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Final Fantasy IX Review

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Final Fantasy IX Review

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Alex from Auckland, New Zealand 9/20/02 1:42:42 AM
Hours Played: 70
Purchased At: borrowed.
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General/Summary: All the other reviews are not with out grounding and reasons but its all a matter of opinion. All I'd like to say is that each Final Fantasy game is great in its own right and should be respected. No matter how bad you think it is people have worked and believed in the game and people have enjoyed them the world over. Final Fantasy IX is amazing and as I am still playing it. am still enjoying it to the max!

Gameplay: The gameplay is great. You can see where you are going and the screen isnt at all jolty.

Graphics: The graphics were vwery surprising when I first saw them. I wasnt expecting them to look so chibiish though they are younger than the characters in Final Fantasy VIII which at the time was the only other Final fantasy i had played.

Sound: The sound was great. It could get a little repedative but as far as I can tell that happens ij all the games especially if you are training in one area. If you are doing that and complaining its your own fault its repedative.


Adam Jaslikowski from New Britain 9/18/02 2:29:55 PM
Hours Played: 79
Price Paid: $40
Purchased At: Walmart
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General/Summary: Finalfantasy 9 is a game with astounding graphics and immpresive gameplay.The whole game is a exiting and immotional experiance .Their is alot of sad moment ,happy moments,and exiting moments.the one thing the most emotional is the ending.When it is over you feel happy and very sad .First you know that every thing turned out well , but you feel sad that the exiting imotional journey is over.Basicley if you play it it will probebley be the best gamer you have ever played.

Gameplay: The game play as i said is great. The game is long but fun.It is also sometimes frustrating because you cant find one thing you really want to find , butwhen you do find or beat it you will fell so happy you start jumping on a bed like a crazy person.That is what i did whaen I beat a boss I tried to beat for about 3 months.There is many side quest secrets that are fun to find and could add several extra events in the game.If you really want to know how the game play is buy the game and see for your self.

Graphics: The graphics are far better than any final fantasy I have ever played.The graphicits look so realisticthat it is almost amazing.I think the graphics are one of the best things in the whole game.

Sound: Well there is really not much to say about the sound I guess its good.I mean i havent really been consered about it .I dont think the soud is thatr important.But its really clear and great .Iam not trying to say the sound is bad but I dont really have much to say about sound in any game.


Frank Wustner from 8/6/02 3:15:07 PM
Hours Played: 30
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General/Summary: The Final Fantasy series is old and tired. Each new installment is an exerise in boredom as Square takes the same old game and dresses it up in new graphics.

With that said, I had a surprisingly good time with Final Fantasy 9. It is still quite tedious in spots and has most of the same faults of the rest of the series. None the less, Final Fantasy 9 does manage to capture some of the old fun from way back when the series was still a bit creative.

It is a real pity that Square had to move *backwards* to accomplish this, but you do what you need to do. It is an even greater pity that the next game, Final Fantasy 10, holds the dubious distinction of being the Final Fantasy game that unseated Final Fantasy 7 as "worst ever". It seems that Square has truly lost their edge, and that the fun of Final Fantasy 9 was merely a fluke.

Criticism aside, Final Fantasy 9 *is* a breath of fresh air in a dull and decrepit game series. The plot is utterly typical: small band of adventurers travel to save the world. Where it departs from the standard is the main character/hero, Zidane, who is a bandit, as well as a braggart and a womanizer. What? No moody yet noble swordsman seeking to atone for past misdeeds in service to the villain? Square! You actually thought outside the box for a change! I didn't know you had it in you!

The other characters, while mostly typical, add to the old-school fun. For instance, the white and black mages are pulled quite directly from Final Fantasy 1. The white mage even wears a white cloak with red trim for a little while...until the black mage accidentally sets it on fire. This humorous reference to the old Final Fantasy games is subversively subtle.

All in all, Final Fantasy 9 is the best Final Fantasy game to come along in quite a while. It is plagued by most of the same faults as the rest of the series, but it manages to entertain despite them. Because of its flaws, I would hesitate to recommend this game to anyone. However, I believe that it was worth my time and money.

