Square heads back to FF's golden days with Final Fantasy 9
Written: May 01 '03 (Updated May 01 '03)
Product Rating:
Pros: Perfect graphics, involving story, nostalgic, what FFs are known to be.
Cons: Sound not up to Square's own established par, gameplay is a bit too formulated.
The Bottom Line: Final Fantasy will always give its players twice their money's worth, and this beautiful--if imperfect by their own standards--installment is no exception.
mattspire's Full Review: Final Fantasy IX for PlayStation 1
THE STORY:
The Queen of Alexandria, Brahne, has begun terrorizing neighboring kingdoms with horrible magic. Knights, bandits, and magicians team together in resistance, only to be pulled into a much larger, more sinister plot headed by the powerful sorceror Kuja. If this sounds familiar to you, and you're not surprised that this game is Final Fantasy 9, you probably grew up in Squaresoft's golden era on the Super Nintendo, or perhaps even Nintendo itself, where you followed the wizardry and mysticism of the West's first taste of these made-in-Japan megahits before they became one with Sony.
Squaresoft has combined two worlds--the processing might of the Playstation with the pre-FF7 spirit of Final Fantasy. For those who have been playing Square's games since the seventh installment or later, this should come as a surprise--and though their games are never stale, a fresh feel to the 9th in the series. For older players, however, the nostalgia trip might be tinged with a sense of déjà vu. New or old, however, there is one thing that there should be unanimous agreement upon--number nine packs one hell of a story.
One of the most notable improvements for this game is a villain. While VII's Sephiroth was rather sleek, it was difficult to enter into his psyche, and VIII had every "villain" pointing at the next. The last great villain in the Final Fantasy series, many will agree, was VI's Kefka (III in the US), a perfectly developed character full of cackling humor and dark personality. IX's Kuja blends that personality with Sephiroth's sleek, cool feel and produces one of the best villains of all time. Every one of the characters is beautifully developed, and while some ugly, even stereotypical cliches sometimes arise--such as Princess Garnet playing the "female in trouble" role--she and others reprise their roles in various manners, becoming new people throughout the tale. The very return of the lovable Moogles is commendable and provides for a good deal of comic relief (as always), and turning them into "save points" was brilliant. The always recognizable Black Mage, going all the way back to FFI, has finally developed a personality after all these years of obscurity. In short, this is a game of involving characters with a ton of nostalgia for faithful followers of the series.
Last but not least, translation is beautiful and may as well have been written entirely in English by an inspired, epic writer of the language himself.
GAMEPLAY:
The story and the fact that, oh yeah, it is a game afterall, tends to blur together perfectly. The story and challenges were made for each other, and reflect a bit of the series' old style.
The party size, for example, is up to four, just like the very first game, whereas recent installments have been repeating the three-character party system. Five equipment slots, more complex and involved than the recent materia or junction systems, recall pre-Playstation days too. Summon monsters, here called Eidolons, bear a strong resemblance to the Espers from FFVI (III US), a system which was a favorite of many fans.
The system of ability development follows the same line of descent as previous PlayStation FFs. This time around, you acquire abilities from the items you equip, attaching those abilities to your character through a set of Blue Crystal slots, which you gain as you increase in level, and eventually getting to keep those abilities independently of the associated equipment, once enough Ability Points are amassed. The kinds of abilities that can be learned vary greatly from magic spells to special attacks to defense and statistics, and different abilities can be learned by different characters from the same item of equipment, so an added level of strategy is not only what you're equipping and how and when you equip it to who, but to obtain what from who. It's a welcome system, fitting nicely with the return to traditional item-gathering; like in pre-PS installments, chests contain Genji Gloves, swords, armor, and all types of miscellaneous items far cooler than some random "screw" or "bolt"; in a nod to VIII, however, weapons and the like can still be modified at shops, bringing in the best of all worlds and a lot of strategic possibilities.
The battle system has not changed much, or at least not as much as it should. Random battles still pop into sudden being with that familiar swooshing sound, blurred graphics and a new backdrop. While it might be a matter of tradition, games like Chrono Trigger have proven back in the SNES days that there's simply a better, more engaging way to enter battles. IX is particularly irritating sometimes because the encounter rate is so high that it takes the player too far away from the puzzle at hand to fight in battle after battle, eroding chances to think clearly. Furthermore, once the glitz of graphic power has worn off after tons of battles, fighting becomes a task rather than fun, and the battle seems to move slowly while the same enemy animations repeat. It seems that if the opposition was placed on the actual map (and given the beautiful, rendered maps that FF has held standard for some time now) the battle would look just as wondrous if not more so than if it were changing to a battle setting--and it would never "wear off."
Speaking of which....
GRAPHICS:
I cannot imagine that the Playstation would have any bit of untapped power remaining graphically. Everything from backgrounds to cinemas to character animations to spells are gorgeous, and you'll move around and cast things just to see how damned cool they are. Every little scale on Bahamut is a wonder, and the big picture is unbelievable. Layer after layer of graphical effects are layed onto every map creating a living, breathing organism. Cinema scenes have been taken to a whole new level with far more realistic facial expressions, and even facial expressions in-game are wonderfully detailed, with tons of specific expressions for each main character and plenty of detail given to some of the most insignificant of enemies. Graphically, Square has created a whole world, probably more than a single person will ever notice.
SOUND:
Ah, here's the only disappointment in this game. Squaresoft's games, and particularly Final Fantasy games, have a history of creating memorable, beautiful soundtracks. So just what the heck has happened the past two times around? Both VIII and IX are seriously lacking in stand-out tunes. While they are present--the nicely composed "Melodies of Life", and a revamp of the classic "Crystal" theme--they become relied upon as standout songs, with everything else becoming little more than an insignificant, muddied ambient noise in the background. While one can immediately recall the Cosmo Canyon theme, or the Turks' signature song, and countless other Square games have equally signature songs, nothing really sticks out musically this time around, which is a major disappointment for such a well-established musician as Nobuo Uematsu in the gaming industry.
OTHER:
Last but not least, you can expect all the other things you love about Square's games--plenty of side quests, secrets, tons of customization and items and cool little niches that will keep everyone searching for hours after it's been beaten.
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