I recently replayed Final Fantasy IX, which rekindled the love that I once had for the Final Fantasy which has been lacking in recent years. And the game still has the same charm that it had eleven years ago. For those that are not familiar with the story it stars Zidane, a member of a Roguish theater troupe. Who is about to kidnap the princess of the Kingdom of Alexandria. The Princess is followed by her captain of the guard, Steiner and are joined by the Black Mage Vivi. Needless to say this clichéd group gets caught in over their heads and is swept up in a quest to save the world from the mysterious Kuja.
This game feels like a love letter to all of the the classic Final Fantasy Games. The Party returns to four members after having being reduced to three for the previous two games. The characters are all have distinct personalties and purposes in combat, with only Ekio and Dagger having the same role. For Almost the first two thirds of the game your party is dictated by the circumstances of the story. Abilities are learned from the equipment that the characters equip, but each character has their own unique skills and overlap only happens with passive abilities and earn AP and EXP after battles.
One thing I noticed while playing on my PS games on an HDTV the graphics are stretched and the character models are blurry when sitting my normal distance for gaming, this was easily fixed by sitting a bit further away. The backgrounds in this game are beautiful prerendered and the music fits the game perfectly.
This game would mark the end of an era at Square as it would be the last game with Hironobu Sakaguchi as the director and Nobou Uematsu as a solo composer. Time never stands still especially in gaming and we may never see another Final Fantasy in the Classic style again but we then again...
We're Talkin Classics
