Fantastically, played to finish 2 times last year, PSVita during a trip and them straight to PS4. Loved every second of it.
And I'm please to see some people here agree with me that this is the best FF ever. My first played and took my breath apart already on the loading and then opening scene. I was on a non-stop ride from start to finish all the times I finished it.
Probably the only time we're going to agree, FFIX is by far the best FF game.
I really really miss these kind of games ,i remember being obsessed with the story and gameplay for months whenever a new FF released and i still replay them from time to time
Fantastically, played to finish 2 times last year, PSVita during a trip and them straight to PS4. Loved every second of it.
And I'm please to see some people here agree with me that this is the best FF ever. My first played and took my breath apart already on the loading and then opening scene. I was on a non-stop ride from start to finish all the times I finished it.
Probably the only time we're going to agree, FFIX is by far the best FF game.
If I agree with you here that would be at least 2 =p
Immersiveunreality said: I really really miss these kind of games ,i remember being obsessed with the story and gameplay for months whenever a new FF released and i still replay them from time to time
Story and set-pieces on FF have pleased my for the last 18y or so. Perhaps the reason I love story filled games.
duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"
For me the psx era was the golden age of rpgs I loved the game but I thought it was the weakest ff on the psx including the fantastic fft, but still it's a must play especially considering how average the jrpgs have become, if you like old school rpgs I highly recommend chrono cross, xenogears lunar 2 and grandia
IMO, it starts off quite nicely. But then the game falls apart after around the 15-20 hour mark, and never really recovers. There are some nice cities in the early part, but most of the later game is desolate. So if you don't plan to finish the game, it is a good one to pick up.
It doesn't quite feel as grand an experience as a real Final Fantasy game. It's highly conservative, it feels a bit like a genericization of earlier FF themes, which I personally was not a fan of. The characters are kind of bland in that there isn't really much to build on, they don't have internal conflicts, aside from one who struggles with some existential issues... which, are of the Pinocchio/Replicant sorts - and already done dozens of times before, and FAR better.
The story was a little on the bland side, lacking much originality in plot mechanics. It is not on the level of other Final Fantasy games, and is probably more comparable to games in the Breath of Fire series.
To be a bit positive, the game is very solidly built. Solidly built, but also incredibly reserved. While other entries in the series tend to add a lot of mechanics and are bravely creative with plot and character arcs, FF9 comes off as very ordinary and reserved, not trying anything new.
It's solid, but craven. It's not a leader, but a follower. It's well crafted, but not a work of art.
I think it's still a good game, but (excluding NES FF2, which we shall never speak of again) it is the only FF game released prior to FF11 that I didn't fall in love with.
Pros: * Solid gameplay and battle system * Pleasant art, although a bit cartoony
Cons: * On the bland side * Horrendous pacing in the second and third acts * Characters lack internal conflict (except Vivi, and even that feels a little contrived) * It's uninspired/wooden/generic
"If you don't plan to finish it, it's a good pickup."
That's a pretty weird 'recommendation', if it's not a backhanded insult. Who buys a game with the intention of playing them, but not finishing?
And I have to say some of your descriptions of the game are inaccurate. Just one character with internal conflicts?
Garnet: Torn between her mother and Alexandria.
Kuja: Created as an adult that never experienced childhood, and thus with no ability for empathy or remorse, in order to incite war and death on Gaia in order for Terra to survive. He knows he is to be replaced by someone else and has a limited lifespan. Scared of losing his soul and no longer existing, but doesn't know how to confront that pain. Ultimately, Kuja's defiance of his fate shows Mikoto and the other Genomes that they can be more than just mindless vessels.
Beatrix: Loyalty towards her country and her oath as a knight, or her moral sense of justice.
Zidane: Created to destroy Terra, as a replacement for Kuja. But grew up on the planet and developed emotions and memories attached to the place and the people in it.
Vivi: He seems to be the one you're referring to, so I don't have to explain this one.
Freya: Searches for her lost love, but finds that he has no memory of her, and never regains those memories even in the end.
Eiko: After her village is destroyed, she mostly grows up alone in her village with no one around but Moogles. She longs for connection with other people and knows there is a vast world outside, but made a promise to her grandfather to not leave the village until she turns 16.
