Retro Review: Final Fantasy IX (PS1, PSN)

Image unashamedly borrowed from IGN

Last month Final Fantasy IX turned 14 years old. Fourteen years old. In video game terms, that's positively ancient. That is, quite literally, the period of time between the release of the original Game Boy and the Nintendo DS. That's longer than the lifespan of the original Ataricorp. In terms of anniversaries it is, perhaps, not as illustrious a number as ten years, or the fast-approaching fifteen, but it is still, by and large, quite significant.

And, thus, I have chosen Final Fantasy IX for Game Academy HRO's very first Retro Review.

The 1990s were an illustrious era for the JRPG, bringing the genre to a pinnacle of popularity and quality that it has, unfortunately, not been able to maintain in the current millennium. It was a decade that saw companies like Squaresoft, Enix, and even an already-popular Capcom skyrocket into being household names with players discussing Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Breath of Fire almost as much as names like Mario and Sonic. Of the three big series in JRPGs, though, none captured western audiences' imaginations like the Final Fantasy games.

Throughout the 90's Square saw massive popularity with their western releases of the Final Fantasy series, especially on Sony's fledgling PlayStation console. Throughout the PlayStation's lifespan the console netted western releases of every Final Fantasy game with the exception of III, and still to this day holds probably the most impressive western library of JRPGs of any console ever. Squaresoft embraced the console to the fullest, and when the PlayStation 2 was announced audiences were eager to see what the company would release on the new, far superior hardware. Before that happened, though, Squaresoft had one last triumphant new Fnal Fantasy title to bring to the aging PS1, a swansong like no other: Final Fantasy IX.

Final Fantasy IX is in many ways a love letter from Squaresoft to the series that rescued it from the depths of obscurity (though we'll get into that in another, future post.) For several releases prior to IX the Final Fantasy series had been moving more and more toward science fantasy themes, but with IX came a hard about-face, returning the series to its epic fantasy roots. It is a tribute to everything that made early eight and sixteen-bit games great, all wrapped up in one of the most impressive visual presentations the original PlayStation ever managed to see.

While it is not without its flaws, Final Fantasy IX is a showcase for everything Squaresoft had accomplished as a company to the point of its release, and is, to date, one of the most solid standalone JRPGs ever made.

First thing that becomes evident upon booting Final Fantasy IX up on the PlayStation (or PS2, or even PS3, PSP, or Vita, now that the title is available on PSN) is the care that has gone into the game's graphical presentation. Squaresoft was hailed as an innovator for their combination of 2D and 3D elements in Final Fantasy VII when it first came out, and Final Fantasy IX takes that visual style and pushes it further than any title before. When it comes to PS1 games there are few that push the system to its technological limits in terms of graphical fidelity like Final Fantasy IX: the game has textures that were better than many early PS2 games managed, fluid animation, and a great sense of style throughout.

In fact, the graphics are in some places too much for the PS1's rather tame hardware, and in no place is this more evident than in battle sequences. While the animations are often fluid, and the textures are incredible for the time, there is a limit to what the PS1 can manage, and battles will often suffer from a great amount of slowdown any time magic or summons are used. The hardware often struggles to keep up with the number of polygons and effects the game asks it to push, and even with what is most likely the lowest on-screen enemy count of any game in the series, it quickly becomes obvious (and the evidence increases with the flashier spells and effects later in the game) that Final Fantasy IX is almost too much for the PlayStation to support.

Even with these problems, the overall presentation of the game remains stunning. The game is colorful, and the pre-rendered backgrounds are all beautiful, many of them featuring touches of animation to help bring them to life. The improved textures on 3D objects over previous games help them to fit into the 2D backdrops far better than in games like Final Fantasy VII, helping to keep the world's look cohesive despite the combination of its two disparate design elements.

