Now THAT's more like it!

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>FF9 is what the next gen FF games SHOULD be like. It basically takes the best parts of the pre-PSX FF games (known as the "good" FF games) , adds an excellent (and classic) storyline, enhances so many of the characters of FF games of the past, and brings it all together into an excellent next gen package. I love how they made each of the summon spells into a real character, how they actually took us back to the days of the class system (still the best IMO), and really took the idea of the summoner and built a very compelling story around it. Maybe it's just me, but I really love the whole "fantasy" aspect of it. I loved the more anime and sci-fi story of Xenogears too. I guess it's nostalgia too. FF9 truly is a nice wrap-up to the traditional FF games. I can basically ignore FF7 now (haven't played FF8, but from what the vast majority say, I'm not exactly itching to play it either) and consider FF9 the true sequel to FF6. If that was the case, the series wouldn't have lost it's luster to me and there still wouldn't be a disappointing game in the series, putting it up there with Metroid, Zelda, Mario, Chrono Trigger/Cross, and Phantasy Star as the only series' without a bad game in them (I liked PS3...). Of course there are other amazing series' (Castlevania and Mega Man to name a couple), but those are the only ones I can think of that didn't have a dog in them. I regress. FF9 is the sequel FF6 should have had. Other than the ridiculous amounts of random attacks, particularly in towns and areas I'm supposed to be exploring, EPSECIALLY on disc 3, I can't find a fault in this game. I absolutely adore it. I love the Active Time Event, i think it does wonders to the storyline. I love the fact that certain, lost character classes and copycat characters are in the game, like Freya the Dragoon (I love that Jump ability), Zidane the Thief (I always liked Locke, too), and Aramant's Toss ability (Shadow is still one of the coolest FF characters ever). Of course, Cid is back (and so are the original 4 bosses from the fiirst game, from what I hear). Kuya is the frst FF (and Square) enemies that made me hate him since Kefka. Did I mention the balance is back now tha the class system is back in full force? 'Bout freakin' time. Certain areas can even get a little difficult and require some work on your part; it's been forever since i ran into and RPG like that! Also, the soundtrack is great. And like the Lunar games, this one seems to inject a little bit of heart back into the series, something only Cross has had in the PSX RPGs (other than the Lunar remakes, of course). I'm not quite finished yet (just about to enter Ispen Castle on disc 3, about 23 hours in) but it's gonna take an ending of Matrix-like proportions to degrade my opinion of this game. It's right up there with FF4 and Phantasy Star 2 in terms of all time RPGs for me and depending on how strong it ends, it might be close to CT, CC, FF6, and PDS (those are the RPGs to which I compare all others). It's really unfortunate that the random battles make exploring a real pain in the ass and turns it into a chore, even in towns. That major sore spot is what's keeping this one from being one of the top 5 of all time......</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FF9 is nothing more than a weak attempt to cash in on the nostaglia hype. It's not particularly a bad game but it's got nothing worth mentioning over all the other FFs. The class system is completely meaningless except for the part where you've go to the place where you can't use magic. Oh yeah, I used Zidane, Steiner, Garnet, and Vivi in a place where I can't use magic and it made no real difference whatsoever that two of my characters can't do a single thing. Such a great class system when 2 of your 4 members can do nothing and still win...

The game might as well have identical classes since it hardly matters whether your party is Vivi/Eiko/Garnet/Zidane or Zidane/Amarant/Steiner/Garnet (got to have at least one person who can heal, after all). I have messed around with various party combinations and find no real advantage to the classes as long as you've at least one person who can heal.

Princess Garnet Til Alexandros is more like a ripoff of Cecilia Adlehyde from Wild ARMS but only failed miserably. I guess the original idea wasn't too bad. A kind and somewhat spunky kind of princess, but in reality she turns to be just dumb and annoying, like how she got her name:

G:"What is this thing you're carrying?"
Z:"It's a dagger. It's shorter than a sword but longer than a knife."
G:"Okay, I am now.. DAGGER!"

