Final Fantasy IX (2000)

Not to spam the site with status updates for this game, but I figured this warranted a separate post from my other one. While going for all the achievements I played through with the Moguri Mod installed as well as some other quality of life stuff from Memoria such as 60 FPS and analog (360°) movement patches. The Memoria Project as a whole is really impressive. The FPS and movement patches make the game feel so much better to play and I'd wholeheartedly recommend playing with them if you can.

Moguri Mod, which "remasters" the visuals is mostly good, but I think due to the nature of it being handled by and large via upscaling you do lose some of the original texture certain surfaces in the backgrounds had in the process, which is a shame. If you look closely, many things just look too smooth, for lack of a better way of putting it. It's a great way to reexperience the game in "HD" but I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend it for a first playthrough because of the way it alters the original vision, even if only slightly. But hey, if for some reason having sharper backgrounds is what gets someone to play the game when they otherwise wouldn't, who am I to judge?

Finally got Let the Bodies Hit the Floor III, which is the achievement for killing 10,000 enemies!! What a monstrously poorly thought out achievement. It took me a total of about 27 hours to grind it out starting from 1,100 kills which is where I was after hitting level 99 on Zidane. And that was with the speed boost turned on. Got a lot of anime watching done in that time at least, lol.

All that's left is to beat the game and play some blackjack on the title screen for the last achievement.

Before:

After:

Bit of a rant post here. I've been chipping away at all the steam achievements for this game since it was one of my favorites during my playthrough of the series, and just...

My god, Tetra Master has to be the worst card game I've ever had the misfortune of suffering through. Even when you've looked up the rules on how the game works because it isn't explained anywhere in FFIX, it doesn't really matter because of how dominated by RNG it is. 100 unique NPC card game wins is gonna be rough to push through. I already accidentally saved over losing the cactuar I won from the jump rope game so I'm a bit salty atm.

I think it’s the best FF game from the PS1 and also the only one I would recommend to someone who hadn’t played old FF games before.

The game mechanics are pretty basic compared to the predecessor but they are fun and offer a lot of flexibility without forcing the player to grind and punishing for doing so. All in all the gameplay is quite usual for the genre but all the other activities the game offers besides fighting made exploring the game’s world a very fun and engaging experience. (Besides tetra master - the horrible mini-game from FF8 made its comeback and it’s even worse than before! I can’t imagine something this random being enjoyable to play.)

Also, unlike in FF7 and 8, the story finally makes sense and I can finally connect with the characters (or at least some of them) and what they are going through, even though the story is mostly light-hearted and sometimes even silly. The setting is also a nice change from the worlds in previous games, not only when it comes to the story but allso visually. The graphics contribute a lot to the fairytale vibe and with Moguri mod they are enjoyable even today. I have to also mention the amazing soundtrack, which is one of my favourites of all times and greatly contributes to the overall experience.

I often make art for the games I play,

I've had this on my wall now for three years, tying to convince myself I like it,

I HATE It

I sprited these out for ff9

but today I was looking back through some photos and when I made it it looked like this

Which I love, I guess the difference here is in intention, I always intended them to be displayed as above,

So I guess I'll be taking them down soon and trying to reformat, because although those fit the space perfectly I feel like three years is enough time for my brain to attach

Just a little PSA for those who this might matter to. The Steam version of this game doesn't actually support cloud saves, despite saying it does. You need to use the in game cloud saves via the option in the main menu.

So if you're intending to play through while swapping between Steam Deck and PC like I am, you'll need to back out to the main menu after every play session and upload your save file so that when you next play on either system you can download it from the same menu and keep your progress.

Square Enix continues to impress me with how clunky the Steam ports of the PSX Final Fantasy games are. I kind of wish I had just played them all on the Switch at this point for the ease of portability, but alas. Tis too late now.

My last post about this game was over 3 years ago, where I was liking it but wondered if I was gonna finish it since it wasn't really grabbing me in the same way that FFVIII did right beforehand. Suffice it to say, I did not finish it. I've been trying it again this past week, after the relative disappointment of FFXVI had me wanting something more classic.

I've been enjoying it a bit more this time, and am solidly further in than I was previously, but still I just don't find myself excited to sit down and play more of it in my free time. I guess it just drags a bit, between combat that feels slow to get in and out of and to interact with, a story that has its moments but isn't exactly gripping for me, and characters that similarly I don't really care for. I mostly enjoy the game for its presentation and the vibe of the world, which isn't really enough.

Thinking I'll just put it back down for now, and maybe the upcoming remake will be a bit snappier on the gameplay side. Even then, considering the rest of the game, this may just not be the one for me.

