FFIX is like two sides to a coin. There's a wonderful, beautiful side of a casual playthrough, enjoying the story. And then there's the dark, horrible, terrible side of trying to 100% the game.
The only thing that sucks is Excalibur 2 because you have to basically skip everything and can't actually enjoy the game.
Yeah, like I said, on one side you have a casual playthrough enjoying the story, but on the other hand, there's Exclalibur II, and if you don't want to miss other missable items, events, mini-games, etc. it becomes a fucking nightmare to even think about.
I'm pretty sure that game is legitimately impossible to 100% without using save state manipulation of some sort tbh.