Board 8 > Andy Plays Final Fantasy IX

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have to disagree about liking eat; getting monsters below 1/4 hp without killing them can be extremely annoying sometimes!

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andylt posted...

Ah good, I already have Earth Shake. I have to say Quina's my fav blue mage of the series gameplaywise, I think. It's seemed much easier to get the good spells in this game (without having to search for them), and the Eat/Cook mechanic is just fun.

You might be the only person in the entire world who thinks this.

Everyone haaaaaates the Eat mechanic.

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But you're eating the enemies! How cool is that!

Maybe I've just gotten lucky, but I've not really had an issue with getting the percentage right most of the time (I didn't even know it was a quarter). I just kill an enemy once then work out how much damage that took and do one less hit the next time, then hit with the resident non-physical attacker on team and Eat. Usually works!

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I didn't even know you could eat the boss. Quina just happened to get a Trance once and I used Cook for the lulz and it worked.

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I like the eat mechanic myself.

Also (spoilers that will become clearer near the end of the game)
I do at least like what they did with the 4 fiends later on
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Who the heck actually likes Eat

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I like catching pokemon

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pjbasis posted...

I like catching pokemon

oh man I hadn't thought about it like that but this is exactly what it is! Now I want a pokemon game where you play as Quina looking for the tastiest pokemon to eat.

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It's like catching pokemon but if you couldn't see their health bars so you had no idea how close you are to ko'ing them and also if they aren't below 25% it's impossible to catch them
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Emeraldegg posted...

It's like catching pokemon but if you couldn't see their health bars so you had no idea how close you are to ko'ing them and also if they aren't below 25% it's impossible to catch them

Ah but crucially, if they are below 25% you're guaranteed to catch them! Also there is Scan so it's not like it's impossible to see how far down they are.


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If you got to the air garden, does that mean you see the cave that Moogle warns you about? You should totally do that, definitely. Nothing bad will happen. Definitely.

You should save if you do
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This game... is amazing...

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One of the best games

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We get to Terra, and after an awkward interrupting exchange with the man who refuses to let the text boxes call him Garland, we get to exploring this bizarre place (hey, Movers!) and finally get to see what Terra is all about. I had gathered from the info leading up to this that Terra wouldn't be a regular alien planet or anything like that, but I can't say I figured out any of the twists here.

Well, except for one. Zidane is originally from here, though to his credit neither Zidane nor the game act like this is a big surprise. Dagger finally realises that the Invincible is what destroyed Madain Sari all those years ago and collapses, and we actually get to figure out large parts of the plot for ourselves here by going around talking to the locals. We learn about the nature of Terra: soulless genomes, blue and red lights, Terra becoming Gaia, slumbering Terran souls entering the vessels' bodies so they can replace the souls of Gaia that have been stalled by Garland and the grand plan- all of it great stuff that fits into the game's themes and makes sense with what we know so far, but what is most striking here is Zidane's very passive response to all these grand revelations. The single best thing about this is that the game treats all the wild fantasy exposition going on here as if its primary importance is as a character beat.

OK, let's talk about Zidane for a bit here. Honestly, I haven't been the biggest fan of his for most of the game. He's had great moments of wisdom and caring for others, and he's really toned down the womaniser stuff, but overall I just haven't connected with him on a deeper level. I'm trying to figure out why, and I think it's just that he doesn't let the player inside a lot of the time. He's very reactive and cocky and we don't get inside his head very much in the way we did Squall, for instance. I know who he is to Dagger, who he is to Vivi, to Steiner, to Eiko, to Amarant... but I don't feel like I fundamentally know who he is to himself. At his core, what kind of a person is Zidane? Now as said, this isn't entirely true, as he's had some great scenes and hints at his hopes and desires here and there, but he's just felt a little... empty.

