The End of an Era

The year was 1999, Lou Bega was blaring out of every radio in the country, Mr. Spock was teaching people about the dangers of the Y2K-bug and the Simpsons were slowly starting to lose cultural relevance. The whole world was getting ready for a new millennium, and so was video game developer Square_{Square Enix after their Fusion with Enix 2003}.

After the success of their previous outing, Final Fantasy VIII, development of the next game in the franchise had already begun. Directed by Hiroyuki Ito and written by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy IX was meant as a nostalgic callback to the series’ roots and a last hurrah of classic Final Fantasy before the series would evolve in a new direction. At that time, Square was on top of the gaming world.

After the success of Final Fantasy VI on the SNES_{Final Fantasy III in western releases, don’t ask why, if you know, you know}, the company had started a cooperation with Sony, releasing the next three games in the series on Sony’s PlayStation_{Final Fantasy VII still got a PC-port in June 1998, a year and a half after the PlayStation-Version}. This cooperation proved to be very beneficial for both Sony and Square, since the better hardware of Sony’s console allowed Square to raise the bar of story driven games even further with visually stunning_{at the time, at least} pre-rendered FMVs and Square’s RPGs were quickly becoming system sellers for Sony’s little grey box.

Final Fantasy VII sold over 10 million copies on its first release, making it the second most successful game on the PlayStation after the original Gran Turismo. The follow-up Final Fantasy VIII, released in February 1999, sold 8.6 million copies, reaching 4th place in the ranking of top-selling games on the PlayStation, being beaten by yet another Gran Turismo title for 3rd place, this time GT 2. Square was printing money at this time.

All Things Must Pass

But, as George Harrison once put it, “all things must pass”, and so in 1999 the PlayStation was nearing the end of its life cycle. But Sony came prepared for the new millennium. The PlayStation 2 was getting ready to hit the market like a meteorite, the hype for this new generation of consoles was over the moon. The PlayStation 2 launched in March 2000 in Japan; the rest of the world had to wait till fall of the same year.

Now, you might be wondering, what has any of this to do with Final Fantasy IX? Let’s look at the timeline again. Final Fantasy IX started development in in 1998. The PlayStation 2 launched worldwide in late 2000. Final Fantasy IX was released in Japan on July 7, 2000, on November 13, 2000, in North America. Europe had to wait till February 16, 2001, almost a year after the Japanese release of the game. Of course, at this point in time, most people were saving up for the PS2_{It came at a steep price of 869 DM, which, corrected for inflation, is about 700 € in today’s money}.

Not only that, the first announcement of Final Fantasy IX was at Square’s Millennium-Event on February 1, 2000. So, what’s the problem with that? Well, as I said before, Square was blasting from all cylinders at this time. And they weren’t going to slow down anytime soon. So, on that faithful day, they announced Final Fantasy IX. Along with Final Fantasy X and XI.

Final Fantasy X was the first title of the series on PS2, becoming a system seller for the console, even without being a launch title, while Final Fantasy XI was Square’s first attempt at a MMORPG. Final Fantasy X hit the shelves in mid-2001 in Japan, late 2001 in North America and early 2002 in the rest of the world. The question for gamers was basically, why would I buy a game on an outdated system, when the hot new game was right around the corner. This unfortunate placement in Square’s release catalogue led to somewhat disappointing sales figures for Final Fantasy IX_{I know you have had to read the words Final Fantasy a lot so far, don’t worry, its going get better, once we get to the game proper}, selling “only” 5.5 million copies, and while still being a success, it was nowhere near the smash hit of its predecessors or its successor.

The Ugly Duckling of the Series

In recent years, Final Fantasy IX has had experienced a re-evaluation by fans (Critics were praising it on release), while some even go so far, as to consider it the best game in the series. But don’t let this change of public perception fool you, the game was somewhat controversial.

