Final Fantasy IX

"Most Boring RPG I've Ever Played"

Some games are so good, you think about them all day, rush home from work to grab that controller and lose hours of sleep just for a chance to play it. Some games are so good, when the ending approaches, you look back in sorrow and wished there was more.

Final Fantasy 9 is not one such game.

To put it bluntly, it is boring. It is beyond boring: in the words of an internet ninja, it is about as exciting as watching wood be wood. It took me six months to finish this game: I'd start playing, yawn, turn it off and not come back for another month or so. It was sheer will power that got me through to the disappointing ending, and I could have used those 30 something hours on something, anything, more productive.

The graphics are about the only thing that doesn't disappoint, but then, when has a Square game ever had anything but exceptional graphics? The graphics do a wonderful job of expressing the happy-go-lucky nature of FF9's world: Square wanted to make a fairytale world, and it certainly looks like one. The characters -- well, the characters look interesting. Instead of the realism used in FF8, the characters are exaggerated with big heads on relatively tiny bodies. While you get used to it, and it actually fits quite well, it certainly isn't to my taste (though a number of people think they are the best graphics on the PS. Personal opinion, I guess).

The Full Motion Videos, I find, are a major step-down from the previous entries. While the graphics are crisper and more refined, it simply highlights the ugliest of the character design. While Princess Garnet and Vivi look okay, Zidane looks like a hideous freak, and there isn't an adjective powerful enough to describe Steiner's ugliness. The FMVs attempt to add realistic graphics to a cartoon world, and it definitely doesn't mix. Thankfully, after the first disc, the FMVs are few and far between.

The spell effects are about average, nothing over the top, about on par with previous entries in the series. Again, though, the graphics are inferior in respect to summons. FF7 had better-looking summons than this game, and FF7 is a game that has aged poorly in terms of graphics. And for some reason, the summon animation is noticeable shortened: after the first summon, each subsequent summon only displays the last three seconds or so of the attack. It didn't really matter, though, as the summons are largely useless: just a flashy way to waste a load of magic.

You'll spend a lot of time battling in this game, and I don't mean that in any positive way: the enemies appear every few steps and the battle system is slow, ridiculously slow. In fact, the entire battle system is downright ludicrous: the load times are long just to get the battle started, the action bar fills painfully slow and then there's another long load time before we reappear back onto the world map, where this process is repeated every ten- to fifteen-seconds. You really feel this when you're backtracking through a weak dungeon late game to find a missing chest or side-quest. Absolutely ridiculous.

I can't overemphasize how slow this battle system really is. The battles move at the speed of bread. You could run to the bathroom for a quick refresher and make it back before you have to impart another command (true story). There is an option to speed up battle time, but it still doesn't feel right, and it actually makes another problem worse: the play control is unresponsive. You're thinking, ‘It's an RPG! How can the play control be unresponsive?' Somehow, FF9 makes the impossible a reality. If you cast cure on the party, 7 times out of 10, you'll cast it immediately, no problem. Yet for the other 3 times there is a very noticeable delay, often fatally. I remember once I cast cure on my weakened party but was helpless to do naught but watch as the enemies continued to pummel my party: it wasn't until two of them were dead that the late cure was cast, and I had to wait the eternity before the action bar filled up again to cast life. It was the closest I had ever gotten to getting game over.

The other problem with the battle system is its incredible ease: you'll be hard pressed to find an easier RPG out there. When I beat the game, I found out later that I was massively under-levelled. I was doing a low-level challenge and I didn't even know it. It was pathetic. By the end, in a futile attempt to add challenge, the developers put in invisible bosses that you might stumble across. If these bosses were powerful, it might have been difficult; they weren't, so it wasn't. In a way, this game couldn't offer challenge, for the tedious battle system would rip players apart.

Much like Espers, Materia and Junctioning that came before it, FF9 offers a new way to learn abilities. Essentially, each piece of equipment that you could equip had an ability in it, so by equipping weapons you have access to different abilities. But if you de-equip that particular weapon, you lose access to that ability. To keep the ability forever, you need to battle a certain amount of monsters. This could have been a good idea, but there seemed to be a lot of useless skills out there, and the lack of difficulty means you don't need most of the skills anyway. Still, it was an interesting idea, and this same system was later used on Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced (which, coincidently, is another game that is tediously boring, though the battles are a tad bit more fun).