As for the main plot, it feels similar to Final Fantasy VII, except FF9's version is more complex. Mako energy/Lifestream in 7 vs souls in 9 for example. In 7 the lifestream naturally returned to the planet, and then back into newborn people. Shinra harvested that energy, which hurt the planet. And the main villain's plot was unrelated to that, and was just to destroy the world out of revenge for being defeated. In 9 the Lifa tree prevented the Gaian souls from returning to the planet, and instead would send them to the dying planet, Terra. The rejected Gaian souls were distributed in the form of a mist, which created hardships for people, leading to more wars, which in turn created more death and souls to be distributed to Terra. once airships were invented, the wars that had plagued the continents came to a stop, so the soul cycle returned to normal again. In order to 'fix' this problem, Garland created an angel of death to incite more war and death to hasten the Lifa trees soul dividing process.
This alone seems substantially more complex than an alien coming to a planet, trying to exterminate its inhabitants but being defeated in the process, and then wanting to destroy it by summoning Meteor. Same thing when it came to the villains motivations. Terra were trying to restore themselves, and both Garland and Kuja who were the tools created for this process had their own internal conflicts regarding many things. Sephiroth just became crazy when he came into contact with Jenova, who probably just manipulated him throughout the rest of the game. At no point did she or he express any remorse or conflict regarding the actions of taking so many lives. And I by no means dislike the story in FF7. But saying that 9's story is bland and lacking originality in comparison, I think it sounds more likely that there is a lot about it that you don't remember, or didn't notice.
So for the sake of fairness, since I explained my reasoning rather than simply using terms like 'conservative' and 'bland', could you name several FF games you think did these 'much better', and why, and list the internal conflicts for each character for comparison?
First: I appreciate the time you took to respond. That's a lot to cover, so I hope my response does it justice. While I would love to compare plot elements of FF4-8, and X, I'm going to focus on 7 to keep this from turning into 5 page long responses =D
Spoiler warnings below!
1. Zidane, Kuja, Lifa Tree plot - all this stuff is presented in the third act.
2. Meteor story - this is a second act revelation, mainly used to escalate the "save the world" conflict established in the outset of the game, and the "find/stop Sephiroth" conflict established at the beginning of the second act, after the first act climax (President Shinra being run through, pinned to his desk). The meteor story presented an immediate apocalyptic scenario as a consequence for failure to stop Sephiroth, essentially: "stop Sephiroth, then save the planet." - it also provides a fantastic "All is lost" scenario when it becomes too late to stop the Meteor, but then the planet comes and saves it (see point 5).
3. Sephiroth's internal conflict, established at the beginning of the second act is still unclear. That comes around in a much later twist. All that is known is that he was an incredibly dangerous figure who was killed years earlier but has returned and stolen Jenova. He has an existential crisis, same as Vivi, but IMO far more intense; particularly because his conclusion is anihilation of everything. Sephiroth was created as a weapon (much like Kuja and Zidane), and his purpose was to clear the world (again, much like them). The meteor became that conclusion; and as mentioned, it becomes a major escalation point, because the situation is now desperate: it's desperate that Sephiroth needs to be stopped. Cloud's motivation for hunting down Sephiroth is more personal.
4. Cloud was a closed-off character in the first act. His motivations are unknown, he obviously had a thing for Tifa established soon after, and he became involved with Aeris upon his return to Midgar - the game allows you to pursue romantic angles with each of the characters: as the game progresses, Cloud's feelings for Tifa are revealed to be very strong - so strong that it was his driving motivation for joining SOLDIER. The story with Aeris develops as the game progresses, as he discovers more about her past - and this story, at the time of release, was arguably the most emotionally impactful story ever put in a video game. Cloud's moody-closed off nature is uncovered as being a somewhat embarrassingly over-emotional teen, who is somewhat egotistical to the point that he's fictionalized/lied about a great deal of what occurred in his past in order to present the Cloud that is present today: much of his backstory is based on another character: Zack. This all develops throughout the first and second acts. Cloud basically lied in order to build himself up into the character he thought worthy of getting the girl: and, as immature, cringe-worthy, and ridiculous as it all sounds - it is also endearing because most guys have been in that place - it's relatable to the elements of ourselves (or past selves) that we are most embarrassed about; and for those of us who are a little older, might recognize in our children (and even as a father, not really knowing how to deal with it aside from just telling your kid "Just grow up!"