It'd help if she didn't dress like a nun and then try to act cute during the escapade thing when you're supposed to kidnap her. At least Garnet isn't too bad on the kindness part but any halfway decent writer can portray a kind character no problem. I think her character description summed her pretty well, "Someday I'll be queen but I will always be me." or something profound like that. Garnet is not a horrible character, but all her attempts to act cute and spunky pretty much all failed miserably.

Zidane... well, I think the official FF9 book described his character well: "There is no reason to help someone." Such care was obviously put into a character that's directly stolen from Dragonball that they somehow mistranslated from "You don't need a reason to help someone" to the above nonsense that Square describes the lead character of FF9.

As for the music, I'm sure Uematsu received so much praise for his abilty to remix old music from previous FF games that by FF10 Square decided to put some more composers to help him because it's obviously so hard to remix old tracks... or maybe not. I don't think FF9 even had a rearranged CD like just about every other FF OST out there, or at least I've never seen it for sale.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>My god man, paragraph breaks!</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>What took you so long to get this game?</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Are there ANY Final Fantasy games you like? =P</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Don Wang, you are the Zeus to video games. =8^)</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The game is a sequel to Final Fantasy 5 though, and to part 1, they share the same world. Final Fantasy III (6 if you're Japanese) is actually more technological than any previous FF game, or 8, many of the towns are industrialized; in fact, FF8 is largely similar in that aspect.

As for Final Fantasy 8, the only reason some people here don't like it is because it's not level-up based, it's also very customizable. In my opinion, of the PSX FF's, Final Fantasy 8 seams to be the most solid of them all, and it has my favorite story and characters of the series (and my favorite characters in the game aren't even the main characters, though Laguna I guess can be considered fairly central). The story is unique as well, it has many different threads to it that intertwine and build up to the ending, no other FF game is like that.

I am going to try FF10 after I'm done 9, from what I hear from people who have finished it, if you like 8, you'll like 10. Yes, Final Fantasy 8 is my favorite in the series, but only after two plays =P I was confused about the gameplay system before hand and screwed up so things didn't go by nearly as smoothly as they should have. FF8 is not a game to be rushed through, you have to take your time and discover things, my mistake the first time through was just rushing through battles and everything and then things in the long run took MUCH longer than they should have, I wasn't powerful enough to finish the game either the first time through.</div>

[Tortolia]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Eh...happy you enjoy it so much, but I honestly want to see how you feel a month or two after you beat the game. FF8 is still my favorite of the PSX FF games...</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm going to agree with Tort here. I will recommend understanding the gameplay mechanics before starting though, there is a lot more to this games gameplay system than any other Final Fantasy title.</div>

[Blotus]

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>It felt very cliched and the characters were terrible, but I enjoyed the gameplay (when I play it agian, it will be for that). Don't expect much from the ending. FF8 is still the tops for Final Fantasy endings.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I felt the ending segments of that game were quite a treat for those who played the old NES FF games.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>1) I DESPISED FF7 with an unequalled passion. It wasn't that it was a completely shitty game, I consider it to be an above average RPG. But considering how much I adored the 3 games of the series that we got here before it came out, it was an enormous disappointment. It took me a while to actually wanna try another game in the series...not to mention how universally panned FF8 was (yes, there are exceptions, but mostly I heard poor things about it).

2) I had my store at that point and was busy as hell, workin' 13 hours a day. Can't really play an RPG in a games store, that's why I stuck with games like Crazy Taxi, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts

3) I own about 1300 games and if one falls behind in the playing order, it's hard to get it back up the list. And there's always games I'm dying to play when they come out, like Halo, Metroid, Resident Evil remake. And considering what I said in point #1, another FF game wasn't exactly gonna climb up the list too quickly.

