Forum - View topicThis Week in Games - Square Enix Ringing In Final Fantasy IX's 25th Anniversary
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 816 Location: PA / USA |
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On the note of mobile games, I'd love to take a moment to remind that Wizardry Variants Daphne and Persona Phantom X are both really solid games in spite of their unfortunate choice of platform/genre (yet can be enjoyed on PC). Regardless of some of the "live service sheen" present, both games manage to retain their IP's signature gameplay & spirit, and it would be unfortunate to miss either title just because the platform/genre has had some rough times (-insert Disgaea mobile trauma here-).
Wizardry Daphne has the Blade & Bastard anime coming soon - I hope it succeeds and draws more attention to the series, especially after Delicious in Dungeon winning everyone over. On Final Fantasy IX, for me personally, it was my favorite JRPG of the PS1 generation. If there's any one word that I think fits Final Fantasy IX, it's the word "discovery", for me. Moving from area to area, exploring for hidden treasure boxes, the insane amount of side content (sadly stuck behind the PlayOnline Guide in some aspects), and the story itself being about the characters discovering their reasons/wills to keep on living, it initially presents as a softer story than the tone that comes with FF7 or FF8, but is still dark in moments and reamins up to its finale, emotionally-deep. Playing FF9 originally, felt like one of those moments of having a parent reading a bedtime story, and you're hanging on their every word as their words illustrated the world to life and you anticipated where the characters would go next or what would ultimately become of them. It's the child-like fascination of suddenly discovering an entire "new world" exists. Having played the Director's Cuts of FF5 and FF6 recently (the de-listed, content-complete ones), it's interesting how FF9's "back-to-basics" combat & equipment feels insanely similar to those two particular older Final Fantasy titles, and I think the "elegant return to simplicity" that FF9 employs in its equipment & combat systems allows the player to focus more on the characters' stories and navigation of the world, without having to be bogged down as much by min/maxing something like GFs, or Materia, or a Sphere Grid (all systems I otherwise love). When I see people cite their reasons for liking the James Cameron Avatar films being that they "get to experience another world", my thoughts immediately shoot back to FF9's and how being surprised again, and again, and discovering interesting new places to go with each new segment of the game, is such a unique focus that it employs. In FF10 you learn about Spira through Tidus' narration and first-hand accounts of having it (the world & its rules) actively happen to him, but on FF9 you the player, have full control to dig a bit further and discover new things while you travel. It's not an aspect of the game that I see championed so often, and I think it's an aspect of it that is worth drawing more attention to - that a world felt simultaneously so alien, yet comforting at the same time in FF9. |
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b-dragon
Posts: 628 |
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FFIX's always been the one from that era that just never clicked with me. I've waffled back and forth on why that was- pacing, increased "whimsy", the seeming Giant Space Flea from Nowhere- but for whatever reason I can recognize it as "good" but I've got no attachment.
Still, I know it has fans. I hope whatever comes of this anniversary will satisfy most of them ("most" because satisfying all fans, FF fans particularly, is an especially absurd pipe dream.) Last edited by b-dragon on Fri Jul 11, 2025 9:48 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2560 Location: Online Terminal |
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Either Toei finally got the bag of money they wanted or saw that Ultraman was doing decently enough that a Live Show is happening in New Jersey this November that they decided it was time to step things up.
Sadly, with all the fun game stuff happening this week, most of the bandwidth in my friends group has gone to them horsies and I don't know when it's going to let up. |
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Fluwm
Moderator
 Posts: 1625 |
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The more time passes the more I appreciate FFIX's stylized presentation relative to the more conventional anime-style Square (and, later, Square-Enix) took with the rest of the series, before and after. A shame they don't really seem to be inclined to take big swings like that any more -- FFIX has a timeless cham and a unique flair that really makes it stand out from the rest of the genre, even a full quarter-century later.
So are these features the same as those included in the (paid) upgrade patch, or separate to it? And, if the latter, will they necessitate an additional fee for those who already bought the upgrade? Anyway, glad to hear it's one of the few Switch 2 games, it seems, to actually get a *real* physical release. |
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LinkTSwordmaster
Posts: 816 Location: PA / USA |
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Bravely Default's first title on 3DS felt like it had a similar vibe, but I wouldn't say it takes it as far as FF9 carries it. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1766 |
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I do believe that Final Fantasy IX's artstyle is very stylized and has a very cartoony, almost kind of Disney, look to it, but ironically I've seen people saying it was too anime-looking, I mean, some characters like Garnet, Zidane and Kuja still have an anime look to them, but I've heard that some people that already played FF I, IV and VI before the series got more popular in the West with VII didn't like the look of IX because it felt to anime and/or childish, kind of what happened a few years later with Zelda: The Wind Waker, and for that reason they didn't want to play it. |
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FishLion
 Crazy Fangirl Posts: 861 |
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Funnily enough, Wind Waker is also considered a classic now that people got off their edgy "this game is for kids" high horse long enough to actually enjoy it. It is funny how distance changes the perceptions of media and it will be interesting to see what people pan now but stands the test of time despite that. MODERATION NOTE: fixed incorrect quote attribution --F Last edited by FishLion on Fri Jul 11, 2025 2:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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meiam
Posts: 3674 |
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While I wished was we got for FF7 remake was "Just give us the same thing, but better-looking!" I would be much more open to significant change of FF9 story. Specifically, the later third, I think, should be significantly altered. It was originally not supposed to be a full FF mainline game, only being upgrade to it later in development, so I suspect the game later part were added after that decision as a way to pad it out so it would feel more like a full FF game.
