After the excellent scenario of Final Fantasy VII and the outstanding performance of Final Fantasy VIII, my expectations were very high for Final Fantasy IX. They were sourly deceived...

Graphics: 9/10

Square was able to improve the graphics even more. The characters' measurements are even better than Final Fantasy VIII. You can see their faces and emotions both on the overworld map and in battles. For most of the game, there is a dense fog on the map and your visibility is reduced accordingly – when it goes away, you see better.

Inside battle, your allies' movements are fluid and very life-like. Magic is looking better and better; you can feel the heat from fire spells. But unfortunately, magic isn't as “democratic” as previous games. For example, not everyone can summon.

Finally, cinematics are even better. Unlike Squall's hair, Garnet's flows more realistically. They are also more realistic. In one of the movies, Garnet sees a huge blaze and you can see the orange on her face.

Music: 6/10

Once again, Nobuo Uematsu comes back for what he does best: Final Fantasy music. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to his talent.

Oh, don't get me wrong: there are excellent tracks in the game. Vamo Alla Flamenco and Sleepless City: Treno are two of the best tracks ever composed – they were actually what kept me playing. The classical battle theme (before the PlayStation era) makes an interesting come back, and music in general sounds more realistic than Final Fantasy VIII. Walking also sounds more realistic; you can hear the clinging of Steiner's armor.

Unfortunately most of the soundtrack was uninteresting and I don't remember much of it. I suppose that people who played the games on the physical NES will appreciate some of the remixes like Gurg Volcano or Pandemonium. But overall, I would say I can't pinpoint more than 25 percent of the tracks I liked.

Addictiveness: 7/10

I will be honest. There were only two things that kept me from throwing the game away: the Chocobo mini-game and the stellazzio quest. The first one consists of a hot/cold game where your chocobo digs for prizes and clue to where to find bigger treasures. The second one consisted of finding zodiac medallions all over the world.

In both instances, I kept searching in order to get my fix of the best tracks of the game: Vamo Alla Flamenco, Ukulele de Chocobo and Sleepless City: Treno. Quad Mist, the card mini-game, was much less interesting than Triple Triad; I still have a hard time understanding how the cards work.

Story: 0/10

Final Fantasy IX was one of the only games in my entire life I played through only once. It is the epitome of the “odd Final Fantasy Curse”.

First, the story line was so uninteresting that I can't remember a single thing. At all. There is no focus whatsoever on whichever character. Garnet, Zidane, Steiner, Eiko... they have no chemistry uniting them and it's not clear what their true mission is (other than save the world). All previous games, even I and III, had *some* clear mission right from the beginning. Just the way it starts (Zidane in a pirate where his boss plots to abduct Garnet) sets the tone of the confusing scenario.

Also, please. Nine-year olds saving the world? At least in previous games, they were in their early 20s. This is completely unrealistic.

In short, Square spent too much time on the drawing board and not enough on the storyboard (unlike Final Fantasy VII).

Depth: 7/10

This nonexistent scenario nevertheless spans over four disks, and not just because of the cinematics. In most towns you visit, your team usually goes its separate way and there is a feature that lets you see what they do. It was a nice little improvement.

Difficulty: 5/10

As with most RPGs, you need to grind you level high enough to conquer bosses. Fortunately in IX, you can equip various protections that will immune your characters against various ailments.

In short, flee this game like your worst nightmare. It's even worse than Dragon Quest VI; at no point in the game is there a scenario that flows. The soundtrack is rather deceiving and doesn't evoke memories like VI or VIII. When sidequests rather than the main storyline are what keeps you playing a game, it's because it's a terrible one.

I love your post and yes to be honest with you the graphics were eh ok I've seen better graphics on the later ff games. And as far as the storyline goes I was so confused and bored by the time they got through south gate that I had no idea where the story was headed or what the purpose was except for a bumble some knight who keep blaming the thief every ten seconds for everything that happened. I didn't even make it through all four discs I lost interest on disc 1. Ill make a review but I'm still tiring to get around to what the heck to review it on. Nice post though

I actually really enjoyed FF IX. Definitely one of my least favorite FF, but it still had it's moments. I loved how not every random encounter was, "Okay, what do I have to fight now?". They had friendly monsters, that you could help for some really long side quest.

That's one of my least favorite things about FF IX. The entire game long side quests. That Chocobo one takes up an entire disc pretty much, you have to spend about 30 hours alone doing that (Well, I did... That junk was kind of frustrating). The moogle delivery starts off near the beginning of the game, and takes you the whole game to complete, and of course that damn card game.

Now, I love card games, especially the one in FF VIII, great game. But in FF IX the rules are SO vague. When you ask NPCs in the game how to play the game, they give you bunch of vague answers as well... So annoying, but the worst of it is, I actually had the official FF IX strategy guide. Now, in the guide, it requires to access their website and input a code that you find in the book. After doing that, the OFFICIAL website told me that (I'm paraphrasing), "Even we're not 100% sure, sorry." I'm not even joking... Oh, and by the way, if you use the same cards repeatedly, they actually start to degrade and lose their effectiveness... Did you know that? Because I didn't... I was wondering my my best cards were losing to those freaking oglops... Who thought that was a good idea, to implement that system and then tell no one?

So yeah, I enjoyed FF IX, once, however I seriously doubt I'd ever play it again. But it did have some neat stuff going on, in my opinion.

Oh, and I had so much difficulty in boss fights, because they make the main character, who can do the most damage, a thief, so all I want to do is use the Steal command, because bosses have some really nice equipment. Only, the steal chances are SO low and enemies have multiple items... So... Ugh... Freya rocks though.

lol yeah, this one was really weird for me too, so many odd choices for the story to go (Zidane's big reveal near the end is just ugghhh). I also felt the characters were disjointed and half felt they all came from totally different games. Totally agree with F.Starr, the side quests overstay their welcome. Just give me my crappy reward I probably won't use anyway.  

Since I'm old, one thing I did like how this was the FF that tried to touch back on their earlier versions, without totally being retro. The classic no-face black mage, the ren-faire type setting, seeing some old names pop back up, that was kind of a neat fan service.

I'm glad people agree with me on this most awful of Final Fantasy games.

I'm constantly told this is a classic and something that a TRUE RPG fan would love. But everyone I pick it up, a part of me dies. I can't take this one seriously at all, and you mostly have the same qualms with it that I do.

Of course newer Final Fantasys are better visual-wise. They're newer.

Huh, I remember playing this game when I was a little kid...I thought it wasn't that bad. At least, not bad enough to deserve the score you gave it. But it's definitely your opinion, and it's one that a decent number of people do agree with.

I really can't say too much about things that could be improved for this review, other than a slight bit more detail. But you did provide a fair amount of detail already for most of the things that you talked about...Also, the Addictiveness score seems to be a bit weird. The sidequests were the only thing that kept you playing, but you rated the addictiveness a 7/10? I don't get it.

I actually really liked the game, but I guess your opinion is yours

NovemberJoy : Maybe the wording wasn't correct, but what I meant by good addictiveness is without the chocobo mini-game and Treno in the game, I would probably not have played the game through. I would litteraly have rated it 0 without those two elements