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| Image unashamedly borrowed from IGN |
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.
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