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Final Fantasy IX Preview All media on this page courtesy of FF Online. This column written on Sept. 5, 2000 |
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Warning: This preview may contain mild spoilers such as part of the storyline, characters, pictures, and movies that are important parts of the game. If you don't want to read this, it will be archived so you can still see this when the game comes out.
In Final Fantasy IX, the FF series returns to its roots and has much more in common to FFII (FFIV in Japan) and FFIII (FFVI in Japan) for the Super Nintendo than the most recent Playstation instalments. Yoshitaka Amano is back doing the character designs in FFIX and the game's overall style looks more like Chrono Cross, with pre-rendered backgrounds and super-deformed characters. Once again, as in every game prior to FFVII, you can control a four-person party in which you can assemble them aboard your airship. FFIX has eight playable characters total and they are: Zidane Tribal: An experienced thief; Vivi Orunitia: A clumsy Black Mage; Edward Steiner: A knight who serves the royal family of the kingdom of Alexandria;
Freya Crescent: A female dragon warrior
who searches for her long lost lover; Eiko Carol: A little girl who was raised by summoners; Amarant Coral: An assassin for hire by the Queen and; Quina Quen: A Blue Mage who loves to eat.
Guardian Forces return once
again although, this time around they are called "Sacred Beasts" and
many of the familiar monsters return like Bahamut, Odin, Shiva, Ifrit and
Leviathian. Also, a few monsters like Bahamut and Alexandria seem to be
part of the storyline as well. Another important aspect of FFIX is the Theatre,
which seems to pop up in the game from time to time and Square has added an
"Active Time Event" system in order to advance in the overall
storyline. For example, when exploring a new town in which other
characters are
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Playstation
Before Final Fantasy VII and VIII, Final Fantasy games were packed full of Black
Mages, sorcery, airships, crystals, dragons and mythical beasts. In FF
games prior to Final Fantasy 6, the crystal was a key theme in the game and you
also explored castles and met powerful kings and saved princesses as well.
But FFVI introduced gamers to a world on the brink of an industrial revolution,
old-world magic VS. new-world technology served as the game's theme and FFVI
also lost the crystal which was an essential part of any FF game prior to
it. In Final Fantasy VII however, gamers were introduced to a world where
technology had clearly won and the game's world included modern day factories,
weaponry and took place in the future. Last year's FFVIII launched the
series into an even more futuristic theme, you could still cast magic of course
but, you also rode ships into deep space.
Princess
Garnet: The young princess of Alexandria;
The game's storyline goes like this: The Queen of Alexandria, is cast under an
evil spell and thrives for world domination and begins attacking nearby kingdoms
for no reason at all. Regent Cid, fearing for his kingdom's safety sends
out a group of bandits to kidnap the Queen's daughter to find out what is going
on and there are plenty of other twists and turns to the plot as well.
exploring
as well, an "Active Time Event" occurs and you can press select if you
want to view them or not. The game uses the active real-time battle system
found in previous FF games and each character or enemy has a certain bar to fill
up before attacking. FFIX returns back to the Job system found in FFV and
characters have different classes like: Thief, Knight, Magician, and so
on. These classes can be customized as well. Character equipment
plays a more important role in FFIX, unlike the previous FF games and different
weapons, armour, etc. can have different affects on a character depending on who
you want to equip the weapon or armour to. Like Dragon Quest, if your
character finds an item or a point of interest nearby
then an exclamation mark appears over his/her head telling you an item or
something interesting is nearby. Items can give characters different
abilities depending on the item and character and manually equipping your
character could lead to more powerful combinations. Another unique feature
in FFIX's gameplay is that if you use a spell long enough, you can permanently
use it and if you stop equipping the spell before you fully learned it then you
stop learning the spell and move on to new abilities depending on which weapon
is equipped. Another strange aspect of FFIX is that you can combine old
items to make new weapons an items. In this instalment, Square replaced
the Limit Break meter with the Trance Bar. The Trance Bar works similar to
the Limit Break meter except after you take enough damage, your meter is full
and your character changes colour and gains a new set of abilities to use.
Overall, FFIX may not seem revolutionary but combines the character building
system of FFV, the rich characters of FFII and III for the SNES and the
wonderful visuals of FFVII and FFVIII and makes the hardcore FF fans to live
happily ever after and trust me, this game has everything you could want even
though, some people may have no interest in FFIX's medieval setting and this
game could be one of the best FF games to date. Final Fantasy IX is
currently set for a November 15th release and we at VG Critics Online will bring
you a full review when the game comes out.