Which is why this sequence feels so massively important to me. I don't know if the game had wanted me to feel this way (I thought I just wasn't feeling him the way others do), but things make so much more sense now. Every plot beat on Terra is to strike at the core of Zidane and force him to reckon with who he is. He suddenly slides into the plot in a way he didn't before, and he fits right in with the central themes the game is blaring out at this point: the nature of individuality, free will, what it means to live. It's no coincidence that his origin is pretty dang similar to Vivi (as Vivi points out!). As the scenes progress here and Zidane uncharacteristically distances himself from the group, it becomes clear what he's doing, and how fragile the image he created for himself actually is. The gang try to help in the background, and as Zidane grows distant he is relegated to ATEs while we control them, a good touch.

As he is wont to do, Zidane creates a simple plan to 'solve' this mess- kill Garland. The rest can be pushed back to be dealt with later, but killing the evil man is a good thing to do so that's all there is. Of course Garland doesn't let this happen, and instead pushes Zidane deeper into himself. He calls Kuja Zidane's brother and claims they are both very similar while calling out Kuja's denial of his own nature. After explaining his grand plan (which I'm gonna need to go over in my head some more lol), Garland basically imprisons Zidane in his own mind, and in the castle Pandemonium.

Now this is where the game somehow ascends to an even higher level. Note to JRPG devs regarding the way to my heart: create a heightened emotional sequence with an absurdly kickass piece of music that overrides the main battle theme. Holy hell I had a grin on my face this entire time, they left the best music til lategame for sure (Garland's theme and Pandemonium's theme are also terrific). This sequence is absurdly good.

Zidane breaks, finally collapsing under the weight of all this new information and becoming a loner who resigns himself to his fate. Taking things back a couple of paragraphs to when I said that I know who Zidane is to those around him but not who he is to himself- the game's thesis seems to be that who he is to his friends is who he is. Every member of the party is committed to fighting to help him here with zero hesitance, just as Zidane has done before to help others. Amarant calls out his hypocrisy and I begin to see the purpose of his character as a mirror of who Zidane could've been (same with Kuja, he is retroactively much more interesting now), Eiko (who has been great the whole time on Terra) also accurately calls out his self-absorbed actions here, and the best line is of course left to Dagger, who finally convinces Zidane that friendship is a two-way street.

I would very much like to continue on but it appears we have puzzles and stuff ahead of us so I'll continue tomorrow. Whew.


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Great stuff!

I did feel extremely betrayed when the Movers didnt give anywhere near 199 AP, though...!

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FFIX has a fantastic soundtrack.

Side note: FFIX Pandemonium is a remix (reimagining? Eh whatever) of FF2j Pandemonium.
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ya go my You're Not Alone

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LordoftheMorons posted...

I did feel extremely betrayed when the Movers didnt give anywhere near 199 AP, though...!

You and me both! I think it was only V where they had good rewards though :(

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Movers give lots of AP in FFVII as well.

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I'm really happy for people who connect to the You're Not Alone sequence. It's never really done much for me for whatever reason. I love FFIX, but I tend to check out of the game once Alexandria gets destroyed.

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I love You're Not Alone. One of my favorite video game pieces ever. I still remember going to the first ever Final Fantasy concert in the US and hearing it live.

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Can't wait for the next section!

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You're Not Alone is my favourite part of FFIX. More than Vivi's arc! Incredibly impactful.

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Yeah "You are not alone" is one of the best moments in FF games imo
Glad you enjoyed it

Don't read-
Now this is when the story collapse

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Eh I wouldnt say that myself, Nanis
Though this is naturally a high point of the story
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Forgot to mention I did check out that cave in the Air Garden Emerald, and got promptly wiped by Ozma's Doomsday. I guess that's a superboss to train for!

Also I meant to note Zidane's line about being Garland's Angel of Death. That was cool. And Dagger coming in with the clutch Curaga was framed so well.

LeonhartFour posted...

Movers give lots of AP in FFVII as well.

I have zero recollection of them being in VII lol. I remember them not giving anything good in VI though.

colliding posted...

I'm really happy for people who connect to the You're Not Alone sequence. It's never really done much for me for whatever reason. I love FFIX, but I tend to check out of the game once Alexandria gets destroyed.

