This is a fantasy based on a fantasy.
While we are now being bombarded with a hurricane of Final Fantasy nostalgia bait, perhaps the first raindrop was Final Fantasy IX. It is a self-professed love letter to the franchise, hearkening back to its roots in more than just aesthetics. Did you know that there is a longer gap between FFIX and now than there was between FFI and FFIX? YOU'RE OLD. Also fun fact, this game was made concurrently with X and XI. That's right, Square made three FF games AT THE SAME TIME.
The first thing that caught my attention was FFIX's striking art style, especially in comparison to the past Playstation titles. Not only does it opt for a more medieval fairy tale setting, character designs are also cartoonish and exaggerated. It's pretty impressive that Square had three very distinct types of character models in their FF Playstation trilogy. The scenery is absolutely imaginative and beautiful to look at. Although we see countless 8-16 bit RPGs that lift the aesthetic of past RPGs, there really aren't any games that duplicate the intricacies of the Playstation FF's prerendered backgrounds. This title still manages to stand out today with how it portrays its setting and good art will always be timely. Whether it was the lively streets of Alexandria, the rustic serenity of Black Mage village, or the unpredictable nightmare of Pandemonium, I was always in awe at where the game took me.
The game starts like a goddamn video game should: airships, energetic atmosphere, daring escapes, instantly enduring characters, and jump rope contests. Zidane isn't pushing no damn car down a highway, that's for sure. People often say FFIX's intro is the highlight of the game. I don't know about that, but it does an excellent job introducing its core cast of characters and diversifying the gameplay. Speaking of characters, FFIX has a fantastic cast of (mostly) likeable folks. All of them had distinct personalities with their own plotlines that still managed to tie in with the overall themes of the game. The major themes are purpose and confront death, which is perhaps best portrayed through Vivi's storyline. Even if you've never played FFIX, you are certainly aware of Vivi through pure osmosis. The Black Mages provide the most memorable and emotional scenes throughout the game. And Vivi's speech at the end... my god. WHY SQUARE WHY
While female characters in FF has been a hot topic recently, Freya is perhaps one of the most interesting females in a Final Fantasy game. Instead of making her some girl in a skintight outfit (don't worry, that's still in the game), she's a lanky rat whose romance DOESN'T involve the main character. Her plotline with Sir Fratley seemed like it was missing some chunks, but I thought the concept and the ending were satisfying. Outside of the main cast, the game is filled with excellent supporting characters like the rowdy Tantalus troupe, Climhazzard-spamming Beatrix, and Punished Cid, a fallen airship engineer.
While I enjoyed the characters and thought the game managed to convey its themes well, the actual plot is all over the place. When asked what ideas they should put in the game, Sakaguchi apparently said "all of them". It often feels like they put every plot point from past FF games, put them into a hat, and then spilled out the hat and used everything. This game is a stroll down memory lane for Final Fantasy fans, but there's a difference between capturing the atmosphere of past FF games and completely lifting plot points. Kuja is essentially a lamer Kefka. He's the second in command to a bigger bad, only to turn and kick him off a cliff. YES IT'S LITERALLY THE SAME SCENE. Not to mention Garland's (that's another reference, are you counting?) scheme is basically the plot of FFIV. You fight FFI's four fiends again, which is find, but they couldn't put a new twist on them? FFIV had the four fiends as well, but they were a different spin and notably more memorable. Also, the whole plot about Zidane being a genome is kind of already a rip off of Vivi's storyline: an entity built from war develops a personality and questions his purpose and existence. It was told so well with Vivi, yet it's so tacked on with Zidane. And of course, Necron. Now I already knew about this since it is a rather famous example of a boss coming out of nowhere, but having now seen it first hand... there's no reason for him to be in the game at all. I've read some theories about it being the embodiment of death, or Soulcage, but nevertheless I felt no satisfaction from beating him and I don't think he contributes to anything. Honestly, out of Brahne, Kuja, and Garland, I felt Garland had the most potential. He is not maniacally evil like the other two. He is adhering to his duty, and feels tremendous shame for his past failure. Though he is doing awful things, he is not doing it out of hate, but out of his own sense of purpose and the welfare of his people. If he was featured a bit more maybe his info dumps would've been more tolerable.
Garland: Terra and Gaia will be one. Two moons.... one red... one blue... the mist... soul divider... crystals... genomes... is any of this making sense?
Zidane: So wait the crystal gives life via souls... like rebirth? Are there new souls? Or is everyone just reincarnated? Also are where are Terra's souls? In these mushroom things? You've got to repopulate a planet but you've made only a dozen genomes in 5000 years.
