What's Wrong With This Game?

[Flying Arrow]

Slow and boring battle system.

This, plus a bafflingly cluttered and poorly-told story that starts out enjoyable and ends up a complete and utter mess. This is, of course, purely subjective, but I find the adventure begins to stutter and becomes less interesting once the party leaves the Mist Continent. Everything from the world design to the scenarios starts to grate on me (although I liked the interspersed bits with Steiner and Tantalus, if I'm remembering the chronology correctly, and the Vivi plot is among the best ever conceived for an RPG). The Iifa Tree sequence is pretty thrilling, but again, it drops off again after that and the Terra to the ending section feels kind of tacked-on and lifeless.

However!, Squaresoft being the master of presentation and direction still manages to make it a pretty good, moderately-compelling game (although arguably the weakest of the PS1 trilogy as a top-to-bottom package). I've played IX more times than games I've owned for just as long or longer that I consider to be better.

[Jibril]

Slow and boring battle system.

Yep

That's also the only valid reason to dislike the game, since it's rock solid in every other area. Sadly, it's also arguably the most important and often-seen area, making its mediocrity particularly noticeable. I mean... it's slower than the SNES games, which it was quite obviously attempting to emulate. I dunno who thought that would be a good idea.

[Jessweeee♪]

Not just in this forum, but people I know IRL too, most people prefer FFVI and FFIX to the rest of the games in the series.

[The Man]

We shouldn't be looking for flaws in the game; we should be looking for flaws in the people who don't like it.

The only real flaw with the game is the way trance works. The battle system isn't even particularly simplistic, at least when you compare it with FFIV's, or particularly slow, at least when you compare it with FFII's. Everything else is fine.

[Mirage]

So it's a strength that the gameplay of a game from 2000 isn't worse than that of a game from before 1990. Wow, that's putting the bar a bit low.

[Jiro]

Not being able to save your Trance annoyed me, but that's only because you could save your Limit Break in VII. If you look at Trance in its own context, it makes sense that you can't save it (build up of extreme feelings etc etc).

A lot of people hate Tetra Master but I enjoyed it, despite its seemingly randomness and bias against the player.

I love IX because after playing VII and VIII, I went backwards and saw where the series had come from. I don't think you can truly appreciate the magic of IX without enjoying the earlier instalments.

[Mirage]

There is another thing I think made people like TT better too. Your card game skills had a very direct impact on the rest of the game, because of card mod and refining abilities. You could actually replace time leveling up/drawing with time spent playing card games and not suffer from it when you met the next boss.

[The Man]

So it's a strength that the gameplay of a game from 2000 isn't worse than that of a game from before 1990. Wow, that's putting the bar a bit low.

It's functional. If you're playing Final Fantasy games for their gameplay then you're doing it wrong anyway.

[Jibril]

So it's a strength that the gameplay of a game from 2000 isn't worse than that of a game from before 1990. Wow, that's putting the bar a bit low.

It's functional. If you're playing Final Fantasy games for their gameplay then you're doing it wrong anyway.

And if you're playing them for story, you're doing it wrong too. Hmm...

[Craig]

this game had its flaws, just like any other game, but overall it just had this charm to me that made me love it. i think a big help was the soundtrack which to me is definately the best in the series.

i dont even pay much attention to music in games, im quite a casual gamer and just like gameplay, but i actually bought the official soundtrack for this game

[Mirage]

So it's a strength that the gameplay of a game from 2000 isn't worse than that of a game from before 1990. Wow, that's putting the bar a bit low.

It's functional. If you're playing Final Fantasy games for their gameplay then you're doing it wrong anyway.

I don't play games that I think have poor gameplay. I can get over a poor story if the game is fun enough to play (Hi FFX-2), but I can't force myself through a game that makes me want to throw the controller through my TV even though the story is decent.

If you don't think games should progress in terms of gameplay over the course of ten smurfing years, then we're probably not on the same page in what we value in games. Heck, we're probably not even on the same planet.

Do you like DQ8 per chance?

[arcanedude34]

I like the battle system and the story. =D

[Rantz]

I agree with arcanedude. :}

[Freya]

I think that the way the FF's were going with the whole guns and what not people expected IX to be heading in that direction too. Thus when they found out it wasn't they just kinda said ef that and skipped it.

Also, I love the battle system so much more than VIII. I'd rather have one blue mage (quina) then everyone having to be a blue mage. But I think if you had been playing VII then VIII you're getting use to things so by the time you hit IX it seemed like a step back in gameplay mechanics when really it wasn't. I don't think so much that it was slower just that it took more thought and with the way the game was presented (cartoony) it didn't seem like it'd be a game that required that much. So when people are smacked with "oh snap I should pay attention more", t usually ends up in frustration because they went in thinking it was something it was not.

It was the tech thing and the fact the graphics weren't as realistic, they were more cartoony that it probably lost most of it's VII's FFers.

[Kyros]

The trance took 6 years to get even with High Tide, and most of the time it wasn't needed much at all. The main villain claimed to be a guy, but I don't believe it. The card game was terribad overall.

One the other hand, the ability learning then equipping them was cool, and CHOCOBO HOT/COLD TOOK TOO MUCH OF MY LIFE AWAY!!!... Seriously overpowered stuff from chocobo hot/cold if you do it while you're playing through the story *cough*ROBE OF LORDS BEFORE TERRA OR EARLIER*cough*