Unforunately I've never played a Suikoden, as odd as it is.  I've played dozens of RPG franchises, but I've just never gotten around to Suikoden.  

Man I feel so at home when people say IX is the best, it also has the highest gamerankings score for any PS Final Fantasy.

well if you ever get the chance
Id recommend II if you have a lot of patience V.

I totally agree.The characters are the best in a PS Final Fantasy. imo XD

 im just using this for the picture.  if anyone has played kh2 and didnt like vivi dont worry.  i was PISSED after seeing him in kh2.  nomura slaughtered his character.  of all the things in kh2 that were terrible (stupidly easy, too much disney, ...) a return of vivi that was crap made me mad.  my other kh and ff9 loving friend said the same thing.

ff9 is a great game indeed. Though compared to ff7 and ff8 it is not of that calibre. I feel as though ff6 is a tad better than 9. Don't get me wrong I love 9 and it holds it's own. To me it's like ff12. Good, but not great.

This makes me want to bust out my copy and give it another play. I too liked 9 more than 7. I've certainly spent more time playing 7 than 9 or probably any other RPG, but it lacks anything to draw me back to want to give it another play. The biggest pluses for me is 9's character development and the fact that each character serves a specific role instead of flat characters that can essentially be "raised" to do all of the same things outside of Limit Breaks.

I like the classes, but I prefer the story in 7. Just my preference, no one is right or wrong.

I have to agree it is inot the same calibre as 7 or 8. It is in a whole other league comparitively. The character development in IX is just so unbelievably good. The only problem it has is none of the characters are terribly memorable in and of themselves. You never sit back and thnk what a bad ass Zidane was, but he was involved in some of the best moment in any FF game ever.

My one semi-shameful secret is that IX is one of the few games I have gotten ahold of a rom file for and refuse to ever delete it. I will sooner face legal action than I will remove that rom from my harddrive. I have lost the game due to an act of god sadly and have not been able to track down a way to buy the game new. I love the ending of that game so much though I have to keep a save file handy where I can just watch it and fall in love with it all over again. It is almost as good as VI story wise in my book, but I just liked a few of the moments in VI way to much to but anything ahead of it.

All that I can say is this:

Amano >>>>>>> Nomura.

I would add about twelve-hundred more >'s, but I'm sure you get the point.