Ffix Game Reviews

[Knuckles]

This thread is for members of SEF to leave a review on this FF game. Reviews must be a minimum of two paragraphs, contain likes and dislikes, and overall assessment, and a score out of 10. A link to your review and score will then be added to this first post, and all the scores will then be averaged to get the overall scoring.

Please do not post anything other than a review in this thread. For discussion, or more information, please check out the Final Fantasy Game Reviews - Discussion Topic.

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Reviewers
Amaru - 7 / 10


Averaged Score
7

[Knuckles]

A Heartwarming Tale, Yet Somewhat Lacking'
Written By Amaru

By the time that FFIX was released, I had now classed myself as a Final Fantasy enthusiast. During the customary wait between FFVIII and IX, I bridged the gap by searching out and discovering the previous installments in this video-games series. It was there that I discovered just how the series had progressed, and just where it all started from. I discovered, at their very core, that there was something so remotely Final Fantasy about each of these games, and the uniting factors within each and every one of them.

Then finally, it was time for the new release - FFIX. Having already seen and discovered much from magazines, I knew that the shift and tone of this game was going to be vastly different. Gone were any shreds of progressive technology, and back to a core of magic, castles, airships and dungeons ... all contained within a soft disney-like structure for the setting and the characters.

This was something that was going to take a little getting used to...

However, having prepared myself by playing the earlier installments, the blow wasn't too hard. Yet, never one to make things easy, the game then threw at me it's main hero, and in an instant, a major dislike was formed. Like a clash of personalities with someone that you just don't like or get on that much at school, I could not stand Zidane. At all. His attitude, his looks, his speach - everything about him was off-putting. Things were not getting off to a great start.

Despite Zidane, the assembled cast was quite a strong one. Garnet, Vivi, Steiner, Amarant ... a pleasant mixture of characters and personalities, however, this was off-set quite a bit by Queen Brahne, Quina ... and Kuja. Comparisons to the main villian of my favourite game were inevitable, and Kuja just simply could not match up.

The story of the game is indeed heartwarming. Who did not felt their heart go out when Vivi's brothers were destroyed on the airship? Or when Garnet loses her voice over the partial-destruction of Alexandria? Or when we discovered that Vivi had a certain life-span. In fact, most of the games most interesting and heartwarming moments came from this little mage, with impressive powers. In my eyes, he stole the show. The overall story of the game was interesting, yet, Zidane's past with Kuja (again) just drew comparisons to FFVII, and were (once again) completely overshadowed by them. Speaking of which, some of the story aspects, like the elemental liches, and Necrom, just seemed completely random and out of place - and this is supposed to be the final boss.

During my foray into the story of the game, I was introduced to the new battle system. A vast improvement over FFVIII, I highly enjoyed the learning of abilities hidden within weapons, and the specialized abilties of each character. Trance, however, felt like a major let-down, but battles on the whole, were really enjoyable, especially when accompanied by one of my favourite battle themes.

All in all, with my feelings towards the feel of the game, it's look, the main character, the main non-playable characters, the villain, and most of the storyline (that did not feature Vivi), the game just didn't impress me as much as FFVII or FFVIII. I attempted to do to it what I did with FFVIII, by playing through it a few more times, but my enjoyment didn't increase. However, as I have stated above, there was enough enjoyable elements within the game, which made me like a lot of moments...

Score: 7 / 10

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