In the second act, Cloud suffers tremendous loss and heart-ache, he also performs heroic deeds: and he reaches a point where he can stand on his own two feet, and not have to fictionalize any of it. Aeris, who was the girl without the baggage of lying that Tifa had, was, IMO, the obvious pick; but he lost her. But by the third act, the baggage he had with Tifa is light enough to throw away.
5. The main conflict of the story is that the planet is being destroyed. On the surface, the Shinra corporation is using the Mako resource to power its generators. AVALANCHE is developed as a terrorist organization to stop it: at the onset of the story, Cloud joins avalanche as a mercenary: and they begin planning missions to blow up generators; Mako is the lifestream of the planet, and they are draining it. They are unsure why a SOLDIER would be interested in helping out a group like that; especially when Cloud doesn't seem particularly motivated by the preservation of the world (his motivation, as I mentioned, is Tifa; it's uncovered later, and the extent of it fleshes out through the story). This conflict is escalated throughout, Shinra becomes more dangerous with their expansionistic efforts, and this eventually leads to their aims at the promised land of the ancients - a source of large amounts of Mako. Mako also ties loosely into the game mechanics, being the element used to create Materia. Additionally, the Sephiroth sub-plot ties into this, as he threatens the world. The Atma Weapon and Emerald Weapon are defence systems of the planet (mysterious in background, but serve to escalate the battle between the planet and forced against it, and provide one of the most famous side quests in video game history). The conflict is solved when Midgar and the Meteor are destroyed by the lifestream which Aeris is now a part of, and Cloud is communicating with after falling in following the final battle against Sephiroth at the promised land.
Conclusion: So, I don't really feel that FF7's story is in any way simpler than FF9s. It has a lot of very relatable elements. It's not afraid to delve into the parts of the human condition that people might find humiliating if others thought that of them - no man/teen/boy wants to be seen as over-emotional or governed by emotions; and no one wants to get caught in a lie, or have the baggage of lies build up (but we've all been there, and most often the motivation is how others think of you, especially women). Cloud is a very unlikable character when examined from outside of the bubble; but also he becomes very easy to empathize with, despite his cringe-worthy flaws. To me, this is art, and it's why I fell in love with this game.
Also, FF7 is a game that had Cloud cross-dress in order to turn-on men to infiltrate a Mafia stronghold. It's so ridiculous, that it's brilliant. When playing Final Fantasy 7 and reaching that scene, it was clear this game was going to brave with its characters. Personally speaking, after that section, I knew this game was not like any other game I had ever played before.
Just some other notes on the other two games from the Kitase trilogy (I love FF1, 4, and 5 as well, but my explanations are going to be quite outdated, since they are simpler games) - this is more of a personal note than anything contributing to the debate above - unfortunately, NEITHER of these games are scheduled for launch on the Switch:
Speaking of character development driving plot: the dance between Laguna, Squall, Rinoa, Julia, Raine, and Ellone... that might be my favourite bit of character development arc of all time. Final Fantasy 8 is flawed in its gameplay, but the mechanics it introduced (particularly crafting, NPC-WorldWide league based minigames, map drawing -as opposed to battle drawing-, position based dialogue delivery) have managed to become very influential in the future of RPGs. It also introduced some interesting things: like having Selphie's blog as a means of delivering summaries of what occurred in the story (and this is a few years before blogs were an actual thing, and Selphie was Selphie before selfies were an actual thing!). Anyway, in short, that's why I fell in love with FF8. Something relatively unique about FF8 is Squall's introspective monologues, which adds a dimension to the character by giving his view on everything, without communicating it to other characters. I also like how there are many paths to build character stats in how it's tied to magic: crafting, map-drawing, battle drawing (I actually NEVER draw in battle), and card refining; and yeah, there are clear flaws, most of us who love the game easily get over this stuff, such as the fact that the XP system is virtually divorced from the rest of the game other than using GF skills to boost raw stats, in the same way Pokemon/Fire Emblem "IVs" work - it's a shame Square hasn't remade and tightened these mechanics up a bit; FF8 is, unfortunately, not as accessible an experience, and it's a shame because the fixes to make it more accessible look easy. That said, those of us who love FF8, love it a lot.