I can understand this, the game definitely shifts away from the medieval fantasy war stuff after Alexandria so if that's what you were here for I get being disappointed, but I'm surprised at how well the shift works for me. It feels like a really natural progression that emphasises and clarifies the game's themes while never moving away from the focus on character (and in Zidane's case moving headfirst into it!). Also I personally think the plot they have going on here with Terra and Garland etc is just really cool.

I don't know how it will go from here but I am absolutely not feeling any 'off the rails last act burnout' vibe that I have before in Tactics, VIII, a hundred non-FF games, etc. I'm actually really impressed at how cohesive it's all been, I feel like in a replay I'd probably notice all the setups for this.

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lol training for ozma
Ozma is widely considered one of the toughest superbosses in the series precisely because it's so random. It'll be more about party setup to try and mitigate as much of that as you can rather than sheer levels when the time comes.

When I played this game as a kid, the terra stuff kind of went over my head. I didn't really get why Zidane was suddenly so depressed. But you nailed it, he cares about Gaia and suddenly learns that he was created to destroy it and his friends, for a race he's never met or cared about. He spent his whole life looking for where he comes from, to find out just who he is, only to learn that he'd rather not have known at all. His entire life he's basically just been convinced has all been a lie. And ofc You're Not Alone is probably one of the most loved pieces of FF music in the franchise.

I really liked Dagger's section the most in that sequence; after spending most of the game hesitant and unsure of what to do, she very clearly and succinctly knows exactly what the problem with zidane is and beats it accordingly with no hesitation. After relying on zidane for so long and just going along with whatever, she has no problem essentially standing up to his behavior here and it works.

As for the shift in the game's setting, I think the reason it works so well is because they do a good enough job shifting antagonists. For much of the game to that point it's Brahne that's the one to stop, but the game hints enough early on that Kuja is a player. When she's gone, Kuja is ready to step into the forefront rather than just being "Oh here's the ACTUAL villain, surprise!" The only thing you can really say is maybe garland showing up out of nowhere to punk Kuja is maybe a little hamfisted, but they do a good enough job afterwards giving some more foreshadowing just how Garland fits in that I give it a pass
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Ozma is one of the few super bosses in the series I've actually beaten, and I did it without completing the friendly monster quest! I didn't realize it was considered one of the hardest fights.

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dafuq it took me hours to beat ozma

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I'm not saying I did it first try, but I was willing to put the time in because it's not a boss with millions of HP like some of the other super bosses in the series. I'm not interested in a marathon when it comes to bosses!

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Probably took me as much time to beat the WEAPONs because you can just look up a consistent strategy for those guys. Heck it was probably faster just that a single battle was 30 minutes.

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The prep work to get ready to fight them is also a time investment that I'm not too interested in!

I was willing to fight Ultima and Omega in FFVIII because it wasn't too much extra effort to get ready to fight them (and you can cheese those fights with Holy Wars and Aura).

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Ozma is weird. It doesn't have a lot of HP, but it can randomly heal itself for a lot, and it can do so as a counter to any action you perform against it. Understanding the mechanics of Ozma really helps. You kind of need some luck too.

Ozma was the last of the PSX FF super bosses that I beat. FF7 and FF8 super bosses had a lot of HP and did a lot of damage. Beating them was more about figuring out which multi-hit moves did the most damage and figuring out how to do those moves over and over again while also not dying. FF9 doesn't have any real power moves like that, so an Ozma boss with lower HP is tough in a different way, and needs a different approach.

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Fuck Ozma's curse move. That's all I have to say. I got close to killing this damn thing a few times many years ago, but curse normally stonewalled me. The only superbosses I've beaten in the final fantasy world that I can remember off-hand were Omega in FF VIII (thanks to Phoenix activating, and lionheart coming up fairly often) and Nemesis in FF X.

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Yeah like on the surface, you can kill ozma in like 6 attacks. That sounds easy!

