I was really hoping one of my favourite streamers would have gotten to the FF9 playthrough he promised in January, but alas. I'll be going on decade-old memories here.
Final Fantasy 9 is an excellent game, but the textbook definition of a "slow starter". The story has a very deliberate pace to how it reveals itself, which is both good and bad - it allows for some really compelling plot reveals and some emotionally impactful moments, but it also takes several hours between notable plot points at times, making the experience a bit of a drag for the impatient sort.
However, few games have made me cry, and even fewer have made me straight-up sob. FF9 is one of them. The scene where Steiner and Beatrix set aside their differences and slowly become closer as they defend their city, not knowing if they'll make it out alive... It always hits me hard. But near the end of the game, when Zidane learns the truth of his origins and is in utter dismay, only to have his friends and allies slowly come to his aid as the excellent track "You're Not Alone" slowly revs up in the background... I am genuinely getting teary-eyed just thinking about it. It's absolutely masterful in its ability to hit my feels like a runaway freight train, I love it to bits.
The gameplay, unfortunately, contributes to the slow crawl of the experience overall. Even in the PS2 days when I first played this, the lengthy time spans between hitting a random battle trigger and actually starting the fight is absolutely insufferable - on top of the admittedly elegant animations that unfortunately take way too long to play out while you sit, waiting for your control to be returned to you.
When I first played FF9, I was a little bit disappointed that it returned to the more traditional fantasy setting, and I think I still feel that way. 6 was a great case study of sci-fi tech in a fantasy setting; 7 was a much more contemplative game using futuristic tech to tell a story rooted heavily in environmentalist and spiritualist themes; 8 was just this weird pastiche of kooky ideas that wound up being entertaining because of it... And all I can say about FF9's setting is that it's traditional. It does eventually get into some of the same spiritualism stuff later in the game, which I actually love, but it never left as big an impression on me as the games that preceded it.
Overall, I'd say it's a notable entry in the series, and very much worth playing. But if I had to pick 10 Square games to take with me on a desert island, this wouldn't be among them.
Final Fantasy IX
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Magical_Isopod
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- Location: London, ON, Canada
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Magical_Isopod
- Member
- Posts: 993
- Joined: May 29th, 2018, 11:57 pm
- Location: London, ON, Canada
Re: Our next Final Fantasy podcast recording (13.4.19) - 365: Final Fantasy IX
Unrelated to the podcast, but those 10 games would probably be...
- Spoiler: show
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MukuDohl
Re: Our next Final Fantasy podcast recording (13.4.19) - 365: Final Fantasy IX
For being a throwback game, Final Fantasy IX was, for me, at the time of its release, perhaps the most 'different' RPG I'd tried. Final Fantasy VII was my first taste of the genre, and after spending a year or so daydreaming about investing my future allowances in the Gold Saucer, Final Fantasy VIII made me aspire to one day sign up as a Balamb Garden recruit. The whimsical, Disney-like stylings of Final Fantasy IX prevented it from stirring up similar scenarios in my mind. It was a bit too fantastical for me to imagine myself inhabiting its world. As such, it felt like I was watching a play rather than engaging in roleplay the way I had been with its two predecessors.
Thankfully, Final Fantasy IX was a wonderful play. It was exciting, visually stunning, well scored, and had heart to spare. The cast had great chemistry and charm, and while the game had a cartoony brightness to it, it executed scenes of tragedy with aplomb. The battles didn't appeal to me as much as those in FFVII and FFVIII -- I seem to remember them being slow to load, and the trance system was a letdown, both in terms of how its immediate use was forced on the player, and in terms of delivering spectacular special attacks. That was easy for me to overlook, however, because of how much I enjoyed acquiring new items and attaining new abilities through their use over time. Sure, you could upgrade your materia in FFVII and teach your guardian forces new abilities in FFVIII, but there was something extra gratifying about watching your list of abilities continually expand as a result of your exploration and battle prowess in FFIX.
Unlike most other Final Fantasy game, I haven't done a full playthrough of the game since back around when it came out. However, I did introduce it to my mom -- a lady in her mid-sixties; chronically ill, but fully with it -- last year. As expected, it was just the type of adventure to stir her Disney/Tolkien/Star Trek/Star Wars-loving-but-not-very-controller-savvy heart. I've sat and watched her play it, extremely engrossed in the story (and quite frightened of the battles). It makes me happy that it really does resonate with someone of her generation, and that it does seem to be the type of universally appealing adventure that I remembered it being. Her one gripe, having fairly compromised eyesight, is the visual fidelity. I've looked at both the PS3 and PS4 versions, and while the latter has certainly made improvements on the characters in the foreground, their improved sharpness mainly just serves to highlight how grainy the otherwise gorgeous background images look in this era of video games. A shame -- I think clearer graphics (especially combined with the PS4 version's ability to turn off random encounters) would have made her stick with it all the way instead of having to take such long breaks that she has a hard time regaining momentum.
As for me, I reckon it's about time I revisit it. Not sure where all that time went. I barely remember any of the overarching story past the demise of Queen Brahne. I'm curious to see if my memories of the latter stages of the game are just down to me being young and missing the point, or if it really did give FFVIII a run for its money in terms of otherworldly weirdness near the finish line.
Three word review: Hippaul Footracing Tactics
Thankfully, Final Fantasy IX was a wonderful play. It was exciting, visually stunning, well scored, and had heart to spare. The cast had great chemistry and charm, and while the game had a cartoony brightness to it, it executed scenes of tragedy with aplomb. The battles didn't appeal to me as much as those in FFVII and FFVIII -- I seem to remember them being slow to load, and the trance system was a letdown, both in terms of how its immediate use was forced on the player, and in terms of delivering spectacular special attacks. That was easy for me to overlook, however, because of how much I enjoyed acquiring new items and attaining new abilities through their use over time. Sure, you could upgrade your materia in FFVII and teach your guardian forces new abilities in FFVIII, but there was something extra gratifying about watching your list of abilities continually expand as a result of your exploration and battle prowess in FFIX.
Unlike most other Final Fantasy game, I haven't done a full playthrough of the game since back around when it came out. However, I did introduce it to my mom -- a lady in her mid-sixties; chronically ill, but fully with it -- last year. As expected, it was just the type of adventure to stir her Disney/Tolkien/Star Trek/Star Wars-loving-but-not-very-controller-savvy heart. I've sat and watched her play it, extremely engrossed in the story (and quite frightened of the battles). It makes me happy that it really does resonate with someone of her generation, and that it does seem to be the type of universally appealing adventure that I remembered it being. Her one gripe, having fairly compromised eyesight, is the visual fidelity. I've looked at both the PS3 and PS4 versions, and while the latter has certainly made improvements on the characters in the foreground, their improved sharpness mainly just serves to highlight how grainy the otherwise gorgeous background images look in this era of video games. A shame -- I think clearer graphics (especially combined with the PS4 version's ability to turn off random encounters) would have made her stick with it all the way instead of having to take such long breaks that she has a hard time regaining momentum.
As for me, I reckon it's about time I revisit it. Not sure where all that time went. I barely remember any of the overarching story past the demise of Queen Brahne. I'm curious to see if my memories of the latter stages of the game are just down to me being young and missing the point, or if it really did give FFVIII a run for its money in terms of otherworldly weirdness near the finish line.
Three word review: Hippaul Footracing Tactics