Protagonist is the most useless party member in the game

The ps4/pc/switch ports have options to skip the battle intros and run the battles at triple speed.

I can't even go back and play the PS1 version of the game anymore, the fast forward feature spoiled me.

That reminds me of buddy playing Lost Odyssey. He hated the kids so he never leveled them up so further in the story he was forced to play just using them. Watching him get massacred every time bring back good memories, he gave up on the game after that.

>Once you max out the damage of Thievery he can hit guaranteed 9999 damage every turn
but FFIX's entire gimmick is that -EVERYONE- can fucking belt 9999 damage at some point, just a few need more set up's then others.
>Quina can deal 9999 the earliest as long as they only have 1 HP
>Freya requires 100 dragons dead, but afterwards can deal 9999 damage
>Amarant can toss Jewel Swords for 9999 damage
>Vivi and Niko both get spills that can deal 9999
>Stiner sadly still needs vivi to break 9999
>Garnet sucks and even the Ark is sub 8000 at best
Garnet really is the only person who can't hit damage cap normally.

Zidane is shit at stealing, though. Literally the worst Thief in the series.

Zidane and Freya are the easiest characters to spam max damage moves without much setup. Also zidane is faster and gets to take turns more often.

Steiner can literally just auto for 9999, just get Ex2

>At one point the party is Zidane, Vivi and Freya
It just hit me thats a pretty fucking awesome combination, really the garnet side should had added Amarrant or something.

>Garnet spends a good portion of the game not even being able to use her main gimmick
I feel bad for her.

thats why its the worst game in the series

This is wrong it should be:
>have to have him in your party at all times because designated protagonist
>looks fucking stupid

Then again all of the FFIX designs are horrible

I imagine some guards at tornado questioning Freya about the wierd kid and she would all like
>No no, the kid is alright, he murders momster and alexander girls with fire or some shit.

So do Ethers

Level up your stealing skills you faggot.

op being a faggot again.

thats too much for them, they need to be satisfied now or else they will cry about it.

>interpreting low steal percentages as Zidane's lack of skill
This... is actually an interesting take.

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but chakra heals too. I think.

would this be better?

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you do know you level it up right?

Those children were fucking horrible

their design was really bad

>Ex2
You act like I’m crazy enough to do it.

>it's insane how slow FFIX's battles are, and the brainless combat doesn't help
its the same as the other final fantasys what are you talking about?

when i read that in an old strategy guide I didnt evn bother with that shit.

>not going for Steiner Charge! mp attack for 20k+ a turn
do you even damage?

>but FFIX's entire gimmick is that -EVERYONE- can fucking belt 9999 damage at some point, just a few need more set up's then others.
yeah you just had to know how and level them up to do it, like most rpgs

>Vivi and Niko both get spills that can deal 9999
Ah yes, Niko, my favorite FFIX party member. All he wanted was to see some big Alexandrian titties and got caught up in that whole Tantalus mess.

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this reminds me of all the faggots on here shitting on Erik from dragon quest XI. the fucker sucks ass in the mid game, but as soon as you hit the dual wield + oomphle + dopplegang + critical acclaim hits the whole game dies in two turns

Zidane/Amarant/Freya/Quina

most OP team to beat that psychedelic ball

counterpoint: wouldn't it be prohibitively difficult to write a good story-heavy RPG without having at least one character consistently being around?

The best final fantasy is X-2

whats the appeal of mainline FF? they seem like standard uninteresting jrpgs, is it just the music and story? mainline seems so subpar compared to tactics/CC

14 is good. The rest were carried by production values and uematsu's music. Combat and story are meh

not at all. Game of thrones does it all the time and it simply builds the world more so. In ff9 you get those character breaks at least. You limit the perception of the world view when you only use very few characters perspectives.

Hi

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there are a few good ones, they only seem generic because together with dragon quest and phantasy star they defined the genre in the 90s. all the standards were set by these series, so for at least for historical purposes they are worth a shot

its because of they kind of defined your standard jrpg. Not like dragon quest but more like making things more scifi in nature than magical.

I love 9 the most but this is the best final fantasy.

>here is your army bro

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that was half of them the other half was filled with incompetent boobs

Early concept art is much more interesting .

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>ffix designs are horrible

what?
they're some of the most unique and charming in the series
that being said, it's not everyone's cup of tea, i'll give you that, but i personally like it just as much as the more gritty style of something like VII

FFIX's designs were off the fucking chain

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Yeah, everything was so vibrant and bright. Every character felt so different while also being cohesive with each other. Sorry it wasn't full of bland stock sci-fi designs like VII and VIII were.

VII looked cool but set the worst precedent for the series. IX was the last game in a series called final FANTASY to have a fantasy setting. all the future tech stuff is stupid, and XV peaked with cars and shit

>neat designs
>all limited to the PS1's ugly grafix
This should have gotten a Remake instead of dumb ol' 7.

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Someone hating ff9 is the ultimate zoomer mark to me. Bonus points if they love FFX.

Literally a game for baby man children, holy kek.

thicc

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Muh FFVII

Monkeyboy is the greatest, shut up

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Built for pig-orc invasion.

>protagonist is basically the best party member
>don't even pay attention to the other members and give all the good items to him

PS1 gave them more soul

smashfags and secondaries need not apply

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I dare you to find a better example

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fucking true that
it would be magic kino gaming for sure

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Like father like son.

Eliwood is 100 times better than Roy based solely on the fact that he gains a mount upon promotion

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>Zidane
>a literal super saiyan thief
>one of the 3 party members with good Trance
>one with the fastest way to climb to 9999 damage per turn
>fastest party member in general
>useless

>talking shit about based vending machine

>super saiyan 4 thief

I've played like 6 times and his stats have never been anything but trash. Hector is a beast and lyn is a coinflip.

steal never works

>soulless remake
No thanks.

I literally dont know how to argue against this
For whatever reason, in my mind it would feel off to have a 4 demon party instead
Perhaps being a NEUTRALchad has something to do
Fuck chaos
Fuck law
And specially fuck Mast*ma

I remember one boss battle I was severely under levelled and he wiped my entire party except for Zidane who solo'd him. I think it was against his old man.

you mean Garland? He created Zidane.

i was stuck at the undead tree boss for weeks as a kid, threw the controller, then my jackass brother came over and without saying word he one shot it with a phoenix down. never felt more retarded in my life

Can I run the PC port on a shitty laptop

yeah, its a ps1 game dude

The port isn't. It has a bunch of upscaled models and backgrounds.

Yeah. The boss fight went like this:
>First turn he uses a powerful spell
>Most of the party is on low health except Zidane who resisted it somehow
>He does it again before I can heal up and everyone except Zidane is dead
>Use phoenix downs to try to revive but Garland just takes then out immediately.
>Focus on healing up Zidane
>Zidane goes into trance and his hard
>Spend rest of the battle using all my healing items to keep Zidane topped up so he can trace attack til the won.
>just barely survived
Then my bootleg copy had a broken disc 4 and I couldn't beat the game and it made me depressed for weeks.

You should have used the strategy guide.

So it can tell you to go to Playonline? no thanks

hey i did that too, grinding wasnt that bad now i think about it but I didnt care. I wanted to continue the story. But when i got to Garland I whooped his ass, then fought kuja and fucked him up.

i am not sure but i think that i am one of the few people who actually beat this game 100%. It was my first FF and i got all 100 cards and defeated ozma. I am literally the best at the chocobo mini game because i played it like 5000x times as a kid. i also can play that fucking minigame song on my piano without ever practising it. this game made me the neet i am today

Besides the airship those stupid machina enemies and one area that gets turned into a crater X had barely any tech.