Honestly, it was Chrono Cross that got me to try another FF game. I had been hearing how amazing FF9 was and it had been 3 years since FF7, so I decided to play this one. Also, I had read how it was such a throwback to the classics and the class system was back and all, something I had missed (I like it when characters have distinct strengths and weaknesses and aren't the worst/best at everything, like Cloud was). Man am I ever glad I got around to it. I put about 14 hours of gametime in it in the last 2 nights and am only stopping now 'cause I have an exam this Friday and one on Monday, so I need to study. Then it's that, Fusion, and Celda :-)</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Sorry, but I basically disagree with everything you said. To me, this IS the next gen FF. I'll try FF8 someday and let you know what I think of it, but I'm essentially forgetting about FF7 as a part of the series, more like a bastard child</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Really? I've only seen some of the people here praise it (and Vestal), but that's it. Nearly everywhere else, the game is just panned to all hell. I'm also a fan of the traditional gameplay with modifications. Unless the new system is excellent, I might pass it off as just anattempt to be different</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It is because of FF9 that I'll try FF10 someday. I'll have to eventually try FF8 as well</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You see them as "cliche", I see them as "upgraded traditional" characters. I thought they did an excellent job of paying homage to the old games while at the same time expanding the scope and depth of the game, making it a true next-gen RPG. And I hope my opinion of the ending is different than you</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>I fired up my old game, i am saved at some castle where i have to leave, then go back in to find Aramant (appearently we had some race to see who could get in and out the fastest). I cant use good weapons in this place, the crappier the better it seems.

After finding the half dead moron i leave and am treated to a long cut scene to where my heroes figure out that they need to conquer 4 elemental temples (air, fire, earth, and water) all at the same time.

I drop off the pairs to their respective temples and then go fight the earth temple with the big Cait-Sith wannabe cook guy. We find the boss, he casts something, Cait-Sith dies, i attack, he casts something, I die. That fast... gee.

Maybe i need to mess around with the abilities, i had thought that i remembered my guys being pretty strong. I usually dont neglect lvl'ing up. Any thoughts?</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Generally speaking on FF8's features:

Gameplay - far more diverse and complicated than any other FF game, each character has different ways to upgrade themselves, rather than the usual buy a new weapon, etc... The magic system has three different methods of acquirement (four if you know about the Islands of heaven and hell). Some Guardian Forces (summon monsters) are easy to miss if you don't know to look to draw from every end boss to check and see if they have one. Check the computers and stuff at the beginning of the game for information.

Setting - It's a very similar setting to Final Fantasy III, a semi-industrialized/medival setting in general. There are differences, but I don't think any other FF game is as similar to III's setting as this one. This one actually is a fairly enjoyable one.

Towns - My second favorite in the series, Final Fantasy 9 is probably my second favorite because of the night town.

Dungeons - They're fun for the most part if I remember correctly, definetly a lot better than 7's (but 7 had really boring ones). They require thought, but are all relatively short in length (or at least seamed that way, I know I spent a lot of time in at least a few of them getting extra's).

Story segments - hands down the best in the Final Fantasy series. Nothing more needs to be said.

Characters - The best in the series, though you have to pay attention to their relationships with the secondary characters, otherwise the main characters are about the same as any other Final Fantary title (if not slightly more enjoyable to follow). The secondary characters (like Julia and Raine) in combination with the story segments I found to be one of the games strong points.

The ending with everything that built up to it is hands down the best of the series. I think few people who have finished it will argue that. Some might argue that it's not saying very much since the endings of other Final Fantasy games aren't all that spectacular.

I would recommend this game, I won't say you'll love it, but if you understand the mechanics then I can say there'll be a good chance. Take your time in the beginning, that's my major advice. If you ever do play, I'll give you a check list of things to do, though you can also find this stuff out at the beginning of the game in your classroom (just check the computers and such).</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Also on the Utopia boards I think it seams most people love it. In real life, of the people I've actually talked to about it, I have only met people who like the game. It was actually a friend of mine who encouraged me to take the time to get to know the mechanics before rushing through it, and I absolutely loved the game for it. I've been playing through all the Final Fantasy games one by one since last September =P</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You were just getting into the Final Fantasy I stuff =)</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Don't you know the secret? A Final Fantasy game has to end in an odd numeral for it to be any good. You should've realized FF9 would be good well before playing it. :)</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I think the main characters are pretty pathetic, but pathetic main characters are nothing new to RPGs. I respect them to coming up with characters liek Seifer or Laguna, characters that do not fit the predetermined mold that all characters fall into. I think it takes courage to come up with characters that you can find in every other RPG that are actually well-thought out (of course you can trivially come up with different characters without good characterization).

