Released in November of 2000 Final Fantasy IX was made alongside VIII but in a completly different style to that of its predacessors. With the fan favored VII at its back and the revolutionary X to follow, IX somewhat gets lost in the history of titles of FF.
Plot
Final Fantasy IX takes place primarily on the four continents of a world named Gaia (homonymous with Final Fantasy VII's Gaia, but not the same world). Most of Gaia's population reside on the Mist Continent, named so because the entire continent is blanketed in thick Mist. Lands outside the Mist Continent—the Outer, Lost and Forgotten continents—are uncharted territories not explored until midway through the game. Several locations on the parallel world of Terra and the dream land of Memoria round out the game's areas. The Mist Continent features four nations: Alexandria, Lindblum, Burmecia, and Cleyra. Each country is separated by mountain ranges; the isolated Cleyran civilization, nestled in a giant tree in the desert, is protected by a sandstorm summoned by the village elders.
Gaia is inhabited by humans and various non-human races. Alexandria and Lindblum are both populated by a mix of humans and anthropomorphic animals. The Burmecians are anthropomorphic rats who value dance, thus accounting for their general aversion to footwear, and live in both Burmecia and Cleyra. The Cleyrans split from the Burmecians when the latter started to appreciate "the art of war". The dwarves are short humanoid creatures who appear as inhabitants of the village of Conde Petie on the Outer Continent. There is also a village of black mages that have gained sentient thought which reside in the Outer Continent as well. The Genomes, an artificial race of soulless vessels, inhabit Terra; they will house the once-dormant Terran souls when Terra assimilates Gaia. Summoners are similar to other humans, but with a horn on their forehead. In the story, only two summoners remain (Garnet and Eiko); the others were exterminated when the Terran warship Invincible destroyed their homeland of Madain Sari. Lastly, the Qu are large, seemingly androgynous humanoids, who are recognized as fine gourmands. They inhabit marshlands throughout the world where they catch their main source of nutrition: frogs.
Final Fantasy IX begins with Zidane and the Tantalus Theater Troupe kidnapping Princess Garnet during her sixteenth birthday celebration. The group learns that Garnet, who is concerned about Queen Brahne's increasingly erratic behavior, actually wanted to escape to Lindblum to meet with Regent Cid, and had planned to stow away on the theater ship. The Troupe's airship, Prima Vista, is damaged during the escape; it crashes in the Evil Forest, prompting Zidane to continue the trek to Lindblum without the rest of Tantalus. Zidane and Garnet are accompanied by Vivi and Steiner, who became entangled with Tantalus during their escape from Alexandria. During their journey, Garnet adopts the alias "Dagger" and struggles to mingle with the locals. The group learns of a factory inside the village of Dali, that manufactures soulless black mage warriors for Alexandria's use. Brahne dispatches three powerful ones called Black Waltzes to retrieve Garnet by force, but their mission ends in failure.
In Lindblum, Zidane meets Freya and joins in Lindblum's Festival of the Hunt. Regent Cid has been turned into a bug-like oglop by his wife Hilda, for his womanizing behavior. Wishing to protect Garnet from Brahne's newfound aggression, he had ordered Tantalus to kidnap her. When the group learns that Alexandria has invaded Burmecia, Freya investigates the situation with Zidane and Vivi, while Dagger and Steiner head to Alexandria to ask Brahne to stop the war. Both parties are powerless to stop her, and Dagger has her eidolons forcibly extracted from her body. Brahne uses one of Dagger's eidolons, Odin, to destroy Cleyra. Escaping on Brahne's ship the Red Rose, they head to Alexandria to save Dagger. Escaping from capture Steiner meets up with the others. They find Dagger and escape but not before gaining an ally in Beatrix. She stays behind with Freya and Steiner to help the retreat of Zidane, Dagger and Vivi. Their initial plan of going to Treno failed and they crashed into Pinnacle Rocks. Restoring her faith in herself and receiving the Eidolon Ramuh they continue towards Lindblum. Only to find that Brahne is attacking, destroying one of the districts with another of Dagger's stolen Eidolon, Atomos forcing Cid to surrender.
Afterward, Cid tells the party about Brahne's arms dealer, Kuja. The party travels to the Outer Continent, the location of Kuja's headquarters, through an underground tunnel with the help of Quina. There, the party meets a young summoner named Eiko, who assumes herself to be the last survivor of Madain Sari. They also discover a village inhabited by self-aware Black Mages. Their pursuit of Kuja leads them to the nearby Iifa Tree, an entity that dissipates fighting-stimulant Mist. They also learn that Kuja uses Mist to create the Black Mages. The party defeats the Iifa Tree's core and stops the Mist from flowing. When the party returns to Madain Sari, they confront Amarant, who was hired by Brahne to apprehend Dagger. Dagger slowly realizes that she is also a Summoner from Madain Sari. Amarant joins the party for his own reasons. At the Iifa Tree, Brahne turns against Kuja and intends to kill him with the eidolon Bahamut. However, Kuja uses the airship Invincible to gain control of Bahamut, killing Brahne and defeating her army. Before she dies, Brahne and Garnet have a brief reconciliation.