Garland doesn't use aoe attacks though and from your message I understood he used such an ability, so it probably was Kuja instead. I checked he uses Flare Star if party members are under reflect. Silver Dragon before them also has many aoe attacks.

no I never bothered 100% it because I couldnt figure some shit out or didnt want to waste time. But I did get ultima weapons except EXC 2. Still though I blame this game for speed runners.

you didn't accidentally heal your self with reflect up did you?

Probably right there. But I probably also had reflect equipped to my party to do the healing trick.

>party member joins you midgame
>is underleveled and/or susceptible to dying easily
>them dying results in an instant fail

ok ok ok ok ok
wait
You guys are talking about when you cast reflect 1 time on you then 1 time on your enemy and you self cast your harmful spells while casting healing on the enemy to fuck with him right?

you fucked up and didn't level quina did you?

Reminder that that's a cat's tail and not a monkey tail

Never try too hard

>HE

None of the ability did anything in this game

it is a monkeys tale. Zidane is based off of the Monkey king.

>Naked Freya
Nice

You are correct it does. It can make you an unstoppable god. Didn't figure that out until like my third try on the last boss too. Fucking steam rolled him with Amarant

I want to pull his tail!

don't do it tidus

Yeah I had a real hard time my first try. I had eiko zidane garnet and stiener, I just made sure Zidane and Garnet were together. Anyways i died but had that random chance that the Phoenix pinion revive my full party on the last boss and won.

Probably no, but even if have done that sometimes, I don't think it triggers anything special from Kuja, just heals him. But if any party member has reflect up - auto reflect counts too - then Kuja has access to Flare Star spell in the first fight against him.

I wasn't on about that. Just that from their message I understood that Garland wiped his party with aoe attacks but that can't have been him because he never can use aoe attacks so I explained it might've been Kuja with the Flare Star spell instead.
also:
>to fuck with him
That made me think; you can abuse the final boss' AI so he never casts his most devastating attacks, learnt from watching speedruns, the strategy has you suicide until only Freya is left then you jump with her (have to time correctly) and it skips I believe 2 attacks from the boss, Grand Cross and Neutron Ring. Cheap strategy though so I'm glad there's rng boss just before the final bosses (Deathguise) and you can't guarantee survival against him in speedruns so good that he exists.

>auto reflect counts too - then
fuck I forgot that! It was like on the 3rd cast it lands on you anyways. I thought it was a 2 and done thing but auto reflect was a biiitch

>That made me think; you can abuse the final boss' AI
not until he casts reflect on himself first. Like just self cast and it will bounce of you and hit him even when he has reflect. So I thought they limited the cast bouncing. I cant remember.

Lyns class is ass so she is as well
Might as well not have a legendary weapon that hurts dragons

It's absolutely not. Actually play the games instead of spouting bullshit.

yeah it is still turn based before 11, still random battles before 11. I am speaking about the pre 10 series.

>all those details lost to limited tech
Ugh, I want a remake so badly.
It doesn't even have to be on the same level FF7 is getting. just something more than a texture mod plus cheats.

The second time I played through FF9 I thought I'd use Quina more and was amazed at how badly Magic Hammer could neuter bosses, so I thought I was smart shit when i Magic Hammered away all of Kujas MP, right up until he started spamming Flare Star cause it doesn't cost MP

yeah the fucker was really over powered. Joke characters often are.

SE is incapable of developing anything outside of their comfort zone, they can only recreate modern generic designs or DQ aesthetics, anything else will look like shit, see SD3 remake for example, that game is fucking ugly to look at, also, let's not forget how large the world was in IX, everything had this fantastical feeling, like a faery tale, trying to recreate with a modern design would destroy all the magic the world had, because they will be forced to add generic content to game, and I know SE will never go back to their roots.

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I feel like Titles like ff7 and 8 and 10 were anime like
and ff9 6 5 the story book well you get the idea. I just felt like the old storybook writing style is going for the sake of modernizing it to Anime standards.

I understand, pre PS2 fantasy FF worked more like a fairy tales, while the "modern" FF were movies/series, even the music in IX have this feeling of innocence. youtube.com/watch?v=GbwqTgJjtE0
If they try to remake IX, you can expect some bullshit modern anime crap.
>Anatomically correct Vivi
>Pretty boy Steiner

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He's the most useful party member in the game though.

>they'd probably redesign Steiner and he'd lose his chorts

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>FF6
>story heavy

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>fast
>strong
>no fucking weak point unlike everyone else
Pic unrelated.

DESU Jade is just flat out better, thanks to Sylvando. Oomphle + Act Again + Multifeet is just stupid.

Jade is strong but Unbridled Blade is absurd early and late game even if Dual Wielding Gigaslash is stronger for a while in the middle
The real strongest is Veronica who can OHKO several bosses even on hard mode once you get Magic Burst

FF9 has the slowest battle intro by quite a bit. Most of the other games are under 10 seconds.

I like that the party has 4 members instead of 3.

Steal is a shitty mechanic that turns tense bossfights into a 'game' of kicking a box until an item falls out, long after you would have otherwise won.

golden post!

Hero having Pep Up makes the whole party better since each pepped party member makes it more likely for Pep to kick in for the rest

Why would anyone have a team without Hero if they weren't trying to make the game harder?

Don't forget about the voice actors, I can't imagine using anything other than theater actors to play the characters, anime tier VA would feel odd, for US release at least.

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You don't need to steal everything, just try it a few times and stop if you want the battle to end

>You don't need to steal everything
I DO.

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Soul Blade alone makes him absolutely fucking bonkers.

Wanna talk useless, look at Garnet. Shit summons, shit buffs and debuffs. Everything good she can do, Eiko can do, plus Haste, Might, Dispel, Full-Life, the almighty Holy, and actually useful summons.

I don’t even care about the slow battles or the mechanics, you don’t need to powergame or exploit anything to beat this game, and the setting and characters are max comfy.

I used both white mages. If you want to take full advantage of those buffs, you need both of them because with 4 characters and being unable to apply buffs to the whole team, they wear off too fast. Eiko's summons aren't anything to write home about, and while Eiko does have better spells, it's not like it would make any difference if Alf Garnet had them too since you need to keep casting the same basics over and over. Also in the gap before Eiko shows up, you can use auto-potion, which is great during that early section of the game, essentially nullifying enemy actions.

Are you black or slav IRL?

No, just too easily driven by the feeling that I'd be Missing Out.

Damn, I really want to replay FF9 now. Maybe I'll actually use Amarant this time.

Why isn't Vivi the protagonist?

He's black.

No sword.

>Doesn't know about The Thief Gloves and is ability to tremendously boost the steal ability.

Factz

I like it that Zidane doesn't properly fall into the main character uses swords rpg trope as his weapons are daggers and two-sided swords.

Autistic

because he's not as important or driven as zidane

You do know where we are, right?

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more like under 5 seconds. FF9's are almost 15.

>Steal is a shitty mechanic that turns tense bossfights into a 'game' of kicking a box until an item falls out
Only in FF9, where every boss as an item to steal (at a low % rate) and it's usually just to get access to a weapon or equipment a little sooner than you would otherwise.

