Final Fantasy 9 - Final Thoughts
We begin with a little overview of my game stats.
Game Stats
Hours Played - 65-1/2 Hours
Final Party Levels
- Zidane - Level 61
- Vivi - Level 51
- Steiner - Level 50
- Dagger - Level 53
- Freya - Level 49
- Quina - Level 49
- Eiko - Level 47
- Amarant - Level 48
As far as levels go, this is nothing purely amazing, but it's still a decent lineup. Keep in mind, I needed at least 10+ more levels if I wanted to attempt Ozma. Considering time constraints and weakening resolve, I didn't do that, so...these are the levels! I'll consider going back to attempt Ozma at some point, but it won't be anytime soon. That is fo sho!
As an added bonus for this review, I'm going to nominate a MVC (Most Valuable Character) for Final Fantasy 9. As far as overall power and ability goes, I think Quina comes ahead in all of it. His Blue Magic opens up a lot of interesting and awesome options. The Auto-Life spell is incredibly useful, although not quite as good as Aura. White Wind is a decent heal that can't be reflected. Mustard Bomb and Freeze cause their respective status effects (Heat and Freeze). I could go on and name every attack, but I won't. Aside from his magic, he can actually hold his own on the front line with a decent HP, physical attack, and physical defense. He's an overall fairly powerful character. Sure, I realize he isn't the most loved character in the group, but you can't deny his power or abilities.
(Small side note here! I'm planning to do a MVC side post at some point, but I dunno if I should wait until I beat them all or just go with those I know. I'll at least wait until after Final Fantasy X. BACK TO THE REVIEW!)
As an added bonus for this review, I'm going to nominate a MVC (Most Valuable Character) for Final Fantasy 9. As far as overall power and ability goes, I think Quina comes ahead in all of it. His Blue Magic opens up a lot of interesting and awesome options. The Auto-Life spell is incredibly useful, although not quite as good as Aura. White Wind is a decent heal that can't be reflected. Mustard Bomb and Freeze cause their respective status effects (Heat and Freeze). I could go on and name every attack, but I won't. Aside from his magic, he can actually hold his own on the front line with a decent HP, physical attack, and physical defense. He's an overall fairly powerful character. Sure, I realize he isn't the most loved character in the group, but you can't deny his power or abilities.
(Small side note here! I'm planning to do a MVC side post at some point, but I dunno if I should wait until I beat them all or just go with those I know. I'll at least wait until after Final Fantasy X. BACK TO THE REVIEW!)
I figure to go over my usual reviewing guidelines, but I figure presentation will probably only get an honorable mention here. Namely because they didn't really improve so much as they just changed the style and ran with it quite well. After presentation, I'll follow with the system, the characters, wrap up with the story, add in a review paragraph with blunt opinion and finish it up from there! So let's not mess around any longer and get to the going!
I won't stay on the graphics for too long, but I would like to say that...They are good. They aren't really improved over Final Fantasy VIII, but they use the graphics in such a way that it just works for the game. It goes from the realistic look of 8 to a slightly more fantasy and goofy look in 9. For the overall setting and idea, this works out really great. The characters and people look, feel, and act like they should. They get a bit eccentric with characters at times, but overall, it's a nicety to see all the different kinds of people in the world of Gaia. Apart from the in-game graphics, the cutscenes, technically known as FMVs (Full Motion Video), easily break this game out of the mold! The cutscenes are all really well done and super epic across the board. The overall presentation of the game from looks to music is just so well done. This title includes some of my favorite Final Fantasy tracks like You Are Not Alone, the battle and boss themes, and my current new favorite of Gizamaluke Grotto's theme (I dunno the name >_<). Overall, for the time, it was a really good looking game that pleases the eye. Let's jump this topic and move on to the meat content of this post!
