Board 8 > Andy Plays Final Fantasy IX

(+) Yeah! (+)

Cant you also one hit kill Necron with Life?

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I dont recall that being true.
You can kill Soulcage like that tho, I think
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Cant you also one hit kill Necron with Life?

I definitely don't remember that. If it was true, then no one would have a problem with him despite all those status effects!

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I have never heard of necron being OHKO that way. Pretty sure that's just soulcage as far as bosses go.

Dark Messenger is a tremendous boss theme, as is grand cross. And yeah Necron definitely one of the more infamous bosses in FF if not RPGs as a whole.

I see you found the last summon and that it wasn't alexander lol
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RIP Alexander, killed by the final airships eyeball
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Hmm, maybe I was just thinking of Soulcage.

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Ignoring all posts telling me Vivi died, I refuse to accept this as canon. But seriously what's the deal with his lifespan and his 'sons'? I thought they said as a prototype he was supposed to live longer.

LeonhartFour posted...

fun fact: FFIX was promoted as being the game when "the crystal comes back" and then they just shoehorn it in at the end of the game lawl

But they already had a big satisfying crystal moment when the 4 jewels combine and Alexander is summoned! They didn't need another one.

Leonhart4 posted...

A lot of people think the FFIX party was killed by Kuja's Ultima and him destroying the crystal, but defeating Necron brought them back to life or something.

I'm not normally one for 'game theory: they died' but this one does kinda work.

Emeraldegg posted...

I see you found the last summon and that it wasn't alexander lol

:(
Ark is kinda cool really and as htaeD said the implication of it becoming a summon is really weird. But still Alexander got screwed!

htaeD posted...

Apparently its Japanese name is Eternal Darkness.

That's the name of the Ark summon!

The Soulcage=Necron thing doesn't hold up to me, Soulcage definitely spoke of its own lifespan. Honestly they could've explained the Iifa Tree a bit more, the Tree of Life being the tool of so much destruction is really interesting but they didn't explain it beyond Garland just saying he used it to Terra's own ends.


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Yeah, there's zero explanation for what it means for Vivi to have "sons." He does have a longer lifespan than the other black mages, but it's still not super long.

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htaeD posted...

The trick is to declare your moves during the animations of its attacks, so it cannot register your inputs at the moment.

Thank you, I had forgotten exactly how that worked. Yes, I remember now you can do that and that's a way to get more attacks in. Timing my attacks this way was the biggest help.

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Yeah like Leon said, he had a "longer" lifespan but you also have to imagine he was made earlier as a prototype so it all probably evens out.

The funny thing about ark is it's best benefit isn't even the damage, its' the fact that it's summon animation takes SO long that if you have regen on, you can basically get a full heal out of a summon, it's hilarious.
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I've always liked the theory of Kuja's Ultima killing the party (and maybe destroying the crystal too), and Necron being the soul-sorting function of the Iifa Tree trying to send their spirits to the afterlife. There's lots of circumstantial evidence for it too - supposedly, Hades was originally the final boss instead but the creators thought that was too "obvious", plus the hell-like location Zidane and co wake up in. The "refusing to die" idea shows up again with the unsent in FFX, and its use here would tie perfectly into IX's overall key theme of life and what one does with it - for the final boss of the game to be the party members choosing to live by literally defeating an embodiment of death is a pretty perfect climax thematically. But it's definitely open to interpretation, which I also don't hate!

(Also, Vivi being absent from the ending and the implied meaning there totally passed me by when I first beat this game as a kid. Sadly, on a rewatch the suggestion is not all that ambiguous. Lovely ending either way though, I think Vivi's story had a happy ending regardless.)

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Oh and as far as Alexander getting short-changed goes... he gets an entire series of 12 raids in FFXIV...!

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Giggsalot posted...

I think Vivi's story had a happy ending regardless.

Yeah, the ending makes it clear that Vivi found meaning to his life and didn't fear death any longer.

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I know, I'm happy for Vivi but still wish he could've gone on more adventures :( And Black Mage Village will now be empty of black mages, though the genomes (and Bobby Corwen) will still be around I guess. I do think they could've made it a bit less ambiguous that it's Vivi speaking at the end, maybe they didn't want the little kids playing to realise that he'd died.

Giggsalot posted...