In other games the question tends to be more about finding the right enemy to steal from.

lmao thats a stupid argument youre already finished with the game by then

True, but it's still threat-turned-lootbox.

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>Doesn't know how to equip or use abilities effectively.
It's only your fault that're too retarded to play an easy game like FFIX.

I was allowing for FF8 and X's slow intros to be included.

you do have to neutralize the threat before you can do that, though. The other thing dumb about FF9 is that the relatively low steal rate means you have to waste a lot of time.
Wasting your time is a major theme in FF9.

Neutralizing the threat with 4 people isn't hard, since you can just defend and heal anything that leaks through.

Zidane has story relevance and is more of a leader, Vivi is a better thematic protagonist and more potential for character dynamics. IX's story is so focused on themes compared to narrative that it's a bit odd that Zidane is the lead. The middle discs likely would have benefitted from a more character driven approach, emphasizing dynamics and growth over plot.

FFX is fast actually, under 5 seconds also.
See timestamp. Battle initiates at 6:49, prompt comes up by 6:53.
youtu.be/Y6XL5NwO6u8?t=6m49s

>Vivi is a better thematic protagonist
You should finish the game
>and more potential for character dynamics
That's nonsense

Not everyone here is autistic.
We have:
>autists
>spergs
>schizos
>schizoids
>subhuman normaltard vermin trash
>subhuman femoid vermin trash
>niggers
>ultra subhuman borderline/bipolar femoid vermin trash
>depressed turbolosers who are not on any spectrum, just so loserish they will never fit in society and will die virgins unless they hire whores
See? Plenty of non-autists.

>Neutralizing the threat with 4 people isn't hard
over-generalization. depends on level and resources, you can't heal forever with limited mana, some bosses have status-attacks, etc.
Again not disagreeing with your general point just nitpicking.

Cousin, let's go play Chocobo Hot and Cold!

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>hits for 9999 every time after getting Thievery
>some of the best stats ingame
>some of the best Limits/Trance abilities especially early game
lol ok

>You should finish the game
He probably died thinking Zidane was dead and never saw him again after the Iifa Tree.

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I don't recall having an issue with it bar one late boss, forget which one.

I'm not saying everyone is autistic. I'm saying that finding one is about as clever as finding a typo on the internet.

The Marilith looks almost out of place to me because that's just a classic demon monster

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>I don't recall having an issue with it bar one late boss, forget which one.
i believe you, I just don't believe your experience is universal

>>subhuman normaltard vermin trash
>>subhuman femoid vermin trash
>>niggers
dont talk about Freya like that

The fuck are you talking about? Always goes first with items and demon summoning. Meteor Dragoon spam rapes all normal encounters so your demons stay charged and ready. Final Seven, his ultimate move, always crits, allowing you to co op at will against anything.

Well, I was playing with both white mages, so defense wasn't exactly tough. You are probably right.

For anyone shittalking Garnet, she killed Ozma for me with her trance mode.

>steal never works
>what are steal perks

>they
he/she

>Stiner sadly still needs vivi to break 9999
Wrong. Shock and Chim...whatever it was called deals 9999 no matter what.

Climbhazzard
Same shit Cloud has

This is the HD remaster, not the original on original hardware. They're about 8 seconds.

not him but it's still faster than FFIX
Which has to do that lengthy pan around the battle to introduce the generic random encounter.

>No Full-Life
>No Holy
>Gets Curaga late
>Only attack that does a modicum of damage takes forever to use
>Can literally fumble her turns for parts of the story

I don't know what they were thinking with her kit. There's no reason to use her over Eiko except for Ooh, soft

>You should finish the game
I did. Zidane is very important to the message, but I feel Vivi would make for a better lens. zit's much akin to Tidus and Yuna in X. Even if you removed a lot of Tidus' plot importance, he's still a better focal point.

>That's nonsense
The way the cast is handled is the single biggest and most common criticism about IX's writing, and a large part of why the characters get snubbed or sidelined at times is because they aren't relevant to Zidane's story. Vivi, being a far more passive character, is more naturally inclined to slow down and listen. I don't feel the story itself should change, just that a quieter, curious child would be a better point of view for a story that asks you philosophical questions when you idle on the title screen and seeks to rekindle a sense of nostalgia, wonder and melancholy.

aka, Zidane is a far less stupid and emotionally immature m Tidus and IX is the exact opposite kind of story.

Would be cool if we had stats for what characters people used for the first playthroughs.
I think despite that more people still stuck to Garnet over Eiko.

>fairy flute

>I think despite that more people still stuck to Garnet over Eiko.
Why do you think that? I know I definitely dropped Garnet when I got Eiko and it became abundantly clear Garnet was obsolete. Her shitty new haircut just sealed the deal.

>I did. Zidane is very important to the message, but I feel Vivi would make for a better lens.
He's a terrible lens because he's not even close to being a human, and terrible for the player to identify with. Zidane is a near human boy that is easy for people to see the world through.
The reason that Vivi is a thematically a good protagonist, is the same reason why Zidane is a thematically good protagonist which is revealed later in the game.

Because people care more about characters than the efficiency some people outline on game forums years after the fact.

>Played the game 10+ times and never got it

O-one day

You don't need a game forum to figure out that the white mage that has curaga is better than the one that doesn't.

Not the best example considering that the plot falls apart in the second half when this occurs more frequently.

Alexander concept art.

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They both have access to curaga genius.

I always preferred Garnet over Eiko
She filled the summoner/white mage niche just fine and Eiko got nothing on her that convinced me to use her, except the insta-resurrection

The only guy in this thread so far who's aware of the true powerhouse. Sad. People really don't know to be based in FFIX.

Eiko gets curaga way earlier so of course you'll switch to the her when you get the item for Eiko that teaches it, and if you have one white mage in your party you aren't going to use the other one since that would be a waste of a slot.

I need to check my last game but i'm pretty sure i managed to steal it first try

>Eiko gets curaga way earlier
Not necessarily the case at all. You can get the Whale Whisker before the Hamelin if you bothered with Chocographs.

>if you bothered with Chocographs.
but why the fuck would you bother with that tedious shit?

I got them all on my last playthrough, thankfully you can speed up the minigame but it still took hours. Fuck knows how people had the patience in the original game.

Assuming you'd care specifically about curaga, and that you'd know she can get curaga.

>"Oh this shop sells an item for a character I don't use? don't care."

I unironically enjoyed H&C
Plus the loot was rad

The fact that you have to ask that confirms that you haven't ever done it mid game and taken advantage of the goodies you get from it. Your loss.

I played it just to listen to the music

Bio absolutely wrecks Gizamaluke, fun stuff

>except the insta-resurrection
That's why I used Eiko in my final party. I don't know how the fuck you're supposed to beat Ozma without auto life and Freya's jump.

Bahamut does solid damage. Comes pretty close to 9999 with the long animation.

Chocographs are fun but Chocobo H&C makes me want to kill myself it is so stupid.

>Zidane
>Useless
Isn't he like, one of the hardest hitting guys in the game? And he can steal? WTF are you on about?

>He's a bad lens because he isn't human in a game where the cast is all fucking weirdos and a core theme is that the circumstances if your birth don't matter.
>But Zidane's fine because it's a later reveal and he looke like a gremlin monkey man.
>Also they have the same thenatic strength despite being entirely different kinds of characters because they both deal with mortality and renouncing fate.
This is the dumbest shit I've read in regards to IX. Vivi being an artificial creature doesn't make him a worse focal point. For fuck's sake, you play a huge chunk of the intro as him.