For the next part, we're going over the most important element in any game...the gameplay! Without the gameplay, it's just a horrible interactive movie. Some people might say that's what an RPG...Regardless, Final Fantasy 9 runs with the ATB (Active Time Battle) formula, so nothing really changes there. They do add in a few random statuses, and these are one of my few true complaints about the game. The Heat and Freeze statuses are annoying as all get out, and they might as well just be "Death 1" and "Death 2". If you want my honest opinion, I'm tired of there being "death" spells in RPGs in general. They're annoying as all get out, and they are never as successful when you use them as compared to the AI. Zombie is a regular status and isn't too out of place, but the Virus status seems pointless outside of player applications. (IE using virus to level a single character up so the others gain nothing while still helping.)
The monsters in this game are easily some of the most challenging ones so far. I might have just been behind on levels, but I often felt like the monsters were almost too much trouble. They often required as much time and effort as a boss did. Honestly enough, this got annoying as the game got further in. It wasn't too bad until I reached Disc 3, and that's where it really amped up. Around that point, random encounters turned into single enemy battles versus something that easily seemed to hold its own against a party. It wasn't always super hard, and this should be expected near late game. However, at the same time, I found this kinda annoying with some enemies.
Apart from battles, you have the system that this game uses. I can't quite remember what they call it, so I'll refer to it as the "Abilities" system. Under the Abilities system, you learn new moves and abilities by equipping your armor. Each piece of armor offers a combination of new or old abilities. The AP you earn in battle is used to permanently learn the move, and this allows you to gain new moves as you earn new equipment. I enjoy this part of the system very much! Each character is more or less their own class, and they each bring something great to the table with their abilities. It seems a bit lazy that Dagger and Eiko are the same class, but they each excel in different directions, so I can forgive that.
Apart from active abilities like spells and special attacks, you gain a huge set of passive abilities. These abilities reflect themselves in battle through things like Antibody, which blocks Poison and Venom, or Auto-Haste, which automatically hastes the character ...obviously. These are just two of a plethora of abilities allowing you to customize characters to the fullest. On top of this, each character also has a couple of special and exclusive abilities like Zidane's bandit ability (improves stealing) or Freya's Dragon Killer (improves damage versus dragons). The number of passive abilities is limited per character based on their level and therefore their "crystal number". Each ability costs so many crystals to equip and so on and so forth.
Of course, the Abilities system does present a few small flaws. The inability to get some equipment during gameplay means you completely miss out on some abilities. It's mostly ultimate weapons or super equipment that need to be synthesized, but it can still be annoying to a perfectionist. There are also times where the game presents a scenario that basically goes like this..."If you don't equip this ability, you are basically screwed for the upcoming boss." This is greatly reflected in the final grouping of bosses in that most of them, namely the Chaos Guardians, can cause the Heat and Freeze statuses. It's easily blocked with one ability (Body Temp), but it means everybody has to tie up their crystal numbers with that ability. Honestly, this complaint is more against those specific statuses than the Ability system.
Apart from the actual battles, the game offers the largest and most diverse grouping of side quests and extras to find, acquire, discover, and more. The sheer number of side quests gives this title more content than either of the previous games. Every nook and cranny of Gaia is covered in treasure. From Chocographs to hidden spots, the treasure just piles in from every direction. The game even has a "Treasure Hunter" rank that places you in a letter rank depending on how many items you find, treasure chests opened, and other little things. I could go on and on about all the things available, but I'm going to assure you...It is a lot.
The only weakness in their side quest front is the card game Tetra Master. Tetra Master isn't that great of a card game, and it is greatly inferior to the fun and incredibly challenging Triple Triad from FF8. Tetra Master feels too random and almost luck based. The game doesn't ever truly teach you all the details of it, and you have to go about and talk to random people to learn what you can. It can be fun at times, but it never truly shined through like Triple Triad did to me. It also doesn't have any use outside of being a card game. So...point said.
Overall, the gameplay doesn't necessarily go out of its way to do anything different, but it does enough that you can easily keep busy for hours with just the extras. It's a fun game, and now we move onward to...Characters!
Characters are the number one part of Final Fantasy IX. They are the greatest part of the game, and the cast is by far my favorite collection of characters from the entirety of the series. (I doubt it changes with future ones....sorry.) I'm going to try to not ramble on about each character, but I find it almost hard NOT to. Each character brings their own personality and interests to the overall story at hand. Each one has something that they learn and accomplish as the game moves forward.
