Followers of the Back-Blog might remember that I recently started up the Final Fantasy series out of the blue and made it an unofficial goal to try to beat one game in the series each month for as long as I can. Well, after getting incredibly frustrated beating Final Fantasy IX this month, it's safe to say I'm going to take a month off before returning to the series. But I digress, who cares about my schedule- here's a little review of the game. Well, for the first three discs, each averaging about 9 hours, I played an excellent RPG- great story, the right amount of sidequests, and most importantly, no grinding whatsoever. I usually didn't have to go out of my way to fight in random battles, and ended up at just the right level to take on each boss. I enjoyed the fact that I wasn't playing just one party for most of the game as well- the eight characters split up in several different ways, and even though Zidane is the main character, oftentimes he's not a part of the crew you're controlling. This forced me to adapt to a few different styles of play that I wouldn't have tried otherwise, which is nice considering how many RPGs just throw a dozen characters at you with no incentive to switch from your main party. Final Fantasy IX came out in the later days of the PS1, and as such the graphics can be pretty terrible. The static backgrounds were fine enough, but the moving character models were always a mess. This would be no big deal, but it kind of accentuated how great the many FMV sequences were- ten years later, and I thought they looked beautiful. The gameplay itself was typical for the series, with a few changes. There's an ability system that I didn't see in FFI or FFIV allowing you to add random status tweaks depending on your current equipment- great! There was a card game that was really pretty unnecessary but seemed fun enough the one time the game forces you to play- okay! Finally, there's a "trance" mode a character can enter after taking enough damage, allowing them to do nearly double the damage their normal attacks would do. This might seem like a game-changer, but really it felt mostly based on luck. Sometimes you'd waste a trance mode on an easy enemy, or go trance just before a boss dies- it was too unpredictable to be used effectively. But at times it came in handy, so I can't fault the developers for including it. Anyway, I worked on this game for the first half of the month and made it to the fourth disc last Saturday. A few friends dropped by as I planned on finishing it on Saturday night, and at around level 30 I experienced a good deal of frustration taking on the last 7 or 8 bosses. Eventually, at that same level, I was able to get to the last boss. Remember that- through every part of the game but the final boss, I only needed to gain 30 levels. How many levels did I need to gain until I was able to beat the final boss? How about ANOTHER 30. That's just pointless padding to extend the life of the game. It's not like at level 60 I was able to beat the guy easily, it took 3 tries at that point. So yeah, to whomever feels like playing Final Fantasy IX- enjoy yourself for those first three discs, they make up a fantastic RPG. But when you get to disc 4, save yourself the frustration of dieing over and over again; just grind for a few hours. It's the only way.
Out of curiosity, I just found a boss FAQ online and it gave recommended levels for every boss. For the final boss, it wants you to be 75+. For most of those other bosses I saw you take on, the guide recommends you to be somewhere in the 60s. So I guess I'm half impressed that you managed to get all the way to the final boss at Level 30 but also half disappointed that it took said final boss to get you bulked up beyond where the guide wanted you to be halfway through the game. Sounds like an unfair balance on the game's end, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this may seem like a random question, but without spoiling anything, how was the game's story? I ask because even though I have some saved data from ten years ago, I don't know if I should just start over. I suppose I can just spend an hour reading a detailed plot description instead of spending 15 getting back to where I was, but if you think the game is worth experiencing in its entirety, let me know.
Yeah, I'm in complete agreement that the spike was unnecessary. I know what you saw me play of the game got me very frustrated, but I don't think any boss that came before Disc 4 took me more than 3 or 4 tries. I didn't feel underleveled at all until then, which is why I spent so much time trying to pound through the bosses in one night instead of grinding.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't think you need to get to play the whole thing over again. I remember where you were, so I'll try to give an easy-on-spoilers recap of what's happened so far: Zidane (Boots) is a member of the expert thieves group Tantalus, who was sent on a mission to kidnap princess Garnet (or Dagger, or Steakum in my game) from the kingdom of Alexandria. Along the way you accidentally bring with you Steiner (Giblet), Dagger's royal guard, and the black mage Vivi (Dingle). On a trip between cities, Dingle finds out that hundreds of soulless black mages have been created in a lab and has a serious question of purpose- was he made to just fight in some war? Does he have a soul? He gets pretty emo about it, and seems to be crying for most of the game. Some of the cities visited include Lindblum, where Dagger's uncle Cid lives. Cid's been turned into an animal by his scorned wife. There's also Burmecia, Freya's (Zippy's) destroyed hometown; Treno; and Cleyra- the tree-town where you are now. Enemies so far include Dagger's mom, Queen Brahne, that fat-ass biatch, as well as Kuja, who appears to be working for her (but you saw me fight him plenty Saturday).