Final Fantasy IX Review

1. Final Fantasy IX Review By Victor Tugulan CIS 487

2. Basic Information • Final Fantasy IX (9) • Developed by Square • Console Role Playing Game • Costs about $15 on Ebay • Need a Playstation at least • Could use Playstation 2, 3, PSP, or PC. • Released July 7, 2000 in Japan, November 14, 2000 in North America

3. Game Summary • Game is really story driven, reading dialogue of characters with background music • Turn based combat between a group of up to 4 and enemies of up to 9 (foreground and background) • Evolving story line, discover it as you go, grows more complex • Cinematic eye candy as reward for progressing through the game • No installation required, no patches • User interface consists of interacting with the world and its characters or pulling up a menu to make changes to game settings, party settings, or just to look at some status or informational data • Music composed by Nobuo Uematsu, artists consist of Toshiyuki itahana and Yoshitaka Amano, written by Kazuhiko Aoki, designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Hiroyuki Ito • Music is adored by many, the artwork wasn’t as highly appreciated • Nobuo Uematsu and Hironobu Sakaguchi’s favorite Final Fantasy to date • Like all Playstation games, it came with a manual • I have found no bugs, can’t think of any

4. Story Line • Meet Zidane and his group of thiefs • They steal a princess while putting on a show in her country • Princess Garnet planned to run away all along, her mother was becoming insane and mad with greed and power • While the evil Queen starts declaring war on neighboring nations, the group finds that another character, Kuja is pulling the strings and causing turmoil • Chasing down Kuja, Zidane and the gang end up on another planet, Terra, that is watched over by Garland, another bad guy that plans to inhibit Gaia, the original world, by force. • Kuja become more powerful and you continue the chase • Once Kuja is defeated, the ultimate bad guy exposes himself, turning out to be some kind of crystal god hell bent on chaos and destruction

5. Player’s Role • Zidane Tribal – main character, story revolves around him, thief, comic relief • Garnet TilAlexandros – princess of Alexandria, summoner/healer, love interest of Zidane • Adelbert Steiner – captain of the Knights protecting Alexandria, Garnet’s guardian, uses swords • ViviOrnitier – a young black mage that just happened to be dragged along for the ride, casts black magic • Freya Crescent – a dragoon knight from a neighboring kingdom, the Queen destroyed her home town and she helps to combat the ultimate person in control • QuinaQuen – a blue mage, likes to eat creatures to learn their skills, is interested in find new foods and tastes, awkward character • Amarant Coral – bountry hunter once defeated by Zidane, keen on finding out what makes Zidane so strong and follows him for the adventure • Eiko Carol – small child living on a lonely continent, last of the summonersurvivers, also summons and heals, but a better healer than Garnet • Build a party of a max of 4 of these characters to overcome present conflicts in turn based combat

6. Gameplay • Combat is turn based, you can choose between melee actions, special skills, or casting magic, the option to flee battle or change positions is also available • Outside of battle the player moves the character around the world and speaks to non-playable characters (NPCs) to trigger events • When in the world map, where no NPCs exist, combat is randomly triggered as you walk around, as well as in some dungeon like places • Game allows changing armor and weapons per character and learning abilities or skills • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW_C8e-9GsI • Characters receive experience points and level up as the play combats enemies • Characters get Ability Points after combat the automatically helps the character learn abilities based on what gear they are wearing

7. Special Features • Cinematics always a treat • Learn skills from weapons and gear • Great special effect for the time, magic spells and attacks • Chocobo mini game was very nice and of good length • In-game card game also available • Plenty of side quests and missions for better story or character upgrades (ultimate weapons and such) • Always an ultimate boss battle as part of the side quest • Trance status which allowed characters to be more powerful or useful in their own special kind of way

8. Game ReviewThe Good • Characters very different and the player can emphasize, many characters to choose from to customize party • Fantastic story line with characters trying to find their place in the world, identity issues, highly focused on importance of friends • music (Nobuo Uematsu fan here!), never feel repetitive or out of place, always provides the right mood/feeling • Turn based • Plenty of skills and items to use • Good level of difficulty • Character models are great • Cinematicshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsYpasHUVc8 • Made for people that enjoy single player RPG, even though it has a childish feel, its more for adults because of the concepts and conflicts behind character and plot design

9. Game ReviewThe Bad • I didn’t mind the artistic design, far different from FF7/FF8, but I think that’s what made others not appreciate it as much • Artistic design is to childish and also characters are much younger than normal • http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Final-Fantasy-IX-final-fantasy-ix-341871_800_600.jpg

10. Summary • What makes this a great game is the plot, sound/music and solid gameplay • Artwork and the type of game this is might sway others from playing this game • I would definitely recommend buying it, I would buy it again if they would remake it • Making the game with a more adult artistic design would have improved it a lot

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