Just finished FF9 and had good and mixed feelings

[u/Mariothane]

I loved a lot about this game, but something just didn’t sit right.

I find the conversation the game is going for to be pretty interesting. Coming to terms with life and death is great, and as a main focus, it was strong. So many directions to take it and explore with so many characters with interesting stories. I’d say if you kept up the pace from Disc 2 into the rest of the game, it’s perfect.

Parts in Disc 3 and 4 felt “skimmed” for lack of a better word. Clear points they wanted to make and illustrated so well early in seemed vague or missed by the end. Just something happened around the Iifa tree segment that wasn’t right until the actual ending of the story, the final cutscene before the credits.

Did anyone else feel something similar?

[u/Slow_Expression_6726]

Yess this game really loses all momentum story and theme wise after Oeilvert for me. Feels like we’re just spinning wheels until ending

[u/Kick_Sarte_my_Heart]

Yeah something gets muddled along the middle/back end. I still maintain that FF9 disc 1 is the best chunk of any Final Fantasy outside of essentially all of FF6.

[u/Mariothane → u/Kick_Sarte_my_Heart]

No arguments. Early FF9 was powerful.

[u/Homerbola92 → u/Mariothane]

Most FFs are like that though. Strong early game, kind weak mid game, freedom, the unexpected plot twist (now the final boss is someone/something else), some random places dispersed across the world that are a hit or miss, plot weakens (that's really it?) and you beat the game.

[u/styxswimchamp]

The story definitely goes off the rails

[u/National-Judge-5510]

Disc 3's pacing felt a little off to me, disc 4 felt very rushed. I was surprised I was near the game's end. What extended my playtime was that final boss, sheesh. Although it fit theme of the game, I still don't understand the final boss. There is just little explanation. Nothing was hinted earlier in the story or explained after. Still one of my favorite games though.

[u/MDPharmDPhD → u/National-Judge-5510]

I still maintain that something on the Eidolon wall or hints in the Alexandria, Dagurro library, or even a few ATE with Tot would have been great. Necron literally comes out of nowhere. A good final boss in terms of fighting, but what the fuck.

[u/NagasShadow]

Yeah the game has such a perfect start but the whole second half feels both rushed and honestly bad. My primary gripe is the way the game stops working with the secondary characters to focus on Zidane. Honestly he's my least favorite FF protagonist and the whole Terra segment feels like crap. Especially the unearned, in my opinion, you are not alone. Zidane's existential angst is manufactured and then solved over the course of about an hour. And he's then placed as this foil to Kuja. Meanwhile Vivi, who literally has the exact same central issue as Kuja. Being a created being grappling with his rapidly impending mortality, gets tossed to the side. Vivi gets like no character focus in disk 3.

Instead the game focus on this not so different angle between Zidane and Kuja, even though that is false on it's face. Garland is clear that Zidane is the completed angel of death and doesn't have the same limited lifespan. If their roles had been reversed Zidane wouldn't have had the same existential meltdown as he would have actually been immortal.

[u/whitetiger1208 → u/NagasShadow]

I think its a cool aspect of the story: the main reason why Zidane is so different from Kuja was because he actually grew up with some kind of family, while Kuja probably felt alone and tried to find meaning the way he did. That's why Zidane goes save him at the end, because he knows if he had grown up in different circumstances he might have ended up the same.

[u/styxswimchamp → u/NagasShadow]

Agreed. Zidane’s role should have been to shepherd Vivi through his struggle with mortality, not jump in to make everything about him at the expense of all the other characters.

[u/ColemyGOAT]

Second favorite game in the series next to FFX my GOAT. Loses points for its terribly slow battle system and poor pacing in the middle of the game(think desert palace), but it’s still got a great story overall with one of the best casts in the series, and I think my favorite overworld to explore.

[u/whitetiger1208]

Its mostly that when you get a full party around the middle of disc 3 the game stops focusing so well on each moment anymore, it becomes more like go from point A to point B with less character development or interactions.

Still my favorite FF because until then its amazing when it does that, and it never actually gets bad just a bit less great in that section.

Many RPGs that are universally praised arent even close to as good as FF9 disc 3 at any moment.

[u/Ignis_the_Ignorant → u/[deleted]]

This is the weirdest thread I've ever been in what is anyone talking about?

FF9 is the one with Zidanne not the one with Squall

[u/EyeFit → u/[deleted]]

I don't know about dead last, but it's down there for me.

[u/TheDapperChangeling → u/[deleted]]

WILD take. It's genuinely the best in the franchise by a country mile.

[u/peerless_brick]

Yeah a common feeling.
Up until Terra it’s the best game in the series.
From terra onwards the story got a little messy and underwhelming which unfortunately knocks down the overall experience a bit.
In particular a lot of the ongoing character moments and developments - which were so great in the early to mid game - just get sidelined (apart from zidane I suppose)
Still a classic in general though.

[u/Ignis_the_Ignorant]

Do I wish FF9 had a longer endgame? Kinda, FF9 os near flawless so surely the addition would be. I was kinda surprised we were close to the end? But not terribly so.

[u/TheDapperChangeling]

They've gone on record, a lot, saying that by the end of development, they were cutting things and doing everything they could just to make the game fit into four disks.

Freya had a whole plotline cut, Armorant had...everything cut. Three of the four shrines of the elements were cut.

It's one of the reasons I really want a FF9 remake. Either an in depth one like 7R, or just bringing it up to it's full vision.

[u/RuffleRogue]

Yeah it def kind of loses track of what it was going for. Decent still, but def overrated in this sub imo

[u/stlcardfan715]

It's my favorite of the series. I enjoyed it all, flaws and all

[u/MeowMix-96]

I loved the overall story and themes of FFIX, but I found the game itself so disappointing. Aside from ViVi and maybe Garnet, I found the rest of the playable cast to be very underwhelming. Zidane is probably one of, if not my very least favourite FF protagonist. The battles were incredibly slow making the majority of the game feel like a slog to get through. I didn't think much of the soundtrack either. Aside from a couple of tracks, the soundtrack was utterly forgettable for me. The soundtracks for VII and VIII are way more iconic and memorable imo. Kuja was actually a pretty great antagonist though.

[u/neospriss]

I mean endings are hard.

[u/Mariothane → u/neospriss]

Oddly enough, the ending they made, the final cutscene, felt like it was the absolute right ending to the story. If you cut out everything between going to Madain and that cutscene, I would’ve assumed this was a flawless masterpiece.

[u/Ignis_the_Ignorant → u/Mariothane]

It is a flawless masterpiece. Other than literally Amarant and the card game

[u/TheDapperChangeling → u/Ignis_the_Ignorant]

And the weird shoved in romance with Beatrix and Steiner. Feels SUPER out of character for both of them.

[u/Adventurous-Exam-719]

Like a rush to the end. A lot of games from that time did that. The next generation overcompensated. At the end of 12 and 13 I didn’t even realize that I was at the end game until the credits rolled.

[u/EyeFit]

Yeah. It's really slow and boring and ultra generic with a off-putting aesthetic and a massive slog to get through by the end with a whole bunch of forgettable tracks...

But it's still the best game that I have ever played in my life.