The game introduces a larger party size and more variety of mini-games compared to 8 and all predecessors. Complete with a protagonist that a gamer audience can truly appreciate  and a rich, diverse party. The humor and story has a sort of dry humor that keeps you enthralled throughout the game. With a final boss that requires the player to be at least level 40 if they aren't a FF veteran. The other review for this game s a scathing essay fueled by antagonism of a game series known, loved, and made with the premise that the gamer will Grind their character to unlock and defeat all enemies and bonus side content. Fans of the series will recognize endearing references to other games in Final Fantasy series. Players are urged to not just blindly follow the storyline from place to designated place, but instead backtrack and explore vigorously. The card game in-game, which is rarely given the acclaim it deserves, takes many hours to complete feels highly rewarding when done. This, of course, is not the greatest highlight of the game. The true highlight of the game is NOT the final boss, or the character's great personality, but the fact that you can play with your friends in the same non-online capable final fantasy game. This is yet another capability of the game that is known by few, and reviewed by fewer still. Of those that HAVE reviewed said feature have called it a "side-attraction", a "paltry trick", or a "pointless gimmick" due to the fact that you can't make decisions for both characters in a party at once and have to take turns. But the greatest benefit is working with a person next to you to keep your group alive and defeat the challenges before you in fights much like the chaos-order balance of games like Mario-party, super Mario bros. 2 on the WII, or Settlers of Catan (the board game). It's fun to grind your characters and try to defeat enemies faster than your friend next to you with YOUR 2 characters instead of his/hers. The unique balance of order and chaos in an RPG is the greatest idea Square-Enix (AKA Squaresoft) has ever had. It strikes at the essence of what the series always stood for. If only they did the same foForr FF X and onwards.
For that reason FF IX is the best game in the series..... for now.

This seems like an overall great review and well put and nicely detailed, great review and keep it up

This game in the FF series is pretty interesting. I wasn't too big of a fan of the series, but playing the game personally made me like it a little bit. Pretty different. But good.