Final Fantasy makes me feel old... and the series was already approaching double figures
by the time I first played it!
Back in the day of the Playstation 1, the Final Fantasy series had no rival and in my
opinion has aged far better than any other game on the platform and even later games
of the series.
It manages this by playing to all of the Playstation's strengths, sporting beautifully prerendered
backgrounds, superb music, high quality CGI in cutscenes, memorable locations and is to
this day, THE most polished and balanced game that I have EVER played.
In this day of patches and bug fixes, it amazes me that Final Fantasy 9 could span 4 disks,
let you revisit areas later on, featured hundreds of different items, spells and weapons, yet
doesn't have a single bug.
I mastered that game to the max, pushing it to the limit in every way.
I tried levelling up to a massive extent early on.
I tried breaking it by running out of the town I was in and into somewhere that I had
visited 10 hours before.
I did everything and yet the game still worked- and better still- rewarded me for trying.
It's a game that I play again every couple of years and it doesn't ever disappoint and
every time I play I get closer and closer to playing the perfect game.
I remember every side-quest and the insane lengths you have to go to complete them.
Forgetting to pick up a coffee bean in the corner of a place you don't even have to visit
at the right time will mean that you'll be unable to complete something later on!
I miss those days.
Final Fantasy 9 does everything right.
It is as polished as the Alexandria Tower and crams as much into its playtime as 10
other games... and yet it's almost forgotten when compared with the 7th game.
Or the 10th.
It's as though it's trapped in a netherzone!
I can understand why.
The 7th and 10th games were the first to be released on the Playstation 1 and 2 respectively
and offered a big technical jump compared with anything before.
Compared with this, the 9th is merely a refined and polished version that plays things very
safely.
However, I don't regret playing the 9th first and almost feel sorry for people who haven't
had such a great introduction to the series.
It's reassuring to see that there's still a small cult of people who feel the same way
as me online.
Final Fantasy 9 is filled with atmosphere that cannot be explained to a casual observer.
It would be too easy for them to point out the low resolution graphics or cliched story
and to laugh at you for liking the game.
But how can I explain?!
I'm clearly fighting a losing battle!
In my family I was the oldest of 3.
I never had a big brother to look up to or to watch playing games that seemed too complicated
for me.
However, I did get to watch my friends play Final Fantasy.
It was a mind-boggling experience.
I couldn't comprehend how they could keep track of so many variables.
I had true admiration for them and enjoyed watching them play.
I'm guessing that's what having an older brother to look up to would be like.
When handed the controller for the first time I fell apart.
I panicked when playing a battle, even though it actually waits for you to make a move.
Final Fantasy 9 let you have 4 people in a fight, compared with 3 which is the standard
in most of the series.
That extra character adds so much more complexity and depth.
I completely messed up my first play-through of Final Fantasy 9, getting pounded by a massive
flying ship.
That sort of fate is surprisingly sensible, given the Japanese roots of the series.
I was close to giving up, unable to advance further in this increasingly unfair and overpowering
world.
Fortunately I was able to get my friend's save, and wow- he had learned so many new
skills, collected so many different items and had a seemingly unlimited knowledge of
every plant and creature!
Using his OP character build I felt like a God, defeating that airship and continuing
on my way in the world.
Yup, world.
Final Fantasy was never a game that you could just pick up, play, complete and then forget
about.
Every game is a world that will slowly open up to you through play.
You start by exploring a village, then a valley, then an entire city, followed by a continent,
then another, until you unlock transport that lets you go anywhere at any time!
The chocobo side-quest in Final Fantasy 9 is still better than most entire games and
fits perfectly with the rest of the game.
Master this sidequest and you'll be rewarded with a mode of transport that lets you explore
more places earlier on, and yet still never manages to break the game's balance.
As I said, this game has thought of EVERYTHING and it's only now, over 15 years after its
release, that I can begin to appreciate the attention to detail.
Like I said before, I've played through this game a number of times.
I get better every time and appreciate the genius balance that lies just beneath the
surface.
It hasn't been without its problems.
I stored all of my saves on a new 32 MB memory card that then WIPED EVERYTHING.
I was distraught.
I could always borrow a save from my friend, but by this point I myself was on my way to
mastering the game and took great pride in ensuring that everything was done just the
way I liked it.
If I didn't pick up an item at the first opportunity, it didn't matter that I could get it 5 hours
later on- I HAD to reload to get it at the first given opportunity, even if I would never
use it or benefit from its strengths.
The beauty of this game lies in its pacing.
If you choose not to level up by fighting enemies, you'll struggle.
If you do a small amount, you'll limp on.
Put a little bit more effort in, however, and you're rewarded with an easy next-section
of the game.
You'll grow to master the enemies in that area, which will help when you encounter their
bigger brothers later on.
