Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation) review "The Final Fantasy tradition continues for me. Each Final Fantasy game I play one ups the game I played before it. I thought it would end with Final Fantasy VII, such a great game that was, not likely to be beaten. And yet through the entire game Final Fantasy IX was right on it's tail, and it overthrew it with the perfect ending. See, you are basically buying a $20 movie with Final Fantasy IX, and a little bit of fun also. However I can think of millions of movies that are worse than the story s..."

The Final Fantasy tradition continues for me. Each Final Fantasy game I play one ups the game I played before it. I thought it would end with Final Fantasy VII, such a great game that was, not likely to be beaten. And yet through the entire game Final Fantasy IX was right on it's tail, and it overthrew it with the perfect ending. See, you are basically buying a $20 movie with Final Fantasy IX, and a little bit of fun also. However I can think of millions of movies that are worse than the story shone in Final Fantasy IX, as it is great. This is for RPG lovers who love a good story, and a great game.

STORY (35/30): The story deserves all these points, for it is wonderful. It all starts familiarly, with your theif kidnapping a princess. A dutiful knight follows the theif so he can save the princess, while a poor mage is searching for his past. All these characters will entertwine and create a story about them all. It is a story with tragedy, seperation, and coming togethers. It is a story of friendship.

I will admit, I was almost crying at some points, although they were tears of joy (I am a sympathetic freak). I can't tell you these times for they are major spoilers, but it is a game where it plays even the players emotion. It is humorous, sad, or joyous at many points in the game. But what stands out in Final Fantasy IX is the perfect ending. The one which makes you cry, out of sadness and joy. The one that plays your emotions, while answering many questions. Of course that same ending is about 40 minutes long (I estimated). Definitely the greatest ending in videogame history, not even close to anything else.

GRAPHICS (14/15): Personally I really like the graphics. I think they fit the game perfectly, except the cutscene pictures of Dagger are kinda strange... They fit an RPG perfectly, and each character has their own look (Quina). The cutscenes in all, are all beautiful and they improve upon what Final Fantasy VII started.

SOUND (10/10): The music in this game stands up easily with the rest of the Final Fantasy series. It is great music, including Daggers song which will a bring to your eye, or the wonderful backgrounds to Vivi or Amarant. And when you completely beat it, on the The End screen we all know we have heard that music a few times before.

GAMEPLAY (29/30): It is similiar to the rest of the Final Fantasy games, as it's battle sequence is based on time limits. This means you have to wait until your gauge is filled before you can attack your enemies with magic or weapons or so forth. This is a great system, which I have yet to get sick of. You engage in battle at random, unless it is a boss of some type. The bosses are significantly harder than the random battles, but they should be.

Now the weakness in the gameplay is I do not like the new system as much as the Espers or the Materia in past Final Fantasy's. By equipping a weapon you can learn various skills from that weapon. Some say this is an innovative system, but I am not as fond of it as the others. It is tough cause you have to train yourself with that weapon. However it is nice to see a change, and you still have magic to use and things like that.

To go from the negative, to a severe positive is that like other Final Fantasy's each person has their own collection of weapons. Also the level up systems gives you points that will level you up the normal way, and it will give you AP points which increase your stats and gives you the ability to keep newly acquired powers. This gives a new demension to training yourself, for you may need to train with a weaker weapon to get the skills on it memorized.

Final Fantasy IX is four discs long, filled with information. There is a huge world, plus world that aren't even part of the main one. There are many castles which you will need to revisit, and there is still the Chocobo's from the past. Final Fantasy IX claims to have taken the best of the old, and combined it with the best of the new. And really it has. It has a medieval look to it, and thankfully there are no guns, instead the swords we all love. Truthfully guns really shouldn't be in Final FANTASY, but this one doesn't have that problem. Thankfully there is still those wonderful airships however.

REPLAYABILITY (7/10): An RPG's true weakness. Although a very long game with about 33 hours in it, really you have seen the biggest factor through, and it will never be the same again. However in Final Fantasy IX there are more secrets, and more items to find. In truth everyone plays certain games again for certain reasons, and for an RPG this games replayability isn't that bad. Plus there is the addictive card game which we all have come to love.

DIFFICULTY (5/5): This game has a nice level of difficulty. In my mind there are two points in the game that will force you to massively level yourself up, and it is a little bit worse than other Final Fantasies, but that just makes the game a little harder. The final master Kuja and Necron will push you to the limits, but either skill or cheap tactics (Submission 9) will pull you through those battles. Final Fantasy IX is a tough game, but beatable. It shouldn't rattle you too much.

OVERALL (100/100): Final Fantasy IX is the equal to Final Fantasy VII in every way, but one... The ending is superb. However Final Fantasy VII gets all the fame, while Final Fantasy IX is looked over. That is why Final Fantasy IX is not only the greatest game of all time (at least to this point) it is the most underated game of all time. The graphics and sound are some of the best on the Playstation, and the story keeps up the Final Fantasy tradition. Anyone who owns a Playstation and doesn't own Final Fantasy IX does not know what they are missing. This is an instant classic, and definitely deserves the ''Greatest Hits'' on the game case, although it should say ''The Greatest HIT''... Just trying to get my point across!!!!

Community review by ratking (August 05, 2002) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.