I've always liked the theory of Kuja's Ultima killing the party (and maybe destroying the crystal too), and Necron being the soul-sorting function of the Iifa Tree trying to send their spirits to the afterlife. There's lots of circumstantial evidence for it too - supposedly, Hades was originally the final boss instead but the creators thought that was too "obvious", plus the hell-like location Zidane and co wake up in. The "refusing to die" idea shows up again with the unsent in FFX, and its use here would tie perfectly into IX's overall key theme of life and what one does with it - for the final boss of the game to be the party members choosing to live by literally defeating an embodiment of death is a pretty perfect climax thematically. But it's definitely open to interpretation, which I also don't hate!

Yeah I do quite like this theory. It works thematically, makes more sense than Ultima not killing us, and makes Necron a bit less 'oh hey there I'm the final boss, well see ya'.

And I beat Ozma before going to bed last night!
The team: Steiner constantly using Shock with Auto-Reflect equipped to ignore Berserk.
Dagger technically working as the healer, but purely by using Ark and letting Auto-Regen do its thing. She had Boost.
Quina on support, casting Auto-Life whenever there was a chance and crucially casting Angel's Snack to offset Curse. This was the most vital thing!
Zidane was pretty useless but I couldn't get rid of him. He used Elixirs/Ethers when needed and attacked otherwise. He died at one point and I didn't even bother reviving him.
Everybody had Auto-Regen (sooo OP in this game), Auto-Haste (as always) and Auto-Life at the start. Thanks a lot for the 'select attacks while Ozma's in its animation phase' tips, that helped me a lot. It wound up killing itself using Doomsday lol.

I think that's about everything now? I'll talk about my overall thoughts on the game later today.

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Yeah, p much everything. I'm not sure if it's been talked about but in Dagguero, there's the 4 armed man who offers to tell you his real name if you do like every sidequest in the game and get every chest I think.

His name is Gilgamesh, yes THAT Gilgamesh
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Well you don't need to do every sidequest, but a fair bit will do. Long as you get enough points for S rank then you will get the name.

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You can get locked out of getting S rank, it's possible it's impossible already.

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I hate Necron. I don't understand how a game with such a great story has such a disappointing final boss, plot-wise

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I think Necron is good because throughout the game the party never attains a true victory. 'Losing' to Kuja at the end follows how you lose to Beatrix, and then the power of the eidolons, and then kuja's ultima twice. The theme of the game is fighting destiny and that's just what they did no matter what.

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Man I didn't realize the characters were such losers until you said that

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I have an A rank for treasures, must've missed too many somehow :( I thought I was thorough!

I also finished with 73 unique cards for Tetra Master. And there's blackjack on the homescreen now?? Oh, PS1 era games.

So discussing the game as a whole- would you believe it, I greatly enjoyed my time playing! The gameplay is... well it's fine, passable, but obviously not why you're here. It's kind of amazing how little the battle system has changed since IV, but I guess if it ain't broke. I did quite like the equipment system though, kind of part V part VII. I know everybody hates Trance but I like the concept of it, changing commands to more powerful versions for a limit break is cool. But there's very little control over it, it's automatic and disappears after battle, and only comes around once in a blue moon. I guess they did that so people couldn't cheese it by saving up Trances for boss fights, but still meh. The 'Dagger couldn't concentrate' thing didn't bother me in the slightest, it was incredibly fitting for the story and it's brief enough.

The game was a bit on the easy side, and there was a weirdly long stretch with no bosses at one point, but it didn't detract from the experience very much. The monsters were generally fine (except one cat who shall remain unnamed), decent designs but nothing mindblowing, some nice references to old games. Outside of battle, I like how much they tried to mix up the gameplay for various sidequests and stuff but they didn't all work for me, and as said several times in this topic many of the sidequests are just way too obtuse and needed more in-game explanations.

Of course the highlights are the plot, characters, structure, pacing, atmosphere, and themes. They pretty much nailed all this, even with this game being a throwback to older entries the plot felt fresh and fun, and the darker tone and seriousness with which the game tackled its life and death themes really kept everything grounded to some kind of reality. Despite my misgivings about how some characters disappear from the narrative, I like how each of them represents different aspects of the game's themes, and they really do all gel together to form one pretty great thesis on what it means to live.

