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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - How does FF9 hold up today?

Landale_Star said:

I think it's partly born from an idea that FFIX is somehow the most true to the spirit of the series.

Here's where I fundamentally disagree. I found FF9 the least-FF feeling game of the whole mainline series.

While there is an established tradition of always having Cid, summon creatures (particularly Bahamut), Masamune, Weapons, Biggs & Wedge, Moogles, chocobos - the main focus of Final Fantasy has always been about evolving, going big, and pushing forward the boundaries of what can be achieved in the RPG genre as a whole. Final Fantasy 9 is the odd game out in that regard. It is the only FF game that focused on recycling and conservativism - it's a bit more like a higher quality than usual spinoff; as that it has been the role of FF spinoffs to recycle/reference the content of older games in the franchise.



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Jumpin said:
Landale_Star said:

I think it's partly born from an idea that FFIX is somehow the most true to the spirit of the series.

Here's where I fundamentally disagree. I found FF9 the least-FF feeling game of the whole mainline series.

While there is an established tradition of always having Cid, summon creatures (particularly Bahamut), Masamune, Weapons, Biggs & Wedge, Moogles, chocobos - the main focus of Final Fantasy has always been about evolving, going big, and pushing forward the boundaries of what can be achieved in the RPG genre as a whole. Final Fantasy 9 is the odd game out in that regard. It is the only FF game that focused on recycling and conservativism - it's a bit more like a higher quality than usual spinoff; as that it has been the role of FF spinoffs to recycle/reference the content of older games in the franchise.

I agree, and there is a reason why FFIX turned out this way. I believe it started out as Final Fantasy Gaiden for it's concept, but eventually it just got made into a main numbered entry. I still really like the game though, it's towards the middle or lower end in my opinion but still a good improvement over FF1 or FFIV in terms of mechanics and it's story, world and characters are all good enough that I rank it around games like FFV which I consider mechanically better but worse in most other aspects.



Jumpin said:
Hiku said:

"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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fKgnqFQ81o

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96wnpkcZIYw

So when you say ff ix is much inferior but on your comparison puts it as similar it becomes strange. The fact that similar story was told before doesn’t make it worse. If it did you could say ff VII is trash because certainly similar stories were told before.



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The problem with the story isn't that it was told before, throughout the whole game you are presented with a big mystery by the end of the 3rd disc the game opens up and I found the big reveal to be dissapointing even kind of silly also the last boss is probably the worst in the series closely followed by the heart-thing from ffx. Don't get me wrong the game has many great things like the characters the ost the world the chocobo mini game, but I just don't see it as the best of the series, sure every ff has it's problems for example the ending in ff7 sucked but overall I found ff7 much better than ff9



Its actually aged really well. The best out of the PS1 set of games for sure.



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I would like to play a FF game but the ATB system scares me. I don’t understand how it works but it seems to be real time mechanic that can make you risk turns. Can someone explain ATB for me? I read on internet and I understand what is written about it but when I watch a let’s play I don’t understand what’s going on during a battle.



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Stellar_Fungk said:

I would like to play a FF game but the ATB system scares me. I don’t understand how it works but it seems to be real time mechanic that can make you risk turns. Can someone explain ATB for me? I read on internet and I understand what is written about it but when I watch a let’s play I don’t understand what’s going on during a battle.

ATB has two settings: Active and Wait.

Once the bar fills up, it is now that character's turn. If set to "Wait", then the battle stops while you navigate the menus to choose your command. If set to "Active", then the rest of your characters and the enemies ATB fills up. If the enemy's ATB bar fills while you're in the menus (when set to Active), then it will still attack.



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great game, played it on Vita a couple of years ago, would play it again :)



gamingsoul said:
The problem with the story isn't that it was told before, throughout the whole game you are presented with a big mystery by the end of the 3rd disc the game opens up and I found the big reveal to be dissapointing even kind of silly also the last boss is probably the worst in the series closely followed by the heart-thing from ffx. Don't get me wrong the game has many great things like the characters the ost the world the chocobo mini game, but I just don't see it as the best of the series, sure every ff has it's problems for example the ending in ff7 sucked but overall I found ff7 much better than ff9

Each FF fan have a different one they think it is the best and I think it have to do with which was the first they tried.

Stellar_Fungk said:

I would like to play a FF game but the ATB system scares me. I don’t understand how it works but it seems to be real time mechanic that can make you risk turns. Can someone explain ATB for me? I read on internet and I understand what is written about it but when I watch a let’s play I don’t understand what’s going on during a battle.

Don't worry about it, as said if you setup it to wait, you can play it as turn based without any worry.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Am now 4 hours in and still enjoying it. Gameplay in battle is definitely not as matched to my tastes as any Dragon Quest, but it's a fun RPG with a good story and likable characters (Vivi is cool).

Will definitely check VII out when it comes, hopefully they bring the first 6 too, I'm not big on ARPGs, so I'll be skipping XII. Is X/X-2 a turn-based RPG or an ARPG? I'll check it out if it's the former.