Final Fantasy IX
August 15, 2001
Arriving a little more than a year after Final Fantasy VIII, Square once again graces the gaming public with another game in everyone’s favorite role-playing series. Final Fantasy IX was developed and released the fastest of all PlayStation Final Fantasy’s, making some question the quality of this much-vaunted game. Rest assured, Final Fantasy IX lives up to the hype and then some.
Battles are more enjoyable than ever. Rather than being able to teach all of the characters the exact same spells, Square offers more variety this time around. Each character his her or her own unique list of special attacks and/or magic spells to learn and use. For example, only Vivi can cast Black Magic, such as Flare or Doom, while only Zidane can steal.
This may frustrate some at first, but after a while you begin to appreciate each character as their own person. I often found myself picking select characters and avoiding the rest in RPGs, but Final Fantasy IX makes you want play with them all. Traveling across the world just to eat a new monster in hopes of Quina learning a new spells is just as much fun as entering an unexplored cave and catching a new monster in Pokemon.
Combining many sounds from the past, Nobuo Uematsu composed a soundtrack like every other. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as hearing Final Fantasy VI’s battle music again was nice, other songs, such as Kuja’s theme, sound like they were taken from Final Fantasy VII.
Gripes aside, Final Fantasy IX’s music is an entertaining treat. It’s nothing overly special, but at the same time, it won’t burn your ears with repetition. Final Fantasy IX sounds good from beginning to end and that’s all that matters.
Usually beating an RPG leaves me fully-satisfied or craving a sequel, but Final Fantasy IX left me with an overwhelming desire to play through it again. Less than 30 seconds after beating it, I was tempted to start another game and experience it once more. Time constraints and a little thing called “life” were the only things that kept me from doing just that. Never before has an RPG had such a stronghold on me as Final Fantasy IX.
Taking a few steps back from its PlayStation predecessors, Final Fantasy IX has a more classical, deformed character style (a la Final Fantasy V). Although this may scare away newer fans to the series, it shouldn’t. Every character presented in the game has some of the most fluid and realistic animation ever seen. The body language is more defined; the character’s emotions are further expressed by the way they move themselves.
Square’s CG artists are amazing. The movies throughout the game are beautiful works of art, as are the backgrounds that fill each town, dungeon and castle. It must’ve taken months to render each awe-inspiring scene, but it was all worth it.
In conclusion, Final Fantasy IX is one of the best games of the year. It’s not perfect, but excels in every category to an extent that perfection doesn’t matter.
My only gripe is the fact that it ends. I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but an RPG this good shouldn’t have to end. It was an inexorable fate that hung over me from start to finish. Cherish it while you can. It’s going to be a long time before we get another game this good.
CVG Report CardFinal Fantasy IX
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square/Electronic Arts
1 Player Game
Genre: Role Playing Game
Rating: A+
Platform: PS one
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