When it comes to gameplay, Final Fantasy IX, for the most part, shines as well. With the series' two prior PlayStation-centric releases (Final Fantasy VII and VIII) character class was almost a non-issue, since nearly every character could excel at nearly anything else depending on what summons and spells they were equipped with. Not so with Final Fantasy IX: every character has their own unique class and capabilities, making character choice an important decision as every character fills a specific role in the game. This gives the gameplay a lot of depth, as every party combination requires a slightly different style of play. On top of that, abilities are learned from equipment, rather than simply earned over time. Since many accessories or armor pieces can be equipped by multiple party members, balancing who has what equipment -- and therefore is learning or has access to which abilities -- makes a significant impact on party management.

Or at least it would, if the game's difficulty curve were higher.

If Final Fantasy IX has one significant flaw, it is that gameplay during turn-based battles is quite slow. This lack of urgency is likely fully intentional as it helps to alleviate some of the issues that could otherwise arise from the game's slowdown during spell and summon effects, but it still results in battles that, while fun and interesting, also trudge along at about two-thirds the speed they should. On top of that, while the ability system is creative, every ability a character can access can be permanently learned with enough dedication of time. This is not a bad thing, but the game is not balanced for players dedicating their time to the pursuit of these abilities, meaning that any player who takes their time grinding to master abilities will almost assuredly be significantly higher in level than they are intended to be at any given point.

To balance out this difficulty (or lack thereof,) Final Fantasy IX features a wonderful story. The tale told in Final Fantasy IX references the stories of games of old, as do many of the characters, but it does so without falling into the trap of simply copy-pasting its influences into a new setting. There are references to the elemental crystals that have had such an impact on so many past titles in the series, and constant graphical throwbacks to older games in characters like Vivi and the Moogles (represented here in their cute chibi form as opposed to the more weaselly look they took on in later installments.) The story is equal parts heartbreaking and uplifting, but never pulls its punches when it comes to portraying the drama that is the world of Gaia's impending demise.

Of course, the game's epic story would be far less impressive if it lacked inspiring characters, and luckily Final Fantasy IX has these in spades. Zidane is a solid, if sometimes understated, leading man, while characters like Dagger, Vivi, and even Eiko are all infused with tons of personality and their own, unique back stories that drive their journey, giving the game plenty of subplots to unravel for the various characters as you play through. Though there are a couple of characters whose personalities are far less developed than others (Quina the Blue Mage, for instance,) even the least involved team members in Final Fantasy IX have more going for them personality-wise in both design and role in the game than some of the most revered characters from past installments.

The balance is that the story does, on occasion, interfere with actual gameplay. The ability to explore the world and change one's own party to suit their taste is a long-standing tradition in the Final Fantasy series, yet in IX both of these features are nearly completely absent until around the last quarter of the game, severely limiting players' interactions with the world at large. This also occasionally has a hendrance on the game's side quests: though there are several of them present in the game, many of them are limited in scope and very much easy to accomplish with little, if any, deviation from the linear path of the story; the two big exceptions to this are collecting all the Tetra Master cards and finding the friendly monsters, but even these quests serve as only minor distractions and offer little in the way of real reward to the player for taking the time to complete.

It may seem that this review is delving more into the game's issues than its positives, but the issues need to be addressed specifically because of how great the overall product is.

Full disclosure time here: Final Fantasy IX is, by far, my favorite title in the series. Not only does it return to the series' fantasy roots (for the last time in the core series outside of the MMOs,) but it does so with panache and a sense of style all its own, making it one of the sharpest, best designed games in the series' long run. Despite its flaws, it still manages to combine a sense of tradition with a lot of creativity to become one of the strongest JRPGs ever released, on the PlayStation or any other platform.

Final Rating: 9 out of 10

Even with everything Final Fantasy IX gets right, it still fails to reach the level of being a perfect game. While Square's desire to push the limits of the original PlayStation as far as they could is admirable, it causes too many slowdown issues in what is already a somewhat slow-paced game. Combined with the game's more limited exploration and side quest structure in comparison to older titles in the series, and Final Fantasy IX, while a great game and (in this individual's opinion) the pinnacle of the Final Fantasy series as a whole, still has room to improve.