Gameplay: The area where Final Fantasy 9 really gets dragged down is the gameplay. This game is typical Final Fantasy. That is to say, tedious and slow.

As is the way for most RPGs in general, and Final Fantasy in particular, the random monster battles make up a huge portion of the game. Even in the best RPGs, this gets more than a little boring. The Final Fantasy series exacerbates this problem by making the fights move very slow. They take forever to load at the start, take forever to get through, and then take forever to wind down and return to the map.

Final Fantasy 9 is no exception. If anything, the battles are even worse this time around, taking even longer to load and play through than in previous games. This is particularly irritating at certain points of the game, when you have a clock ticking and need to hurry through as fast as you can.

However, there is one saving grace to the battle system. The characters all have differing skills. Despite certain unknowledgeable people complaining about this, it is a *good* thing. For example, it is *good* to have a character who can steal (the thief) without being a powerhouse of white and/or black magic. And it is also good that your white or black mage can not steal.

The reason this is good is because the player has to think about the party and actually use some real tactics to carry the battles. This is entirely unlike Final Fantasy 7 where all the characters are exactly the same and completely interchangeable. Thought and strategy are good things to have in a RPG because they make the game more interactive. Without them, the player merely watches from the sidelines.

Games that fail to engage turn the player into just a spectator. This is not fun. Final Fantasy 7 and 10 are the most egregious examples of this in the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy 9 manages to avoid this to some degree, and that makes it worlds better than the others.

On the other hand, there are still problems with the game. Magic spells and advanced techniques are learned by equipping different items. This is handled much better than the materia system in Final Fantasy 7, but it still makes little sense. How does putting on a new hat help your Black Mage learn the Fire spell?

Still, as said, it works better than the materia debacle. Often, weapons, armor, and accessories have multiple skills that can be learned from them, but no one character is allowed to learn all those skills. This is how the materia system *should* have worked.

Then there is the Trance system. Trance replaces the limit breaks from Final Fantasy 7 and 8. For the most part, Trance is far superior to the Limit Breaks. For example: you get more than one attack with Trance. The character in Trance keeps using it until the Trance meter is empty. Another advantage is that the extra power of Trance applies to *all* your character's skills, not merely to the special techniques it unlocks. Physical attacks and magic spells become powered up as well. It offers the player a wide range of choices.

The one disadvantage to Trance is that it can not be saved for a later battle. When Trance activates, that's it and you have to use it. If any of the Trance meter is left at the end of the battle, it is lost and the meter goes down to zero when the battle ends.

This can be a major pain. More than once, I have had a monster get in one last hit and send one of my characters into Trance. Then one of my other characters strikes and ends the battle right then. The Trance is completely wasted, and the character's meter starts over from zero.

All in all, the gameplay is the weakest part of the game. But it has a couple saving graces that prevent it from rendering the game unplayable.

Graphics: The graphics of Final Fantasy 9 are *nice*. Compared to Final Fantasy 7, the picture is sharp and the characters are very smooth and lifelike. The rendered movies in particular are very well done. This game is proof that, as dated as it is, the Playstation 1 does have some impressive power.

Having said that, let me put this in the proper perspective. For quite some time now, the players and producers of Final Fantasy have been mistaking wonderful graphics for wonderful gaming. The general opinion seems to be that, if the pictures are pretty enough, it does not matter if the "game" itself is terrible.

In truth, when it comes to RPG-style games, the graphics are nothing but eye-candy. It is the *game* beneath the graphics that matters, and Final Fantasy has not measured up for a long time.

However, Final Fantasy 9 actually *does* measure up to a small degree. In *this* case, the graphics are not wasted on an empty suit of a game. The joy of playing a decent game makes the beautiful eye-candy that much more fun to watch.

Now let's get to the down-side of all this. Yes the graphics are beautiful, but the graphics are mainly at fault for the excessive load times mentioned previously. It takes *time* to draw polygons, and Final Fantasy 9 pushes the Playstation to its limits. This can become very irritating at times, particularly when it comes to the constant random monster battling. Battles last about four times longer than they should, merely because of the eye-candy and load times.

