17.7.2006

Firstly I'm a huge FF fan. I haven't got the full collection and I don't like Final Fantasy X-2 and I've found Final Fantasy XII to be dissapointing. My favourite of the series has easily got to be Final Fantasy VII, but Final Fantasy IX is my second favourite.Final Fantasy VII was the first FF to be released on Playstation, and the game was a huge success. Final Fantasy VIII was released a year later, spread out over 4 discs, unlike Final Fantasy VII, which consisted of 3.Final Fantasy VIII, a fantastic game it is was rather complex, what with the junction system, and the other changes, that made the game harder (remodeling weapons for instance, which required finding items, hard to get.Getting them mostly meant fighting tough enemies, and another challenge was knowing how to aquire the needed items. You had to convert certain items to get some you needed).Final Fantasy IX was released a year after Final Fantasy VIII, and the game is better and easier. First off Final Fantasy IX has got back to the original elements the original 6 provided. It has the medieval-ish atmosphere and your party can have up to 4 members. Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII only allowed up to 3. Another thing is that the characters have their own class or occupation.The new features include ATE (Active Time Event). This shows you what is currently happening with other characters. These pop up frequently throughout the game, and can be rather annoying. However they can be useful too. Another thing is the synthesis shop. This is similar to the junk shop from Final Fantasy VIII, but with two differences. Firstly you can use this to create a new weapon, by combining a weapon with another. EG: You can get a weapon called a Mage Masher at the start of the game, and can aquire another one later on. You can use the synthesis shop to merge them into a double bladed weapon. As a result you'll get a powerful weapon called The Ogre. A second difference is that you can use this to aquire new accessories aswell.A third change is the trance mode. Trance is similar to limit breaks. Whereas limit breaks replaces the action with a more powerful attack (Final Fantasy VIII provided the option of using the limit break) trance replaces an action (depending on which character you're using) with a more advance one. When in trance the character glows either a bright pink or white. You can use your trance to your advantage more then once. By using it your trance bar goes down, and once it's empty the character will go out of trance mode. The only annoying thing is that if a character gets into trance and you don't have that character use trance during that battle, then in the next battle that character will be in trance no longer, and will have to get his/her trance bar back up again. An even more annoying thing (and this happens to me frequently) is when one gets into trance, and before you can use it, one of your other characters attacks and kills the last enemy and ends the battle.Then there's abilities and magic. Throughout the game characters can learn magic and abilities by equiping weapons and armour. Each character learns it as they gain AP. As they learn it an AP bar will fill up (which you can check in the abilities menu). Once an ability is learnt, the bar will be filled red with yellow stars. The game has eight playeable characters and an excellent storyline.PlotAt the start of the game a group of thieves called Tantalus arrives at the kingdom of Alexandria to perform a play. They are using this opportunity to abduct princess Garnet. Ironically Garnet wishes to be abducted, and asks one of the members Zidane (main character of the game) to kidnap her. The plan doesn't go well. They are discovered by Adelbert Steiner, captain of the knights of pluto, who tries to stop them, and Queen Brahne attempts to destroy the ship as it takes off, but the ship crashes into the evil forest, Steiner being on board at the same time, whilst trying to stop them (a black mage named Vivi was also on board, having being caught watching the play for free and chased onto the stage).Zidane manages to get the party to the kingdom of Lindblum (Steiner tries to get them back to Alexandria). It is rumoured that Queen Brahne is stiring war, and those rumours are soon proven to be facts. This is where the adventure begins, as soon Zidane, Vivi, Steiner, Garnet and others attempt to put a stop to this, learning that the real enemy is a man named Kuja, and soon Zidane and others is an army, fighting to defeat him.You play the game with 8 good players. This is a list of the following...Zidane - ThiefVivi - Black MageSteiner - WarriorGarnet - White Mage/SummonerFreya - DragoonQuina - Blue MageEiko - White Mage/ SummonerAmarant (unsure what his occupation is)All in all a fantastic game, with an excellent storyline. It gets really good about half way through disc 1, but even better about half way through disc 2. A truly fantastic game no Final Fantasy fan should miss out on.