If I had to summarize each character in a sentence, these would be those sentences! Zidane wants to help people. Vivi is trying to learn about life. Dagger aims to improve herself. Steiner learns that he is a person beyond his duty. Freya learns to learn from the past. Quina learns that life isn't just food. Eiko realizes that being alone can only be solved when you try to fix it. Amarant learns that life is more than battles and survival. They each learn and grow. They feel like actual people, minus the super powers and abilities of course. (Side Note! I'm actually considering a side post to talk about all these characters, but that depends completely on my ability to not be lazy! DON'T BE LAZY DANIEL!)
Are they all original character ideas or profiles? Not at all, but they are done so well that they shine past that. As you play the game, you find yourself wanting to learn and know more about everybody. You pick your favorites and stick with them. Honestly, before it was said and done, I liked each and every character for their very own reason. Unlike previous titles, each of the characters gets more than their share of airtime. They each get their own story, and a lot of that story is fleshed out thanks to the ATE (Active Time Events) system. It's a pretty nifty idea, and I wish it had been used again in later titles. (Not 100% sure that it didn't, but I really doubt that it did.)
As for the NPCs, they are pretty well done too. They aren't the best, but many of them do grow and change as the game continues. Since you revisit all the major places as the game goes, most NPCs grow and change as you go. Many NPCs even get their own name! This is somewhat unusual since well...most of the time, people could care less about NPC names! (It's not an unusual feeling really.) It's nice seeing the interaction and such that goes on around you with all the NPCs.
Now for Kuja...Kuja is a decent villain. He has an unusual and weird style, but he proves several times throughout that he is fully prepared for anything that happens. All of his planning throughout shows its face when he uses the characters to propel his own ambitions, and just when you think he hits the peak of it all, he breaks down...like a normal person should. Upon learning of his impending death, Kuja throws himself into despair and plans to destroy ALL OF EXISTENCE! I realize that this isn't too far from most of the Final Fantasy villain motives, but his motive is purely out of anger and envy. He doesn't want anything to exist past himself, so he aims to destroy it all. Is he the best villain? In my opinion, he easily ranks up among the best, but it can be hard to call him the true villain of the piece. I guess you can consider him the main villain of the entire game, but he is definitely not the only villain. Overall, I find him both interesting and evil.
To simplify that paragraph, I enjoy Kuja's part in the game, and in passing, I enjoy Kuja as well. Overall, the characters of Final Fantasy IX are the strongest part of the games. Unfortunately, this does mean one big tipping point for anybody...If you don't like the characters, you won't like the game. They are the heart of it all, and it's going to be very hard to push past anything if you don't like them. I don't like hearing that, but I can understand that feeling. Great characters are great. Now we head from the characters and dive into the story!
The story of Final Fantasy IX is a long and curving path. It goes all over. The problems and conditions of the story are almost constantly changing. If the game had an overall theme to it, I'd probably say it comes down to the game's main theme song "Melodies of Life". It's all about the life of the characters and their memories of that life. Beyond that, there is a constant world of strife and trouble. The game opens to a simple night at a castle, and from there, the game's story grows and evolves into something more.
As far as it is concerned, all the major ideas of a story get covered! There is war, life and death, love and friendship, happy times, sad times, and everybody in between all of that. As the characters go about trying to save what they can, they learn that the true enemy and story behind it all is nearly beyond their small grasp. They do what they can to try and save it all, but they find out that half of what they've done has just helped the enemy do their part. It's got a lot of stuff going on, and behind that, you get a nice glimpse of events all over with the ATE in places. These are great for giving you a view into all the different happenings.
If a complaint about the story was to arise, it'd probably be all the little details. As you continue throughout, little things said by characters can turn into moderately important details later on. Not every detail said sounds like it would be important, but then it turns out it is. I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you miss out on the details, you might find yourself in the middle of a confusing mess of "What is all this again!?" The four jewels are barely talked about and all of a sudden become a key thing but then drop out. The lack of knowledge on the jewels is explained of course, so I can't say it isn't covered.
