you read those start and finish dates right, this game took me a whole ass year to beat. you know, i think it's a pretty universal experience that as a kid, especially with RPGs, they can take what feels like YEARS to complete, and you feel like you're a different person by the time you finish it. when i played Super Mario Sunshine as a kid, i started it when i was in 2nd grade, and i only finished it when i was in middle school. with Final Fantasy IX, while the time disparity is definitely not as extreme as my Sunshine experience, i still DEFINITELY feel like so much about myself has changed since i started this one. i went on a journey with FFIX, and im kind of sad that i'm done with it now. it's been a long time since i finished a game with such a satisfying, complete ending, but still felt ravenously hungry for more. that's probably due in part to the fact that, of the FF games i've played so far, this is easily the one where i got the most attached to the characters, with FFVI as a decently close second place. probably also due to the fact that FFIX is a game that'd been on "my list" for years now. even in my days of saying "final fantasy doesn't interest me", i still took a great interest in FFIX. i remember watching a run of it at AGDQ one night and falling asleep to it, since it was a nearly 11 hour run, and watching a couple vods of Vinesauce Vinny's playthrough of it, and i think these solidified it as "the one that looks cool" to me. by the time i got around to starting it last May, however, most of my memories of the playthroughs i'd watched had become foggy, distant memories, so i was almost entirely blind going into the game. i think this review is going to be a sloppy, unfocused mess, but i'll do my best to keep everything in line.

to begin, this is easily the FF game with my favorite character designs. don't get me wrong, Yoshitaka Amano is one of my favorite character artists (and artists in general) of all time, and Nomura's designs are definitely iconic, but the trio of Shuko Murase, Shin Nagasawa, and Toshiyuki Itahana really cooked with their work here. (though i will say, the Amano artwork of the FFIX crew is really cool and worth a look, i recommend looking up his pieces of Quina and Vivi specifically.) there's a level of whimsy in FFIX that is wholly unique to it in the mainline FF series, sure, you've got a good amount of human, or at least human-ish characters, but there are so many CREATURES in this game. the Burmecians are all tall, slender rat creatures, the Qus are round, genderless critters with huge tongues and clown makeup, you'll spot plenty of NPCs that are just random animals, and even the humans get silly with it sometimes. i think my absolute favorite characters were Quina Quen and Freya Crescent, Quina has a simply excellent design and is so goofy and silly and weird. i love Blue Magic in these games (even if it isn't the BEST practically) so it helps that they're a Blue Mage. and Freya looks so badass, she has a similar getup to the Red Mages of old, but with none of the mediocrity in terms of battle capability. oh yeah, speaking of that...

after the first two FF games on PS1 decided to go in a completely different direction than what 1-6 had done, FFIX was sort of a return to form, at least in terms of setting and aesthetics. there are so many direct references to earlier games, ESPECIALLY Final Fantasy 1, and as someone who has been hopelessly obsessed with this series and learning everything i can about it, it made me giddy everytime i saw something and was immediately able to sniff out the exact thing they were referencing. one particular example i remember was, in a certain part of the game you're reading about some ancient history, and there's a story told about a man named Josef who died trying to stop a boulder from crushing his friends. i was immediately like, "OH FUCK, THAT'S SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN FF2!!!", i feel like such a nerd describing this but it was such a cool moment to me. i also like the way they recontextualize a lot of things from earlier in the series. i think that in the older games, the Black Mage's appearance was intended to just be a human shrouded in darkness so you couldn't see their face, but in FFIX, Black Mages are a unique species of being created entirely from magic power. back to aesthetics though, FFVIII and especially FFVII leaned more into a futuristic, high-tech setting that was very different from anything the series had done before. with FFIX, things are back to more of that quaint, yet grand fantasy aesthetic, and i cannot BELIEVE i am saying this, as the former #1 fantasy setting hater, but i fucking love this game's world. it seeps with history, age, and grandiosity, without feeling cookie-cutter or, in other words, boring as shit. again, i think that whimsy i was talking about earlier has something to do with that. so many towns or locations in this game feel so HUGE, even if in reality there isn't that much ground to cover, the visuals sell this sense of scale that i absolutely love. Lindblum, with its many districts, and Alexandria, with the huge, sweeping shots you get to see in cutscenes are my two favorite examples of this. god, just typing this has me wanting to explore the world all over again, i love it so much.

