FFIX Analysis

[Tarq 746]

So, I was playing that re-release of FFIX with one of those conscious adult minds that I didn't have as a youngster and I couldn't help noticing quite a few interesting things about the game's design as it doesn't really play much like the ubiquitous perception of the definitive JRPG series. 

 

Dungeons: (Err, where are they exactly?)

A common perception of JRPGS is that they strictly follow some flowchart of 'exploration > town > dungeon' with playtime being heavily weighted in the last column. FFIX instead creates distinct, significant  and memorable 'areas' that are typically only three to five maps in total and each individual map typicaly takes less than a minute to travel through if you exclude any story-based events or combat .

Ofc, there are a handful of areas that are somewhat more dungeon-esque, let's say Ipsen's Castle or Fossil Roo, but these are not considerably larger than other areas however can be longer if the player is determined to acquire all loot/solve optional puzzles.

How FFIX is different to its perception: There's no flowchart like the one provided at the beginning of this section because the areas are instead designed around the story and the story is able to be integrated organically instead of being shoehorned into wherever the flowchart allows.

 

Pre-rendered Cutscenes:

Half-Life taught us that cutscenes are the devil. That severing the control between the player and player character is an affront if there isn't some narrative/conceptual benefit. Why watch a cutscene if you can play it right?

This is a very fair assessment of a first person game with a single protagonist, but FFIX isn't that. How would you display Kuja's private soliloquies without the party being present? How do you effectively show the theatre ship crashing into Evil Forest (lamest name ever ) from inside the ship? The thing I'm going to keep returning to in this post is that everything about FFIX serves the story and sometimes you just don't want your curious player ruining the suspense of a sequence by running the wrong way.

How FFIX is different to its perception: There's really not that many pre-rendered cutscenes in FFIX; usuaully they run for thirty seconds to a minute and there's only about thirty five minutes total content. There is quite a lot of dialogue but that falls in some gameplay grey area as the player retains some level of control. 

 

Combat:

Combat is actually really tedious in this game. It does almost nothing of interest. It does everything adequately, sure. But combat seems to be there because fans of the series seemed to want it and that's all. It was made easy so the player could progress with what mattered, the story. Encounter rates are also surprisingly low for this same purpose; an unlucky player will get two encounters on one of these tiny maps that clearly telegraphs where the player needs to go so there's little wandering around confused.

How FFIX is different to its perception: FFIX is not really the grindfest people associate with JRPGS. Even though you will probably press A/X a lot.

 

Sidequests/minigames:

There's only really a handful of these in FFIX; The two major ones being Chocobo Hot'nCold and Tetra Master and they're both pretty great in their own ways. I guess the important thing about these is that they aren't really 'minigames', games like the little girls' skiprope and the Nero brother's shell game are 'minigames'. Tetra Master is a fully fledged game in its own right and the Chocobo Hot'n'Cold game, while overly simplistic, has tonnes of additional content related to it.

Anyways I'm getting distracted. What I really wanted to talk about in this section are the ATE's and Mognet. Why? Because they serve the story ofc! Both of these features create a strong illusion that there's a real world out there; people are off doing things and communicating with one another and rarely give two figs about Zidane and co. unless they happen to do something relevant to that NPC.

How FFIX is different to its perception: The often sizeable playtimes are not comprised of fluff and filler. There's no kill x quests, no escort quests, no fetch quests (Well, the Stellazio coins kind of are I guess.). There's none of what's considered 'typical lazy JRPG quest design' in FFIX.

 

 

Eh, this post is getting pretty lengthy. Maybe I'll write a second post later.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Hmmm... Never played FF9, but my biggest pet peeve in RPGs is: 

 

Quote

Combat is actually really tedious in this game. It does almost nothing of interest.

I get bored really fast with simple systems where I you can just mindlessly press "Attack" and easily clear most battles. At that point it feels pointless to even have. It's even worse if the battles happen every ten steps you take so at least they're infrequent FF9.

 

The way you describe the dungeons or lack thereof doesn't sound too appealing. I like lots of 'sporlin in my RPGs

 

Cutscenes I'm okay with as long as I have the option to skip. Every sit through a long cut scene, die, and have to watch the damn thing again? Grrrrrr!

Usually interactive ones can't be skipped for obvious reasons. Hopefully "interactive" extends further than pressing "A" one time. I've played some cool ones. These are of the few things I like about FF13.