There are also little details that are never really talked about, the idea of the other continents outside of the main one with big three countries. It seems like they are all completely clueless about the outer continents, yet they have boats. Boats that could have been used to go to those continents! Until you leave the main country, everybody acts like the outside world is a complete mystery, but later on, you find people from all over are located in a couple of the outer continents. It just seems...kinda glossed over and not explained. I guess it comes down to nothing formalities, but I feel like it should have been covered. Of course, maybe that is just me? Moving on.
Lots of story happens throughout, but the story behind the story is dumped on your lap in the last 5-8 hours of the game. Terra becomes important because of something about planets being able to absorb other planets. (Never goes into super detail on this, but it is mentioned quite often later on.) The entire idea of Memoria is interesting, but it's kind of ill placed. Up until that point, there is nothing said about any form of detail of what goes on in Memoria. They dump a planet of history on you there and inform you that everything ever relies on the existence of a crystal. My best position on this is...mixed feelings. It's not a bad idea, but it seems like the game kind of threw it in last minute. I mean, you just learned that Terra is trying to nom Gaia out of existence so that it can exist instead. Now you are learning that none of that matters because Kuja is going to destroy the crystal that is all of existence in one spot. It's not in the category of "impossibility" it's just a lot to take in as you are coming to the finish line.
Overall, I really do enjoy the story. There is a lot going on as you progress through the game. You're doing your best to save what you can, but everything seems to be falling apart around you. I'd say the key focus of the story is more or less based around the characters. In part, this makes the characters a bigger part of the game better, but it tends to weaken the overall story. Honestly, I'd take characters over story any day, so this works out for me in the long run. If I had to give a final word approval of the story, I'd probably just go with...good not great. The biggest point affecting my final word is the entirety of the last couple hours. The learning of all the workings outside of what you are doing. It's interesting, but it's all so late in the game that you might just go "...what?"
The story really comes down to liking the characters. I realize that a lot of stories are that exact thing, but you can have a great story with great characters without making either one overshadow the other.
Review time! To reiterate what I've said in just a few sentences, it goes as follows! The graphics and presentation are good for the time and work very well for the look and feel they are aiming for. The battle system is nothing new, but it introduces annoying things that don't need to be in it. (Looking at you Heat and Freeze.) The Ability system is an easy and nifty way to customize your characters, but you are fairly limited in comparison to the Junction system or Materia system. The characters are the #1 factor of this entire thing. They are the best part of it all, but for someone new playing it, they will make or break the game for them. The story is good, but in this game's case, the story is more about the character's on their journey than the events going about.
Final Fantasy IX is my favorite title in the series. Nothing has topped my enjoyment of it so far, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a fun and enjoyable RPG with a recognizable battle system and amazing characters. This means you should play it...PLAY IT NOW!
I'm going to start Final Fantasy X soon, and I look forward to scrutinizing it to the best of my ability! MWAHAHAH! I kid...I'm going to enjoy it while I can because I still don't look forward to 12 or 13, but those are in the future, so let us enjoy the now! Final Fantasy IX, I love you and will greatly miss you with my finishing you. Thank you to everybody who took the time to read this, and stay tuned to hear of my adventures in the land of...Final Fantasy X!
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
^That ending signature certainly holds true for this game and a couple of the previous ones, but it's going to lose it's ability to be relevant as I go through the next couple of titles. XD
I won't stay on the graphics for too long, but I would like to say that...They are good. They aren't really improved over Final Fantasy VIII, but they use the graphics in such a way that it just works for the game. It goes from the realistic look of 8 to a slightly more fantasy and goofy look in 9. For the overall setting and idea, this works out really great. The characters and people look, feel, and act like they should. They get a bit eccentric with characters at times, but overall, it's a nicety to see all the different kinds of people in the world of Gaia. Apart from the in-game graphics, the cutscenes, technically known as FMVs (Full Motion Video), easily break this game out of the mold! The cutscenes are all really well done and super epic across the board. The overall presentation of the game from looks to music is just so well done. This title includes some of my favorite Final Fantasy tracks like You Are Not Alone, the battle and boss themes, and my current new favorite of Gizamaluke Grotto's theme (I dunno the name >_<). Overall, for the time, it was a really good looking game that pleases the eye. Let's jump this topic and move on to the meat content of this post!