It didn’t have the cool sci-fi-settings of its older PS-brothers, instead of reactors and flying military academies it had castles and medieval towns. Instead of “realistic” looking_{For the time; you’ll be reading this one a lot, too, I think} character models, it had colorful characters with stylized, almost Chibi-esque proportions. Instead of a brooding, cool_{again, for the time} protagonist, it had an immature Casanova wannabe, who didn’t even have an awesome signature sword. The shift in presentation between Final Fantasy VII and VIII on one hand and Final Fantasy IX on the other was jarring.

This game looked childish, not exactly what gamers at the turn of the millennium were looking for. So, given the aforementioned competitive release window and this lukewarm reaction by the consumers, it’s no surprise, that Final Fantasy IX was ignored by many.

But don’t judge this game based on first impressions. Underneath its saccharine surface lies a mature story with compelling characters and lots of emotional moments, that, at least in my case, stays with you for years to come. So, join me on a trip through my own memories with the game as I try to figure out, what made this game so special.

In this review, I’ll be mostly discussing the story and characters. I’ll try to go through the events of the game as they occur, with small excursions about the world, characters, and gameplay elements, if necessary. This is NOT meant to be a deep dive into game mechanics, I know, turn based JRPGs are not everyone’s cup of tea, and I am not going to try to convince anybody about the merits of these type of games.

Plus, I am not a developer or game designer, so my expertise in explaining video games on a mechanical level is limited. However, I will address some issues I personally have with the gameplay or if it is necessary to understand the context of the review occasionally.

Please consider, that this review is based on my experience with the game, therefore it will be a highly subjective reading of the story. And, needless to say, I will spoil the entire game. So, settle in and get comfortable, this is going to be a long ride.

A Slow Start

I first got this game for my 13th birthday in 2003. I still remember seeing the box in the store, the minimalist design of the cover art intrigued me right away. Video game box art at this time was in a transitional period. The days of over-the-top hand-drawn covers were fading away, making room for new styles in box art. Final Fantasy IX_{at least the European version} did not try to top its competitors regarding its cover.

Instead, the box art was simply the name of the game with a stylized crystal in a completely white background. Something about this felt kind of mature, almost classy, as if the game knew, that its content was so good, it didn’t even need an exciting cover to catch your interest.

Of course I had heard of the Final Fantasy games before, but apart from the opening hour of Final Fantasy VII_{I played it at my cousin’s house, but didn’t understand the mechanics of the first boss, which led to a pretty unceremonious game over}. I never had played any of them. My JRPG experience at this point was mostly limited to Pokémon on the Gameboy.

But something drew me in. Maybe I felt that it was time to focus on more story driven games, as I played mostly platformers or Tekken 3 on my console. I don’t recall the exact reasoning it, but for better or worse, I got the game.

The first sign, that this game was different from what I had played before, came, when I opened the box. I was kind of blown away by the fact, that the box contained four, yes count them, FOUR CDs. This was something I never even considered, as the games I played before either came on cartridges or a single CD.

The booklet was something else, too. It was filled with loads of information about the adventure you are going to embark on, and every single page had a small gameplay tip on the bottom, teasing the things you could do in the game, like what kind of monster would get you most points in the Festival of the Hunt in Lindblum_{Don’t worry, we’ll get there eventually}.

With all this in mind I started the game for the first time of many. You see, when I got my PlayStation, it didn’t come with a memory card. For those who don’t know what that is: before the advent of internal hard drives or later cloud saving in gaming consoles, you had to buy an extra accessory if you wanted to save your game. Without that, no saving for you. And as my parents knew basically nothing about gaming, they weren’t ready to pay another 20 bucks for a thing they didn’t even know what it was for.

So had to no choice, but to start every game I owned fresh, whenever I wanted to play. This wasn’t a big problem, as there was a plethora of ways to work around that. Many games had cheats that let you skip a level or unlock things, so not being able to save was more of an inconvenience.

That is, until I got Final Fantasy IX. I must have played the opening hours at least 50 times_{That’s not me being hyperbolic, as an introvert teenager I had nothing but time on my hands, so yeah, I went through this section a lot} but I soon realized, that playing the game like that was utterly pointless. So, I saved my allowance long enough to eventually be able to buy a memory card with a whopping 1 megabyte of storage. Finally, I would be able to experience everything the game had to offer. Or so I thought.

