Board 8 > Best Disc in Final Fantasy IX?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Spoilers, of course.
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eject disc
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Personally I don't remember much about FF9

I should probably play the PS4 version
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Highlights:

Disc 1
-Kidnapping the princess
-Escape from Evil Forest
-Vivi vs. Black Waltz No. 3
-Festival of the Hunt
-Burmecia

Disc 2
-Odin destroys Cleyra
-Rescuing Dagger in Alexandria
-Atomos attacks Lindblum
-Black Mage Village
-Kuja vs. Brahne

Disc 3
-Bahamut vs. Alexander
-Destruction of Alexandria
-Activating the four shrines
-The "You're Not Alone!" scene
-Trance Kuja destroys Terra

Disc 4
-Assault of the Silver Dragons
-Memoria
-The ending

This is probably the toughest one of the three PS1 FFX games. I think I lean Disc 3 just because its top tier moments are the most top tier, even if it does have slogs like the Desert Palace.
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You forgot to list Vivi and Quina getting married as a highlight of Disc 2.
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mnkboy907 posted...

You forgot to list Vivi and Quina getting married as a highlight of Disc 2.

This is a completely fair objection.
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xp1337 posted...

eject disc

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Most of the best scenes are in disc 3 but I feel disc 2 is more consistent. Also I just love the feeling of exploring the Outer Continent in general.
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Yeah, I listed Black Mage Village, but Conde Petie and Madain Sari are pretty great, too. Iifa Tree is a solid dungeon as well. That entire section might be the best stretch of sustained excellence in the game.
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Disc 1 has no Eiko, so disc 1 wins
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VengefulKaelee posted...

Disc 1 has no Eiko, so disc 1 wins

This is also an extremely reasonable assessment
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Also I am a sucker for Zidane/Dagger and disc 2 is where that gets the most screentime.
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Yeah my 7 and 8 choices jumped out at me (even if each game has 2 great discs) but this one is a lot trickier. It's a very steady game?

I'm leaning to Disc 2 (despite Eiko) but Disc 1 is great even if too short/FMV heavy.

"Freedom" in FF9/getting the airship doesn't even feel that fulfilling as it does in the other games? Though Disc 3 does have plenty of great moments too.

Very tricky!

(are we going to get an overall "best disc" poll or two after this one?)

MartinFF7 posted...

(are we going to get an overall "best disc" poll or two after this one?)

Probably. I was already kind of debating it.
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Also I just want to state that I think Eiko is a good character.
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And I will state that Eiko is the worst party member of the Playstation era.
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MartinFF7 posted...

"Freedom" in FF9/getting the airship doesn't even feel that fulfilling as it does in the other games?

I think part of it is that FFIX's world just feels so empty since so much of it is uninhabited and unexplored due to the Mist. The Mist Continent has plenty to offer, but everywhere else? Not so much.
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Probably disc 2 overall, but disc 1 also has great moments. Disc 3 has the Desert Palace, so its automatically in last place.

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great work with these polls leon, can i take the x one?

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Steiner posted...

great work with these polls leon, can i take the x one?

I mean you'll be stealing my joke but go for it
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not 4
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LeonhartFour posted...

I think part of it is that FFIX's world just feels so empty since so much of it is uninhabited and unexplored due to the Mist. The Mist Continent has plenty to offer, but everywhere else? Not so much.

That's a good point! Also since I play Hot & Cold for like 30 hours, Choco does all the exploring, lol.

Haha yeah, my sense of freedom came from upgrading Choco and being able to search for more chocographs.
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Yeah, I never really got into Hot and Cold.
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I have strong antipathy towards disk 3 from a combination of my disk being scratched so I couldn't get past the Alexander cutscene (except for my first time playing where I guess it worked?) and my hatred of Hippaul (though I don't actually remember much of what happens after that)

Protip to developers: if you have a stupid impossible minigame, don't also make it only temporarily available
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Did the final matches of Hippaul racing become more possible in the rereleases?
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Not too different from the centra continent in 8

Pretty barren
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Well, Centra is a destroyed civilization!

I mean, every JRPG world map has a lot of empty space, but FFIX's just feels so centralized around the Mist Continent.
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on my FF8 replay I remembered how they dedicated the entire upper right area of the world map just to getting the last chocobo forest area. Nothing there other than that.
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Disc 4 because it means you're almost done

Alternatively
DeepsPraw posted...

xp1337 posted...

eject disc

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LeonhartFour posted...

And I will state that Eiko is the worst party member of the Playstation era.

Who is the worst permanent party member of all Final Fantasy?

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well "permanent" is tricky because my least favorite party member technically isn't permanent

and that would be Tellah from FFIV

As far as the worst one who joins the party and sticks around to the end of the game, it might actually be Eiko. I'd have to think it through.

FFIV - Rosa
FFV - Krile
FFVI - Relm
FFVII - Yuffie
FFVIII - Selphie
FFIX - Eiko
FFX - Kimahri
FFXII - Penelo
FFXIII - Vanille
FFXV - Gladio

I feel like there's a pretty clear pattern for the most part...!

But yeah, I guess it would be Eiko if we're talking truly "permanent."
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How about do a "Best World in FFV" poll?
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Disk 4, because it's the shortest, meaning by default is the least terrible disk of this very terrible game.

The worst disk is objectively disk 2, with its go-nowhere plot and constant backtracking
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mnkboy907 posted...

Did the final matches of Hippaul racing become more possible in the rereleases?

yeah, a lot of them are on a platform you can just enable turbo on

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Man Leon really hates the perky female trope (Though I kinda agree with most of the list, with Cait Sith And Hope being the only ones Id swap)

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Hope is great!

I like Cait Sith's character arc, but I'm always a sucker for the trope where the good guys eventually win over the bad guy.
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Cait Sith is great

Eiko is better than at at least Freya and Amarant, and about even with everyone else not named Vivi
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Freya was actually fine until the writers forgot she existed halfway through Disc 2. Amarant sucked because he only existed to be an obligatory 8th party member, but Eiko was offensively bad ever since introduction.

Its a weird dynamic for me in FF9. The core party members (Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, and especially Vivi) are so damn good, and the back half are just blah to downright awful.
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