For the next part, we're going over the most important element in any game...the gameplay! Without the gameplay, it's just a horrible interactive movie. Some people might say that's what an RPG...Regardless, Final Fantasy 9 runs with the ATB (Active Time Battle) formula, so nothing really changes there. They do add in a few random statuses, and these are one of my few true complaints about the game. The Heat and Freeze statuses are annoying as all get out, and they might as well just be "Death 1" and "Death 2". If you want my honest opinion, I'm tired of there being "death" spells in RPGs in general. They're annoying as all get out, and they are never as successful when you use them as compared to the AI. Zombie is a regular status and isn't too out of place, but the Virus status seems pointless outside of player applications. (IE using virus to level a single character up so the others gain nothing while still helping.)
The monsters in this game are easily some of the most challenging ones so far. I might have just been behind on levels, but I often felt like the monsters were almost too much trouble. They often required as much time and effort as a boss did. Honestly enough, this got annoying as the game got further in. It wasn't too bad until I reached Disc 3, and that's where it really amped up. Around that point, random encounters turned into single enemy battles versus something that easily seemed to hold its own against a party. It wasn't always super hard, and this should be expected near late game. However, at the same time, I found this kinda annoying with some enemies.
Apart from battles, you have the system that this game uses. I can't quite remember what they call it, so I'll refer to it as the "Abilities" system. Under the Abilities system, you learn new moves and abilities by equipping your armor. Each piece of armor offers a combination of new or old abilities. The AP you earn in battle is used to permanently learn the move, and this allows you to gain new moves as you earn new equipment. I enjoy this part of the system very much! Each character is more or less their own class, and they each bring something great to the table with their abilities. It seems a bit lazy that Dagger and Eiko are the same class, but they each excel in different directions, so I can forgive that.
Apart from active abilities like spells and special attacks, you gain a huge set of passive abilities. These abilities reflect themselves in battle through things like Antibody, which blocks Poison and Venom, or Auto-Haste, which automatically hastes the character ...obviously. These are just two of a plethora of abilities allowing you to customize characters to the fullest. On top of this, each character also has a couple of special and exclusive abilities like Zidane's bandit ability (improves stealing) or Freya's Dragon Killer (improves damage versus dragons). The number of passive abilities is limited per character based on their level and therefore their "crystal number". Each ability costs so many crystals to equip and so on and so forth.
Of course, the Abilities system does present a few small flaws. The inability to get some equipment during gameplay means you completely miss out on some abilities. It's mostly ultimate weapons or super equipment that need to be synthesized, but it can still be annoying to a perfectionist. There are also times where the game presents a scenario that basically goes like this..."If you don't equip this ability, you are basically screwed for the upcoming boss." This is greatly reflected in the final grouping of bosses in that most of them, namely the Chaos Guardians, can cause the Heat and Freeze statuses. It's easily blocked with one ability (Body Temp), but it means everybody has to tie up their crystal numbers with that ability. Honestly, this complaint is more against those specific statuses than the Ability system.
Apart from the actual battles, the game offers the largest and most diverse grouping of side quests and extras to find, acquire, discover, and more. The sheer number of side quests gives this title more content than either of the previous games. Every nook and cranny of Gaia is covered in treasure. From Chocographs to hidden spots, the treasure just piles in from every direction. The game even has a "Treasure Hunter" rank that places you in a letter rank depending on how many items you find, treasure chests opened, and other little things. I could go on and on about all the things available, but I'm going to assure you...It is a lot.
The only weakness in their side quest front is the card game Tetra Master. Tetra Master isn't that great of a card game, and it is greatly inferior to the fun and incredibly challenging Triple Triad from FF8. Tetra Master feels too random and almost luck based. The game doesn't ever truly teach you all the details of it, and you have to go about and talk to random people to learn what you can. It can be fun at times, but it never truly shined through like Triple Triad did to me. It also doesn't have any use outside of being a card game. So...point said.