 

Overall it sounds like I'd hate FF9 and quit long before getting to the end. The one thing that might save it, is if the story is really really really extra super duper good.

I

[Kayzee 4,033]

I never liked FF9, though some of that was the ability system. I hate systems where your equipment teaches you stuff and you have to swap out equipment every five minutes or lose AP. Hated it in FFTA and FFTA2 as well. Besides that? It also just never felt like a Final Fantasy to me. It felt like a weird twisted wannabe Final Fantasy made by developers who were desperate to bring back old fans after FF8. It had some charm, but everything from the art style to the story to the gameplay just felt off putting. Maybe I should play it again sometime, but I doubt I will be any more charitable to it.

[Cookie Ninja 374]

Granted I might be a bit biased as there is a lot of nostalgia involved. But what I remembered is that the game is very well designed. Even in hind sight I think they accomplished a hell of a lot considering the PS1 platform. Esthetically pleasing and a strong storyline.

 

All the characters had an impact full back story and had to deal with some serious existential problems.

Vivi (name means life), vivi is an animated doll made for war that has an expiration date. Vivi has to come to terms with the short life expectancy and then choose to sacrifice what little time there is to help the party on their quest.

 

Freya, has seen her entire home city annihilated by Odin summoned by Queen Brahne (Garnets mother). Her struggles to deal with the loss and a near insatiable blood lust makes for a gripping story.

 

and so on....

 

Before this turns into an epic rant I'd say the game more than made upp for the lacking combat. (It was mostly lacking because the battles were easy, defeating Ozma was one of my proudest achievements. Also one of the saddest considering I had been grinding for more than 50h to prepare for the fight. >_>)

[Kayzee 4,033]

Whats do you mean 'considering the PS1 platform'? It didn't really do that much that previous PSX (it will always be PSX to me) games didn't do, and there were lots of games during that era with pretty darn fantastic graphics. Oh sure, the system had some crappy low poly 3D, but tons of games managed to work around that. Then again I am still often impressed by lots of SNES games too.

 

Anyway, if you ask me, Final Fantasy 5, 6, and 7 were 'aesthetically pleasing' and had a 'strong storyline' (no not 4, 4 was crap, fite me).  Final Fantasy 9 though? Eh... Like I said, I thought the art style was off putting. I get what they were going for in some aspects, but I thought the style was sort of a mess. And as for the story, well, I honestly am not so sure because I don't think I ever really experienced the whole thing. But from what I saw, it seems kinda too slow to get to anything interesting and doesn't really have that much to say when it does. I am fond of a few of the individual characters, but there are many others that just seem boring or silly. Generally I can't remember enough to pick apart the story any more then that, it just never grabbed me.

 

Though I guess my problem with the story is, if I had to speculate, is that there wasn't really a solid hook. You aren't actually told that much about what really is going on or what your really doing that I remember. It just seemed at the start like it was going from story bit to story bit without really understanding the connecting points until way later. In FF5-7 for example, you generally get a general idea of the full scope about what's going on and what you need to do to stop it. In FF9 it seems like you kidnap a princess and then spend a bunch of time going from place to place on the run without a real plan or any real idea why the princess is actually important. And even when we find out, I can't remember it being that important to the actual plot in the end. I don't even know, it just seems so haphazard for a story. You get all these plots that don't really connect together, or else the connecting points seem missing. You get a villain that hijacks the plot and the bad guy slot from another villain, gets hijacked by yet another villain, hijacks it back, and the less said about Necron the better. Like the art style, it sort of just seems like a mess.

 

I guess that's how I feel about FF9, to me it's just a mess. FF8 was pretty much a mess too, and FF10 was less of a mess but still a mess. And that's kind of when I feel off the Final Fantasy wagon. And to be fair it could be argued that FF5-7 were messes too in their own way, but if so they were messes that somehow worked. And you could accuse me of looking back on those games with rose-tinted glasses, but I don't think that's it. For one thing there was a lot of shuffling of most of the staff behind the Final Fantasy games that started in FF6 and by the time FF8 came along most of the staff was new and not as experienced. FF9 as I said was kind of a new staff desperately looking to capture some of the old fanbase after FF8 alienated them and I just think they did a pretty clumsy job at it.