21.3.2011

This is the best Final Fantasy game of them all for me. There are so many positive things to say about it that I actually have no idea where to start.The best part about the game is probably the characters. They're all so well developed with different goals and attitudes, and while you still get the impression that some characters are a lot more important to the progression of the story than others, they're all given so much detail. Even `back-drop' characters, who you pass in towns and cities and play any part in the story, given their own characteristics. Little things in the gameplay, such as the way the head of the womanizing protagonist Zidane twists to look at the female characters he passes through towns,serve to make the experience so fun and worthwhile. The in-game `Active Time Event' (ATE) system, which lets you, on occasion, see various other events which are happening at the same time as you progress (whether serious, trivial, or comical) is really effective too... Over the course of the story, the characters all become real to you, whether protagonists, antagonists, or bystanders.The storyline is really simple, and yet really complex at the same time. Set in a medieval, truly fantastical world, the game takes elements of the earlier games and brings them together brilliantly. As a huge Final Fantasy fan whose played a lot of the earlier games, I loved picking up on the overt references - like the spoken line `No Cloud or Squall will hinder us' (A reference to FFVII and FFVIII) - and the subtle references - such as the presence of Cloud's Buster sword on the wall of the armour shop - to the other games in the series. Mind, saying that, it's brilliant even if you don't pick up on the references - The game takes what was best about the earlier Final Fantasy games and brings it all together. It's great fun to play and captivating - It's made so believable, from the very start all the way to the end.The Active Time Battle system returns for combat, which makes boss battles and random encounters a fun combination of quick thinking and strategy. All the characters have different job roles - such as Zidane being a thief, Garnet a white mage, Vivi a black mage - and as such can only learn and use selected abilities. This makes fighting a lot more fun in my opinion, because the characters are not all carbon copies of each other, and never - no matter how much they level up - get to the stage where they start to become them.The second best thing about this game though is the sheer number of varying side-quests and things to do. The chocobo side-quest is the main one, where you get a chocobo, dig around for items and `chocographs' as they're called, which give directions to an area of the world where treasure chests containing various items, weapons and cards can be dug up and found. Your chocobo can develop enough to cross rivers, mountains, oceans, and eventually fly, and become the ultimate mode of transport. At times it's challenging, but its so much fun to do and very rewarding if you put enough time into it. There's also a `Mognet' side-quest (a Moogle posting service), a friendly monster side-quest, a collecting `stellazios' side-quest, a card game named `Tetra Master' (similar to FFVIII's Triple Triad), frog-catching, coffee finding, monster fighting, ultimate weapons, an ultimate boss, money making side-quests, an auction house to buy rare items... And obviously, a lot of what I've just listed might not make any sense to anyone who's not played the game before, but I won't go into detail with them. The main point is that there's so much to do and discover outside the main story, and it's all varied and good fun. It's quite easy to rack up well over 100 hours playing time.The graphics and the music are what most people have come to expect from the series - nothing less than brilliance. The music used for every event is perfect and great to listen to, and the pre-rendered backgrounds are stunning, and have so much detail. Even the characters move when they're stood still to show they're breathing! Little things like that make the experience of playing it so much better.Have to say, while I've loved most, if not all, of the other Final Fantasy games I've played, this is the only one I've played over and over again. Everything, from the characters to the side-quests, is all so varied and detailed that I don't believe I'll ever get bored of playing it again and again. It's got fantastic replay-ability. Honestly, I could gush on and on about this game all day - I really can't emphasise enough how fantastic it is, or how much this game is worth playing! I recommend it to anyone and everyone wholeheartedly. Thank you SquareSoft!