>and if you have one white mage in your party you aren't going to use the other one since that would be a waste of a slot.
I kind of liked having both barriers and Haste on everyone constantly, but okay.

>Bio absolutely wrecks Gizamaluke
>You can't get the Oak Staff from Small Beach before defeating Gizamaluke.

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when I played I just got 99 garnets and I think he hit for 9999 with each summon, so with either animation

yeah that's was the point he made originally. He was saying other FF games were under 10 seconds and I said most are actually under 5. I think VII and VIII (and apparently X on PS2) are closer to 7-8 seconds while IX is a whopping 15 seconds. And that's just the intro. The transition back is just as bad in FFIX though I haven't bothered to measure the other games.

you find all friendly mobs and then spam reflect until he kills himself

>that marilith
>that spread-legs pose
I would. I totally would

On the flip side IX has a lot less encounters due to it being screen based and not steps. The re-release has even less.

>He's a bad lens because he isn't human in a game where the cast is all fucking weirdos and a core theme is that the circumstances if your birth don't matter.
Yes players, viewers and readers benefit from having an identifiable protagonist, which is why despite there being a bunch of fucking weirdos in the game you still play as the guy with the human face who wants to fuck the princess instead of the sexless robot.

>Zidane being an artificial creature doesn't make him a worse focal point.
It does not, again, finish the game.

>For fuck's sake, you play a huge chunk of the intro as him.
play a few minutes as zidane, then a few minutes as vivi, then as steiner, then they all join up and you play following the proper lead zidane.

Correct, the enc rate is lowered significantly in the steam version. It's technically possible to go through the game without a single encounter to begin with. That can't be said for VII or VIII for example where many of them are fixed.

>Steal
>viable

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>It's technically possible to go through the game without a single encounter to begin with

I can believe it. On the Steam version I went through a lot of areas without one random battle. It's a bit annoying really, you miss out on content and are underleveled for bosses.

>That can't be said for VII or VIII for example where many of them are fixed.
In VIII can't you get Enc-None right after becoming a SeeD?

True, but that’s a skill to acquire. I’m talking about encounters normally function in those games.

Best party is steiner, the goodzidane
Amarant the goodeverything
Eiko the goodgarnet
And quina the goodvivi

>Yes players, viewers and readers benefit from having an identifiable protagonist, which is why despite there being a bunch of fucking weirdos in the game you still play as the guy with the human face who wants to fuck the princess instead of the sexless robot.
You say that, but plenty of games star inhuman protags and Vivi is by far the most popular FF9 character. He has the benefit of iconography.

Attached: file.png (265x308, 91K)

>Amarant the goodeverything
Ok c'mon, let's not lie here man

>no freya

she's the most broken character in the game.

>Yes players, viewers and readers benefit from having an identifiable protagonist
Was FF9 meant to cater to African Americans?

>You say that, but plenty of games star inhuman protags and Vivi is by far the most popular FF9 character.
Not that guy but Vivi isn't the protag of FF9. Zidane very clearly is.
>He has the benefit of iconography.
The developers even mentioned that they knew Vivi was gonna be popular because, of everything in FF9, he's arguably the most fanservice-y thing around. Popular doesn't equal protagonist, btw

Amarant can do 9999 damage easily
Can heal even mp
Can auto life
Can revive for more than 9 hp

>those burmecians
Now i truly understand.

I simply can't play PS1 games without the speed up function from emulators.

Zidane
Steiner
Vivi
Freya

the dream team

Who approved this god awful character design?

>watches streamer play game
>never played it themselves
>passes judgement about game based solely on streamer's inability to utilize characters
>thinks that's simply how the game always is

god damn. I mean, I just don't know what else to say other than you're really fucking stupid.

>user A: People want a protagonist they feel comfortable with.
>user B: Vivi is literally a throwback character and beloved, that isn't an issue.
>user C: Vivi isn't the protagonist of the game he's just popular.
I think you missed what A and B were actually arguing about.

Made a nice change from the dull FF8 character designs.

go back to fucking yourself to FFX

>On the flip side IX has a lot less encounters
I don't really consider that a flip side. I like exploration and combat and the main reason I hate FF9 is because it seems to be made for people who really don't give a shit about anything but the story and dumbass minigames and rewards.

>Amarant can do 9999 damage easily
I dunno about that. You pretty much need No Mercy to do that consistently, Zidane can just attack for that

user they're literally discussing who the protag is, I think you might have brain damage.

So can Amarant with the right equipment and support abilities. Get good faggots. Hint: Kaiser Knuckes + Black Belt > Rune Claws

>Who *should have been* the protagonist = who, factually, is the protagonist
>Says other people have brain damage.
user, are you okay?

not any of you faggots and just read the whole thread. Fact is the original post is sort of ambiguous:
>Why isn't Vivi the protagonist?
Subsequent comments also aren't 100% clear on whether they are talking about. Many can be interpreted either way.
>Why [wasn't Vivi made to be] the protagonist?
vs
>Why isn't Vivi [considered] the protagonist?

I wanna know who approved the penis handle on his knife

FF8's designs are fine.

Attached: Ff8-quistis.jpg (648x1368, 444K)

Partway through the chain the poster who asked that question proposes that this change would allow for characters to get more focus instead of sidelining them for the plot. It's not ambiguous, they're calling a Vivi-focused 9 a change.

Beatrix > any of 8's waifus

Can die like a bitch from one magical hit due to his shit mdef.

I have a theory that part of the reason JRPG's decline in popularity starting with the 6th gen is because the hardware limitations used to stop people from being able to see the retarded character designs in them. Like I never noticed that Zidane is too fucking stupid to wear a belt like a normal person until I looked closer at OP's image.

QUISTIS MAKES MY GUARD BIG GUARD

That actually makes a lot of sense.

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y halo thar generic blonde animu girl

don't think I would've cared for ff9 as much if the furry characters were shown with much more clarity.

Let's see how the FFVII remake handles Cait Sith.

Wait, people think Vivi should have been the protagonist? That's fucking retarded, no he shouldn't have.
And even besides that, this is dumb as fuck.
points out how stupid you are

Roy gets 1-2 range and better stats

And
points out that post is wrong.
Done pretending to be new anons yet? Want to stop being a fag just because you have a different opinion?

Isn't the fat moogle thing actually absent in Advent Children and it's only the cat (only heard this don't actually know).
If so, the logical step would be to remove Cait Sith altogether and replace it with that Iscariot-whatever OC Donutsteel.

>Little to no effort
You have to grind steal for hours if you’re talking about Thievery. Other than his Dyne attacks he doesn’t have another way to easily hit 9999. He’s trash compared to Steiner/Freya/Vivi

What are you talking about? With MP Attack and Chocobo treasure Steiner is the first in the party to hit max damage.

Sure but still 8's designs are on the whole much more tasteful than 9's. I know some people like 9's off-the-wall obnoxious shit like Quina and Steiner but it's not like 8 does not have its own great visual style. I'm not even an 8-fagging contrarian but there's really nothing wrong with its art style in fact it's probably the last Nomura game I can stand.