Garland: I'm also a robot.
Holy god I've talked so much about the story, let's move on to the actual GAMEPLAY. Unlike the other PSX FF titles, this game is much more strict with classes. Despite this, there is still a nice amount of customization due to how you learn skills and abilities. You have to often make difficult decisions about whether or not to switch to a more powerful weapon before you learn an ability. Equipping passive abilities also let you really take advantage of some bosses. Oh, your super attack just healed my entire team? THANKS. The game is also a return to a four person party, which makes me wonder why they ever took it out in the first place. The game forcibly makes you mix up your team often, which was a bit annoying at times but also a fun challenge at times as everyone played very distinctly. The game's battle system does have some unique elements, such as putting you in areas where you can't use magic, giving Steiner a special ability only if he's with Vivi, and an added emphasis on Zidane's Steal command. Many people have said the battles are quite slow, but since I played the Steam version, load times are certainly faster and I turned off pre-battle flybys. Despite this, the battle system was still a bit slowpokier than I would have liked. It's easy to see why they ditched the ATB system in FFX. Trance was also completely underutilized. I think I can count on one hand how many times it was actually useful. The game is also jammed with sidequests, ranging from extensive like Chocobo Hot and Cold to more simple ones that can be completed quickly. All of them are quite different and allow the player to pick and choose what they want to do. I thought the overall pacing of the game was solid, but I do wish they gave you the airship much earlier. The game is fairly linear for a large portion of the game. Not "the tube" linear, but I wish it gave me more freedom to customize my party and explore nooks and crannies earlier than it did.
Before I wrap this thesis up, let me say the music is superb. Uematsu says its his favorite work. I'm not sure I agree there, but there are some fantastic tunes. The best obviously being this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyPM172CUAA
On a scale from bad Final Fantasy games to "one of the best games ever" Final Fantasy games, I rank it as an excellent one. The game is not very innovative, but sometimes that's ok. It gave me everything I expect in a JRPG, yet also giving me everything I want. Beautiful locals, sidequests, the thrill of just barely beating a boss, unique party members, melodrama, flipping through pages of menus, 9999 damage attacks etc. If you want a JRPG-ass JRPG, there aren't that many JPRGs that are JRPGier.
Share your thoughts. Leave the thread immediately if you plan on saying an ill word about Quina.
While we are now being bombarded with a hurricane of Final Fantasy nostalgia bait, perhaps the first raindrop was Final Fantasy IX. It is a self-professed love letter to the franchise, hearkening back to its roots in more than just aesthetics. Did you know that there is a longer gap between FFIX and now than there was between FFI and FFIX? YOU'RE OLD. Also fun fact, this game was made concurrently with X and XI. That's right, Square made three FF games AT THE SAME TIME.
The first thing that caught my attention was FFIX's striking art style, especially in comparison to the past Playstation titles. Not only does it opt for a more medieval fairy tale setting, character designs are also cartoonish and exaggerated. It's pretty impressive that Square had three very distinct types of character models in their FF Playstation trilogy. The scenery is absolutely imaginative and beautiful to look at. Although we see countless 8-16 bit RPGs that lift the aesthetic of past RPGs, there really aren't any games that duplicate the intricacies of the Playstation FF's prerendered backgrounds. This title still manages to stand out today with how it portrays its setting and good art will always be timely. Whether it was the lively streets of Alexandria, the rustic serenity of Black Mage village, or the unpredictable nightmare of Pandemonium, I was always in awe at where the game took me.
The game starts like a goddamn video game should: airships, energetic atmosphere, daring escapes, instantly enduring characters, and jump rope contests. Zidane isn't pushing no damn car down a highway, that's for sure. People often say FFIX's intro is the highlight of the game. I don't know about that, but it does an excellent job introducing its core cast of characters and diversifying the gameplay. Speaking of characters, FFIX has a fantastic cast of (mostly) likeable folks. All of them had distinct personalities with their own plotlines that still managed to tie in with the overall themes of the game. The major themes are purpose and confront death, which is perhaps best portrayed through Vivi's storyline. Even if you've never played FFIX, you are certainly aware of Vivi through pure osmosis. The Black Mages provide the most memorable and emotional scenes throughout the game. And Vivi's speech at the end... my god. WHY SQUARE WHY
While female characters in FF has been a hot topic recently, Freya is perhaps one of the most interesting females in a Final Fantasy game. Instead of making her some girl in a skintight outfit (don't worry, that's still in the game), she's a lanky rat whose romance DOESN'T involve the main character. Her plotline with Sir Fratley seemed like it was missing some chunks, but I thought the concept and the ending were satisfying. Outside of the main cast, the game is filled with excellent supporting characters like the rowdy Tantalus troupe, Climhazzard-spamming Beatrix, and Punished Cid, a fallen airship engineer.
