Final Fantasy IX Tenth Anniversary Review

In the wider gaming world today marks the tenth anniversary of Final Fantasy IX in Europe. On a more personal level, it is also ten years to the day since it first arrived in my home. In fact, my history with this game is the only reason I am here now writing for the UFF Network, which began life as the Unofficial Final Fantasy IX website.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about this game that resonates so strongly with me. Its connection to a simpler time in my life certainly has something to do with it but then that is true of the series in general - Final Fantasy VIII through to Final Fantasy X are tied to a period in my life like no other collection of games.

For what was to be the last game on console on which the series had found its greatest success, the story was developed as a tribute to previous games in the franchise. As such, it contains everything you would imagine – a once good leader blinded by greed, a war between nations and nothing but a ragtag band of thieves, mages, summoners and knights standing in the way of ultimate destruction.

It is, however, anything but cliché. It plays with your expectations and there is a light touch to the writing that makes the world come alive. It is a vibrant place inhabited by every kind of citizen you could imagine, busy going about their own lives, and before long you find yourself actually enjoying spending time there.

Even the four main cast members – Zidane, Vivi, Steiner and Garnet - are unusually well rounded characters. They may be played a little over the top at times but they have hopes and dreams beyond saving the world. Despite the enormity of what happens to them over the course of the game, they stay true to who they are, managing to be caring and funny rather than constantly sombre.

On the flipside, that touch of humanity in the writing serves to make the dramatic moments all the more powerful and poignant. The scenes set on the airship taking the cast to Lindblum Castle for the first time moved me ten years ago and the same is true today. The writing and the direction were pitched perfectly and ensured that, if you weren’t already, you were now emotionally invested in the story.

If there is one weakness to the story it is that, like with most games of this scope, it occasionally doesn’t make sense if you think about it too much. There are leaps of logic and previously villainous characters suddenly become harmless good guys because they agree with the heroes, regardless of what atrocities they’ve been responsible for.

Also, the other four player characters - Freya, Eiko, Amarant and Quina - are, to a greater and lesser degree, rather superfluous to the plot. Two of them have rather loose connections to wider events but the remaining two have none whatsoever. Despite that, each one has their own story to follow; they affect the world and characters around them and the game would be poorer without them.

Next we have the graphics. Ten years have passed since the game was released so they quite clearly no longer represent the pinnacle of the genre but strangely enough, they have not dated. They don’t compare to what the biggest and best are doing today, but I’m not so sure that is what they were aiming for even then. The in-game and FMV graphics still look good, just different.

For proof of how well the graphics hold up, just refer back to the airship scene that was mentioned earlier on. The writing and direction played a big part in the emotion of the scene, but so did the graphics. Just the look in a certain characters eye was enough to sell the moment and it has never really been matched since.

The music, meanwhile, was composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. There is generally little debate about the quality of his work, but his score for Final Fantasy IX is blasted by some quarters for being unoriginal. There is no denying the fact that he does include nods to and build from some of his previous themes but to complain about that seems to be rather missing the point.

The whole game is designed as a love letter to what had come before, so it would be rather odd if the music didn’t do the same. Much more important is whether the music compliments the action and it does just that. Each character and location has a distinct theme that instantly brings them to mind and the music always heightens the emotion of a scene, whether the scene is humorous or tragic.

In the interests of objectivity, however, it does cross the line once or twice. There was one theme in particular that begins in a way that only ever put me in mind of Final Fantasy VII. Including a beat so associated with the most successful of all Final Fantasy games was perhaps a mistake but the rest of the theme was majestic.

Finally we come to the game play. In line with the rest of the game, the battle system returned to its roots. It was still making use of the Active Time Battle system that had been a feature of the series up until that point, but unlike the last few titles each character was unique.

Each item that can be equipped will increase a characters strength, defence, luck and so on but it will have certain abilities for them to learn as well. These abilities require Ability Points to be learnt, which you earn at the end of battle. Once learnt the ability is forever part of their arsenal and, in the majority of cases, can only be used by that person – there is no way of teaching Zidane black magic, for example.

There are also secondary abilities which are more open in that most of them can be learnt by everyone. However, these do not remain permanently with a character once they learnt. They are to be found in the Main Menu under Ability and cost a number of points if you want them to be active during the battle. You will not have enough points to use all of them at one time, so if you want a character to have immunity against petrifaction, you may have to accept that they can be poisoned.

All this serves to ensure that each member of the team has a role to play as well as certain strengths and weaknesses in battle. The limit on the number of secondary abilities that they can each use at once also means that a certain level of strategic thinking is required as you decide which skills to set. This is all very good.

On the downside, unless you are up against a particularly nasty foe with a penchant for casting status ailments, you won’t actually notice it all that much. It also has to be mentioned that the number of random battles you will encounter is rather excessive. Sometimes, bloodied and bruised, you will emerge from a fight only to be thrust straight into another less than half a dozen steps away.

The worst offender in terms of being almost utterly pointless has to be the Trance system. This is Final Fantasy IX’s version of the Limit Break or Over Drive present in several others games in the series. Whenever you are attacked in battle, a bar beneath your health will slowly fill up and when it has reached the top, your character will enter Trance. Each Trance is, again, unique.

Unfortunately, for the most part it is totally useless. It sounds great but Double Black Magic for Vivi simply means you hit a spell – Thunder, for example – twice but at half the damage you normally would. Others you will ignore entirely. It is also impossible to control exactly when a character enters Trance. More often than not a low level enemy will get in a lucky blow and your Trance, which once activated cannot be carried over into another battle, will be wasted.

However, in the case of Zidane, Trance – when you finally get to use it against a high powered foe – is incredibly useful. He has a number of special attacks that, for most of the game, will deliver a much greater amount of damage than his regular attacks. Trance also features in several story events over the course of the game, which is something no other Limit Break has ever done. In that way, it serves a purpose.

The ATE system, however, is a total positive. ATE stands for Active Time Events and these are short scenes which will reveal what characters that are currently on another screen or in another part of the world entirely are doing at that time. Once or twice they are mandatory but for the most part you can either choose to watch or ignore them. It is advised that you watch them, as they add a new level of depth to the characters, their motivations, and the world around them.

On top of this there are a huge number of side quests. In another nod to the past, Moogles make a welcome return to the series. They not only save your progress for you but also ask you to delivers letters to other Moogles throughout the world. The reading of said letters upon delivery adds yet another level of depth to your experience, as they discuss the events from their perspective.

Elsewhere you can play Tetra Master, a card game which practically everyone plays. You can collect cards from battles, by challenging whoever you happen to bump into or by competing in a card tournament. If cards aren’t your thing, going treasure hunting with your Chocobo, searching for rare items or battling secret bosses are all great ways to pass the time.

There really is not much more for me to say. The game has its faults – there is no defending the final boss – but there is a reason UFF Network members recently declared Final Fantasy IX to be the greatest role playing game released during the last decade. Despite how much things have changed since 16th February 2001, this is the one game that I always return to, because whenever I do it feels like I am going home. I’m not sure what else a game could ever hope to achieve.