It's just the healing between attacks, constantly ko'ing multiple party members etc that makes most of hte time just keeping your party standing is what's so difficult. The friendly monster quest is really the best thing you can do in terms of how helpful it is to beating ozma.
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I'm not gonna insist that I beat the superboss(es?), I know sometimes they can be ridiculous, but I will try them after doing the game.

Emeraldegg posted...

I really liked Dagger's section the most in that sequence; after spending most of the game hesitant and unsure of what to do, she very clearly and succinctly knows exactly what the problem with zidane is and beats it accordingly with no hesitation. After relying on zidane for so long and just going along with whatever, she has no problem essentially standing up to his behavior here and it works.

Yeah I was focusing on Zidane in my write-up but between that sequence and earlier on Terra there's good moments for the entire cast. Dagger being the rock for once and doing exactly what needs to be done is a great development, indeed. I'm also fond of Steiner being so unquestioningly supportive of Zidane there, and Quina talking to Zidane earlier about him acting like the other genomes. And Eiko and Amarant have been at their best here.

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We traverse through the puzzles of Pandemonium, first up is an annoying room where we have to predict light patterns and avoid them to avoid enemy battles (hey, Malboro!). My controller starts to not respond properly here, which makes things really annoying. I have to reset and everything is OK again. Next up is an elevator room, which looks impossible but thankfully the other half of the party decides to stay back and help me out so we don't have to run back and forth. I get the treasures from there and the next warping room, and then it's time to confront Garland.

Garland turns out to actually be an interesting guy. He himself was created by Terra to oversee this grand plan, and he has an interesting view of life: "To live is to give life meaning, yet one must take others' lives to survive...". Zidane challenges him and each party member gets a nice line to themselves here, I'm tempted to go back through an old save with the others to see what their lines are. Steiner's is my fav: "I may not know who I really am, but that is my question alone to answer!".

We have a fight with the Silver Dragon, which is OK except for the annoying Twister. Things work out alright and I get my Steals off, then we have a fight with Garland himself. I thought he might have a true form or something, but nah. Vivi lands a Slow, and Zidane gets his steals. Garland is very fond of casting Stop, and he always targets Dagger. Thankfully Remedy cures Stop and I have a bunch of them in stock.

After Garland falls to his knees, Kuja makes his entrance, and we finally get to fight him (I can't believe it took this long!). I keep failing to steal his third item, but I use Detect and see it's one I already own so no big deal. Kuja is a fan of Thundaga and Demi, but honestly he's not that bad. He eventually goes into Trance mode (cool when enemies get limit breaks!) and haxes us with Ultima to end the fight.

Turns out Kuja sucked up the souls in the Invincible (including Dagger's mother) to gain his new power, and he... puts an end to the grand Terra plan, just like that. Huh. I was expecting more reveals to come regarding the Terrans and Garland, but Kuja insists on returning to the stage as the main villain! He tosses Garland off the cliff and burns Terra to the ground, presumably taking the Terran souls with him.

Garland gets his last laugh though, taunting Kuja by revealing his own mortality. Kuja reacts even worse than Zidane did here, I guess he'd been in denial. He breaks (if there was anything left to break) without any friends by his side, and we flee from Terra. Along the way we rescue the genomes, and Zidane takes a moment to thank Dagger (loved this). Also lol at Dagger's 'they're just eyes!'. Also Quina was maybe up to something that we didn't see.

So that is the end of Terra. I did not see this coming, I thought for sure Garland was gonna be the big final boss. I guess we probably won't learn any more about the origins of Terra (don't tell me if we do!), which is a little disappointing, but I suppose it served its plot/character purpose. Kuja has just gone full Kefka, which means he's intimidating but a bit less interesting as a character. I guess he's just a very very dark mirror of what Zidane could've been. I enjoyed Garland a lot (and that Pandemonium music was sick!), there was something especially sinister about the way he almost seemed willing to hear everybody out, but still remained dedicated to the cause he was created for. I am very curious how things would've gone if he survived here, being a puppet himself and all.