>points out that post is wrong.
either way it shows the misunderstanding is plausible and you calling people retards isn't helping anything especially since the whole discussing is pretty buttfucking retarded in the first place.

>lmao thats a stupid argument youre already finished with the game by then
more likely you've already finished the game multiple times before you even try to get it

>off-the-wall obnoxious shit like Steiner
what
t's just a fucking knight in armor

We will notice that once we see red XIII.
We also kinda have our answer considering how the enemies look in the remake. Literally the same as the original, wacky and weird but somehow they fit.
I like cait sith, i don't know why people hate it, but i personally want him to be changed so he can be useful. Like, kinda how new threat mod did to him (a tank)

Imagine being so annoyed by retarded western subculture that seeing an unrelated japanese kemo design makes you trigger.

..who wears eyeliner?

a knight in armor wearing dad shorts

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The main reason I didn't have him in the party was the fact that he looks like a fucking idiot.

Despite it's flaws, FFIX is still my favorite. I really fucking like the designs.

The meaning of life.
Zidane and vivi have the same problem: i was created, should i fullfil my destiny or look for my own?
Garnet and eiko: i want to do my own stuff but i was born a princess and now a queen, what should i do? (Eiko is similar: being the last summoner, i must stay in madain sari to protect the jewel and bla bla, should i leave or stay?)
Steiner: i sworn to protect alexandria no matter what, should i keep that way or think on my own?
Freya: Dunno what is freya struggle with the meaning of life, probably related to fratley
Amarant: ive always lived to fight, is that a good way to live?

ANd finally, QUina, the only one who got the answer and the right idea, that's why quina exists in the first place: she/he does whatever he wants and lives day by day.

I didn't know jack shit about furries when I first played FF9 two decades ago. I never really liked the animal designs. To me it felt like it was just trying too hard to be fantastical and other-wordly.

remember when you were allowed to like these designs before Yea Forums paranoics called you furry

imagine being wrong

?
I love the game and haven't had that issue with it, but if the graphics were more advanced and it looked halfway like a disney movie it might've had a negative effect on my immersion since it would've been too hard to ignore.

Great summary user. Amazed that you could piece it all together given how subtle the story is and how it never hammers you over the head with themes or character development.

Nobody asked for this but i just felt like explaning to people what FFIX is about. People say that quina or amarant are useless or so, but they have their place.

>I like cait sith, i don't know why people hate it
One of my favourite scenes in the whole game is when he sacrifices himself at the temple, but has a very brief moment of sentience. Then a new copy shows up like nothing happened.

But yeah he was pretty much entirely useless.

Or you can just say "my bad, I thought you meant this" instead of doing a song and dance to protect your ego. I don't mind about the samefagging or that you've got different opinions, but don't be so fragile.

Eh. Quina does live like that, but is also a non-entity with no impact as a result, so is it really the right answer?

>doesn't know you get the thief gloves in the later quarter of the game, after all the most important steals have already passed

don't blame him this is not samefag I'm just really annoyed at all of you dumb fucks.

didn't thought about it but at the same time quina doesn't have existence problems.

he is an incompetent idiot though. he only starts to wise up in disc 2

Neither do actual frogs, that doesn't mean they're higher beings for it.

Almost all the characters in this game are annoying, none of them really start to mellow out until late in the game. Until then, the game needs to make sure even the densest retard understands that these are flawed, immature characters who need to grow.
Personally I would have enjoyed a game with some more mature and complex characters.

For the people complaining about the "furry" designs, there's actually lore behind it as they are a result of the fucked up fusion. From the ultimania:
>Unable to find a young planet with a pure crystal, Garland was driven to the limit and had no choice but to select the young planet Gaia for Fusion.
>However, Gaia’s crystal was not pure and rejected the process; Gaia’s entire civilization was destroyed in the subsequent cataclysm, and the surface of the world was left in ruin.
>The effect of the incomplete Fusion on living creatures and nature was the production of many sub-races, as well as several structures from Terra shifting to the surface of Gaia; as for Terra itself, it was shifted inside of Gaia.

>Useless
Why are the mentally retarded allowed to post here?

The complaints were pretty much based on aesthetic, so that doesn't really matter.

Firstly, that's fucking stupid

Secondly, it doesn't matter why it happened. What matters is that it looks dumb as hell.

I love Zidane as a character, but he's not fun. And his steal mechanic is the worst thing in the game.

The one part of the game that truly had me in awe was Lindblum. Steampunk design on a massive scale. I couldn't help but think about how all the machines might work. You could set a whole game in a setting like that.

>i-it doesn't matter
You guys don't like world building, I get it.

I didn't offer an opinion either way, turbotard.

we don't like the resulting aesthetics.
As for the world-building, I tended to be too distracted by all the callbacks to previous final fantasy games to really appreciate the world-building. I enjoyed it in Final Fantasy Tactics because it was all part of optional side content while the main story was focused on normal humans and human politics and drama.
The addition of bunny-girls and furry races to Ivalice is one of the things I disliked about FFTA.

it's a common theme in the series though. FF6 with terra, locke and edgar, FF7 with cloud and aeris, FF8 with squall, zell, selphie.

these games all start with an immature and insecure cast of characters.

>>protagonist is the most useless party member in the game
>can't remove them ever
Oh hi.

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That's a strange way to spell Gidan/Steiner/Freya/Vivi, the most soulful party

Also
>tfw they had to change the name of the protagonist in europe because of Zinedine

FF4 is the only game that comes to mind where the lead isn't a scrub.

>"oh man.. won't you feel embarrassed when you find out that Quiet in metal gear HAS to be in a bikini"

It's pretty simple to do a character arc where they start like that and then stop being like that. It's kind of the sign of a hack when it becomes routine.

>putting fantasy designs in a fantasy game and even given some backstory to it equals excuse for blatant fanservice
Ok.

FF is so fucking easy and stupid it doesnt matter
I have no idea why they made these games so fucking easy, they really arent fun to replay

The point is that a shit design is a shit design, doesn't matter if you have an in game lore explanation for that shitty design.

The SNES games were fast-paced games with cartoony dialog, and Terra was never a fucking idiot, just afraid confused and worried about being exploited by others. FF9 is a slow game with lots of elaborate dialog sequences and character conflict. And as for acting like a fucking idiot, Cloud wasn't either, for that matter. Cloud was portrayed as cool and competent to the point where the game's "tutorial" was Cloud explaining things to the people in the tutorial room.

FF9 characters meanwhile constantly fail at basic fucking common sense. The party can't make even basic plans with Steiner making retarded objections.

because players are bad and games are designed to be beaten

As easy as final fantasy games are people still overlevel to beat them

>moving goalposts
classy

FFIX was inspired by Dark Crystal.

No there was no moving of a goal post, you simply didn't get the point and I explained it to you.

no that's where the goalposts have always been you're the one who keeps trying to set up new ones and refusing to understand the points being made.

Lost Odyssey pretty thoroughly averted this in general though. The Immortals were extremely useful and could gain pretty much every ability and would revive over time if downed. The mortals while useful were only useful to the point that there were only so many immortals so you had to fill the slots.

And..?

Cheeky mage was alright.

I love Final Fantasy IX.

That's not Kongol.

they become easier chronologically, almost to a tee. FF1 is bullshit, FFXV plays itself.

Myself in pathfinder kingmaker

>Kongol.
Pretty sure that he's not an unremovable main character. Also pretty sure he's not actually bad either.