Overall, the gameplay doesn't necessarily go out of its way to do anything different, but it does enough that you can easily keep busy for hours with just the extras. It's a fun game, and now we move onward to...Characters!
Characters are the number one part of Final Fantasy IX. They are the greatest part of the game, and the cast is by far my favorite collection of characters from the entirety of the series. (I doubt it changes with future ones....sorry.) I'm going to try to not ramble on about each character, but I find it almost hard NOT to. Each character brings their own personality and interests to the overall story at hand. Each one has something that they learn and accomplish as the game moves forward.
If I had to summarize each character in a sentence, these would be those sentences! Zidane wants to help people. Vivi is trying to learn about life. Dagger aims to improve herself. Steiner learns that he is a person beyond his duty. Freya learns to learn from the past. Quina learns that life isn't just food. Eiko realizes that being alone can only be solved when you try to fix it. Amarant learns that life is more than battles and survival. They each learn and grow. They feel like actual people, minus the super powers and abilities of course. (Side Note! I'm actually considering a side post to talk about all these characters, but that depends completely on my ability to not be lazy! DON'T BE LAZY DANIEL!)
Are they all original character ideas or profiles? Not at all, but they are done so well that they shine past that. As you play the game, you find yourself wanting to learn and know more about everybody. You pick your favorites and stick with them. Honestly, before it was said and done, I liked each and every character for their very own reason. Unlike previous titles, each of the characters gets more than their share of airtime. They each get their own story, and a lot of that story is fleshed out thanks to the ATE (Active Time Events) system. It's a pretty nifty idea, and I wish it had been used again in later titles. (Not 100% sure that it didn't, but I really doubt that it did.)
As for the NPCs, they are pretty well done too. They aren't the best, but many of them do grow and change as the game continues. Since you revisit all the major places as the game goes, most NPCs grow and change as you go. Many NPCs even get their own name! This is somewhat unusual since well...most of the time, people could care less about NPC names! (It's not an unusual feeling really.) It's nice seeing the interaction and such that goes on around you with all the NPCs.
Now for Kuja...Kuja is a decent villain. He has an unusual and weird style, but he proves several times throughout that he is fully prepared for anything that happens. All of his planning throughout shows its face when he uses the characters to propel his own ambitions, and just when you think he hits the peak of it all, he breaks down...like a normal person should. Upon learning of his impending death, Kuja throws himself into despair and plans to destroy ALL OF EXISTENCE! I realize that this isn't too far from most of the Final Fantasy villain motives, but his motive is purely out of anger and envy. He doesn't want anything to exist past himself, so he aims to destroy it all. Is he the best villain? In my opinion, he easily ranks up among the best, but it can be hard to call him the true villain of the piece. I guess you can consider him the main villain of the entire game, but he is definitely not the only villain. Overall, I find him both interesting and evil.
To simplify that paragraph, I enjoy Kuja's part in the game, and in passing, I enjoy Kuja as well. Overall, the characters of Final Fantasy IX are the strongest part of the games. Unfortunately, this does mean one big tipping point for anybody...If you don't like the characters, you won't like the game. They are the heart of it all, and it's going to be very hard to push past anything if you don't like them. I don't like hearing that, but I can understand that feeling. Great characters are great. Now we head from the characters and dive into the story!
The story of Final Fantasy IX is a long and curving path. It goes all over. The problems and conditions of the story are almost constantly changing. If the game had an overall theme to it, I'd probably say it comes down to the game's main theme song "Melodies of Life". It's all about the life of the characters and their memories of that life. Beyond that, there is a constant world of strife and trouble. The game opens to a simple night at a castle, and from there, the game's story grows and evolves into something more.