Structure-wise, I thought the shift from medieval war to sci-fantasy existentialism was done really well. Disc 1 sets the world up but is generally still pretty interesting, disc 2 is just a wild ride from start to (almost) finish with constant surprises, disc 3 starts off weirdly quiet but suddenly explodes into action and the game finally shows its hand, and disc 4... is a final dungeon. I don't know what the consensus is, if people think the game goes downhill as the plot gets larger (as they do with VIII), but I really liked all the Terra stuff and thought they'd laid enough groundwork that it didn't come out of thin air.

I guess if you split the game into two halves, I'd probably still say I prefer the first two discs when you're still recruiting everyone and it's pretty much on rails. There's more variety to the gameplay here and I really loved the constant perspective shifts as you're travelling around the Mist Continent seeing what wild twist they'll come up with next to bring our gang to their knees. Despite things constantly going against the party it never felt boring or forced, unlike in some other entries, XIII. There's a lot of really good stuff later on of course, as said I like the Terra plot a lot, but outside of the core narrative I guess maybe the game feels a little more generic after that? You have your ship/airship, your whole party, sidequests, Chocobo riding etc but it's not as magical an experience (again I'm excluding the actual main plot, which stays great throughout).

Talking through my thoughts, I'm in two minds here. On the one hand Zidane and Dagger both get significantly more interesting over the course of Disc 3, going from pretty tropey characters to really interesting unique protagonists. On the other hand, pretty much everybody else falls by the wayside completely and the game feels less team-focused and more like a bunch of supporting characters standing around helping the leads. I'll talk more about the characters in particular later, but there were a number of threads I wish they had tugged at a little more to give everyone the complexity that I really feel they had the potential for. Also the last two continents do feel a little bare bones, you can see they were rushing to get it out by that point.

As for the world in general, they could've done more with the class issues that linger in the background early in the story but pretty much disappear later on. It's not nearly as egregious as Tactics where that's the game's primary focus at the start, but I guess it would've layered the world a bit more. But in general they do a great job with the worldbuilding, I'm amazed that they do the 'Brahne/Kuja destroys big city' thing on four separate occasions and yet it works every single time. That's a testament not just to the plot structure but to how they manage to make each location feel different for the player from the last. Burmecia's atmosphere with the rain and music is so hauntingly beautiful. Watching Cleyra just get completely obliterated 5 minutes after the gang decides 'right we're gonna stop it next time!' is great. Then Lindblum's fall is kicking Dagger when she's down, looking back it's of course setup for her breaking point with Alexandria but I somehow didn't see it coming. And just overall the background dialogue for the NPCs is good, they feel much more like legit background characters living their own lives and less like exposition machines as in more modern RPGs.

The CG cutscenes have aged much more poorly than the gorgeous static backgrounds, and the character designs work much better in model form than in cutscenes (the opposite of VIII's problem!). The quirky mix of animal-like creatures is much appreciated and suits the vibe of the art more than the pseudo-chibi humans, imo. Though I did get used to the humans' designs and do see the charm in them. The music is good, maybe not quite as good as VIII's, VI's or X's but I'd need to listen to the whole thing to be sure.

Most of these very minor complaints aren't even things I was thinking at the time, the game is paced so well that I really was just along for the ride from the word go. But yeah, this was just a stream of consciousness set of thoughts for me looking back at the game, I'll talk about the individual characters next time I post but I would like to thank everyone for following this topic and helping me, I hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as I have! I've never had a topic come this close to 500 posts before!

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andylt posted...

I have an A rank for treasures, must've missed too many somehow :( I thought I was thorough!

It's not just treasures, it includes other things like quest rewards and stuff. So like you get points for jump rope, racing Hippaul, Hot and Cold, etc. I managed to lock myself out of it when I played it last year.

Overall good playthrough topic though! I enjoyed reading it. Which one do you think you'll play next?

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Are you aware of the ff9 coca cola commercial
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FFIX is on the easier side, but it was deliberately geared toward beginners. I'm not sure why they thought a game that came out on PS1 after the launch of the PS2 would be an entry point for the series, but hey!

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It was my entry point!
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I am not aware of any commercial! And gearing this game for beginners was weird given how referential it is to the series.

BlackDra90n posted...

It's not just treasures, it includes other things like quest rewards and stuff. So like you get points for jump rope, racing Hippaul, Hot and Cold, etc. I managed to lock myself out of it when I played it last year.

Overall good playthrough topic though! I enjoyed reading it. Which one do you think you'll play next?