The reason why they added animals.

Attached: ffIX-artbook026.jpg (608x850, 121K)

And what's that got to do with people not liking the designs?

I don't know, I just want to post FFIX art.

Attached: ffIX-artbook083.jpg (794x675, 163K)

You're so fucking dense.

What was his fucking problem

Attached: Necron-art.jpg (723x1000, 679K)

Well fair enough.

Attached: nepu nepu.png (708x226, 35K)

This whole thing just felt really tacked-on to me.

Hades would have been the perfect final boss too

Kuja's autism

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I wonder what made them change it to Necron in the end.

Life.

Maybe they thought Hades would feel even more disjointed/unrelated since at least Necron says he was summoned by Kuja emo feelings?
But Hades was perfect theme wise and they were in hell after all.

>steals some of the best shit in the game
>never have to grind gil because you can just sell all the shit you stole
>can get some gear 10 hours early just by pressing steal a few times
he's great. he's actually one of my fav ff mcs.

>defeat Kuja to save humanity
>Necron appears
>have to defeat him to prove you want to save humanity

Never made sense.

I mean design wise. I would assume it would have gone down the exact way, but they chose not use Hades as the final boss in the end. Concept art suggests that he was going to be.

Attached: Hades.jpg (834x888, 353K)

Is he even hinted at throughout the whole game?

FF9 was callback-fantasy and several of the old Final Fantasy games had a final boss that was meant to be a manifestation of evil related to the main theme of the game. Zeromus outright says when you kill him that he's not really dead and will live on so long as there is evil in the hearts of men.

He is Cloud of Darkness bf
His Japanese name is eternal darkness, it was a FF3 reference
FF9 is nothing but a gigantic reference to FF1-5

He was the final boss of shadowniggers though

A manifestation of Kuja's desire to end all life. The way I figure it, it's a sort of merciful response on the universe/crystal's part, offering life the option to cease existing in the case that living becomes so painful that it's no longer worth it. Kuja's pain was so great that this response was triggered, but the party's will to continue living was great enough to trump Kuja. Thus by majority vote life was allowed to keep going

There doesn't need to be a reason for me to enjoy one last difficult fight at the end of a game I enjoyed.

correct attitude to have

>A manifestation of Kuja's desire to end all life.
He... wasn't though. In fact by the point Necron shows up, Kuja has kind learned his lesson. Necron (according to the Ultamania lore) was just drawn to the world because of the constant cycle of death and war. Heck, at the end of the Necron fight Kuja explicitly saves the party and teleports them back

Alexander is such a cool concept that I wish showed up more often.

>being a neutral fence sitting cuck
Yikes! Enjoy saving humanity for eternity from their stupidity, faglord.

coolest FMV in the game imo

wait is that the castle on top of it? So its just a giant sleeping undergorund? Pretty cool

>ned appears out of exdeaths autism and you fight him right after exdeath
>totally fine
>necron appears out of kujas autism and you fight him right after kuja
>everybody mad

Nobody played FF5

>FF5
That's the one where the wind stops or some shit and you get approached by an old man at the beginning?
Never finished it though.

you know, i just realized the bugler from Alexandria is a bird...

...birds don't have lips.

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People who hate 9's aesthetic have awful taste.

it turns out that Speed is the most important stat in Legend of Dragoon.

Dart+Meru+Miranda/Shana steamrolls the game

Overall the aesthetic is great, I just don't like the animals. And yeah I get they are part of the aesthetic, but I would have liked it more without the demi-humans.

No esuna either. By the end of my last play through (the first since I was a kid) I wish I had leveled Eiko instead of her

a shame because it rules

Dart's not fast. He's not anything, which is why he sucks in a game where specialization pays off. And while Meru is great, White fucking sucks because she has no additions and can only really contribute with either her lvl 4 spell, 80mp thank you kindly, or a top-tier attack item, of which there's like 8 in the game, neither of which require a high speed stat. Rose is a better choice, even if her stat growth is kind of odd.

Wind can actually make use of being slow as shit, because he has Rose Storm. Also he does great magic damage, but that's beside the point.

But he has soul.

Every character is shaped like a pear. Somehow.

FF9 didn't do well because of its asthetic. At the time Dreamcast and nextgen stuff was around the corner, and everything was kind of going down that avenue of better graphix instead of blox. So when FF9 came out, it felt like they were going a step backwards including to my 90's kids self, although I enjoyed the gameplay. The game wasn't completely panned by the reviews but it was relatively tanked hard on the graphics/art categories.

>Fast forward to ps2 and beyond eras.
People who look at the game back in hindsight realized they took it for granted because jrpg characters turned into belt-covered, man-woman protagonists with the mental maturity of a 13 year old who discovered Linkin Park. Zoomers on the other hand make the same mistake about the aesthetic and gameplay (compared to FF7/8's auto attack spam) and think its total shit.

FF& was more spell spam, really.

>Final Fantasy Ampersand
Sometimes I regret being an EOP

>Didn't know the release date for this, just saw it at the vidya store one day, bought it on the spot and took it home
>Didn't know anything about it, hadn't seen so much as a teaser

Those were the days, when you could get genuinely surprised. Still my fav to this day

I have made a shifty mistake.

FF9 gameplay is shit though. It might be marginally more challenging than FF7 but FF7 is much more fun to play. It's not like difficulty is FF9's strong suit either, it's a very easy game even by low FF standards.

>FF9 gameplay is shit though.
Oh, no, it's actually not though.

yeah it is. At least, it's terrible by the standards of any Final Fantasy game made between 1990 and 2001.

ffix has the makings of a masterpiece and it's like 90% of the way there. i'd give the gameplay a rebalance/an expansion and add a few extra side stories for the party members that felt a little shafted story wise.
but the core story, the core plot for zidane, is probably my favorite of any ff game. it's incredibly resonant to me and it makes me cry every time.
also chocobo hot and cold has to go. great music, ridiculous fucking minigame.

>yeah it is.
No, it's not.

the gameplay is not shit but it could stand to have a bit more to it. i think that could be agreed upon.

>chocobo hot and cold has to go

Most pleb opinion I've heard all day, and I've been on Yea Forums

Well every FF since 7 has been very easy so you can't really compare them like that.
Gameplay is fine though, why do you think it's shit? Can't customize every character however you want like previous games but they get individual mechanics instead. That's more engaging than FF8 where you can break the game in the first hour by junctioning to strength.

The gameplay is fine, it has a fine balance, there's no retarded enemies level with you nor can you overpower yourself too early in the game. The thing it has going against it is the speed. Everything just works too slow.

>the gameplay is not shit but it could stand to have a bit more to it.
...What? That's the most vague criticism ever. You could say that about literally any game
>i think that could be agreed upon.
No

- transitions are stupidly long.
- atb queue constantly overloaded due to clunky timing of animations and four party members
- no ability to travel freely int he world on your own for like 3 discs because of all the bullshit plot points and character development that needs to happen.
- stealing is a chore
- upgrading equipment is a chore
- powering up abilities is a chore
- minigames are a chore and also stupid
- passive abilities seem like a great idea but wind up shit because decisions are too obvious. (gee, should I equip bird-killer against this bird-boss?)

There are a few positive things I could say about it. Actually having classes for characters again was nice, and character differences are meaningful. Trance was shit but getting rid of Limit Breaks was a good thing in my opinion I always hated that dynamic.