But those later part really suffer. Kuja is just not strong enough as a main antagonist, the Terra section needed to be much more fleshed out (and the section of Zidane going all emo should have been longer or removed, as is it just flip flop pointlessly), the last two continent are barely continent, one of them being little more than a dungeon. And the final dungeon is just awful, it feel more like some sort of epilogue/secret dungeon. Overall I think 9 is better than 7 (much better cast) but 7 is much more consistently good. |
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AiddonValentine
 Posts: 2955 |
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FFIX's always had a weird place in the series for me. Even when it came out, it being a "return to the roots" made me think "What roots?" Every FF did something different with new setting and new characters, and it didn't take long for the series to go to steampunk and then cyberpunk. Even its whole them is about "memories" and remembering what came before. FFIX has moments, but altogether I would say it's uneven. The pacing is weird with entire continents just being one and done, with characters dropping off for the entirety of them, and let's not even get into the side quests (damn you, PlayOnline strategy guide!). You can definitely tell it wasn't meant to be a mainline entry, but more an offbeat Crystal Chronicles spinoff.
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EmeraldSaucer
 Posts: 942 |
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FF9 has a lot of good points, but also in a number of areas it is just unfinished. From Freya's arc concluding with "oh, Fratley has amnesia I guess. Ok" less than halfway through the game as she just stands there the rest of the time, to moments in the endgame like the other guardian fights just getting quickly glossed over, to the dearth of boss fight music all speak to a game that didn't have enough time in the oven before it was shoved out to make way for FF10 a year later. Memoria is still beautiful though
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1766 |
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Now talking about Final Fantasy IX in detail, back when it the game originally came out I was 6 years old and I had no knowledge about the FF series as a whole, back then the only games that I knew were things like Mario, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, due to me growing up playing with a Famiclone and a bootleg Genesis, Pokémon was inescapable at that time, but I was mainly a fan of the anime, though I was aware of the games for the Game Boy, and even though some relatives and a friend had a PSOne, the Final Fantasy series has never been that popular or well known here in Argentina, or in Latin America in general, because it didn't matter if you managed to get a legitimate copy or a pirated one, the FF games, and RPGs in general, were never translated into Spanish, not all of us had a good grasp of English in general and a very text-heavy game like FF was practically impossible to understand, unless you maybe managed to find a pirated copy of a European Spanish translated version, and even then that had its problems, mainly the dialect.
Still, when I was a bit older, improved my English skills and started using the Internet, I saw tons of lists about the best PSOne games and the Final Fantasy ones where always in the top spots, mainly VII and IX, around that time I also remember watching Gametrailers' Final Fantasy retrospective and it caught my attention that the series' creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, mention that IX was his favorite entry in the series, and while I later played VII and VIII to see what had I missed, I actually never completed IX, it's just that whenever I started I had to do something else, though I have seen some let's plays and it does look wonderful and I really loved its soundtrack. As I said before, I think I can see why IX didn't perform as well as VII and VIII, due to it releasing in the final years of the PSOne, being a throwback to the first six games in the series that most people in the West weren't that familiar and it being more whimsical and cartoony in an age where many gamers, and even some reviewers, hated that. But I'd say that over the years IX has remained as one of the most beloved games in the series, at least in the West it seems it's the second most beloved game in the series after VII, or at least it's slightly below X. As for whether there's a FFIX remake in development, I wouldn't rule it out, I've seen the rumors but considering the things that happened with Square-Enix last year, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a change of plans or if there are development problems. I know there're people who believe that a remake is not necessary, but I think that IX has a lot of room for improvements, but I also don't think it'll have the same scope as the FFVII remake project, and I think that's for the better |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1766 |
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I remember I once read that Final Fantasy IX was meant to be a spin-off titles aimed at older fans who grew up with the first six games in the series, but apparently the wanted their next big new entry in the series in the PlayStation 2 to be the tenth installment since they felt that number was more special, so the spin-off got promoted into a mainline entry. Now that I think about it, I'd say that other Square-Enix games like Bravely Default and the recent Team Asano games like Octopath Traveller feel kind of similar to FFIX in the sense that they are intentionally made to appeal to fans of classic Super NES/Famicom-era Squaresoft titles, though ironically there was a true Final Fantasy gaiden title for the DS, Four Heroes of Light, which played a lot like and old-school RPG and it feels like a precursor of all the other games that I mentioned. Sometimes I get the impression that Square-Enix doesn't actually wants to make another gaiden FF game that plays a lot more like the first six games and IX because they don't want to devalue the brand's image and prestige, that and the fact that Dragon Quest also kind of fills the traditional JRPG niche. |
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That Little Rapscallion
Posts: 150 |
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1-6 were a strict fantasy setting while 7 and 8 went for a more modern spin so 9 was a return to the first 6 games which was nice. I enjoy 7 and even 8 to a degree but I was glad to get classic FF back with 9. 9 is one of my favorites in the series although 5 is probably my top favorite. As far as a remake of 9 is concerned I do not want one. I'm sick of remakes. I'd rather have new games.
As a huge fan of that era I wasn't very impressed with those titles. I did not like Octopath Traveller because the whole 8 player gimmick meant the 8 storylines stayed separate and the character don’t acknowledge the other party members during their own story I didn't play the sequel so I don't know if that did anything different. As someone who values characters in RPGs it was such a dealbreaker. |
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EmeraldSaucer
Posts: 942 |
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No FF has had a strict fantasy setting. A twist in the very first game (lost to later versions due to tileset changes but maintained in Stranger of Paradise) is that the "flying fortress" was actually a low orbit space station manned by robots. Every game after maintained some degree of sci-fi influence, while 6 dove headfirst into steampunk as they mentioned |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2466 |
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Just sneaking in here to say that I’m so relieved that Mistonia got localized the way it has, because I’ve seen the heroine referred to as “Applause”, which is just too ridiculous even for otome games. Looking forward to this one tho! I’ve heard good things about it!
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