Ah, well I have no intention of going back to Jump Rope >_>

Thanks! I don't know yet, in the past year I've gone through the 5 remaining beloved classics I had yet to play so I don't know what I'll do next. Might make a topic asking the board when I'm ready for another one. IX was the last truly major blind spot I had, so I'm glad to have finally played it but sad I'm through that era of games :( There really was something unique about the PSX era that I will miss, the lovingly drawn backgrounds hit a spot for me that 3D rendered ones just can't.

Anyway, to the characters. I was originally planning to rank the party members/major NPCs, but in the last third of the game I realised just how difficult that was gonna be. As a whole this crew is greater than the sum of their parts, and it's too weird to separate them all from each other.

So, for NPCs:

Cid is fine. He fills his role, and is pretty interesting but not a scene-stealer. Him keeping the frog/oglop mannerisms post transformation is good. Looking back now, the party having such an important powerful ally through basically the whole game could kind of lessen this idea of them being stranded, beaten and outmatched, but... idk it just doesn't. Maybe because Cid is hindered most of the time. It is weird that they set up that the Alexandrian soldiers become aware of Cid secretly working against them when Lindblum is under occupation, but then do nothing with it.

The Tantalus crew surprised me, not sure why because they fit a fairly standard trope but I expected them to die pretty early. It's nice that they are a friendly presence throughout, and their shenanigans are usually fun. Zidane actually returning to them at the end is a surprise too, but they do feel like part of the family.

Doctor Tot is fine but I still cannot get past his name. He really just exists to give the party a way out of a few binds, and foreshadow some lore.

The Moogles are great in this game, easily the best they've ever been. I've never been a big fan of this species, they were my least fav of the recurring FF mascots but I love how they were used here. Mognet provides some nice info, fun lighthearted lines and even a hint of how the outside world is reacting to ongoing events. Mognet Central is a bit of a letdown after all the hype, but still cool that it exists.

Beatrix is an interesting one. I thought she was a dedicated villain, then she turned face, then she promptly disappears until pretty much the ending. Definitely feels like wasted potential, she's still a cool presence but she's just another victim of the back half of the game only caring about a handful of characters. Also she never really redeems herself for being an active and willful participant in the atrocity of Burmecia, it's kinda weird that she's just reduced to Steiner's love interest in the end. Always bothers me when villain-turned-heroes never have to actually account for their actions.

The Black Mages are really, really good. What a great use of a plot device. They're introduced so early, we know there's something horrifying about what's happening but by the time we visit Black Mage Village it's just so... sad. Them turning to Kuja in desperation, never actually believing him but not seeing another option as they face their own impending mortality, it's really depressing >_> If I have to single one out it would have to be #288, the scenes with him in the graveyard are some of the most affecting and memorable ones in the game. Vivi's arc wouldn't work at all if these guys weren't convincing, but it's all done so well. Even the Black Waltz stuff was tragic. Also Bobby Corwen!! And that one mage who says he will never forget #36. Man.

Queen Brahne is pretty odd. Whenever she's on screen the game is usually emphasising her comic evil tendencies but whenever she's off screen her fall to evil is framed as such a tragedy. The game tries to walk a tightrope between these and it doesn't really work, any emotion to her is purely based on what the player sees in Dagger. I mean I guess it's intentional, Brahne is so clearly consumed by greed and Dagger is trying in vain to see the mother she once knew, but it doesn't help Brahne as a character. And the tropes of her being fat, oddly coloured and pockmarked as traits of her disgusting nature are pretty yawnworthy. Pretty boring that she was just possessed by Kuja too, it'd be better if she'd had her own agency or slowly got influenced by his interference over the course of the game or something. As is, she's the Act 1 villain so they didn't need to make her complicated, I guess.

Mikoto shows up in the last act and leaves a lasting impression, very similar to the black mages but even more innocent and deluded about the nature of life. She exists to display Zidane's growth (and Kuja's!), but the game doesn't overuse her and as a result she works well.

I've spoken about Garland before, but I'm a big fan of how the game uses him. In essence he's just the exposition machine for the last big plot reveals, but the game wisely gives him a character beyond that. He's sinister, devoted to his cause, but also lost and still learning about life himself. By the end he's even a guide for Zidane. He has some great lines, is the trigger for maybe the best sequence in the game, and fills his role well. Great use of an antagonist.