and on that note, this game is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. at least, for someone like myself, whose favorite game of all time is an RPG for the Famicom you can beat in an afternoon if you know what you're doing. spanning four discs, with about 20 hours of gameplay each (except for the fourth disc, which is basically just the final dungeon), with so many places to go, things to do, items to find, sidequests to finish, minigames to play, whole ecosystems to cultivate (look up "Qu Marsh Frog Breeding" if you want an instant information overload), FFIX is a truly colossal videogame. even after my journey with it, i still feel like i've only seen like, maybe 60% of everything the game has to offer. like, there is an entire ass card game that you have the ability to challenge almost any NPC to a battle in that you just... don't have to interact with, ever. you are never required to touch this minigame. lord knows i didn't, i fucking suck at Tetra Master. there was a game-long sidequest that i didn't know about until i got to Disc 4 involving the Chocobos, which i noticed had been strangely absent the whole game. i kept seeing the guide i occasionally referenced whenever i got lost mention something about "chocographs," but i figured it was something i'd unlock in the story. nope! it's a completely optional side thing that you can potentially just never find. it's shit like this that gets me giddy thinking about a second playthrough, i cannot wait to experience everything this game has to offer one day. this is the kind of game that could easily keep you occupied for weeks of consistent playtime, i'm certain of it.

now... i've been extremely positive throughout this whole review, and you might wonder if i have any gripes with this game at all. well... yes. i have one.

dear fucking lord is the combat in this game slow.

listen, i can be a pretty patient person. but near the end of FFIX, i would actively dread walking through areas i knew had encounters, and i'd feel my heart drop with every encounter. playing this on real hardware as i did, i didn't have the luxury of fast-forward, and the slowness of my fat PS2 i've had since middle school certainly doesn't help. every battle has a bit of a loading screen going into it, a little intro cutscene showing what enemy you were fighting, then you have to wait for your ATB bars to fill, granted the enemy doesn't attack first, and oh my god every skill or attack animation is SO LONG. i mentioned in the FFIV review that the ATB system can feel kind of unresponsive, like you tell your party what to do and they might do it like 15 seconds later, and that is at its absolute worst in FFIX. i swear i'd be waiting for up to 30 seconds for just one character to do what i selected. i was able to tolerate it for the most part, but near the end game i was slamming my head against the wall just trying to run from encounters. maybe i'm overreacting, and admittedly the spectacle of the battles does shine the best during boss fights, but when you're just trying to get from point A to point B, it can really turn into a slog. at least the battle music is good! if there's any bright side to this, it's certainly that.

and, in terms of mechanics, i do really enjoy FFIX's systems. the defining trait of this game is the Ability system, every piece of equipment has certain "abilities" attributed to it, and as you win battles with that equipment on, you earn points towards permanently unlocking that ability on that character. these can be passive things like innate status resistances or dealing more damage to certain enemy types, which you have to allocate ability crystals to, or they can be skills you can use in battle, such as magic spells or unique skills for certain characters. i love this, it solves a problem i feel a lot of RPGs have where a lot of equipment just gets immediately outclassed as soon as you get something with higher stats than it. it's also just REALLY satisfying slowly locking in each ability for a character. i have a coworker who was telling me about his time playing Final Fantasy VII, and how each character eventually feels interchangeable in combat, due to the way the Materia system works, where you can just put any spell on any character. alternatively, in something like FFIV, every character is so set-in-stone that you get basically zero player expression with how you use your party members, and it gives the game very little replay value. I think FFIX is the perfect medium between the two, every character has a command or set of abilities unique to them, but you can customize everyone so much with the abilities system that it still allows for a lot of freedom in how you utilize their unique toolsets. it's SO FUCKING GOOD!!!

one last thing i really, REALLY wanna touch on, but won't get too deep into because Spoilers, but dear lord this game's story is so good. each character has their own baggage and troubles that slowly but surely get unpacked, addressed, and resolved over the course of the game. i really don't want to spoil anything, but Zidane was probably one of my least favorite party members for most of the game, until one moment with him that made me completely turn around on him. Vivi is another excellent character with a great arc, he's a fan favorite for a reason. one of the most lovable, yet depressing characters in any RPG i've ever played. i also fucking love Steiner, he's kind of a huge dickhead for most of the game but it's those moments where you can tell he really respects Zidane that make you love him. Amarant is a similar case as well, i kind of like how set in his ways he is. he doesn't feel like a "friend" of the group, but it makes those moments where his soft side peeks through, even if only for a moment, hit that much harder. i would say probably the weakest character in terms of story, at least for me, was Garnet. she has her moments, certainly, but she felt very milquetoast outside of those scant few moments. i would get deeper into this, but it gets into spoiler territory, so i won't.

alright, that's everything that was in my head regarding FFIX. this is easily in my top 3 now, it's such a comforting game with so many good moments, a delightful art style, excellent system mechanics, a stellar soundtrack, and is up to the gills with stuff to do. if i had to choose one game to start the Final Fantasy series with, it's between FFVI and this one. i hear talks of "oh, FFIX NEEDS a remake!!" and i just do not see where people are coming from. this game is excellent in its current form, and i don't see a need for a remake at all. please, please play FFIX if you are at all interested, it's so good man.