A Thief and his ragtag Band of Heroes Save the World

Since the days of Dragon Warrior for the Nintendo Entertainment system, I have long been a huge fan of role playing games. I recently pulled out my old copy of Final Fantasy IX because I was bored and wanted something different to play. Even though I love the Dragon Warrior series and several other RPG games, I have never really fallen in love with any of the final fantasy games. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 never really sparked my interest and FF 10 was way to complicated for my tastes. I like an RPG that is simple yet offers quite a bit in terms of the overall gaming experience. I believe that Final Fantasy IX delivers in both of these areas, with a few exceptions of course.

Some Background Info:

In FFIX you play the role of Zidane, a young actor/thief looking to make his way in the world. At the start you are on a mission to kidnap the beautiful princess Garnet, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Alexandria. You really have no clue why at the begining, or how the story is going to unfold. After kidnapping the Princess you embark on a quest more epic than you can ever imagine at the start of the game. You will meet many unique characters throughout the game, but I don't want to spoil too much right now! In the end you will face the mad man Kuja and his powerful army of Black Mages and dragons, but never fear because you have a powerful arsenal of weapons and magic at your disposal! There are at least 10 weapons for every character in the game and your white, blue and black mages can learn a multitude of defense, healing and attack spells, at least 10-15 spells per magic user! Even non magic using characters can gain special abilities that act as spells so you have quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to planning your attack and defense while in battle! Two of the characters can also learn to summon Eidloins, which are guardian elements that come to your aid in battle.

The one thing I love about FFIX is the storyline. The story of the game really brings the person playing the game into the game itself and adds to the quality of the gaming experience. At times you almost feel like you are in a movie while playing FFIX. You can also name the characters when you meet them so if you want to name the main hero after yourself and include some of your friends on your epic journey the option is there, unlike in some other RPGs where you have to stick with the sometimes boring and lame character names. The characters themselves are far from lame in this game! Here is a list of all the characters you get to play with extensively!

Zidane - a thief who excels at stealing items and money from enemies, uses daggers and dual bladed staffs as his main weapons
Vivi - a young black mage that Zidane meets early on, his powerful black magic will get you out of many a jam throughout the game, uses staffs as his main weapon but is limited to magic for effective attacks
Garnet - the Princess and heir to the throne of Alexandria, she has quite an extensive knowledge of white magic and summoning eidloins to use in battle
Steiner - Captain of the Knight's of Pluto, Alexandria's inferior defense force, Steiner is a very powerful warrior who uses massive swords in battle. He can also learn to use magic swords when Vivi is alongside
Quina - A blue mage whose soul purpose in life before meeting Zidane is to travel the world and eat exotic foods. Quina's blue magic can come in handy early on in the game and he has a unique ability to eat enemies to learn spells.
Freya - A female Dragon knight from the Kingdom of Burmecia, Freya is great with a lance and can provide the party with some protection through her special abilities. She can also leap to great heights and attack from above with deadly force.
Eiko - a young white mage you will meet later in the game, she has good magic skills and can also summon eidloins. Plays a bigger part in the story than you expect after meeting her.
Amarant - A brazen red headed assasin who has a change of heart after meeting Zidane. Can become one of the most powerful team members with his ability to throw weapons and items to cause incredible damage!

Throughout the game each character develops fairly extensively and you get to watch and feel a part of the development of each character as they all come to realize they are part of something much bigger than they initially realized! There are also several unique villains throughout the game.

Queen Brahne - Garnet's mother who has been acting strangely since Garnet's 16th Birthday, she becomes brainwashed with greed and becomes a puppet for evil
Zorn and Thorn - Queen Brahne's jester twins who wield powerful magic and help to create the army of black mages that terrorize the land
Kuja - the main villain of the game, plays the part of puppet master throughout much of the game while he toys with the heroes and tries to find a way to yield ultimate power.
Garland - a villain who appeared in some of the early FF games for the NES, he is back as sort of a father to Kuja although his overall role is not very extensive.
Necron - the final boss who cannot really be described, his power is incredible and it will take a stout effort to defeat this foe

One of the few problems I have with FFIX is the fact that the game really drags in a few spots. At the start of the game it takes a good hour and a half to even get into the fun part of the game. You spend the first hour or so doing mindless sidequests to get the game going. There are also several other areas in the game where you will spend time on seemingly needless tasks and this can prove frustrating at times. There are 4 CD disks for this game and each can take up 10 hours so you are in for a long playing experience. One thing I will give this game credit for, unlike several other RPG games I have played, the ending is well worth the time you put into the game. There are some other games you will play for hours and hours, Halo and Halo 2 come to mind, and then the ending lasts for like 2 minutes and you're like...wait a minute, I wasted all that time for that???! The ending in FFIX is well over 20 minutes and is like watching a mini movie! You will enjoy it! You will have to work pretty hard to get their though as the final 3 bosses you have to fight are incredibly tough to defeat and it might take you at least 2 or 3 tries on each!

Now for the technical stuff....

Graphics and Sound:

The graphics in FFIX are nothing to really write home about. They are pretty solid for the PSone and an improvement from FF7 and 8. The best graphics occur during the cut scenes which are incredibly detailed for the PSone. I'll even go out on a limb and say that they rival the cut scenes from FF10 for the PS2 only without the character voices. Graphics during battles are also fairly well done. The Monsters have a good bit of detail to each and all of the magic, summons and special attacks have a huge amount of graphical flair. When you hit a flare spell on a monster you want to jump out of your chair and be like, YEAH WHAT NOW!!! Most of this is due to the great special effects that accompany each spell. Overall I give the graphics an 8/10.

The music in this game is excellent. Some of the background music gets kind of annoying in certain spots, especially when you are exploring some of the towns and you have to listen to the background music repeat itself over and over. Other tracks are upbeat and get you pumped to play the game. The battle soundtracks for the final two bosses are simply amazing and really get you into the life and death struggle that the final battles are. There are some weak tracks on the game, but the excellent ones save the soundtrack overall. 9/10.

Gameplay

Game play is simple and straight forward. You use the control pad to guide Zidane or whoever you are controlling around the world map or through an area you are exploring. Triangle access the menu where you can equip and use items, check the status of your party members and do all that other fun RPG stuff. The menus are easy to use and well laid out so it doesn't take you 30 minutes to figure out how to equip that new sword you just bought or to find that potion you need. Battle menus are also simple and straight forward. You can either select the target of your attack or spell on the screen or open up a battle menu that lets you select from all the available targets at the time. This prevents accidental attacks on friendly party members and makes the battle system work effectively. You also have a help option throughout the game whenever you are accessing a menu, whether during the game or while in combat. This can prove useful when you are first starting out! Overall the game play is excellent and I give it a 10/10.

Overall I was very impressed with Final Fantasy IX. It took me quite a while to beat it and I ended up having to get the strategy guide for the game in order to do well towards the end, but it was worth it. I would highly advise you get the strategy guide, it will save you quite a bit of anguish and frustration in the later stages of the game. The ending of the game is worth playing for and there are all kinds of side quests that you can do if you get bored of fighting monsters all of the time. I think that FFIX is one of the best RPGs I have played, due mostly to the fact that it is a simple and straightforward RPG with an excellent storyline and characters. There are a few tedious side quests and the game lags in a few spots but overall the gaming experience is very enjoyable!

As always I hope you have enjoyed reading this opinion and I welcome any comments or suggestions! Feel free to contact me with any more questions about the game or if you need some advice! Thanks again!!