Which brings us to Kuja, the most prominent NPC in the game. Now I have said before in these playthroughs that I'm not usually drawn to villains in this series. Kuja starts off the same as several others, some sinister feminine-looking mastermind who is always five steps ahead of everyone and never makes a mistake. In other words, pretty boring to me. Some good lines, though. Thankfully the game takes several twists with him. With the introduction of Garland he suddenly gets knocked off his perch, frantically stumbling around trying to keep some form of plan intact while still projecting this image of him being calm and collected. And then of course he is made aware of his own mortality, and goes full destruction mode. This is a bit less interesting honestly, but the game brings it back around by the end in making him somewhat sympathetic without excusing anything he's done. I'm very interested how I'd view him in a replay, seeing that his early image is largely a facade and he's hiding from himself for much of the game. As a dark mirror of Zidane he works well, he's easily an upper tier villain for the series but that isn't really saying much for me.


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Oh yeah I meant to ask if you ever found Mognet Central. Seems like you did.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnaClmuna78
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Emeraldegg posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnaClmuna78

I still love this.
htaeD posted...

It was my entry point!

Also my entry point!

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Lol that Coca-Cola ad, I guess Cup Noodles wasn't really breaking new ground for the franchise. Vivi holding Dagger's hand at the end is adorable though.

Anyway, talkin' bout the cast. This is not a ranking.

Amarant
...but if it were, Amarant would be last. The poor guy never had a shot. He joins the party right when it's about to hone in its character focus on two-three people. There's no grand adventures of Amarant, no little side team he gets to be a part of to flesh him out, he arrives and is instantly benched. There's some decent moments with him- I like his and Freya's conversation in Treno, and he's at his best when challenging Zidane on his hypocrisy/self-centeredness near the end of the game, but there's not so many, and his one central moment in Ipsen's Castle fell flat for me.

There's potential here, he could've been a darker pseudo-rival of Zidane who forces him to learn inner truths about himself, but there's not really a place for him in the game as-is to properly flesh that out. He's not bad, just not really there.

Eiko
OK time to admit it, I have no idea why people hate Eiko. She has a couple annoying little kid moments when we first meet her. That's it. And that's perfectly understandable considering that she's an orphaned girl and thought to be the last of her kind! Her crush on Zidane aside (and it's hilarious when Zidane realises that this is how he must come across to Dagger), Eiko is pretty interesting. She's outspoken and genuine among a bunch of people who are often passive or not very open with themselves, and she coaxes info out of people that wouldn't usually be gotten. Despite arriving about as late as Amarant she has much more to do, and she's pretty great in battle.

She's not the deepest character and I don't think she's amazing or anything, but I do not get the widespread hate for her at all. In the grand 'little girl party member' archetypes of this series, she lands well above Relm and Porom. Maybe not Krile.

Quina
I like Quina. I like their ridiculous design, I like their personality, I like that Zidane clearly finds it difficult to tolerate their presence, I like their carefree attitude. S/he has many funny moments, and is very aware of the mission the gang is on and doesn't interrupt serious scenes to ruin the tension. S/he is the best blue mage in the series (Eat is great, @ me!), and just all round a fun party member.

Unfortunately there's not a lot more to say about Quina. As far as funny mascot characters go s/he is done well but they needed to add some other layer to the character to make Quina a Riki-tier companion. The hungry jokes do eventually get repetitive, and by the end of the game s/he isn't adding much to the dialogue. I wish there were more serious moments for Quina, the little ones we have are good but so far apart. I don't know what the deal with their gender is, I'm guessing it's some kind of translation from Japanese because they occasionally call Quina 'him' still in dialogue.

Freya
Eagle-eyed followers of this topic may recall a character named Freya.

I wasn't sure on her at first, but I was quickly drawn to her after the events at Burmecia and Cleyra. Dedicating herself to avenging her homeland, then immediately losing in an even worse manner was a great set-up for her to undergo some Disc 3 Dagger style transformation. Her personality is great, she's serious and smart and always asks the right questions I wish everyone else would (I still like that she's the only one actively looking into Kuja at the start of Disc 3), for a while I really really liked Freya. I like her design and the fact that she's just a rat. And when she goes to Alexandria and accepts the help of Beatrix while not forgiving her for her deeds, I was very excited to see how their dynamic would grow.