And like the Limit breaks that came before it, FF9 offers the Trance system. Most people consider the Trance system a failure. Though it does try to tie into the story a bit, it flat out isn't fun. The Trance bar only fills when you get hit, and much like the rest of the game, it fills slowly. You really need to learn the one ability that speeds up Trance if you want to see them at regularly in this game. But once the Trance is filled, the character enters a special state where they deal more damage and (usually) have an extra, special ability to use. Good in theory, but i) most of the extra abilities are useless (double white magic? How is that useful?); and ii) the Trance activates immediately and dispels far too quickly, and Trance never carries over from battle to battle. I know what Square was thinking: they wanted to avoid the Limit Break spamming seen in FF7 and FF8, but this wasn't a good way to implement it. And with the lack of difficulty, the Trances' power is largely wasted. And in terms of graphics, no Trance ability can hold a candle to Omnislash or Lionheart.

Phew. Now if that didn't convince you that the battle system is flawed beyond belief, nothing will; nonetheless, a strong story can easily save a flawed battle system -- that doesn't happen here. Well, I'm told there is a story, but I kept falling asleep during all the boring dialogue and uneventful events. If this is not the weakest story in videogame history, I shudder to think what is worse.

Perhaps I'm over-exaggerating. The story isn't bad: it involves kingdoms and false loyalties and betrayal and revenge and sibling rivalry and more. It really has a lot going for it: it's just presented in the most boring fashion possible. The main culprit are the characters: they're flat-out uninteresting. None of the characters do anything that is worth caring about; they're cliche taken to the extreme. The only character who is somewhat original, Zidane, my brother refers to affectionately as ‘a dork.' He appears nothing more than a goody-goody, and nobody likes being around a goody-goody for any length of time. The other characters are all forgettable in their own unique way.

(Side point: I've seen a lot of people praise Vivi as the most ‘interesting' and ‘complex' character ever. He's just a nihilist! What's so special about that? And please don't get me started on Quina)

Of special interest is the so-called romance element. FF8 had a romance element and, like the game or not, it was pulled off wonderfully (the scene in the spaceship was expertly done). In FF9, the romance is forced and unrelenting. Perhaps taking the fairytale idea too far, Zidane falls in love with Princess Garnet the second he sees her and hounds her the rest of the game. The fact that this ‘love' is based entirely on physically appearance is more than a bit shallow, and the romance never really builds from there.

The other problem is that this game tries so hard to be funny it's disgusting. The whole game feels like a joke that just isn't funny. If calling Steiner ‘Rusty' once is funny, saying it a million times makes it hilarious -- not. It just starts getting repetitive. And boring. There are many other examples were you stop and think, ‘Is that supposed to be funny?' The jokes never quite land and are left dangling in the wind, lifeless and dry.

It seems a big selling point for a lot of people is nostalgia: namely, there were tons of Final Fantasy references in this game. I don't understand how that has to do with anything. So a NPC is named Locke from FF6 fame: how does that make this game any better? Instead of building its own legacy, FF9 borrows from the others, and ultimately suffers from it. There is nothing in this game that is purely ‘Final Fantasy 9.' That may be why the game feels so incomplete: the entire game is not but one long reference list.

And the number one reason why the story is awful is (drum roll) …….. the last boss. If people thought the last boss in FF8 was ad hoc added on, wait till you see the last boss here! I imagine each and every player who has reached the last boss has said ‘WTF?' And with good reason: the entire last disc seems like a completely different game, a completely different story. Perhaps the designers were trying to do too much? I don't know; I did notice a FAQ on gamefaqs.com trying to explain how the last boss actually does make sense. I applaud the author at making an attempt to squeeze sense into this whole fiasco. Of course, anytime you need someone else explaining in detail any part of the plot, that's a sure sign of bad storytelling. And the ending, without giving it away, commits a horrible sin: it puts in emotion just for the sake of emotion. I nearly turned the game off when I saw that.

But I've saved the worst for last! ‘How can it get any worse?' you may well be wondering. In an unprecedented move, Square took the fabulous Triple Triad card game from FF8 and destroyed it (if you aren't addicted to Triple Triad, you haven't played it enough: it is EASILY the best minigame of any Final Fantasy). Square was obviously trying to build on the success of its earlier card game but it did everything wrong! Instead of the simplicity of TT, FF9's version has a host of convoluted rules that form a card game that doesn't even make logical sense. Even after reading the FAQs I'm still confused at how it all works. But the worst thing is that to advance in the story, you MUST play it! You have no choice! (the story at that point, BTW, is especially weak on this subject) The beauty of Triple Triad was the complete optional-ness of it; if you for some bizarre reason you didn't like it, you didn't have to play it! Let alone win a game; it took me forever to beat the Card portion of this game, and I'm not completely sure how I did it. While Triple Triad is the best, this card game in FF9 is quite possible the worst minigame since lightning dodging or butterfly catching.

There is no reason to care about this game because the game gives no reason for you to care about it. The battle system is boring, the card game infuriating, the story mind-numbing: in all, FF9 is best forgotten. I would not recommend this title to anyone -- unless you're a sadist, in which case you'll love it. But for everyone else, don't bother. Same some time, save some IQ points: don't play it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/06