Beam me up Zidane!! Final Fantasy 9 rules!

If you told me a month ago that I would be playing Final Fantasy 9, and actually be liking the game I would have laughed right in your face. I used to hate any RPG. I thought that those games were stupid and pointless. I also thought that they were an incredible waste of time, and all of the dialogue was extremely tedious and boring. I never gave any RPG a chance, until one day when I was really bored I decided to rent Final Fantasy 9. I heard good things about it, and I never really remembered why I hated RPG’s so much, so I went out and rented it.

I know that there are still people out there who don’t like RPG’s and probably never will. I have one thing to say to those people: Just give RPG’s a chance. I was like you I absolutely hated RPG’s, but I gave Final Fantasy 9 a chance and I ended up loving the game. Through my experiences playing the game I have learned that all of the dialogue is actually needed to make an interesting story. The fights are pretty cool because it involves thinking and strategy. The other thing that I now like about RPG’s is that you always have to be ready for anything, and that RPG’s are actually challenging games. Usually you beat a game (in maybe 5 hours) and have it sit on the shelf forever, but with this game it will take you a while to beat, (maybe anywhere from 30-45 hours) and it will always keep you interested with its amazing story. So with all of that out of the way here we go with the review of the game itself.

Graphics- 8
In Final Fantasy 9 the graphics are a pretty good strong point to the game. The only reason why I didn’t give this a higher rating is because when you are in the “outside world” the graphics are very blotchy and poorly done. Other then that the graphics are pretty decent. The cinematic scenes throughout the game are simply amazing. I mean it actually looks as if you are in the game itself! Most of the time the graphics had nicely cut corners and weren’t blotchy. If you have a Playstation 2 don’t expect any dramatic changes with the graphics though. I have both a Playstation and a PS2, and there is pretty much no difference whatsoever with the graphics. Overall I would say that the graphics really don’t disappoint, in fact they are very well done compared to some other Final Fantasy games.

Sound- 7
There is nothing to spectacular about the sound in FF9. The background music changes for every new place that you go to, but the music gets very annoying after a while. The nice thing about the sound is that you go back and forth to the same places a lot in the game so if you recognize the music then you are sure to remember where you are. The sound could have been a little bit better in this game though. To me it seems that the people at Squaresoft could have found some better music for the game. I have to give them credit for one thing though, and that is the music during the boss fights. It is very good because you definitely can distinguish between a boss and a regular character, the music also gets your heart racing a little bit faster, and gets you pumped up a little bit. The overall soundtrack for Final Fantasy 9 is all right, but could have been better.

Gameplay- 10
This is the best part of the game. There is way too much to the gameplay to actually write all of the story out, and all of the things you can do in this game, but I will try to cover the important things. First of all Final Fantasy 9 is an RPG. For those of you who do not know what RPG stands for its “role playing game.” Basically what this means is that during the battles you and your enemies take turns using moves on each other. There are many, many, many different attacks and defensive moves that you can perform with each individual character. In FF9 you can only have 4 characters per party at a time, so give each character a chance and see which ones that you like the best.

In RPG’s the storyline usually is what makes or breaks the game. FF9 has an excellent storyline, with many different twists and turns along the way. The main character in the game is Zidane. He is a pretty cool character, that is always trying to hit on all the girls. The second most important character in the game (in my opinion) is Princess Garnet. She has the ability to summon eidelons, which can be very powerful if used correctly. My next favorite character is Vivi. Vivi is the very powerful black mage, who uses magic very well. Vivi has many different black magic attacks and most of them are very useful. After Vivi comes Steiner, who is Princess Garnets castle bodyguard. He is always dressed in a knight suit and always has a lot of armor. His attacks are very powerful.

There are 4 more characters that you can choose from in the game, but I don’t use them very much because I like the other characters a lot better. Anyway their names are: Freya, Eiko, Amarant, and Quina. Throughout the game you will get a chance to fight with all of these characters so don’t feel rushed to make decisions for who you want in your party.

The storyline summed up in a nutshell is this: Zidane (you) must protect the princess along with the other characters from the evil Kuja. Don’t worry though, because there are plenty of bad guys to go around. There are a lot of other plot twists and turns in the game which would be too long to explain in a simple review of the game, and plus I don’t want to give away any major plot points. Overall this game is really great and if you play it often you can really get into the characters, and feel as if you are actually there!

Presentation- 10
The menus in this game are great! The main screen is very organized and it looks pretty cool too! From the main menu you can do a lot of different things from equipping new weapons, to using new abilities. You will be doing a lot of different things from the main menu throughout the game and thank God that it is neatly organized for you. Another pretty cool thing about this game that associates with the presentation is that whenever Zidane walks near something important you will see a big apostrophe appear on the screen. I love that feature because now I have a lot less of a chance to miss something important. I think that Final Fantasy is a really great RPG, and if you like RPG’s you should play this game, because it is awesome!