Final Fantasy X followed close on Final Fantasy IX's heels, and being a featured title for the newer and more powerful PlayStation 2 helped to close the coffin on Final Fantasy IX's legacy far sooner than the game deserved. It also marked Squaresoft's -- soon to be Square Enix's -- departure from many of the core tenets of the series that had defined the games for many of the players who had grown up with them. These ideals would make a brief return in the ill-received Final Fantasy X-2, but with the series navigating to a new team and the movement of western markets away from JRPGs on major consoles Final Fantasy IX will likely hold a place for a long time to come as one of the greats of the genre, from the time when it was at its peak.

Do you agree with my review? Do you think it's nothing but bologna? Feel free to let me know in the comments.

The Movie Tie-in Game Done Right

Screenshot courtesy Brandon Smith (Mordie the Felifox)

In the world of video games, there are few products more universally maligned than the movie tie-in title. Games tied to Hollywood blockbusters are typified as being shallow and rushed, with little value as stand-alone products. Sadly, in many cases this hate is well warranted: often movie tie-ins, or games designed as product placement in general, are build on slimmer budgets and much more stringent guidelines than standalone releases face. Games of these types are not typically seen as art or entertainment with their own merit, but rather as advertisement platforms for the product they are tied to, and therefore are often deemed expendable.

Keep that word expendable in mind: it will be important later on.

There are exceptions, of course. Goldeneye, the legendary FPS for the N64, is often cited as the best example available for a movie tie-in handled well. Unfortunately, Goldeneye is successful specifically because it fails to follow the typical movie tie-in path; being released several years after the eponymous movie meant the game had plenty of development time for concept, presentation, and gameplay. On top of that, the game's lack of drive as a marketing tool opened the developers up to being able to incorporate elements of the James Bond universe as they saw fit rather than being constrained by the film itself, allowing them much more freedom to express what they wanted in the game rather than what any marketing department wished for. Likewise, many of the other games that are usually used as examples of positive movie tie-ins -- Alien Versus Predator, many of the Lego games, or even titles like Telltale's Back to the Future adventure games -- serve more as the exceptions that prove the rule than as truly great tie-ins: they are developed outside the typical effective marketing times for their respective franchises, and with much more developer freedom than the typical tie-in receives because of that.

With so much going against them, can a movie tie-in really be done right?

Yes, yes it can, and for proof of that fact you need look no further than The Expendabros on Steam.

At first glance The Expendabros looks as though it has very little going for it. For one thing, the game is completely free: that's right, free. For another, rather than being a scene for scene retelling of the movie, The Expendabros, which is intended as an advertisement for The Expendables 3, chooses to embrace its game nature and do its own thing, referencing characters and concepts from the film rather than trying to represent the movie's contents in a more dedicated manner. Lastly, the game is done quite clearly on the cheap: rather than being a brand-new game The Expendabros is instead presented as more of a modified version of Free Lives and Devolver Digital's creative shooter Broforce, with a handful of sprites and cutscenes being the only things that distinguish the product as its own thing.

All of these elements sound like negatives at first, but in truth, it is in these elements that the game finds its greatest strengths as a marketing tool, and as a game.

Let's start by discussing the price tag. Perhaps one of the greatest atrocities many licensed games commit is not their rushed production times or general lack of creativity in design, but rather in how much they expect players to pay. If a product is, in essence, intended for promotion of another product the company expects to make the real money off of, then it stands to reason to offer the promotional product at a discounted rate. Despite this, licensed games are often on an even keel price-wise with AAA console releases, making the flaws they often exhibit -- which many would overlook more easily in a more modestly-priced product -- that much more of an issue.

This pricing issue is not a problem for Expendabros. By being free, the game offers even the most lackadaisical viewer a hard to ignore opportunity to experience a small part of the Expendables franchise. This makes it an ideal marketing tool for the movies, and even for Free Lives' game Broforce, which Expendabros is based on. By offering the tie-in for free, players have little reason to be disappointed or turned off by the product's content based on financial input, and are therefore more likely to view its fun elements in a positive way, reflecting on the franchise as a whole.

Now we'll move on to the game's deviation from the movie's core. Often times licensed games rely on following a movie's storyline as closely as possible in order to appeal to the movie's target audience as much as they can. This is meant to serve to reinforce both the impetus to watch the movie if you've played the game and the drive to convince moviegoers to delve into the game if they like the movie, since they are typically two different ways to experience the same overall story.