In a game full of good characters who could've been so much more, none hurt more than Freya. She completely disappears from the narrative after that point. It's so incredibly frustrating how tacked on she is in the back half of the game, did the writers not realise what a great character they had in their hands here? Or did they just run out of time? She barely interacts with anyone in the back half, Amarant is the closest thing to a scene partner she has and he's got almost as little screentime as her. Fratley's amnesia is never developed, and she barely has a single moment from her own perspective in the entire back half of the game. A genuine shame.

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Eiko bad but I don't like the bratty girl archetype at all, no matter how much hidden depths you try to couch it in

The crush on Zidane is bad enough but bullying Vivi is a big no. Like even Amarant isn't mean to Vivi.

Also Freya's "motto" for the game being "To be forgotten is worse than death" is appropriate considering her character arc.

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Still definitely in the worse half of the cast, but I did find Eiko a lot better on my recent replay than I remembered her being.

Vivi > Steiner > Garnet > Zidane > Freya > Amarant > Eiko > Quina

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Leonhart4 posted...

Man I didn't realize the characters were such losers until you said that

But it turns out you CAN preserve all of reality by getting an A for effort

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So far my opionions are almost tge exact same as yours
Well except Eiko which I don't like at all

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Eiko sucks. Never seen someone actually like her

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I
dont mind Eiko.
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I really like Eiko

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"Quina never interrupts serious scenes with their shenanigans"

Why were you under the ship in the first place...?
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Eiko's better than most jrpg kid characters

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Interesting that a lot of my biggest complaints with this game, you listed as postives

P.S. Necron sucks


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colliding posted...

Eiko's better than most jrpg kid characters

Nah

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The best kid character is obviously Relm for her ability to break the world
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MZero, I know you hate IX but what specifically grates you about it? I can see hating the gameplay, art style, even the cast, but the plot structure and themes are done so well imo! (Agreed on Necron).

Emeraldegg posted...

Why were you under the ship in the first place...?

I knew I was taking a risk putting 'never' there! But the reason for that was so Quina could explain how the teleporter works when they arrive at Memoria, so it's still fine imo.

Not much room left to post my remaining thoughts!

Zidane
I've spoken at length about Zidane already. At first I really didn't like him, then I started to warm to him when he had some really nice poignant scenes with Vivi and Dagger (and was nicer to Steiner), but I didn't actually fundamentally understand him or connect with him on a deeper level until we get to Terra. Honestly it was very brave of the writers to hide their hand for so long with what they were planning for Zidane. But it absolutely works, everything slots into place and retroactively he's much more interesting after the You're Not Alone sequence.

After all his cavalier optimism he ends up breaking harder than anyone else in the crew (under extraordinary circumstances mind you), and it takes the combined efforts of everyone to pull him back up again. More than anyone else, Zidane's arc makes me want to replay the game so I can look at his early positive cocky image knowing what's buried underneath. I think I admire how they wrote him more than I actually like him as a person, but he really does well and truly earns himself the protagonist role by the end of the game. I think Zidane is someone who you can't divorce from context. He's the glue of the group, and it's impossible to judge him in isolation. The friendship themes only strike so true because of Zidane, and the game would not be what it is without him at the helm.

Dagger
Dagger is a weird one. My thoughts on her followed the same throughline as my thoughts on Zidane in a way. I never disliked her, she has some nice intrigue early on and a naturally compelling internal crisis regarding her mother and her position in the world, but for a while it felt like the game was going through the motions with her. She's a damsel in distress, a rebel princess, a white mage with a heart of gold, all these tropes we've seen half a dozen times in the series. But every now and then she had a scene that made her more unique and atypical from the archetype, something that made me want to look deeper.

Her scene with Zidane in Madain Sari is a big one for her, but of course the turning point for Dagger is Alexandria's destruction. At this point I was fully on board with what the game was going to do- she had lost her family and her home, failed in all she had tried to do, and a happy ending seemed utterly inconceivable. I feel like she wasn't too far off from Celes' low point in VI, but thankfully she had her friends around her. Seeing her not concentrate in battle was a sign that this was not some phase, but a very deep depression that was consuming every waking moment for her (I really don't get how people hate this!). I had no idea how they were going to lift her out of it but I trusted the writers at this point.

Strangely, I don't actually love her big turnaround scene. I love the idea of it, I love what comes afterwards, the hair cutting is framed really nicely, but for some reason the scene with her and Zidane at her mother's grave just didn't feel as authentic as other key moments for me. The dialogue was a little stitled, and I got the impression the game was just ready for her to be 'fine' now so she was, I think they could've given things a little more room to breathe or they could've shown her gradually coming around the way Vivi does.