The party returns to Alexandria, and Garnet is crowned Queen. Afterward, Kuja assaults Alexandria with Bahamut. Eiko and Garnet summon the legendary eidolon Alexander, who overpowers Bahamut. Kuja attempts to control Alexander using the Invincible, but is foiled by a mysterious old man named Garland, who destroys Alexander and parts of Alexandria. Kuja, still intent on mastering a powerful eidolon to defeat Garland, shifts his attention to Eiko. The party learns of Kuja's Desert Palace and attempts an assault. However, Kuja imprisons the party and escapes with Eiko to extract her eidolons. During the extraction attempt, Eiko's guardian moogle Mog uses Trance to transform into her true form, the eidolon Madeen, disrupting the process. Learning of the powers of Trance, Kuja escapes to further his aim of defeating Garland. The party rescues Eiko and also finds Hilda, who turns Cid back into a human. He is now able to design an airship for the party that does not need Mist for power.
With Hilda's aid, the party pursues Kuja to Terra by opening a portal. In the Terran town of Bran Bal, it is revealed that Garland was created by the people of Terra to orchestrate the process of assimilating Terra into Gaia, as Terra was a dying world. Garland created Genomes—intelligent, sentient beings who lack souls—to become future vessels for the souls of the Terrans. The Iifa Tree's existence, the phenomenon of Mist, the eidolon's destruction, and even Kuja and Zidane's true purpose of existence, were part of the process. Angered by Garland's motives, the party confronts him. However, Kuja has now obtained enough souls to achieve Trance. Trance Kuja ends Garland's life, but not before Garland warns him of his limited lifespan, and that Zidane was created to replace him. Enraged by this revelation, Kuja destroys Terra while the party rescues the Genomes and returns to Gaia on the Invincible.
The party discovers that Mist has returned and now envelops all of Gaia. Assisted by the combined forces of Burmecia, Lindblum, and Alexandria, they travel to the Iifa Tree, where they are teleported to a mysterious location called Memoria. The spirit of Garland guides the party to Kuja. When Kuja is defeated, he uses his Trance abilities to destroy the Crystal, the source of life, prompting the appearance of Necron, the "Eternal Darkness" bent on destroying life. After Necron is defeated, Memoria and the Iifa Tree collapse. Although Kuja teleports the party to safety, Zidane returns to save him, and is later assumed to have died with Kuja in the collapse.
Some time later, Alexandria has been rebuilt, and Tantalus arrives in Alexandria to perform "I Want To Be Your Canary" for Queen Garnet. Early scenes reveal what has happened to many of the main characters. Steiner and Beatrix have returned to their old posts as royal bodyguards and have also become romantically involved; Eiko has been adopted by Regent Cid and Lady Hilda; Freya is attempting to start over with her former love, Sir Fratley; Amarant is reunited with Lani while on his way to Alexandria; Quina has now become the head chef of the Alexandria Castle kitchen; and black mages looking identical to Vivi are identified as Vivi's sons. In between these scenes a monologue is given by Vivi where he reminisces about the adventures they had together and bids farewell to everyone, implying his death due to his limited lifespan. The game reaches its final moments with the play being performed. During the performance, one of the performers removes his robe and reveals himself to be Zidane, saved by Kuja's barrier from the collapsing Iifa tree. Garnet rushes onto the stage, abandoning her dropped Summoner pendant and embraces Zidane.
Characters
The eight main playable characters in Final Fantasy IX are Zidane Tribal, a member of a group of bandits called Tantalus masquerading as a theater troupe; Garnet Til Alexandros XVII (alias Dagger), the Princess of Alexandria who has a strange connection to "Eidolons", Vivi Orunitia, a young, timid, and kind black mage trying to find the meaning of his existence; Adelbert Steiner, the Captain of the Knights of Pluto and loyal servant of Alexandria and Princess Garnet; Freya Crescent, a dragon knight from the city of Burmecia looking for her lost love; Quina Quen, a Qu whose master wants him/her to travel the world so that s/he will learn about cuisine; Eiko Carol, a six-year-old girl living in Madain Sari, the lost village of the eidolon summoners, and along with Garnet, one of the last two remaining summoners; and Amarant Coral, a bounty hunter hired to return Garnet to Alexandria. Other main characters include Regent Cid Fabool, the charismatic leader of Lindblum; Queen Brahne, Garnet's mother and the power-hungry Queen of Alexandria; General Beatrix, the powerful leader of the female knights of Alexandria; and antagonist Kuja, an arms dealer and enemy of Gaia. Other minor characters and groups also appear, such as Blank, Zidane's good friend and band partner, but their significance and back-stories are revealed as the game progresses.
Gameplay
In Final Fantasy IX, the player navigates a character throughout the game world, exploring areas and interacting with non-player characters. Most of the game occurs in towns and dungeons which are referred to as "field screens". To aid exploration on the field screen, Final Fantasy IX introduces the "field icon", an exclamation mark appearing over their lead character's head, signaling an item or sign is nearby. Players speak with moogles to record their progress, restore life energy with a tent and purchase items—a deviation from previous installments, which used a save point to perform these functions. Moogles may request the playable character deliver letters to other Moogles via Mognet; playable characters might also receive letter from non-playable characters.
