Final Fantasy IX PlayStation

Excellent, pure Final Fantasy!

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Dec 7, 2001 | 4 out of 4 found this Final Fantasy IX review helpful

While I never have been one to rely too heavily, if at all, on graphics(I would rather play a game with older graphics and an excellent concept and story than a game with excellent visual and graphical ability but with a poor story to back them up), ...I was quite impressed by Final Fantasy IX. It seemed to bring back the old flare that was always found in Final Fantasy.When they brought out Final Fantasy VII in 1997, one thing that disappointed me was that they took the maximum party size down to 3 and kept it that way for Final Fantasy VIII as well. Final Fantasy IX made a nice return to the 4-person party.Also, one of the most exciting things was the return of the traditional Black Mage, with the introduction of ViVi. He was a sheer delight, and I relished in the return of such famous old-school spells like Osmose. I rather enjoyed the ability system, with the learning from Items. It was a nice leap back to Final Fantasy XI, where you equiped Magicite to learn magic, and the Support abilities, wherein you could use 'magic stones' to equip special abilities, like protection from various status effects, and other abilities like Mug, and Boost, and upgrade abilities like MP+20% and HP+20%.The plot was very well written, and well played out as well. The characters were believable, and I was heavily relieved that Squaresoft didn't make another self-centered 'I only care about myself' main character, like Cloud or Squall. I enjoyed Zidane's easy going and flirtatious nature, and his ability to become totally serious when it came to protecting his friends and his beliefs.WARNING! The following section contains spoilers, including the revelation of the Final Boss's identity. If you have not played this game.. DO NOT READ FURTHER.One of the worse aspects of the game was the total lack of referece to the Final Boss. This is where Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VI win out. In FFVI and FFVII, you were introduced to the final boss early in the game, and slowly became aquianted with who they were as the game progressed, meaning Kefka(FFVI) and Sephiroth(FFVII). You got to watch as the empire fell in around Kefka as his powermad ways drove him to seek the destruction of everything good and pure. You got to see Sephiroth struggle in his own mind for the answer, eventually finding out that he wasn't a Cetra, and going off on a quest to become a god. This simply wasn't present in Final Fantasy IX. You don't even know who or what Necron is until the end of the game, wherein he practically quotes Yoda from StarWars and then draws you into the Final Battle. A singular disappointment.Sidequests could have been more indepth, but I was also glad that they weeded out the whole 'mosters level with you' idea. It was unnerving because the more you leveled in Final Fantasy VIII the harder the game got, especially when it came to the fight with Ultimecia. This game returned to the traditional method of actually having to level between major events if you wanted to get anywhere. The ending continued the new FFVIII born method of mixing gameplay graphics with CG cinemas, and the ending credits song was marvelous!While it did carry the love theme of FFVIII, it didn't try to center on it too much. It balanced it well with Zidane's conflict with his lack of humanness, and with ViVi's struggle to understand life. All the characters were very believable and a great deal of character development went on. We got to see the characters becomes compeletly difference people by the time the game was completed.Well.. that's all I'll say for now. Your probably sleeping in your chair right now, so I'll cease bothering you. I hope I successfully drove you to rush out right now and GET YOUR HANDS ON A COPY OF THIS GAME. It's worth the 30 hours of gameplay. Read more Less

One of the best RPGs of all-time

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Nov 1, 2002 | 2 out of 3 found this Final Fantasy IX review helpful