While I enjoyed the characters and thought the game managed to convey its themes well, the actual plot is all over the place. When asked what ideas they should put in the game, Sakaguchi apparently said "all of them". It often feels like they put every plot point from past FF games, put them into a hat, and then spilled out the hat and used everything. This game is a stroll down memory lane for Final Fantasy fans, but there's a difference between capturing the atmosphere of past FF games and completely lifting plot points. Kuja is essentially a lamer Kefka. He's the second in command to a bigger bad, only to turn and kick him off a cliff. YES IT'S LITERALLY THE SAME SCENE. Not to mention Garland's (that's another reference, are you counting?) scheme is basically the plot of FFIV. You fight FFI's four fiends again, which is find, but they couldn't put a new twist on them? FFIV had the four fiends as well, but they were a different spin and notably more memorable. Also, the whole plot about Zidane being a genome is kind of already a rip off of Vivi's storyline: an entity built from war develops a personality and questions his purpose and existence. It was told so well with Vivi, yet it's so tacked on with Zidane. And of course, Necron. Now I already knew about this since it is a rather famous example of a boss coming out of nowhere, but having now seen it first hand... there's no reason for him to be in the game at all. I've read some theories about it being the embodiment of death, or Soulcage, but nevertheless I felt no satisfaction from beating him and I don't think he contributes to anything. Honestly, out of Brahne, Kuja, and Garland, I felt Garland had the most potential. He is not maniacally evil like the other two. He is adhering to his duty, and feels tremendous shame for his past failure. Though he is doing awful things, he is not doing it out of hate, but out of his own sense of purpose and the welfare of his people. If he was featured a bit more maybe his info dumps would've been more tolerable.
Garland: Terra and Gaia will be one. Two moons.... one red... one blue... the mist... soul divider... crystals... genomes... is any of this making sense?
Zidane: So wait the crystal gives life via souls... like rebirth? Are there new souls? Or is everyone just reincarnated? Also are where are Terra's souls? In these mushroom things? You've got to repopulate a planet but you've made only a dozen genomes in 5000 years.
Garland: I'm also a robot.
Holy god I've talked so much about the story, let's move on to the actual GAMEPLAY. Unlike the other PSX FF titles, this game is much more strict with classes. Despite this, there is still a nice amount of customization due to how you learn skills and abilities. You have to often make difficult decisions about whether or not to switch to a more powerful weapon before you learn an ability. Equipping passive abilities also let you really take advantage of some bosses. Oh, your super attack just healed my entire team? THANKS. The game is also a return to a four person party, which makes me wonder why they ever took it out in the first place. The game forcibly makes you mix up your team often, which was a bit annoying at times but also a fun challenge at times as everyone played very distinctly. The game's battle system does have some unique elements, such as putting you in areas where you can't use magic, giving Steiner a special ability only if he's with Vivi, and an added emphasis on Zidane's Steal command. Many people have said the battles are quite slow, but since I played the Steam version, load times are certainly faster and I turned off pre-battle flybys. Despite this, the battle system was still a bit slowpokier than I would have liked. It's easy to see why they ditched the ATB system in FFX. Trance was also completely underutilized. I think I can count on one hand how many times it was actually useful. The game is also jammed with sidequests, ranging from extensive like Chocobo Hot and Cold to more simple ones that can be completed quickly. All of them are quite different and allow the player to pick and choose what they want to do. I thought the overall pacing of the game was solid, but I do wish they gave you the airship much earlier. The game is fairly linear for a large portion of the game. Not "the tube" linear, but I wish it gave me more freedom to customize my party and explore nooks and crannies earlier than it did.
Before I wrap this thesis up, let me say the music is superb. Uematsu says its his favorite work. I'm not sure I agree there, but there are some fantastic tunes. The best obviously being this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyPM172CUAA
On a scale from bad Final Fantasy games to "one of the best games ever" Final Fantasy games, I rank it as an excellent one. The game is not very innovative, but sometimes that's ok. It gave me everything I expect in a JRPG, yet also giving me everything I want. Beautiful locals, sidequests, the thrill of just barely beating a boss, unique party members, melodrama, flipping through pages of menus, 9999 damage attacks etc. If you want a JRPG-ass JRPG, there aren't that many JPRGs that are JRPGier.
Share your thoughts. Leave the thread immediately if you plan on saying an ill word about Quina.