The Black Mages take in the Genomes in some more nice scenes (how has Bobby Corwen not had an SMFFFC run?!), and it's a shame the game is into its last act as I'd really like to see more of these folks interacting and discovering life in their own way. Though the mages are to die soon still I guess :(

Mist has taken over the world, and there's some creepy glowing ball over the Iifa Tree. The characters act like this is the final confrontation, so I won't head into the ball in case I can't come back. Dagger BSes some reason that we have to do this ourselves which I really don't buy. Anyway, am I at the endgame here now? I enjoyed this segment for the characters, though it wasn't as mindblowing and didn't open up lots of narrative doors the way yesterday's did.

Even a fly lives for a day!

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Yeah you are very much at the end sadly
Won't you finish it today?

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Oh you totally can leave that glowing ball whenever you want to, its just a bit inconvenient.
I also dont know if he could do it all in one sitting.
But yeah this is disc 4 now, and its funny how the mist helps to save discspace back on the PSX version.
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andylt posted...

(how has Bobby Corwen not had an SMFFFC run?!)

the same way every incredibly niche character has not had an SMFFFC run

one or two people are like "wouldn't it be funny" and then no one actually supports them when they get in

And yeah, that's the end of Disc 3, and that portal above the Iifa Tree leads to the final dungeon. However, you can leave the dungeon whenever you like, even up to the final save point.

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Oh dang at this being the end :(

Nanis23 posted...

Won't you finish it today?

The end usually means a long final dungeon and a lot of cutscenes, and besides I'd like to finish off most of the sidequests and stuff first. I'll probs finish it at some point over the weekend.

htaeD posted...

But yeah this is disc 4 now, and its funny how the mist helps to save discspace back on the PSX version.

Oh we're just into Disc 4 now? I figured going into Terra would be the turning point. Man the last disc is always so small in these games, I guess it's because cutscenes take up a ton of space but meh!

LeonhartFour posted...

the same way every incredibly niche character has not had an SMFFFC run

There have been many successful joke runs though! Has Garland ever made it in?

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andylt posted...

There have been many successful joke runs though!

nothing as obscure as Bobby Corwen!

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Also, fun thing that many people don't realize (I didn't for awhile) is that you can switch Zidane out in the final dungeon.

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(also dont try to use reflect against Kuja in that bossfight, he will just spam a nonreflective spell which hurts more than a little)
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I have used Reflect zero times in this game

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Yeah, this is Disc 4. And kind of like FF8's Disc 4 a lot of stuff has been locked out or made inaccessible now. Still worth looking around the world as there are some interesting side quests worth checking out. You should definitely make a point of re-visiting Madain Sari for a major, but optional, plot revelation.

Speaking of Bobby Corwen, did you get his name is basically 'Boco' ala FF5?

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Points of no return are the bane of my existence
But I understand why they exist games like this from plot perspective
Like, you either allow the player to revisit Alexandria or you destroy it for shock and awe. The latter is better

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At least towns that get destroyed in this game can still be sorta revisited. (Unless you're Cleyra)
FF8 just locked everything behind a time barrier
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Grand Kirby posted...

You should definitely make a point of re-visiting Madain Sari for a major, but optional, plot revelation.

I actually just went here! There was new info on the Summoner's Wall that I couldn't get before, and a woman by the kitchen who jumped away before I could see her (at a guess I'd say she's the bounty hunter who we beat over here). Not sure how I trigger her coming back, or where to find her if she went away.

I... did not put Boco together. I guessed it must be a reference but my foolish brain did not figure that out.

Nanis23 posted...

Points of no return are the bane of my existence

I don't mind as much if they're clearly telegraphed so you're not caught off guard, but yeah they worry me more than anything as I like to do sidequests!

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andylt posted...

I actually just went here! There was new info on the Summoner's Wall that I couldn't get before, and a woman by the kitchen who jumped away before I could see her (at a guess I'd say she's the bounty hunter who we beat over here). Not sure how I trigger her coming back, or where to find her if she went away.

Try going again and figure out how to solve the puzzle. If you want a clue: try switching up your party a little.

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