THE SHORT: You know, it might be a great game, but the characters annoy me to such a degree that I had to bail out before the game was over. I'm sorry.
THE LONG: I pride myself on my journalistic integrity (forgive the popmpous term, it's the only relevant and appropriate way to say it), but I'll take my hit with this game. I calls em' like I sees' em, and I just flat out got sick of Final Fantasy thanks to this game.
Allow me to explain. Imagine Mike, age 21, reading his summer '99 issue of PSM and getting excited over how the new Final Fantasy would be getting way back to its roots...Skipping the cars and guns (!?) of FFVIII and the nuclear reactors of FFVII (though I loved that one).
Yeah, FFIX was going to be the one that shot the ball home, the one that recaptured the series' majesty of knights and magic and medieval kingdoms. So, blame it on my own misinterpretations, but I was sitting there recalling images of Cecil and his Red Wing airships, or even just characters garbed in leather cuirasses and chain mail going into the land of the elves to eradicate the forest demons. I was old-school jazzed.
Here's where the unfair part comes in: FFIX probably delivered the most awesome fantasy experience of the closing year. For me, it delivered a bunch of characters so cheesy that I wanted to vomit and cry in the corner at the same time while clutching my autographed picture of Sabin from FFVI.
What the hell happened? Granted, we got a cute little black mage. Yeah, I know we got the mage. He was on every magazine cover from EGM to *#*&^# Playboy for *&#*^ sake. But we also got Buzz Lightyear in armor, a talking toad-mushroom queen thing, and yet another entry in the effeminate, cutesy boy band era of Final Fantasy to be the main character. But how do we differentiate this one? Eh, give him a TAIL!! YEAHHHH!!!!
Count me the ^&%^& out.
Ok, in all fairness, maybe this wound up all making sense on some strange level on some strange planet, but to little old me, I was confused that "getting back to old-school Final Fantasy" meant throwing in an airship and making all the characters ridiculous as opposed to, say, giving us a mature, serious quest that actually looks and feels like a medieval fantasy with appropriately themed characters.
Kick me if you will. Yell, scold, I don't care. I'll at least be man enough to admit that, given Square's record up until the turn of the century, I ADORED Final Fantasy and they really didn't let me down. But with FFIX, I simply couldn't help feeling disappointed and even a little angry that these stupid characters, all of whom you pretty much meet right off the bat, were supposed to be what the series always stood for. I didn't like them, I didn't like my first hour through, and I didn't anticipate what I'd read was to come next. Why keep playing? No. I just didn't like what I saw.
I loved the storyline of FFIV, which in my opinion contained the best character development, a great couple twists at the end, and a somewhat unique slant on the tried and tired "band together & save the world"
premise. I loved FFVI for all the eccentricities and uniqueness inherent to each character, and I loved Kefka. And in that game, the IDEA of machines encroaching into a fantasy world was the entire storyline, not just a convenience (I am Squall, and I have a gunblade!! Huh?!?!?). I even loved how straightforward the original Final Fantasy was. But IX? No, I'm sorry. I just didn't like what I was seeing, and I didn't buy that it was old-school simply because it had mages and airships. To me, Final Fantasy was always about more than that, and although I was definitely premature, I can't help but to say that I didn't see any greatness in FFIX. The numbers prove me to be the outsider, but I stand by my verdict.
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