The Shrine

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://ign64.ign.com/reviews/13960.html ... 60.html</a>

Look Ma no cuts!</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Apparently the game has amazing gameplay, to think, years ago people were saying t]he game was childish =P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>Oh god yeah. This is the way for N64 to go out with glory. And I hafta agree on the "imagine the possibilities on gamecube" part.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I wonder if since Metroid is going to be a first Person Advenure, if it will be similar to Sin and Punishment</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Helvetica, Modern; text-align: left; '>Just be glad it's not like Myst.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Of course, I probably won't touch either game again, well, maybe FF7 to play through the cool Midgar scene at the beginning again.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>That...that's the most surreal thing I've heard all week. Just where do you come up with this insane nonsense?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Just the fact that FF7 and FF8 are mainly pointless and uninteresting pre-rendered graphics displays</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 7% 0% 7%; '>No more than FF9, but you seemed to enjoy that one.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>FF9 is more like previous FF games, it's almost nothing like FF8 or 7 aside from the load time,</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 7% 0% 7%; '>(plot dumpage being a term I've created for recent Squaresoft games wherein the writers try to throw in 50% of the plot in the last 10% of the game).

Anyway, I liked FF9 a lot (and it is the best on the PSX), but I also liked the others and think they deserve more credit than most people give them credit for.

The characters were about the only thing in FF9 I wasn't particularly fond of. That and the ending (crap compared to FF8's).</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>FF8's battle system was too complex, not that I couldn't get the hang of it, I did rather fast, but Complex battle systems = a big waste of time, I prefer just simple ones.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Modern; text-align: left; '>What didn't you like about them? I guess I could understand someone disliking Quina or Garnet....but Vivi and Steiner? They've got to be two of the best characters in Final Fantasy ever.

As for the ending, I really liked 8, had a real sense of closure. 9 was kinda cheesy, except for Vivi's role in the whole thing. I'm gonna guess that's what you didn't like about 9's ending.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>Count me as the second, then.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 7% 0% 7%; '>Ol' monkey boy struck me as too cliche of a "hopeless flirt", and the game never really gave me any reason to care about him... other than that he's a (boo hoo) orphan (although not exactly, as revealed later on in the game... you know what I mean). Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate the character. I just didn't particularly like him either.

Character design was another thing I disliked (as I was one of the few who liked the character design in FF8). Characters like Eiko and Quina just annoyed me more than anything else. Not to mention the fact that I'm tired as hell of playing RPGs starring children. It'd be nice to have something different for a change.

Vivi was okay, and Steiner was kinda funny (reminded me of Ted Raimi's Joxer from Xena). I also kinda liked Freya, but didn't like that she was a rat. Call me crazy, but I kinda like human main characters. Beatrix and Kuja were cool, though.

Despite this, it's still my favorite one on the PSX.</div>