Well, where do I start, I have been playing video games since the NES days, especially RPGs. I have played and beaten many RPGS: FF7, FF8, FF6, FFT, Chrono Cross, Secret of the Mana, Dragon Warrior I, II, III, and VII, just about every Zelda, Lunar: ...SSSC, Suikoden, Orge Battle 64, just to name a few. While all these are great RPGs I just have to say that I will not compare FF9 to them, because it is its own game. That is where I think a few of the reviews went astray, comparing FF7 to FF9 is like comparing appels to brocolli.Although they are both Final Fantasies they are two total different games. Final Fantasy 9 is a gorgeous game. They needed 4 cds just to contain it all! These are by far the best FMV scenes I have ever seen in a game. They tie into the story extremly well and give you a nice break from button pushing and dugeon crawling.The characters are the best I have ever scene in a game, you will fall in love with them. They are the drving force behind the story and the game itself. The 4 main characters, Zidane, Garrnet, Vivi, and Steiner, are developed really well throughout the story, there is also good charcter development for the supporting charachters as well.Some people believe that the story was a little to pre-schoolish but i thought it was a nice break over more darker story lines of games before it. I hadnt scene that much humorous dialogue in a video game since Lunar. Although, for those of you that lack a true villan in a story, you wont find it in this game, there is no real clear-cut villian and the ones they have you never really posses the hatred you do towards some of the other video game villians. That is why i think this game is so unique, it is more of a story about finding out about oneself, although there is that typical got to save the world from mass destruction element, but hey its an RPG, you wouldnt be playing it if you didnt want an awesome story, and in that aspect Square deffinetly delievers.One of the few complaints I did have was difficultly level, it was pretty easy. Which is good for beginning gamers, but for the more experienced not so great. But there are many sidequests to partake in. From the chocobo hot/cold game to collecting all the playing cards to the Quina frog catching, there are many sub-quest that can keep you busy. I loved the abilties system, by equiping different weapons for so long yielded different attributes. I found myself getting into battles on puirpose just so I could have all my party members learn every possible one.The are some downsides to the game, just like every game. There are a lot of battles, hey im not a fan of the random battle system anyway, but you can easy get through them as the game is just downright FUN!I recomend this game to every RPG lover out. For the person that wants to play and RPG for the first time, this would be the perfect game to do that with. And for the video gamer that is just starting out with a PS2 and you want to play one of the older games but you can get by the bad graphics, this would be perfect for you because the graphics are pretty up to date and it should ruin the experience for you. All-in-all i would give this game a 4.95, almost perfect for one of the greatest games ever. Read more Less

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By Yahoo! Shopping User  Aug 18, 2003 | 1 out of 1 found this Final Fantasy IX review helpful

I liked the game very much!

PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Mar 21, 2002 | 1 out of 1 found this Final Fantasy IX review helpful

This game is perfect. I've been playing it for 152 hours and have beat it twice. I play it everyday and it seems as soon as you sit down to start playing it you lose track of time and will end up playing it for hours. It is the most addictive game I ...have ever played. It deserves nothing less than a 5-star rating and I would greatly disagree with anyone that says it does!!!! Read more Less

Kulllllllllll

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jul 8, 2006

Pros: colour, graph,sound

Cons: heavy

I think it has a little bit heavy but with all awsome control, graphics, sound, and really fun I know I had a good choice!

Final Fantasy IX

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Dec 13, 2003

Pros: Everything

Cons: Nothing

Final Fantasy nine is the best rpg i have ever played. Belive me i have them all. Smooth video graphics and gameplay are just a few of the great qualities of this game. No glitches that I noticed. Fairly difficult to the average gamer. Will keep ...you playing. Great character qualities. Sound quality is excellent. High quality gameplay in all aspects. I would give it a 10 out of 10 on any scale. Reccomended for all gamers Read more Less

This a great game to play

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Oct 22, 2003

Pros: very good graphics, characters

Cons: none

when I watched a friend play this game.... I was hooked on it so I began to play and wow... it was fascinating. The graphics, the characters and the storyline was great. I'll play it again and again! It is that great!

second best so far

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Oct 11, 2003

Pros: fun battle system

Cons: game runs to slow due to sony ps one crappy 32 bit.

this is better than ff 10 but not as good as ff 3

This game is goooood!!!

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Sep 19, 2003

This is one of the best looking games in this series. Only the Playstation 2 could do better.