The draw system I think is really nice. It pretty much eliminates leveling and Encounter-None is readily available. If you want to fight enemies, you've that option. If you don't want to, basically 3-4 hours of drawing (and that's a grossly high overestimate) is enough to suffice for the entire random battles in the whole game. Sure the characters are more or less or the same, but class design is a flaw in any game with characters > party size. If you actually make character distinctions meaningful, there will have to be MANY bosses that's impossible with certain class combinations (for example, STeiner/Zidane/Amarant/Quina should not be a viable party, but it is).</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Everything I hear the words "paying homage", I know it's going to suck.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Every time I hear the words "paying homage", I know it's going to suck.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I thought you liked Spaceballs?!?!</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's every Final Fantasy divisible by 3, and also those which precede the third installments and are also divisible by 4, also those which are a prime number which 10 is divisible by.</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Ah yes, that's right. My bad, I was thinking Megaman. :)</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>What?!? Megaman 2 was considered by many to be the best in the series (mind you, these same people never played past #5 or X on the SNES....)</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>But that would mean that FF7 was good and FF6 and FF4 weren't.....and that's just ass-backwards :-)</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Not always and definetely not in this case.</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Ah, but you have to consider, FF6 is also known as FF*3*. FF4 is just a fluke. And you just have crappy taste, thus explaining FF7. j/k :)</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Oh don't mention Megaman, you're gonna start Don up....but for the record MMX1 was good, 2&4 were awesome, 3,5,6 could have been better. The jury is out on 7...</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Paying homage means we can't think of anything new so we'll reuse old stuff even more blatantly than usual</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. This doesn't mean that most of them do not suck.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Just what exactly is so good about Megaman 2? It's totally unpolished... maybe not necessarily bad, but certainly isn't refined as the later ones.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It has some halfway decent music, but I didn't see what was so special about the game aside from that. Graphically there were already better RPG's, gameplaywise there were already better RPG's, and character and storywise there were already way better RPG's. As for funfactor, this game wasn't all that fun, I felt the Gameboy Final Fantasy Legend games (not 3, I didn't like FFL3) blew this one away in that category.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Of course it won't be as good now as it was back then, but you HAVE to consider the time period when you judge a game. It'll be foolish to try and compare DW to Xenosaga.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>3 was good, 5 was fairly decent and both were hard. 7 was excellent, IMO. 6 blew heavy chunks and 8 was mediocre. Megaman and Bass was amazing. X's got better up to #4 and X5 was pretty good and HARD at the end and X6 was very good and just HARD</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It's the best of the NES ones for sure and definetely better than 8, but the real gems of the series came on the SNES and the X games on the PSX.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>...or it could mean let's take a lot of the old stuff, update it, and make a whole new story out of it. Re-using old ideas can often be more difficult that coming up with something new</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Seventh Saga certainly had way better graphics. Lets not forget the setting of Shadowrun, Lufia, Lunar, and other titles.

Besides, playing Final Fantasy III, a game that's nearly 10 years old (vs. FF2 which is what, 11 or 12? They were released about a year and a half apart if I remember correctly), you can easily see that this one has stood the test of time, and is MUCH more fun to play.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FF9 wasn't even attempted to market as anything innovative... it's marketed as rehash of old things.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Well, back when I was TWELVE, I had a lot of fun playing it.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>And yet, I still had fun with it.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Can you give examples of better RPGs from that time? I'm honestly curious, I didn't play that game when it came out. FF2 was the first menu-based RPG I played, so I have an attachement to it.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>In FF2, heaven's door was a revolving turnstile. Can you even count the times where people said "WTF? I thought s/he was dead!"?</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Games don't have to be innovative to be fun. In fact hardly any RPG have any halfway interesting ideas these days. But I don't see how you can even say FF9 is innovative. It's not.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Oh, and I first played it in... 1996? I was a freshmen in high school. I played it two or three times after as well.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>You were the only person to use the word "innovative."</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I find FF2 to be pretty normal out of FF series. Not particularly good or bad, just same old stuff they've been doing for same 10 games.</div>