You'll find farming hotspots where enemies with easy weaknesses can provide large amounts
of experience.
You'll even find friendly creatures that reward you in other ways.
The game's story may be on-wheels, but the gameplay is anything but.
I found myself investing in my characters' futures even when the goal was to get footage
for this video.
The fact that I still find this enjoyable when I often don't even bother playing most
modern games shows that there's still something endlessly replayable about the game.
I'd argue that it hasn't even aged at all and I'm very tempted to go back and play it
from the beginning again right now.
Having levelled areas gives a great sense of progression.
You go from fearing enemies early on to coming back and pounding them without a problem later
on.
It's a sense of accomplishment that the Elder Scrolls games could really learn from.
It's endlessly enjoyable, even hundreds of hours on and in a completely single-player
game.
I love everything about this game, right down to the most basic of sound effects for the
simplest of tasks.
I occasionally freeze in public places, thinking that I heard it from a distant mobile phone
and wondering if it's worth hunting that person down for a creepy chat.
One part of me wishes that I could play it again for the first time, but another part
is worried that I might not appreciate it and would lose far too many valuable memories
in the process.
I would opt for this game's text-based nature over the speech in the later games any day
and I'm pleased to say that despite its fantasy style, it doesn't suffer from the ridiculous
over-the-top gymnastics that plague later games and even the Final Fantasy movies.
The one bit of the game that could have been better was the characters.
Zidane the monkey-boy pales in comparison to Cloud from Final Fantasy 7, and Kuja would
get cut in half by Sephiroth in an instant.
On the plus-side you have Vivi, the weird midget mage who seems to get upset all the
time.
I remember having a long debate with friends in school about what would happen if you took
his hat off and got unreasonably angry when my friend's save of the game had him called
'Mivi'.
It was definitely worth 50 hours of gameplay to start it again and to fix that.
And who cares if I misread these names.
It's not as if they're ever SAID in-game!
And is that Vivi's butt?!
IS THAT THE ONLY BIT OF HIM THEY'VE RENDERED?!
To add to this, you have Eiko, a child with SEE THROUGH TROUSERS.
What is this madness?!
Steiner the rusty but faithful knight who's always angry and distrustful.
Freya, a rat-warrior who seemed too grown up for the game and often wanted to be left
alone.
Dagger, a princess who goes all stroppy, loses her voice and wants to be left alone.
That big red-headed guy who gets stressy and wants to be left alone.
Uhh.... actually, pretty much every character is moody and unlikeable at some point.
Apart from Quina, who's a joke character that goes around eating everything and chasing
frogs, but is probably the most bad-ass character in the game.
Cloud in Final Fantasy 7 could survive explosions and long falls, but Quina at one point goes
fishing, falls into a stream and washes up on another continent unscathed!
Not to mention his weapon of choice, which confirms what I've always suspected about
forks being more dangerous than knives.
My life has changed an untold number of times since this game came out and yet I still look
back just as fondly at every bit of this game.
Each town of every continent has secrets to tell and if given the choice, I would rather
live in this world complete with its petrified forests, evil floaty airships and moody characters
than face the ordeals of my current life.
I've never been a romantic person but the thought of stepping into that world once again
fills me with warmth and a gay sort of affection like no other game can manage.
I'd go as far as to say that I've fallen in love with this game.
Now here I am, stuck in a perpetual nostalgic dream.
I blast the battle music out of my car windows in the hope of getting a glance or smile,
yet all I get are horrible looks.
I'd KILL for a chance to talk about the fight challenge and how I got 100% and Queen Brahne
gave me 10,000 gil, or how the skipping challenge is both the best and worst minigame ever,
or how I ate frogs until Quina gained a second instant over 9000-damage attack.
I'd love to see Burmecia before it was destroyed, or explore further into the city of Lindblum.
I'd sit and watch the sunset from the cliffs near Dali and race through the game to get
Excalibur 2 in a heartbeat.
I still have the walkthrough guide in my room - somewhere.
I didn't get it to cheat, I got it so that I could swat up on my knowledge of the world
even when I wasn't at my Playstation 1.
It's still got that lovely cardboardy smell.
Back in the day, I looked up to friends who played the game.
Now they've moved on and I've filled their place.
I like to think that I'm up to the task.
Only a few years ago my sister all but gave up on the game when she entered the no-magic
area with all magic characters and couldn't proceed.
I was able to return the favour by giving her my high-level character save.
She didn't appreciate that I had learned every ability with every character or was about
20 levels ahead of where I should have been at that point in the game.
She probably downed that stash of elixirs that I had carefully hoarded.
That save was special to me.
On it I passed through the whole of Kuja's castle WITHOUT A SINGLE FIGHT!
A true one-in-a billion chance of that happening.
Perhaps it was a bug.
But no.
It couldn't have been.
Final Fantasy 9 doesn't have bugs.