Unfortunately, doing this doesn't really work for games, primarily due to the difference in narrative devices needed to properly carry a game story as opposed to a film. Games based on film or TV franchises too often stick players on a set path with little room to deviate from it; rather than embracing the idea that the story is being told as a game, instead it wants you to watch a CGI rendered version of the movie with occasional inputs into actions that have little impact on the actual events at play.

Expendabros manages to avoid these pitfalls by placing its emphasis less on trying to duplicate the film and more on trying to emulate the attitudes of the source material. By emphasizing the idea of being a game about the Expendables rather than a direct tie-in to the movie, the game frees itself to have fun with its contents in a way most licensed games don't or aren't allowed to.

Part of the reason this works is due to the game's existence as more of a mod or total conversion than a fully original title on its own.

I know, I know; I hear people complaining now that if the game doesn't do its own thing then it lacks artistic merit and value. Here is where the core concepts behind a licensed game will differ from the goals of the typical game, however, and that is that the goal with a licensed game is not for the game to stand out on its own at all, but to serve as effective promotional material for the franchise it is based on. What this means is that, when it comes to licensed games, by focusing on using an appropriate system that is already in place, developers can more effectively advertise the product they are supporting.

Notice I said appropriate system.

What makes Expendabros stand out from many other licensed titles is that the genre the game embraces fits its license perfectly. The Expendables franchise is intended to be the distillation of every cheesy action movie ever, so by choosing Broforce's explosion-filled bullet-hell gameplay to represent its game-world presence Lion's Gate chose amazingly well. By choosing a genre that represents the game equivalent of what The Expendables represent in film, the game has a much higher chance of not only appealing to gamers on a purely game-based level, but also targeting the portion of the gaming market that is most likely to be interested in the movie itself. This is a key element many licensed games miss, and why we have a tendency to see generic adventure and platform titles released for most franchises: these are often the simplest concepts to work into the narrative of the film's story, but will often times not truly fit with the type of game the target audience for the film would enjoy.

So, in The Expendabros we have a game that A) is marketed at a price point that will appeal to gamers and non-gamers without setting any kind of expectations regarding content or quality, making it an effective marketing tool for the film franchise, B) lets itself deviate from the film's core story, allowing both the game and the film to operate as separate entities with their own elements while still sharing many elements, and C) embraces a genre that works to represent the same core ideals and philosophies as the film does, helping the game to appeal to the same market as the film targets.

All together, these elements combine to make The Expendabros an ideal example of a movie tie-in game done right, even before we get to the single most important element of all: the game is FUN. The game finds merit even without its film tie-in elements through simply being a blast to play and offering players a good amount of options to build on their experience when doing so, and through this further improves its ability to advertise the film franchise it is based on. A good game, no matter how little connection it might actually have with its franchsie source material, will always serve as a better draw for audiences than a game that stays true to its material but fails to be an enjoyable experience. Look at products like the Lego games for a great example of this: often, the Lego games will deviate wildly on story elements form their source material, and the worlds are always far different from those represented in film, yet the games still serve to draw players due to their accessibility and enjoyability. In turn, players then associate that enjoyable experience with the franchise as a whole.

In the long run, isn't that what any promotional material aims to do, is emphasize the enjoyment one can draw from the product being advertised?

What movie tie-in games have you played in the past? What have you thought they did right, or wrong, and do you think they served their purpose as promotional materials for the franchise they were tied to? Let us know.

Editorial: The Games That Define You

Welcome, yet again, to a long-delayed yet much needed addition to our content here at Game Academy HRO.

If you're reading this, then congratulations! You are, most likely, a gamer of some kind. I've ranted on "hardcore" versus "casual" on here already, so we'll avoid that again. Instead, today we're going to talk about a whole different aspect of games, and those who play them, and that is what games we enjoy, and why.