FF6, like FF7, felt like it blew the lid off of what could happen in a story, because about 8-12 hours in, the world is destroyed. I knew I liked this game a great deal; a resistance against an Empire, cliche, even as far as Square games go (Secret of Mana did it a year or two earlier). Stuck on that island for the first time, I hoped I could leave, I didn't know how, Celis was hopeless, then Cid died (the first time I played he died), and that was crushing to me at the time. The suicidal nature... This music matched the theme correctly:
Then she found an escape, made it to the main land and Sabin. But even then, things seemed hopeless: Terra, the main character (as far as I was concerned, in FF6 you can really make it who you want); she seemed trapped, and unwilling to go. But the discovery of the old airship, and it was when this music began playing that I was certain this was my favourite game of all time to that point:
I honestly don't understand way in recent years so many people have concluded that it's the best ff, don't get me wrong I loved the game, but the story falls completely apart at the end of the game, Kuja felt and looked to much like sephiroth , and like someone said the games felt too conservative, ff8 tried Many things some that worked and some that didn't but the game earned my respect for trying on the other hand I felt ff9 played it too safe, overall it's still a great game but in my opinion far from the best ff
I also skipped out on FFIX back in the day for some reason and I'm playing now. It's amazing having that new Final Fantasy experience that I thought I'd never have again. It almost make me sad since I've not enjoyed the latest entries.
gamingsoul said: I honestly don't understand way in recent years so many people have concluded that it's the best ff, don't get me wrong I loved the game, but the story falls completely apart at the end of the game, Kuja felt and looked to much like sephiroth , and like someone said the games felt too conservative, ff8 tried Many things some that worked and some that didn't but the game earned my respect for trying on the other hand I felt ff9 played it too safe, overall it's still a great game but in my opinion far from the best ff
I think it's partly born from an idea that FFIX is somehow the most true to the spirit of the series. You'll never read a glowing review of FFIX without the words "love letter to the series", there is an opinion, partly fuelled by interviews with some of the devs like Sakaguchi, that FFIX is the ultimate expression of what FF is. It's like "this is what FF is supposed to be" and therefore it stands to reason that this is the best and games that deviate too strongly are where the series begins to decline.
I don't really think that, I think FFXI or FFXIII are just as true to the spirit of the franchise but I do like FFIX. The story is fine, it's silly and not very original but it's fine and there are a lot of hidden details that usually require searching out or replaying to see and stuff like that is always good in my opinion. The characters are all memorable, the world is interesting and the graphics are appealing. I love this game and am enjoying my replay of it. I do rate about half the main games higher than it but this is mostly down to gameplay. I'd much prefer a Job system or Materia or Junctioning or a Sphere Grid but instead I get my least preferred system of having each character fixed in a role of their own. It's far too safe and simple for my liking.
That could be another reason for other people to like it though, it's pretty safe and simple. You can't go very wrong with FFIX, just level up and buy new equipment. Make sure to equip abilities if you like some kind of customisation. There is a little more depth with Blue Magic and I don't dislike the system but it's kind of bog standard jrpg stuff and that's a weakness in my eyes but it is very well done bog standard jrpg stuff all the same, a clear advancement over FFIV. I can see how something like Materia or Junctioning could be intimidating and even off putting if a player just gets it wrong, so although I love those to death, a straightforward system like FFIX might appeal to people because at least they don't have to worry about that side of things.
TruckOSaurus said: I also skipped out on FFIX back in the day for some reason and I'm playing now. It's amazing having that new Final Fantasy experience that I thought I'd never have again. It almost make me sad since I've not enjoyed the latest entries.
That makes me happy for you,aaaaand also a tad bit jealous ;)
"We'll toss the dice however they fall, And snuggle the girls be they short or tall, Then follow young Mat whenever he calls, To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."