So I just revoked my 5-star rating of this game, and will re-rate it once I finish this game. I played it when it was released, I was about 14. I loved it at the time. Favorite game for a long time, and up until a week ago I would have told you my favorite Final Fantasy was FF9. But I just started my first replay in almost 20 years and WOW I cannot believe how much I dislike it. In one word the game is laborious. The dialogue, while always too-wordy in JRPGs, is insanely taxing. Characters just blather on and on, saying nothing at all. It's not even character-building stuff, either. For example, there's a scene in the Iifa Tree where Eiko tries to get on an elevator. Here is the actual words taken from ffwa.eu, which has a script of al the games:

[Eiko jumps onto the platform. Nothing happens. She gets off it]

Eiko "Hey, Zidane. I found something here."

Zidane "Hmm... Maybe it'll move like the last one..."

Eiko "It didn't move when I got on..."

Zidane "You stood on it!?" [Eiko nods] "Well...."

Eiko "Why don't we all try getting on? [They all get on it]

Zidane "When I got on, I felt it respond." [It begins to move] "I guess we're in luck!"

This is what I'm talking about. I know it's not a ton of text here, but it's this over and over. Characters needlessly talk about things that the player has no agency over, and doesn't care about. The scene boils down to "if you walk on the platform it moves." This is a video game. Let me just walk on it and have it move. I'm not going to be like "WHAT? IT MOVED? BUT HOW? IF ONLY A CHARACTER EXPLAINED THIS TO ME BEFOREHAND!" And characters constantly reiterate things we already know and I'm just - so - tired - of - hearing - them - endlessly - talk. Mind you, I've been playing RPGs since FF8 came out. I know what I'm getting into. I recently played Planescape: Torment, a game that absolutely never shuts the fuck up either. But that's a well written game.

And playing FF9 is a chore, too. Remember when I said laborious? It is "molasses in December" slow. The combat is just so slow and also lacks some information that makes it generally annoying. Remember when I said the characters talk too much? Well the combat talks too little. I am constantly unsure of who is about to go after their ATB gauge is filled. I'll tell Quina to attack and she just sits there in her "input accepted" animation for what feels like ages. And, at some point in the next week, Quina will attack. The game has some bizarre steps back, too. For example, you can accidentally select multiple characters to use the same 1 item, because it takes so long for them to act once you have selected an action. For example, there was a time early in the game when I has 1 Phoenix Down and 2 dead party members. I didn't realize I only had one, so I selected it, and then selected Dead Party Member 1. My next character selects the Phoenix Down, and then selects Dead Party Member 2. Because I only had 1, and it takes forever for characters to act, they both were trying to use the same 1 item. So when it was spent, character 2 was like "Not Enough Items" and had a dead turn. I know that's an edge case, and I should have been more careful...but why is that even a thing? How? When I say go, fucking go. I strongly dislike the story and unbearable voice acting of Final Fantasy X, but I loved the combat because it told you everything you needed to know. There was no guessing, which I really appreciated.

My LORD and don't get me started on the magma-hot diarrhea soup that is the card game Tetra Master. I loved Triple Triad once I got the hang of it and was disappointed there wasn't enough competition in FF8. But in FF9? Tetra Master is straight up a dice rolling simulator. When you lose, it's absolutely in no way your fault because EVERYTHING is random. And when you win? Not your fault either so it doesn't even feel good. The game forces you to save-scum or lose your entire library. It's a mega bummer, because man do I love an in-game card game.

I'm on Disc 3 (Garland just explodified Alexander from a ship in the sky) and I'm flabbergasted at how little I'm enjoying this game. This was "one of my favorite games." But that was a long time ago, and what I consider "a good story" has changed dramatically. I look for different things in games. FF9 was probably my second real RPG after FF8. I've played countless since then, and my standards have understandably shifted.

I embarked on a quest last year to replay a bunch of games I loved from my teens and twenties that I haven't played since then. I'm afraid that this might happen more often than not.

Maybe our fond memories are best left as fond memories.

Pleasantly surprised just how different the 3 PS1 FFs are from each other. Two good things and two bad things about FF9.

Really liked the character interactions. The writing was more touching than I expected it to be. Also enjoyed the FMVs, I thought that Square got gradually better with each release.

I didn't like learning abilities through equipment like in FFTA2. They also made shopping for equipment harder in a way. In FF6, even if characters weren't in your party, you could tell if they were able to equip an item you saw in the shop. In FF9, the equipment that characters had equipped wasn't registered if they weren't in your current party. It's a slight inconvenience, but it irked me since people come and go throughout the game.