Squaresoft - 2001

Final Fantasy... the name all gamer's know and love, right? The longest running streak of excellence in video game history -- nine games of unsurpassed perfection, each a legend in its own time, practically every one better than its predecessor, all contributing to the most dominant, world-conquering franchise imaginable. This is not news, I trust.

"But wait!" you cry, shaking your head to clear the cobwebs (read: hangover). "I thought... I mean, Ari, I would never contradict YOU, but... aren't there, um, TEN...? Er, Final Fantasy games, that is."

"Why, no," I reply, my perfect, cold confidence obliterating your former certainty in the exact number of Squaresoft masterpieces on the market to date. You start to wonder which of those visions of pixilated faeries was merely a symptom of your own pixilation, and where those hours of your time really went, when suddenly I expound.

"Once upon a time..." I begin, "...the geniuses at Square created the perfect game..."

I pause, seeing two raised hands at the back of the room. "No, Hawke and Sundu," I say. "I do NOT mean Vagrant Story."

"As I was saying, the perfect game was titled 'Final Fantasy VIII'. In it, all the essential elements came together as never before. The characters were unbearably cool, the story grabbed you from the opening scene ("Fithos, Lusec..." Brrr, man, I still get chills), and the gameplay demanded that you never, ever stop playing (What can I say? Sometimes I just need to see that Lion Heart limit break ONE MORE TIME)."

"But, Ari," you meekly object, not even daring to raise your hand. "What does any of this have to do with the number of F.F. games out there?"

"Oh, right," I grumble, striving to look like I really do remember where in the hell I was going with this. (For the answer, see my review of FFVIII... currently in the draft stage, I'm afraid). "Anyway, my darling deities of the Square development team had a little hiccough, it seems, following the release of their summum opus. Suffering from post-ecstatic, psychochronological regression, they decided to take a giant step BACKWARDS with the series, and presented their devoted audience a new FF, which some, in their ignorance, choose to call 'IX'.

"This knock-off, bargain-basement pretender to the Final Fantasy throne took the awesome characters of VIII, the deeply compelling story of X, and the badass villain of VII, and threw them all out the window. Rather, it presented you with super-deformed, emotionally stunted little protagonists, another of those trademark Japanese indecipherable plots (like "Akira"), and a villain who's actually more cute and lovable than your whole party put together. What's more, it lacked the emotional depth for the satisfying ending of VIII, or the balls for the tragic conclusion of X. Anyway you slice it, it was a waste of money, time, and the name 'Final Fantasy'."

Having come at last to the point, I now present the review of this wretched game, which I will henceforward, in deference to popular opinion, condescend to name 'IX'.

*spoiler alert* Hmph. I guess it's my duty to put that here, although I think the idea behind the term "spoiler" is not just that it reveals a part of the game's storyline, but actually diminishes the gaming experience somewhat in doing so. Since IX had all the character depth and plot intricacies of an Archie (TM) comic, I rather doubt any of what I'm about to say will even mildly affect your response to the game, should you be so foolish as to try playing it.

What liked: Sheesh, what a way to start! Here I am, all ready to open the floodgates on a barrage of verbal violence like no other, and I'm forced to stop and evaluate what was GOOD about this miserable piece of programming. Ok, let's see: the chocobo side-quest. No, I mean it. End of story. The most emotional satisfaction I got in this whole game was leveling up Choco, finding all those chocographs, and seeing the tear-jerking decision he has to face as the Grand Poobah Chocobo tells him he must leave Zidane and Mene to remain in Chocobo Paradise forever. I really felt the heartstrings tug as Mene attempts to fly Zidane home under his own power, and then Choco comes back to join them again, for good. Also in the plus column, I suppose, is the ability to make your ENTIRE party invincible by the end of the game. If you've worn enough stupid armor on enough stupid characters for enough stupid battles, you can have a whole band of auto-hasted, auto-regenerative, anti-every-status boys and girls, with which to challenge the super-easy, less-than-six-digit-HP bosses at the end of the game.

*end spoiler*

What disliked: All the characters, for one thing. VIII and X both have amazing, cool characters. In VIII, especially, you get totally attached to your party, and you really care about what happens to them. Not so, here. Zidane, Garnet, Steiner and Co. have the most pathetic excuses for development I've ever seen. Their background stories were lame, just like their so-called emotions. The only characer who even remotely caught my eye, the red-haired bandit, Amarant, doesn't even get a real background story. Plus, he is pathetically underpowered in the game.

Oh, also, nobody in this game has an Omnislash of any kind. Cloud started it in VII, Squall improved it in VIII, and even Tidus, in X, brought a down-to-earth coolness to the institution that is Omnislash. So, what does Zidane do when you've finally got his ultimate attack, with the promising title "Grand Lethal"? One hit of 9,999 to each enemy on screen. Yeah, thanks for playing; we have some lovely consolation prizes for you. Likewise with the summons... wait, were there even summons in this game? Oh, yeah, I remember -- I never used them, 'cause they had no power and wasted valuable turns. Ugh! Additionally, your enemies are weaker than hell, which makes you wonder why you bother gaining experience, skills, armor, etc. The side quests suck (chocobo excepted), and the card game, which was one of the best things about VIII, now has all the strategy of alphabet soup... in other words, it's completely random. No matter how dominant your Alexandria card is, it can still lose to your opponent's 1HP Fa ng card at times. No, I don't mean through some clever positioning or planning. Two adjacent cards battle, using their respective stats, but the outcome is still determined by a roll of the dice. Seriously weak. Oh, and there's one other horrifying mini-game, but I dare not name it now. It starts with "jump" and ends with "rope". More on that later.