Players journey between field screen locations on the world map, a three dimensional, downsized representation of Final Fantasy IX's world presented from a top-down perspective. Players can freely navigate around the world map screen unless restricted by terrain like bodies of water or mountain ranges. To overcome geographical limitations, players can ride chocobos, sail on a boat or pilot airships. Like previous Final Fantasy installments, travel across the world map screen and hostile field screen locations is interrupted by random enemy encounters.
Final Fantasy IX offers a new approach to town exploration with Active Time Events (ATE), which provide character development, special items and prompts for key story-altering decisions. At specific points, the player may view events that are occurring simultaneously. ATE is occasionally used to simultaneously control two teams when the party is divided to solve puzzles and navigate mazes.
Combat
Whenever the playable character encounters an enemy, the map changes to the "battle screen". On the battle screen, the enemy appears on the opposite side of the characters; each battle uses the familiar Active Time Battle system that was first featured in Final Fantasy IV. The character's command list is presented in a window opposite the ATB gauge list; while all characters can physically attack the enemy or use an item from the player's inventory, they also possess unique abilities. For example, the thief Zidane can steal items from the enemy, Eiko and Garnet can summon "eidolons" to aid the party and Vivi can use black magic to damage the opposition.
These character-specific commands change when the player goes into "Trance mode", which is activated for a short duration when an uncontrollable gauge fills as character sustains damage in a style similar to the Limit Breaks used in Final Fantasy VII. When the gauge is full, the character's strength is amplified, and the player can select special attack commands. Zidane's "Skill" command list, for example, changes to "Dyne", allowing him to execute powerful attacks; Vivi's "Black Magic" command evolves into "Double Black", allowing him to cast two magic spells simultaneously. Through the Configuration screen, the player can change the Battle Style from Normal to Custom, which allows two players to control any combination of characters during battle. However, two controllers must be plugged into the PlayStation.
A character's performance in battle is determined by numerical values ("statistics") for categories like speed, strength and magical power. Character statistics are driven by experience; when players win battles, they are awarded "experience points", which accumulate until characters gain "experience levels". When characters "level up", the statistics for their attributes permanently increase, which may also be amplified by the types of equipment the character is wearing. Winning battles also awards the player money (Gil), Tetra Master playing cards, items and ability points (AP).
Abilities and equipment
Final Fantasy IX deviates from the style of customizable characters featured in the last two titles by reviving the character class concept, which designates a character to a certain role in battle. For example, Vivi is designated as a black mage and is the only character who can use black magic, and Steiner is a knight and is the only character who can use sword skills.
The basic function of equipment in Final Fantasy games is to increase character attributes; arming Zidane with a Mythril Vest, for example, increases his base defense statistic. In Final Fantasy IX, weapons and armor include special character abilities, which the character may use when the item is equipped (permitting the ability matches their class). Once the character accumulates enough ability points in battle, the ability becomes usable without having to keep the item equipped. In addition to granting abilities the equipment in Final Fantasy IX determines the statistical growth of the characters at the time of level up. Armor not only raises base defense or evasion statistics but raises defense and/or other statistics at level up.
Abilities are classified into action and support categories. Action abilities consume magic points (MP) and include magic spells and special moves that are used in battle. Support abilities provide functions that remain in effect indefinitely and must be equipped with magic stones to be functional. The maximum number of these stones increases as the characters level up.
My experience playing this game has been long forgotten, I was in my first year of high school when this game first came out an I only remember playing through the game the one time. I enjoyed the renaissance style that this game was designed in.
And this is the last game before things begin to change drastically. What I hadn't mentioned in my review of VIII its eight lost completely the lore of the Crystal/Orbs. But we see the return of it in IX with the Crystal that creates all life on Gaia, and we also see that there is only one (unlike previous titles which included 4 or more). We see the return of Chocobos, and Airships, the return of Moogles who are actually more interactive in this game than previous titles. We see the return of the preordained Job Class System, Zidan being a thief, Garnet and Eiko being summoners. This is the first time there has ever been two classified "summoners" in the game.
With the summoners we see the return of Sumons in the form of Eidolans:
Ramuh
Ifrit
Shiva
Atamos
Odin
Leviathan
Bahamut
Ark
Fenrir
Titan
Phoenix
Carbuncel
Madeen
(Alexander makes an appearance but is not a usable summon in game)
Traveling through the world map becomes a little different in this game but still retains most of the same system.
Of course (as I forgot to mention in VIII) we see the return of Cid in these last two titles, in VIII the form of the headmaster or commander of the SeeD force stationed in Balamb. In IX the King and airship designer of Lindblum.
This is the first time that an actual Black Mage has been used to design a character population, although we find out that they are automatons created for war, we see more then one walking around, not just a job class used in battle.
While this game was memorable, over the years of new titles (and of course for most fans, under the shadow of the "amazing" VII) this title has gotten lost over time. Its very rare that in a conversation with a true FF fan that even IX comes up.
Next up one of my other Favorite titles, and the first in the FF series to actually receive a direct sequel!
Final Fantasy X
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