As far as it is concerned, all the major ideas of a story get covered! There is war, life and death, love and friendship, happy times, sad times, and everybody in between all of that. As the characters go about trying to save what they can, they learn that the true enemy and story behind it all is nearly beyond their small grasp. They do what they can to try and save it all, but they find out that half of what they've done has just helped the enemy do their part. It's got a lot of stuff going on, and behind that, you get a nice glimpse of events all over with the ATE in places. These are great for giving you a view into all the different happenings.
If a complaint about the story was to arise, it'd probably be all the little details. As you continue throughout, little things said by characters can turn into moderately important details later on. Not every detail said sounds like it would be important, but then it turns out it is. I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you miss out on the details, you might find yourself in the middle of a confusing mess of "What is all this again!?" The four jewels are barely talked about and all of a sudden become a key thing but then drop out. The lack of knowledge on the jewels is explained of course, so I can't say it isn't covered.
There are also little details that are never really talked about, the idea of the other continents outside of the main one with big three countries. It seems like they are all completely clueless about the outer continents, yet they have boats. Boats that could have been used to go to those continents! Until you leave the main country, everybody acts like the outside world is a complete mystery, but later on, you find people from all over are located in a couple of the outer continents. It just seems...kinda glossed over and not explained. I guess it comes down to nothing formalities, but I feel like it should have been covered. Of course, maybe that is just me? Moving on.
Lots of story happens throughout, but the story behind the story is dumped on your lap in the last 5-8 hours of the game. Terra becomes important because of something about planets being able to absorb other planets. (Never goes into super detail on this, but it is mentioned quite often later on.) The entire idea of Memoria is interesting, but it's kind of ill placed. Up until that point, there is nothing said about any form of detail of what goes on in Memoria. They dump a planet of history on you there and inform you that everything ever relies on the existence of a crystal. My best position on this is...mixed feelings. It's not a bad idea, but it seems like the game kind of threw it in last minute. I mean, you just learned that Terra is trying to nom Gaia out of existence so that it can exist instead. Now you are learning that none of that matters because Kuja is going to destroy the crystal that is all of existence in one spot. It's not in the category of "impossibility" it's just a lot to take in as you are coming to the finish line.
Overall, I really do enjoy the story. There is a lot going on as you progress through the game. You're doing your best to save what you can, but everything seems to be falling apart around you. I'd say the key focus of the story is more or less based around the characters. In part, this makes the characters a bigger part of the game better, but it tends to weaken the overall story. Honestly, I'd take characters over story any day, so this works out for me in the long run. If I had to give a final word approval of the story, I'd probably just go with...good not great. The biggest point affecting my final word is the entirety of the last couple hours. The learning of all the workings outside of what you are doing. It's interesting, but it's all so late in the game that you might just go "...what?"
The story really comes down to liking the characters. I realize that a lot of stories are that exact thing, but you can have a great story with great characters without making either one overshadow the other.
Review time! To reiterate what I've said in just a few sentences, it goes as follows! The graphics and presentation are good for the time and work very well for the look and feel they are aiming for. The battle system is nothing new, but it introduces annoying things that don't need to be in it. (Looking at you Heat and Freeze.) The Ability system is an easy and nifty way to customize your characters, but you are fairly limited in comparison to the Junction system or Materia system. The characters are the #1 factor of this entire thing. They are the best part of it all, but for someone new playing it, they will make or break the game for them. The story is good, but in this game's case, the story is more about the character's on their journey than the events going about.
Final Fantasy IX is my favorite title in the series. Nothing has topped my enjoyment of it so far, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a fun and enjoyable RPG with a recognizable battle system and amazing characters. This means you should play it...PLAY IT NOW!
I'm going to start Final Fantasy X soon, and I look forward to scrutinizing it to the best of my ability! MWAHAHAH! I kid...I'm going to enjoy it while I can because I still don't look forward to 12 or 13, but those are in the future, so let us enjoy the now! Final Fantasy IX, I love you and will greatly miss you with my finishing you. Thank you to everybody who took the time to read this, and stay tuned to hear of my adventures in the land of...Final Fantasy X!
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
^That ending signature certainly holds true for this game and a couple of the previous ones, but it's going to lose it's ability to be relevant as I go through the next couple of titles. XD
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