So yesterday I bought FFIX on Switch, and was utterly gobsmacked to find out that it has options to make your party invincible, to always inflict 9999 points of damage, to maximize your level, to automatically learn an ability just by equipping an item, to give you 99999999 Gil, and to turn off random encounters. WTF? These totally remove any kind of challenge from the game!? Yes, I know they‘re optional, but they‘re right there in the pause and menu screens, and you can turn them on and off whenever you want, at any point during the game! Why would anyone fight battles, level up, or learn abilities normally if you can just cheat like that?
I could understand if such boost options were available once you‘ve beaten the game, as a NG+ option or something. Or maybe through cheat codes, like in the old days, since this would make it impossible to activate them unless you were actively looking for them. But by making them available just like that, right there in the menu, I‘d feel like an idiot if I played the game without those options. Why grind for money or experience if I can just learn abilities or get infinite money at the press of a button? Why explore the world, finish side-quests, or fight any of the game’s secret bosses if none of the rewards you receive come even close to the power of those boosts? It‘s like with fast travel in games like Skyrim: even though I‘m a critic of the mechanic, I can‘t bring myself not to use it if it‘s offered as an option within the game. Yes, I’m weak like that.
I knew beforehand that those FF remasters had an option to speed up the game, but I had no idea they allowed you to straight up cheat like that. Man, finding out about this really killed my excitement for the game, which I‘ve been looking forward to replaying for the first time in nearly a decade. I assume the other FF remasters (I‘m playing on Switch) have the same ‚boost‘ options?