FF9 gameplay is shit. It's story over gameplay all the way.

Most of these are just your opinion though. I think almost all of these things are fine apart from the load times.
>FF9 gameplay is shit.
No it's not.

>transitions are stupidly long.
Can agree with that.
>atb queue constantly overloaded due to clunky timing of animations and four party members
Not sure what "overloaded atb" means
>no ability to travel freely int he world on your own for like 3 discs because of all the bullshit plot points and character development that needs to happen.
Standard for any FF game from VII and beyond
>stealing is a chore
There are a few items in the game that have a retarded steal rate, otherwise stealing is ok.
>upgrading equipment is a chore
How? If you're too lazy to pick and choose you can literally auto-equip for a fairly effective setup
>powering up abilities is a chore
You can't power up abilities, you can permanently learn them if you want
>minigames are a chore and also stupid
Hot & Cold can be a chore for people. But chocograph is great, Mognet is a fun little side thing that doesn't take too much effort. Tetra Master is cosy.
>passive abilities seem like a great idea but wind up shit because decisions are too obvious. (gee, should I equip bird-killer against this bird-boss?)
They're boosts for your characters. You would want it to not be obvious? Have Bird Killer be called "Divine Spear Strike +" and then randomly figure out what the fuck it does?

>it could stand to have a bit more to it.
it's problem isn't lacking content, its problem is the design of the content and the implementation of some of the systems. There's actually a lot of complexity with shit like collecting gems to power up summons and catching frogs to power up quina and stealing to power up zidane and that kind of shit.

the problem is that it's all grindy and the actual battles are slow and awkward. Many of them are completely trivialized by setting a few passive abilities, and others turn into tediously repetitive stealing sessions that really take you out of the game. There's also the issue of the game always restricting you to some extremely limited section of the world for the vast majority of the game. And then also forcing you to spend hours in cutscenes and wandering around huge cities. Again, that's not a problem of too little content, it's a problem of too much storyfag content and not enough meaningful exploration and combat.

( the fact that it eventually opens up 30-40 hours into the game for the last set of quests and optional content is too little, too late)

In regards to that final point, I believe that they're probably making the point that 'Obvious Objective Set-up for each boss = No real worthwhile decision making process'. It's been too long since I played IX so I can't really comment on it myself, but I would argue that even if that was the case the system itself still causes you to pause and consider your skill load-out for each area/boss you encounter and as such does add some sort of meaningful decision making to it, even if it could be implemented better.

Are there hard mode mods?

>Not sure what "overloaded atb" means
it's when much time passes between issuing a command for your character and that action actually being taken that you forgot that you'd even queued up that action in the first place.
>Standard for any FF game from VII and beyond
Doesn't make it good. And in FFVII there was an excuse with the entire Midgar storyline. It was supposed to feel restrictive and oppressive down in the slums and it was supposed to feel like a journey up through the whole infrastructure and Shinra corp in order to get out.
In FFIX there is none of that. It's just a typical "tour the world" Final Fantasy storyline except that instead of that world opening up for you to backtrack to freely as in the SNES games, you're always cramped into one little corner of it at a time.
>How? If you're too lazy to pick and choose you can literally auto-equip for a fairly effective setup
Because combat so infrequent and spaced-out that there's no feeling of reward for it. It's just an obligatory thing you do in-between cutscenes when you reach a city. In earlier games, the majority of the game would be spent exploring and fighting enemies. Upgrading a weapon would be exciting because you'd finally have a new ability to use against the monsters you've been fighting.
>You can't power up abilities
yes, you can. I'm talking about stuff like collecting gems to increase summon power.
>You would want it to not be obvious? Have Bird Killer be called "Divine Spear Strike +
No, bird-killer should have some other trait attached to it (eg a HP penalty). In other games, this kind of thing is usually done with equipment attributes, meaning there's always some tradeoffs to make. In FF9, the only downside is costing magic stone slots. So occasionally you do have some decisions to make but often usually easy to optimize.

>Most of these are just your opinion though.
yeah and your opinion is just contrary and unlike me, you can't explain yourself.
And yes I might be exaggerating a bit by saying it's "shit" but FF9 is really nothing special with regards to gameplay in fact it's rather disappointing.

>yeah and your opinion is just contrary and unlike me, you can't explain yourself.
As the other poster already very clearly said, most of your "points" are dumb or don't make any sense
Funny that you call me a contrarian when that's what you're acting like

>And yes I might be exaggerating a bit by saying it's "shit"
And that's why nobody takes your point of view seriously

It's definitely one of the hardest FF games to speedrun, but mashing text for 9 hours is cancer. A level 1 party run is possible too but you need a guide.

>And in FFVII there was an excuse with the entire Midgar storyline. It was supposed to feel restrictive and oppressive down in the slums and it was supposed to feel like a journey up through the whole infrastructure and Shinra corp in order to get out. In FFIX there is none of that.
I don't mind the points you bring up and there's some truth to some of it. But here you're just cherry picking shit. FFVII doesn't "open up" after Midgar, it remains on a linear path in the exact same manner. Story wise FFIX has airships that function on mist, there's only mist on one continent, which is where the great majority of the people live. Why instantly open the entire world to explore if you'd just be entering places where there's nothing to do yet? Every FF has been designed on this restricted path, opening up the full game until around 2/3's of the way, and for FFIX this is no different.

>As the other poster already very clearly said, most of your "points" are dumb or don't make any sense
heh no he didn't try actually reading the comments and counterpoints.

>heh no he didn't
Yes he did

I mean by the time 9 was out if you went to FF for gameplay it was your own fault.
I agree its subpar gameplay at best but people come for the music and the visuals

Make sense to me. It's less bad than FF8's Draw Simulator and it's deadworld empty overmap, but most of the gameplay is things I want to bypass instead of indulge in. Hot and Cold was actually a bonus to me.

I guess this is a good thread to ask this question that has been bugging me since I replayed FF9 recently:
Why is Deathguise/Deathgaze the third-to-last boss? And the battlefield you fight it in doesn't even resemble the Crystal World. In fact it looks like the Hill of Despair. Wouldn't it have made more sense to swap it with Nova Dragon/Shinryu? That way Deathgaze is fought while you're on an airship (like in FF6) and Kuja has a new dragon pet to replace his Silver Dragon.

Was it intended to be a souped up version of Taharka from Ipsen's Castle, similar to how the Chaos Guardians are stronger versions of the Guardians of Terra? Was it meant to be a stand-in for Chaos from FF1?

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>Every FF has been designed on this restricted path, opening up the full game until around 2/3's of the way
no, earlier FF's allowed you to backtrack to areas you'd already been as the world gradually opened up. You'll go through a couple of levels and exploration, then you'll get a vehicle that lets you go back and revisit the towns you've already been through. Your access to the world expands gradually. And yes, sometimes a plot event might restrict it temporarily before unlocking even more, but overall that's the pattern.

And just to give a sense of the different scale: In FF4 you'll probably have the airship after 4-5 hours of play, which is about 20%-25% of the way through the game (nowhere close to 2/3). You'll have full access to the overworld at that point (though not underworld or moon). The equivalent in FF9 doesn't happen until something like 30 hours in.

lol dumbass you literally can't do anything but make a contrary statement. It's unlikely you even understand the points being made.