Given the high graphical content, it seems to me that this would have been better on the Playstation 2 than the Playstation 1. Considering that the PS2 came out in the same year as Final Fantasy 9, this would not have been much of a stretch.

Sound: The sound, on the other hand, is average at best. It is nothing more than the usual Final Fantasy fare, no different from the other Playstation Final Fantasy games. Indeed, some of the music and most of the sound effects are pulled quite directly from earlier games.

There are a few pieces of music that really are good, even so. A couple piano pieces in particular are really quite catchy.


Tom from Toronto, Ontario Canada 8/3/02 6:20:06 AM
Hours Played: 60
Price Paid: $40
Purchased At: Zellers
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General/Summary: Very good game. It will get tedious sometimes, and the game itself WILL get tiresome the second or third time around. I find the whole fact that when I'm buying items it will say I own 0 of an item if a charactor that is not in my party has one of. And I will buy it. Nice ending, best yet.

Square did a nice job for an ending (finally). In FF7 there were too many unaswered questions. FF8 was nice, but also, no epilouge.

But FF9 only left a couple questions that could be answered if you looked hard enough. Not too many rumors, so it wasn't annoying to talk about.

Gameplay: The most annoying part about the gameplay was the fact that There was a limit to how much HP each charater could have, and there was almost no customization.

Graphics: Nice graphics, but in the FMVs it looked as if some of the characters were stiff. The whole game looked a little to cartoony. But still most of the graphics were sweet. Not as good as FF8, FMV-wise, but better than FF7 FMV-wise and World-Wise.

Sound: OLD MUSIC! CRAPPY OLD STAIC MUSIC! but MElodies of life was good.


Emanuel A from Houston 7/23/02 9:35:18 PM
Hours Played: 93
Price Paid: $40
Purchased At: store
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General/Summary: From start to finish final fantasy 9 was a great game that any gamer looking for 80+ hours of fun would want to buy. I dont know how they do it but the final fantasy series just keeps getting better and better as it progreses. The music is enchanting, the graphics are stuning, and the story line is to die for. If you love Rpg's or even if you dont you will be hooked to this game from the moment you put the first disk in inti'l the fourth disk is taken out. (wich means that you have beaten the game!). The game starts with the kidnaping of princes garnet and as it progresses Zidane (the main character) falls in love with her and she with him. through out the game you will team up with a lot of interesting characters who with you are all battling for the same cause, to save the world.

Gameplay: The gameplay is great. the controlls are awsome. the whole game ran as smooth as butter! The battle system is easy to learn and fun to do. you will love to steal stuff with Zidane from a boss to pick up new and better weapons. The summons that princess garnett and eiko use look so cool some times you may just summon to check out how cool the new summon you learned looks. The chocobo hot and cold game is a mini game that you paly during the course of your journey. The point of the game is to get on your chocobo and dig up treasures. Just on this mini game you will spend countless hours. when you find all the treasures you feel like you have done something special(plus the reward you with cool new weapons!) Another cool mini game is the card game. this mini game is addicive. I spent days trying to callect all the cards and raise their level. Final fantasy 9 has the best mini games of any game i have ever played!

Graphics: The graphics of final fantasy 9 take the playstation console to its limits. The video clips they show will make your jaw drop and dont be suprised if you r clothes are wet from all the droolong you are going to do. The background has a lot of detail and the characters look as good as they could on the playstation. when you fly through the world map in your ship the mountains look so realistic the sun even sets! The people at squaresoft went all out on the final installment of this series on the playstation.

Sound: The music is sweet to the ears and it flows with the plot of the game. when you go into a battle the music will inspire you to keep playing even when its 3am and your fingers feel like some one has pounded them with a hammer from all the clicking. Every time you are about to fight a boss you'll know it with the special tune that waarns you so you will be ready to bring your A game against the opponent. The tunes are so good that after playing the game for a few hours you'll be singing them in your sleep. final fantasy 9 has the best music I have heard on any game.

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