That said, everything that comes after her turnaround is fantastic, and she is at her best in the last act of the game. The glorious change in her profile picture, her being fully supportive of Zidane and her friends, knowing exactly what needs to be said or done to help them out, she's finally comfortable with herself and it shows. In the end, it's a successful arc I think.

Steiner
I was drawn to Steiner from the word go. His moral predicament is instantly captivating- he's not torn between his service to monarchy and his moral compass the way Beatrix later is, he is instead completely blind to what his kingdom is doing and sticks his head in the sand as much as he can to avoid facing the truth for as long as possible. Obviously you know that dam is going to burst at some point, and watching the gears slowly shift in his mind through the first act of the game is very fun.

Steiner has great distinct relationships with more of the cast than anyone else (except Zidane). There's his relationship with Dagger that grows more strained as he becomes more in denial than her about her own mother, there's his wonderful instant friendship with Vivi (that manifests in gameplay!) that is more meaningful looking back at how black mages are treated by most of the populace in general, and of course his initially groan-inducing rivalry with Zidane that winds up being very heartwarming by the time Steiner accepts him as a comrade. Steiner is at his core a good man, always desperate to do the right thing but deeply delusional about what that actually means at the start of the game.

His arc is great, and I like that when he does finally turn on Alexandria it's not a difficult moral decision for him- he merely sees (finally) that they are monstrous and does what comes naturally to him. Most of the characters have a moment in the game where they break, and he handles his pretty well considering the pressure and time constraints he is under when it finally hits.

My only complaint about Steiner is that he, like so many others, tails off in the back half of the game. He obviously has much closer ties to the political plot than the sci-fi stuff, but it's a shame they couldn't find a way to incorporate him more later on. You can even pinpoint the single moment he fades into the background: when he, Freya and Beatrix stay behind to fight in Alexandria while the others escape, and despite the game constantly shifting perspectives up to that point we never go back and see what happens next, they're just all fine a timeskip later. This is the killing point for Freya and Beatrix's arcs, Steiner fares better but not as well as I'd like. Still, he is one of my favourites in the game for sure.

Vivi
Sweet, lovable Vivi. The purest manifestation of innocence in this game, it is not difficult to see why he became so beloved by the fanbase. His arc is where the game gets the most explicit about its thoughts on life and death, and they rather brilliantly show this through the single innocent child character having to face his own morality. It's brutal, of course, but the slow build is what makes it so good.

Considering how heavy Vivi's material is, I like how they kind of underplay it throughout the entire story. He doesn't have a massive break like the others, he just quietly realises the truth and gets confused and depressed, before having a good long think about it and slowly progressing to some kind of acceptance. His scene with Zidane in Madain Sari, all his scenes with #288, his ending narration, Vivi's quiet growth throughout the story is an absolute highlight of the game for me. I'm not sure what I expected from Vivi going into the game knowing how popular he is, but it wasn't this. Even after all his development he maintains doubts and worries, and never fundamentally changes who he is. It's maybe the most naturally developed character arc in the game, and honestly there's not much else to say. A great, great character.

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andylt posted...

A great, great character.

A great, great character for a great, great game.

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Indeed! A great summation, I'm fine leaving things there.

BTW I did think on what my rankings would be while writing those and my instinct (don't hold me to this) is:

Steiner/Vivi >> Freya > Zidane > Dagger >> Quina > Eiko > Amarant

But I don't dislike anyone! Thank you once again for joining me for this playthrough, all. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

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I certainly did.
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andylt posted...

MZero, I know you hate IX but what specifically grates you about it? I can see hating the gameplay, art style, even the cast, but the plot structure and themes are done so well imo! (Agreed on Necron).

You pretty much nailed it, actually! No matter how good the plot and themes are, it's hard for me to enjoy them when I don't like the characters. And yeah, I don't like the gameplay or art style either, and I really don't like Zidane. Abilities being tied to weapons, trance in general, and of course the game being slow as molasses were some of my other complaints. Turbo might improve my opinion of the game a lot actually!

tbh I probably hate on it more than I should because of how popular it is around here

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FFIX is the worst of the Golden Age of FF, with five FFs in five years

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But that still makes it like a top 50 game ever

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FFVIII still the king

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