Meet Tantalus

The game opens with a FMV cut scene, and let me tell you this right away, these FMVs still hold up, the design of the characters and the world actually helping the dated graphics a lot. We see a small boat in a storm at sea, thrown around by the waves, a woman trying desperately to control the vessel.

As the camera zooms in on her face, we hard cut to another young woman, probably a princess, judging by her ornament dress. She turns to the window to open it, rubbing her eyes. What was that? A dream? A memory? A premonition? Who was the woman in the boat? Like any JRPG worth its salt, the opening cut scene leaves us with more questions than answers.

After that, we seamlessly transfer to a shot of a ship, its bow cutting through what looks like fog. As we pan out, we see, that it is actually an airship, a staple of the series, and it is flying towards the castle we saw at the beginning.

23 years later this still looks amazing!

This is where the gameplay starts. We take control of a young blond man with a monkey’s tail aboard the airship called Prima Vista, as he slides down a pole and enters a dark room. We get to walk around a little, picking up some hidden treasure, ending with us lighting the candles in the middle of the room. An unknown voice asks the blond guy for his name.

Canonically its Zidane in most western versions, but as it was tradition in the Final Fantasy series up until FFX, you could name your party members whatever you liked. You could self-insert, if you wanted to, but I was never a big fan of this, so I mostly named the characters their official name.

Except for the princess we saw at the beginning_{Yeah, she is going to be a party member and the main love interest, I am as shocked as you are}, which I named after my secret crush at this time. For the time being I am going with the canonical names.

Anyway, Zidane it is. As he answers, three guys enter the room. These three are guest party members, who occasionally join your ranks. Cinna, Blank and Marcus are here for the battle tutorial, as they are suddenly attacked by what looks like a man with a dragon’s head. I will not go into great detail about the battle system yet.

Just know, that as Zidane (and Cinna, Marcus and Blank) are members of a group of thieves, they are able steal from enemies. Normal monsters have random low value stuff like a potion, while bosses always have equipment, that normally is acquired much later in the game, so make sure to try to steal from every boss.

After a few turns the dragon’s head splits open, revealing that the mysterious assailant is none other than Baku, leader of Tantalus, a group of loveable thieves from the Grand Duchy of Lindblum, moonlighting as a theatre troop. The character of Baku kind of resembles Fagin from Oliver Twist, as he too takes in stray kids and turns them into thieves.

There are also allusions to physical abuse, as much later in the game, we hear Zidane tell the story of how he ran away from the gang, only to be beat up by Baku when he returned. This is depicted as the actions of a loving father. This whole thing is somewhat weirdly portrayed, as Zidane and the other members of Tantalus don’t seem to mind, that their father figure beats them up on a regular basis. And Baku isn’t shown as a menacing presence at all. He comes across as jovial, yet tough at all times. But maybe this is lost in translation from the original Japanese text? Who knows.

Anyway, here we are presented the premise of the story. Tantalus will perform a stage play in the royal city of Alexandria. This is a just a ruse of course, as their true goal is to kidnap the Princess we saw in the beginning of the game, Garnet Til Alexandros XVII. We don’t get to know, why we want that, as kidnapping a member of the royal family of another nation seems to put a huge target on Tantalus. But Baku’s orders are not up for debate.

Zidane and Blank are tasked to disguise themselves as soldiers, enter the palace and put the Princess to sleep, using a special sleeping herb. As the briefing ends, we are treated to another FMV, the Prima Vista approaches the castle of Alexandria, which has a giant crystal sword in its center, as the music swells and a beautiful variation of the Final Fantasy Main Theme is played, as the title card is revealed.

Welcome to Final Fantasy IX. In the next part of this series we will see, how Tantalus’ plan turns out, as we meet possibly the best character of the game, let alone the franchise. So, thanks for reading and see you next time!!

Final Fantasy IX – A Review (Part I)

Final Fantasy IX – A Review (Part I)

Table of Contents

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