-----One, the ability is a class ability, and can automatically be used right away by the character. These are normally attached to the weapons that only that character class can use, so these don’t require any equipment swapping. However, there is outcome number two: the ability is a passive ability that needs to be assigned via the ability menu item in the pause screen. Each character has these gem points they can use to attach these abilities onto them so that they take effect during battle. Regardless if it’s a class ability or passive ability, each of these items aren’t permanent to the character right away. If you take off the chest piece, it’s abilities follow suit, and the character loses the right to use those abilities. However, each ability also comes with it’s own integer progress value that starts at 0, and can be filled up to a certain max value for that ability. Once this stat reaches it’s max value, the character permanently learns the ability, and can use it even if they take off the equipment item that ability originated from. This progress stat can be filled via the Ability Points (AP) earned through battles.
-----
-----Thus, these equipment abilities differ from FF7’s Materia in that Materia was it’s own item that needed to be found, then equipped to equipment slots, then leveled up. FF9’s equipment abilities streamlines that process by making equipment and abilities one in the same. This minimizes inventory, and makes the best case I’ve seen an RPG make in terms of keeping old equipment around. This especially helps legitimize synthesis, a process where you meld two items together to create something new. I like equipment abilities overall, but they’re not enough to make FF9’s battles feel fresh. Maybe if they were more of a focal point of the game and the equipment items changed the look of the characters, sure, but that’s not the case. I’m not asking for a reinvention of the wheel, but I think a little remixing goes a long way.
-----
-----The other big criticism towards FF9 I can think of does have to do with it’s story. That may come as a shock being as I praised the game’s beginnings, and in fact I would also like to heap equal praise on FF9’s mid-portion as well. The game’s narrative stays exciting and interesting up until the end of it’s second act. It’s at this point of the game things take a turn, as the main threat changes, as well as the game’s focus. We go from a continent sized adventure to a mutli-world sized one, and somehow things feel more shallow and undeveloped than ever before. For one, the overall threat changes from the queen to something more cliché and tired for FF. This isn’t helped by the usual routine of getting a boat, then an airship to travel a relatively bland overworld whose creators couldn’t even be bothered to give interesting names to other continents. If I said “Forgotten Continent,” “Lost Continent,” and “Outer Continent” I’m pretty sure somebody would think I’m talking about the same place, but these are all big swaths of land independent from each other.
-----
-----Then there’s the main characters, who were really done dirty in this third act. The main protagonist, Zidane, gets an unneeded backstory not very far from other FF narratives. The princess, Garnet, who finds out she’s been estranged from her real family quickly forgives her mass murdering false queen mother and decides to take the throne herself? Vivi kind of fades into the background for the most part, only showing back up time to time when the game needs reminding that it had a strong emotional vector. Steiner has been unlikable the entire time up until the 2nd act, where you think he’ll have a change of perspective and personality, only for him to stay the same static unlikable character. Freya, poor Freya, seems like she’ll have to rebuild a lost relationship from the beginning, but her story is just dropped after an amnesia reveal and never picked back up. Eiko seems like she might have something interesting going on, but she too is left in the dust. The game’s joke character, Quina, has a teacher that is introduced as having a connection to Vivi’s uncle, but nothing more comes of it. Finally Amarant is such a non-character that it completely flies in the face of a much better character for the main party: Beatrix. Beatrix even has an arc she goes through. Why she isn’t part of the team is beyond me.
-----
-----All of this is to say that it’s really disappointing and annoying to see FF9 build itself up so well with a really nuanced story just to fumble the ball at it’s last moments. It honestly reminds me of Dragon Quest VII with how miscalculated and poorly thought out this 3rd act twist is. I was having a conversation with another friend at the mall about this, and something he said stuck out to me: that Final Fantasy had to be “grand.” As if for Final Fantasy to be Final Fantasy, it needs to have the complicated origin stories, over the top God-like antagonists, world traveling, and all that jazz. I disagree, and I think the first two acts of FF9 prove my point. I think you can have a Final Fantasy game that takes place on one continent against an evil queen while still having a great story through things like reincorporation of story elements, tragedy, and character drama. Just once I would like to see a Final Fantasy game where we don’t face a God at the end of it. I’d rather be a band of regular people solving human problems. That’s much more interesting to me.
-----
-----However, don’t let my dower tone here define the review for you. First of all, the things I dislike here can be the exact reasons someone else loves Final Fantasy 9. As I argued at the beginning of the review, Final Fantasy 9 plays very much like the quintessential game in the franchise. It has everything that makes the franchise what it is. It’s just that, in my opinion, FF9 does that to a fault. That being said, there is still the beautiful, approachable painted aesthetic of the game that will help draw you in. Then once you are in, you’ll be treated to an incredible two thirds full of fun and interesting story bits. In the middle of which are pretty good RPG battle mechanics that, while not unique to this game, are still very well developed and balanced. Of course if you get tired of all that, there’s always minigames like Tetra Master to take your mind off things for awhile. Finally, the game as a whole, final third included, still offers one of the better experiences Final Fantasy has to offer. So why not start with Final Fantasy 9? It’s certainly a Final Fantasy crown jewel. A Garnet specifically. - [08/10]