14.5.2007

Before I even get going, I am going to point out that yes, I am biased towards this game over FFVII, for reasons that I will explain later. However, to a certain extent, everyone who writes reviews will be biased for whatever reason, and so I feel no guilt in promoting this FF over VII.This game captures some of the old FF magic that the newer games appear to have lost. Alright, the progression onto PS2 with FFX was okay. The graphics were stunning, the music far superior in many respects, and (of course) the fact that all speech is actually heard as well as portrayed on the screen was a major bonus. On the other hand, a little bit of the magic was lost for me then,which was further exacerbated with the complete disaster of X-II.And then we go the other way. FFVII was, there is no doubt about it, a fantastic game. It was the first of its time, and the first 3D FF game, with all new materia and characters. While many think that this is a bonus, it could also be seen the other way - that square used FFVII a bit to find their feet for the ones to follow. I never really got into the materia system like I did for the system in IX. Similarly, in FFVIII, I was annoyed by the complexity of the guardian forces (although I now see this is a work of genius). But enough about the other games - FFIX.It was the first FF game I ever played, which does partly account for the biased nature of my review. However, there are other reasons too. It is probably one of the easiest FF games to get to grips with, and while it's not too easy, it is definitely much easier in many parts than the other major FF titles. The method of equipping armour and learning abilities appealed to me, and certainly makes for a more complete and rounded abilities system; once you've learned an abilty, it's there forever. I also quite liked what some other reviwers didn't: that the characters were all varied and from different walks of life, although Vivi was (and still remains) my clear favourite. The card game is brilliant fun too, if slightly annoying, as are the mognet and chocobo sidequests. The music is, as far as the first few FF games go, inventive and catchy too.Remembering that the game was released many eons ago on the original PS, the graphics are amazing, with some absolutely STUNNING cinematic sequences; it is seriously almost worth playing the game just to watch them. Contrary to many viewers' opinions too, I didn't find the game to be too short. Not that I've ever tried it, but it is possible to get 80% of the way through in 12 hours (in a possible "sidequest", but I won't spoil it for you), although in no way do you experience the game as a whole. Going and doing the entire game, sidequests, abilities et al took me well over 100 hours, although admittedly I do like to wander around, redoing bits I've already done. I could go on about the game forever, but for the sake of your sanity, I'll stop.As a final point though: don't get me wrong, I do love the other FF games, but this is the only one I have repeatedly played, over, and over again. If you have yet to experience the Final Fantasy magic, I would recommend starting with this title, as it is easier to get to grips with than its predecessors =0)

21.2.2003

i only decided to buy this game because i was really bored in my holidays and felt like spending some money.id heard of the FF series before from people but never really bothered about it - it didnt seem like my kind of thing, seeing as i usually stick to lara croft etc.but oh my God was i surprised!i havent even got that far in it yet and i am 100% hooked.my favourite character is Vivi because he is so confused and lost and half the time i just want to hug him!the storyline has got me enthralled already, and the soundtrack - the bits ive heard are the best on any game ever!i particularly like the active time event feature,because then u can see other things that are happening and this helps

13.2.2007

This game seems to have been much maligned over time; the return to the old school look and feel of castles and kingdoms over slums and amusement arcades, vaguely cutesy why-does-that-guy-have-a-tail characters over the more realistic gritty guy-with-a-gun-for-an-arm, the shameless cash-in argument over the Strategy Guide and the fact that it only takes 70 hours to complete instead of 110 annoyed a lot of people who swore that they should have drawn a line under the Final Fantasy name after FFVII.Those people are blind. Don't get me wrong, FFVII is pretty good; the story is a little bit more engrossing (if rather linear) and it has That Moment. But gameplay-wise,

23.7.2007

i started on the series with 7 (seeing as the others were no existant in the UK before 7 broke the ice) .. no chorno trigger.. RPGs were a rare sight in the UK before 7.. any way.. am rattling7 was good as it got a lot of people into the RPG format, i remember being in school and people talking about it who were into the "bang bang, pow pow" type games and anything that required a degree of puzzle element would be considered boring, but FF7 got these people into RPGs and thus we now have a huge multitude of RPG titles to choose from. Any way.. 7 was good for that reason, 8 was okay, had an amazing story line and a good song "eyes on me", the combat system is a little off and its not my favourite FF game,

31.10.2007

Ok Ok we get the picture everyone says one thing or another I'm not gonna argue.In the Long Series that is Final Fantasy this isnt the one you want to buy first. Honestly every FF fan knows FFIX isnt what it should of been.If The Gameplay is easy and simple based on the controls that have been around for ages (FF7's controls hmm i wonder why...) the story line is slow to unfold and even slower to get the the point.Most of the FF games from VII-XII have amazingly great story lines that dont take forever to unfold. And yet FFIX does, disappointing really the game had everything going for it. Great battle system, Amazing movie scenes, More Freedom to Roam and yet.... The story line and battle system let it down.

24.2.2004

After the high-tech futuristic settings of Final Fantasy VII and VIII, FFIX startled some with it's almost fairy tale style motif; however this seems to be merely a cover for a story that certainly contains its darker moments.The story begins with you being introduced to Tantalus - a band of thieves planning the capture of a young princess named Garnet of whom is heir to the throne of Alexandria, one of three lands that occupy the Mist continent. As the story unfolds a darker scenario comes into play as it is revealed that Queen Brahne plans to use powerful magic to conquer the other two nations, a scenario that portrays real-life issues.