Games are more than children's toys. Sure, to many of us this seems like a given: after all, who would ever mistake the contents of a game like God of War or Europa Universalis as the playthings of youth? And yet, this is a misconception that many people have. This misconception is not limited to the video game industry, mind you: board games and, to a lesser extent, card games (of both the trading and non-trading varieties) face the same stigma. Even role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons or the World of Darkness titles see feedback from groups claiming that they are aiming to corrupt youth when the target audiences of many of these products are individuals in their twenties and over.

Luckily, this is a stigma that is gradually wearing thinner in our culture as those who have grown up with a wide variety of games as an integral part of their life become our cultural leaders. Film stars, musicians, even politicians are known to play games nowadays, and much like the animated film medium has managed to (mostly) overcome its image as a childhood pastime to be avoided by those of more "mature" sensibilities, gaming, in all its various forms, is reaching that same point.

One thing that gaming does lack in comparison to many other artistic or expressive mediums, however, is individual legitimacy, by which I mean, people's acknowledgement of what games, or even a specific game, have meant to them during their life, and how that game has changed them.

There are stories of this out there. Only a few months back a well-known gaming site (who will remain nameless) released an article from one of their writers about how the Tomb Raider series helped to inspire her to be a strong, action-oriented woman. Likewise, within the industry itself there are plenty of people willing to express how one game or another influenced their decision to jump into the industry themselves. Outside of those who are already considered "gamers" by definition, though, and are already a part of the community as it were, gaming has yet to find a true voice among the populace.

Ask any film star or politician and they can tell you their favorite film, favorite song, and favorite book. More than that, they can tell you why those properties are their favorites, whether it comes down to emotional content, aesthetics, or simply quality of construction and storytelling. Many of those same stars and businessmen/politicians would simply glare at you or shake their heads, though, if asked about a favorite board or video game, and this needs to change.

As I stated at the beginning of this article, if you are here, and you are reading this, then you are in all likelihood already branded a "gamer" of some type. Those of us already in the community can attest to the fact that games can and do have a profound influence on those who play them.

So, why don't we admit to this influence in our day to day lives more?

Imagine it is the 1930's, and you are talking to a friend about artistic merit. You mention Mary Shelley, she mentions Lovecraft, and you summarily chew her out for choosing such trash and trying to call it art. This is our situation now, and though time will, one day, give our medium the love and respect it deserves, for the moment we are pop, we are pulp, and we are laid low by the lack of respect we receive from other sources.

How can we change this?

Simply through expressing our love for our medium, and letting others know that games, just like any other form of entertainment or art, can influence you, and help you to define who you are.

There are dozens upon dozens of games that I have loved during my life, but like with books, movies, or songs, there are only a happy hearty few that I would say have helped to define who I am. Dungeons and Dragons sits right there at the top of that list; I was a latecomer to the series, twelve when I first picked up a used Dungeons and Dragons second edition starter set at a yard sale and already well versed in video and board games, yet the impact of that box set on my development was profound. From that box of pamphlets and crude pictures, and the books I have read since, I have learned more about storytelling, world building, and character construction than I ever picked up from a class in school. By reading about and playing Dungeons and Dragons I learned to apply more than pure imagination to what I wrote and built: I learned about logic, and balance, and action-driven narrative, and many other elements that apply not only to my artistic interests but also to my interactions with other people, albeit in a more cerebral and sardonic way.

With video games, my biggest influence has likely been Doom. As part of the first generation to really grow up with 3D games as a major part of their youth, Doom helped to define for me what tech was capable of, and as I grew older and learned more of the history behind ID and the game' development, it helped to show me what a small, dedicated team of enthusiastic individuals could accomplish with a little perseverance. It was something so much more than an engine or a new graphical aesthetic: Doom was, in many ways, the dawning of a new era in games, for better or worse, and is to this day one of the games I find myself most often delving back into to experience again. The impact Doom had on me as a child was profound, but the influence it has continued to hold over me as I have grown older has been no less important.

These are only two of the many, many games that have helped not only to entertain me, but to teach me, and to help me grow as a person. As much as books, or art, or movies or music or anything else, games have helped to give me artistic direction, strength, and determination in life.

What more can you look for in a work of art, than to influence, in some small way, how you define yourself, either in relation to yourself or to others?