Final Fantasy IX PlayStation

As young Zidane Tribal and his party interrupted a renowned play and kidnapped Princess Garnet Til Alexandros, things began to fall apart. The queen fired cannons and decimated her kingdom in an attempt to prevent the terrorist organization, but her attacks failed and the troupe escaped with their lives intact.

Princess Garnet wished someone would take her away from her oppressing mother and life; the only world she knew was that of Alexandria and its large metropolitan areas. Zidane Tribal and his troupe had come at the perfect time. An innocent black mage known as Vivi Orunitia and a Pluto Knight named Adelbert Steiner, who was sworn to protect the princess at all costs, were also part of the crusade.

Although Adelbert Steiner had objections, the characters formed a pact to overthrow Queen Brahne and prevent her harmful attack in the surrounding areas of Alexandria. After the princess was abducted, Brahne hired assailants to create destructive black mage warriors. With a few of her knights and the mages, the queen unleashed a series of unmitigated attacks on neighboring towns she would do anything to recapture Princess Garnet.

But what are the queen's true intentions?

Thus is the premise behind Final Fantasy IX, the third PlayStation incarnation of developer Square's acclaimed RPG series. All of the people involved (eight main characters) have different reasons for helping Zidane and bringing down the queen. Through gradual character development, important questions are answered pertaining to Vivi Orunitia's existence and Adelbert Steiner's loyalty to a queen who couldn't seem to care less. Meanwhile, a dragon knight known as Freya Crescent is seeking revenge for her decimated town. Throughout the game, characters come and go, flipflopping back and forth to take care of previous engagements.

Whenever characters leave the party, you will be updated on their progress with Active Time Events. Represented by an icon at the bottom of the screen, an Active Time Event flashes when something of importance is going on. Pressing the Select button takes you to an event menu where you can decide which character(s) to focus on. After making your choice, the main portion of the game pauses and shines light on these character developments and events. Although you're not required to view these brief story snippets, the Active Time Events further sidestories and show a side of that character you may have never seen.

While Final Fantasy IX contains various features of the previous PlayStation versions (such as prerendered backgrounds, polygonal character designs, and random battle sequences), it incorporates some new ideas into the mix. Instead of having three people on your team, you can go into battle with four. While in battle, you can select from a character's personal skills, unleash summon and magical attacks, or use items and weapons. Due to popular demand, the summon attacks have been shortened.

There are also two realtime meters: the ATB and Trance Gauges. Whereas the ATB Gauge represents when a character can attack, the Trance Gauge slowly fills up as that character receives damage. Once this meter is filled, characters can unleash brutal special attacks.

Harking back to the 16bit incarnations, Final Fantasy IX offers an Ability system built around items, armor and weapons. By equipping various weapons, helmets, wrists, pieces of armor and accessories, you can harness powers that must be learned while some contain powerful magical spells, others contain helpful abilities such as protecting females and automatically using potions.

Once a character has learned an ability, he or she can use it at any time, provided it is equipped (a finite amount of abilities can be equipped at one time). On the other hand, noncasting characters can equip items with magical spells but cannot learn or use them. You can also combo certain abilities. For instance, if you combine autopotion with chemist, that character will not only use a potion automatically, but it will significantly increase its healing power.

Additionally, Final Fantasy IX features an allnew card game called Tetra Master and reintroduces the Moogles, a race of creatures first seen in the third American installment of the series. When in a dungeon or a town, one of these white critters will let you save your game and/or give you a special message to deliver to another Moogle. On the world map, you can also locate Chocobo forests. As in past editions, you can either ride the birdlike creatures around the world or engage in a minigame called Hot and Cold (digging up buried treasure).

Final Fantasy IX spans four discs and includes multiple computergenerated movie sequences that accentuate certain parts of the story. The game supports both vibration and analog controls, and one block of memory card space is needed to save progress. Will Zidane Tribal and his unlikely group of heroes overthrow the queen and prevent her unknown assailants from further destruction? Time is running out ~ Matthew House, All Game Guide