I just bought 9 because I'd played every other FF game and figured I might as well. Plus everyone said it was a throwback game that went back to the classic sensibilities after FF7 and FF8. Turns out they were only talking about the setting (modern vs medieval) and the medieval setting in FF9 is really nothing at all like the pre-6 games.

>lol dumbass you literally can't do anything but make a contrary statement.
Dude that's all you'e doing too, this is laughable. And you never responded to that guy calling your opinions shit.

I'm not comparing IX to NES or SNES era games though. They were made in a different format, different style. I compare the PS1 era, and for that, it's always been like this. Restricted path, some (but limited) options to roam. Game opens up mid to late disc 3 (disc 2 for VII, got a disc less ofc).

yes I did: christ. just stop posting

Yeah and almost all those points are completely retarded
Cope

there's nothing to do but the main storyline after getting the airship in ff4 though. freedom to explore is all well and good but doesn't mean much when there is no side content

float nigga

Not him, here's what is going on there:
He's killed 3 of his party members himself so that he doesn't have to keep skipping their ATB to get back to Zidane to use Steal again because sometimes it can take as much as 60-70 tries to get the item you want, particularly on boss fights. Having only Zidane alive saves a ton of time.

I am. And FFIX is the worst of the playstation-era games. Yes, it's only worse than FFVII by degrees instead of orders of magnitude, but it's still worse. FF7 is still a game designed with classic JRPG gameplay in mind, even if they really took the storytelling element to another level.

Just look at the intros for each game. In FF7, you have a brief mysterious shot of a girl and magic energy, an establishing shot of Midgar along with a cool opening theme and title, then you zoom in to Cloud and Barret jumping off the train for the first mission. Then, you dive right into combat and complete an entire level with a classic state-changing intro boss, and the scene ends with a big explosion.

In FF9, you start out with a lengthy opening credits then have some bantering with Zidane and Tantalus and a tutorial fight before switching to Vivi farting around Alexandria for a half an hour, then several elaborate plot events during the Canary play. After an hour or so maybe you'll have made it to that sub-boss in the evil forest which is maybe your 3rd combat session you've had.

and yet, you are too dumb to respond to them

Why would I waste my time with completely retarded content?
Keep seething

>60-70 tries
I have never had to do this many attempts to do a 3 steal boss.

You think 8 is the best of the three then?

>there's nothing to do but the main storyline after getting the airship in ff4 though
incorrect
1. Your destination is Toroia, which you are told to find, that's where the main story continues.
2. you can visit Silvera
3. you can visit Eblan castle ruins
4. you can revisit village mist

All of those alternate locations have interesting things to find. Also, you can return to any previously completed dungeon or town.

I didn't really play 8 much. I think 7 is the best although don't have a strong opinion vs 8 because I only played some 20% and it was a long time ago.

you wasted way more time playing FF9 and are just in denial about it

No you're not because you started comparing it to FFIV instead. Anyway you're randomly switching the subject now to the intro of each game. My point was that the structure of opening up are exactly the same for that era of games. If you really want to measure it up, you actually get the airship the latest in VIII. But that game follows the same formula as well.

I have. I remember one inparticlar, but not the details. Beatrix maybe? There was a ton of Freya gameplay right before. Like maybe right after she was introduced. It was in a castle. I sat there for 55 minutes spamming steal.

Nope, but keep trying, this is quite amusing

Can only have been 3rd Beatrix fight in that case. The first 2 Beatrix fights you can't even have had that many turns before the fight ends.

trolling you takes zero effort, the other guy at least has a brain.

>trolling you takes zero effort
You've put way more effort in than me, so I doubt that. Also trolling is against the rules.

>No you're not because you started comparing it to FFIV instead
I always was:

I've put in effort responding to someone actually interested in video games, which do don't seem to be.

>I've put in effort responding to someone actually interested in video games
Yeah that's why I said you've put a lot of effort into responding to me, thanks for paying attention

Look at this fag, cant even bust a nut to best girl freya

you haven't made a single post about FF9 except to vaguely say you enjoyed the gameplay.

No, I said that I found your opinion wrong, and I still do.
>Because you disagree with my vidya opinions, you hate video games
Geez you're retarded

Fuck that pos, your only chance to get it was ont he first try or you were FUCKED

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How do you do that?

What? I'm playing FFIX atm and he's the best character I have

IIRC you can get Auto-Float from a chocograph reward before that boss. Equip to Zidane and you're good. I was lucky, got it on like the 4th attempt.

You can't level the success rate. Every steal increases the damage of Thievery though.

So what's special about this flute anyway?
I just checked that you can also buy it from a merchant.

>[0.39%] Fairy Flute
Why did they think this was a good idea
Fuck you sakaguchi you asshole
Make it so that we steal an unique material than we then have to synthetize into the flute if you dont want to give it away that easily but you shoul dknow players will keep trying if they see "couldnt steal" message and they know bosses have good shit
This is bad game design 101

teaches haste and you can't buy it until quite a bit later.
you really don't need it at all so it's a waste of time

if i'm farming fates in kholusia for exp, do i need to stay where the fate is until the end to get 100% exp and gold?

>Garnet's butt would be either entirely covered up or made flatter than Lightning's
>"Girls with shapely, petite asses are unethical, m'kay?"

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Fuck you, he looks like Buzz Lightyear.

>that's fucking stupid
Says (You)

smt is designed around having weak ass humans and letting demons do the heavy lifting for you. this title in particular made you pretty damn weak.

And acts like Buzz too

is it even possible getting the rathalos mount now?

If you ever replay LOD Shana/Miranda+buying the attack items for 10gold and using these on bosses is by far the most effective strategy.
Dont bother with the expensive magic, hell dont even bother with dragoon form.

>you've only completed 3 FF games
9, 10 and 12

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next you should play 4, 5, and 6.

>- atb queue constantly overloaded due to clunky timing of animations and four party members
Yeah that's one of my major complaints about the game, though I do think the game is still great overall.
Speed stat almost becomes meaningless

Autists who have to have everything now and only now.
You can just ignore it and you're fine, but I do think it's cruel to add such low % drops/steals tied to those mechanics since there are people who just can't let it go and have a miserable experience just trying to get it.

if you tend to get lost in games with lots of choice and the job system of ff5 intimidates you, then you might wanna try the fourjobfiesta.

Probably. It seems that whole last part of Memoria was changed around late in development. Unfortunately there's never any in depth explanation as to what changed and why. The Ultimania tells us jack shit.

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It's hardly worth the effort of stealing. It's not even the worst one either. Mythril Sword from Beatrix (burmecia fight) is also 0,39% but you only have 10 turns to try and get it before the battle stops.

Alexander is my favorite summon. Wish it was a regular avatar in FF11 and not a once per hour thing.

>Mythril Sword from Beatrix (burmecia fight) is also 0,39% but you only have 10 turns to try and get it before the battle stops.
Does that really matter?
You have an easy black waltz fight with steiner next, then you have get the blood sword in treno or am I forgetting something?

It's another "I don't like this character so I'm going to confuse that with being useless" thread.

No that's correct. You can buy the Mythril from Treno early disc 2 or get the Bloodsword if you collected the stellazio coins up to that point. I would argue only a few steals are really worth your trouble in the game though as almost everything else can be bought shortly after or replaced by something else.
>Masked Man -> Mage Masher
>Sealion -> Mythril Dagger
>Ark -> Holy Lance
>Taharka -> Orichalcon