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Final Fantasy IX
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2000 SquareSoft - Square - PSX
In 2000, Square released the last new installment of the Final Fantasy series for the PSX. The game tries to get back in touch with the older FF games and is much more "fantasy" than the last two, which seemed more like science fiction. FFIX's cast of playable characters is very unique, and includes a monkey-tailed thief, a large rat dragoon, a six year old summoner girl, and an androgynous gourmand who wants to search the world to find tasty foods. And it's not only the main characters that are so different, but the common "people" in the game. There's a king-turned-into-an-oglop (Insect-like animal), plenty of humanoid hippos and rats, and the return of the classic black mages and moogles. The battle system is really nothing new, and involves learning abilities and spells through equipped items. FFIX is graphically outstanding, and it's got a very high number of amazing FMVs. Graphics can't help a game that much, though.
Storyline
Square seems to have tried to make another complex, intriguing plotline with plenty of twists to keep players interested for 30+ hours, but failed. True, the story has a lot of plot twists, but it doesn't make the story good. Random characters come out of nowhere at times. It was nothing too memorable or new, and seemed to rely a lot on the greatness of the FMVs.
Gameplay
The ability system is really basic and easy to learn (Unlike FFVIII's Junction system), and the battle system is the same as all FF games.
Each equippable item in the game has one or more abilities it can teach, and when you equip that item on a character, that character can learn the ability/ies after they gain enough AP. Some abilities are for specific characters, such as "Fire" can only be taught to Vivi, and "Chakra" to Amarant. The game includes many "Add-ons" or "Accessories," and from those you will learn most of the abilities, but only one can be equipped at a time.
Each character has their own skills for battle. Quina can "Eat" some enemies and learn a spell from it (Blue Magic), for casting later. Freya can use "Dragon" skills or use the "Jump" command. Every character can use "Fight" and "Item" still, of course.
I believe Square designed this game with the Dual Shock controller in mind, because moving around on the field seems very odd with the D-Pad (At least to me, that is).
Whenever your character spots something he can use/read/etc, an icon appears over his head (Either a "!" or "?"), this happens near treasure chests, switches, and signs, making it harder to miss treasure chests (Even though chests are generally harder to see in this game than in previous PSX FFs)
Sound
Like most RPGs (Especially Square RPGs), the game has a very good soundtrack, again with music composed by Uematsu. Although the music is not as good as that from FFVI or VII, it's still great.
Sound effects are sound effects, and like in most games they aren't too noticable (Which is a good thing . . . The only time I ever really notice sound effects is when they are annoying and common).
Graphics
Like I mentioned above, the graphics are top notch (Keep in mind this is a PSX game, and the PSX is very limited, graphically). Not much different from FFVIII's were, I suppose, but I guess the setting and character designs turn me towards IX more (Final Fantasy IX was not meant to look realistic).
The FMVs are incredible, and common. Not really much more to say about them, other than that.
Replayability
The game has a whole bunch of sidequests and secret items, you will definitely miss something on the first time through playing. The game itself doesn't take too long to play through, but some of the sidequests will keep you playing for hours, trying to find that certain rare card or the last chocobo diving area. There is plenty to do in the game, even though much of it must be done before a specific part of the game. You can get an extremely powerful sword if you get to the final dungeon in under 12 hours (I'm sure the number of people who have actually done that is tiny, and I'm sure I'll never try).
Characters
I really liked the game's characters (The way they looked, at least), for the most part. I prefer a cast like IX's way over one like VIII's. More characters and a lack of "main" character (Final Fantasy VI) would probably have made it much better, or at least just the lack of main character (I hated Zidane). The characters each had a somewhat nice amount of history to them, too (Except Amarant, unfortunately).
But they were annoying characters when they'd speak. Especially Steiner, Zidane, Quina, and Eiko. Amarant and Freya, on the other hand . . .
Overall
Final Fantasy IX is, for the most part, a fun game. It's much less serious than earlier FF games, much more fantasy-based, and relatively easier (Which isn't exactly a good thing). It's not as good if along the lines of plot, but good enough. It's worth playing (And even replaying), because it's a fun (Sometimes frustrating) game with cool FMVs and a lot of sidequests.
Screenshots
//Marshall
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Staff Comments of Awesomeness
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August 4, 2011 - 07:25 BST - Nate
It's time to end this somewhat hiatus and start writing video game reviews for no one again. Funny that after all of these months of college and unemployment I start wasting time with video games and shitty reviews once I finally get a job.
Also, maybe I'll start reviewing games that have been released within the past six months for once thanks to my new disposable (heavy emphasis on this word) income. Maybe.
June 12, 2010 - 15:30 GMT - Benny
I got an urge to collect crap for my chao in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. I had quite a lot of fun until I realised that I already had a chao with 99 in all stats. That took a bit of the fun away but I have another 16 chao I can level up. But now I'm in a mood to play Zelda instead.May 31, 2010 - 15:53 GMT - Benny
I'm quite glad I went through with this The Green Shell idea. Combined with Hair, I've managed to build up a little backlog of updates that could last me at least a week. Although I have a feeling I'll put out a few of them at a time, which means I'll run out sooner. But yeah, while it's not necessarily easy to come up with shitty ideas for it, I have been looking around at a lot of random video game stuff over the last 12 hours and it's quite fun. I also need to play some more Star Ocean; I've got reptile aliens to kill and annoying girls to ignore! My hatred for Welch has gone down a lot since I got Lymle into my party. That annoying fuck pisses me off, 'kay.
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