18.1.2002

Having never played any of the FF titles before, I came to this game totally in the dark as to what it was about.When I first played it, some elements of the game (random battles etc) annoyed me to death and I didn't understand the MP and ability systems, so my characters were being routinely destroyed mid-way through disc 2.However, I recently started the game again from scratch, this time making sure I learnt about everything and really taking time over it, and I realised what a truly excellent game this is. The storyline is involving and exciting (if cheesy in some places), and the graphics are some of the finest I've seen. The FMV scenes and magic effects during battles are amazing,

4.4.2002

Final Fantasy IX is my favourite game of all time, and in my opinion: it's perfect. There is not a single flaw in this game. First of all the graphics. The graphics are the best I have seen on the Playstation -except maybe SaGa Frontier 2- and the CG cut-scenes are absolutely amazing, even better than Final Fantasy VIII's. There are eight playable characters and each one has a great deal of depth and they are all well designed and look great. The story is absolutely brilliant, and Kuja has been the series' best villain so far. One of the things I like most about the game is all of the different places there are to explore. Every town, village, every place you visit looks beautiful.

31.12.2001

Fans of Final Fantasy 7 who felt that behind the glossy presentation of FF8 was very dissapointing and mediocre gameplay will rejoice in the newly reduced ninth installment in this: The best series of RPGs in the world...ever! Don't let the step down in graphics since the realism of FF8 shocked the world put you off becuase technically, the graphics ARE better than ever. Summon spells look fantastic as usual while the characters do look their age, despite the fact that they're all small. But the real star here is the gameplay. The new ability system is possibly the best yet, even beating the wonderfull ease-of-use of the materia system in FF7 and blows the over-complex junctioning of 8 way out to sea.

22.6.2006

Final Fantasy IX was the first Final Fantasy game I played and after playing this, I also got FFVIII and FFVII and I still think FFIX is the best of the bunch.The graphics and FMV is colourful and amazing for a PSone game and the detail of the pre-rendered backgounds is done very well.For the gameplay, well at first I found it difficult, especially in developing the characters and the battles. But eventually I found it easy and this style of gameplay much better than the junction system of FFVIII.The best part of the game is the characters, each one has their own story and personality and it really does bring the game to life. To make it even better,

19.9.2005

Simply put, this is the best game I have ever played. Forget the nonsense that it's all about levelling up - there might be too much of that for some, but those who are patient and determined (and have plenty of free time), will find a magical experience in FFIX. From the beginning, you can feel each charachter has his or her's own personality - and by the end of Disc 2, you'll care about the charachters. You'll soon find out that your original aim in the game changes - and becomes part of a much grander emergency. And it will keep you going - one play through took me around 40 hours (first time) - and when I checked certain guides and secrets, I discovered I had only played a small percentage of what awaitens me.

5.8.2004

I bought this game back in December 2003, so it was already pretty dated by then, but I'll tell ya, it doesn't make a difference coz this game rox!I don't really think the graphics are any better then FFVIII but the character design is a little different, less realistic even, as the characters are given slightly larger heads and child-like faces.The characters are really fun as well, each one having there own story to tell, and there are so many personalities for people to identify with!Kuja is perhaps my favourite FF bad guy (although I'm sure some people find his girlishness pathetic) mainly because, well, he IS pretty and he IS evil! That makes him pretty and evil. Pretty evil.

2.11.2002

Hi! Final Fantasy is the greatest series of games ever and final fantasy nine is my overall favourite. It's so colourful and imaginitive. The FMV's are beautiful. All the characters are fun to watch and you really feel like you've known them for years once you start playing. Zidane is a cheeky chappy, I enjoyed watching Garnet change from a prim and proper princess to the fourth powerpuff girl! Adelbert is funny coz he gets so angry, Vivi is really cute, Eiko is sweet, cheeky, cute and kind, Freya is so simple, Amarant is so confusing and Quina is hillarious!I also think Kuja is the baddest baddie of the whole final fantasy series. The game has a great load of humour and seriousness.

Final Fantasy IX (PS1) - Reviews

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