What to expect: Half the calories, none of the taste. An amalgamation of every F.F. game there is, minus the cool, minus the fun.

What not to expect: Originality. Depth. Enjoyment.

What's different about this game: Not a @#$#!*^% thing! This game is the most typical RPG ever. You get a party -- some boys, some girls, some neither. They fight with swords and spears. Their enemies are dragons and zombies. They chase the boss, fight him, beat him. They all live happily ever after. The end.

Ratings on:

Control: 6/7 - Whatever, who cares, it's an RPG. Although, it does get one extra point for using the "X" to select and "O" to cancel, unlike previous FF's.

Graphics: 6 - Graphically, IX has the highest caliber ever seen on the original Playstation. Yet, sadly, it doesn't even look as good as VIII... unless you're a big fan of background art, that is. Even in the CG's, the charcters are almost as polygonal and freakish as those back in VII, though they do ride around on some very realistic airships, chocobos, and vines. All that technical power, and they can't even be bothered to do HAIR... sheesh.

Sound: 5 - It plays some music, which sounds halfway decent, but only because it's trying so hard to be VIII. I bought all four soundtracks to FFVIII -- the actual CD's, with real money. I would have paid someone in FFIX, too... to make the music STOP. Instead, I just turned it down after I got the theme of each town, and put in my FFVIII tunes.

Style: 2 - That's right: a two. That's for the only two cool things in the whole game: when Princess Garnet cuts her hair, and when you first fight a Grand Dragon, the only challenging enemy in the entire FFIX world (though it's only challenging if you're determined to beat it the first time you go through Gizmaluke's Grotto -- yeah, you heard me.) The game missed every possible chance for coolness, including the badass introduction when Amarant challenges Zidane... then loses to "the power of friendship" (I've got an article coming on just that cliche), and the badass ending, when Zidane appears to die with his brother... but still comes back, completely defusing the emotive force of the Princess' quiet soliloquoy during the epilogue while he's absent.

1st hour: 4 - I wasn't expecting FFVIII quality, but this really sucks. And what's with this jump-rope game, anyway?

5th hour: 3 - Wow, naming Steiner "Dumbass" really worked out, since seeing people insult him AND call him dumbass is pretty much the only pleasure I'm getting from this whole experience. Ah, well, that's all right. I'll just go back to my old saved game and try jumping rope some more.

1st week: 2 - Storyline progress: Dude looks like a lady! Aa-haa, aa-haa, dude looks like a laa-dy-y-y! Jump-rope progress: Ok, now, little girls. Uncle Vivi's going to give you each some candy just to SLOW THE $^%@ DOWN!

2nd week: 1 - Storyline: Any chance of Kuja just wiping out my whole party now and sparing me this misery? No? Figures. Jump-rope (have called friend, Dusk, to aid in quest):

Dusk: "Broke 900 again..."

Ari: "Mm-hm..."

Dusk: "Didn't quite make 1000..."

Ari: "Mm-hm..."

Dusk: "Um, isn't that t.v. heavy...?"

1st month: 0 - Storyline: Crap, I still can't believe that little monkey-guy came back at the end. Jeez, what a stupid game! Jump-rope:

Dusk: "Mmm..." [I just lost at 998...again]

Ari (rising from couch): "Mm-hm..." [I know]

Dusk (rising from chair): "Mmm..." [Third one this week]

Ari (taking hold of latest new t.v.): "Mm-hm" [I know]

Dusk: "Mmm..." [I'll get the window]

And the #1 reason I HATE this game: You guessed it... JUMP-@#$%(@*#-ROPE!!!

Battle 1 and Battle 2

reviewed by: Ari

[Editors Note: The opinions of Ari do not in any way represent the opinions of everyone here at I Hate This Game. In fact, I personally loved this game like I do my own first-born son, and found FFVIII to be too extremely NOT Final Fantasy to go back and replay, while I do replay FFIX every chance I get. But more on that in my counter-review, coming soon! - Hawke]

FreeOhio: WAAAAIT A SECOND!!

“Unoriginal”? “Emotionally Stunted”? We beg to differ. Oh do we beg. We, the official “Ari is totally wrong” committee, comprised of me, FreeOhio, And my Genki-ish partner, FreeOhio’s Girlfriend, wish to halt the presses, kill the babies (actually, FreeOhio's Girlfriend would rather not kill the babies) and submit another interjection by amateur self-appointed video game critics.

This game doesn’t suck. Don’t mind Ari. He is old and grumpy. Soon his water will return to the tribe. When WE played the game (jumprope not withstanding) We were always looking forward to the next event (but JUMPROPE? Man that sucked). We cared deeply about the characters (All except my mortal enemy . . . Hippaul . . . ). Note: Before FFIX, I, FreeOhio, was unable to addict my hapless mate to the drug that is Video Game! Sad, I know . . . but no longer – FFIX mader her . . . A BELIEVER!!

FreeOhio’s Girlfriend: It’s true! It was the shiny graphics!! . . . oh yeah, and the plot. Until FFIX I always laughed at my dear FreeOhio when he played video games. I thought they were silly, and contained nothing that could interest one such as me. I never wanted to play video games because they were always repetitive and really uninteresting. I never found one game that appealed to me. No interesting story lines. No good reasons for me to take this little guy across the screen and fight the other little guys. Not until FFIX. The plot is very engaging, and amusing. The characters are realisitic. By the end, I cared what happened to Zidane and Dagger.

FreeOhio: Testify! As for the game being unoriginal, that’s the point. Before they could move on to different pastures in FFX, the old FF team had to purge what they had left of the old ways. They made a game that was the sum of all FF games that had come before. When viewed in this light, all the diatribes, rants and Sterotypical characters in the game take on a new light. Suddenly, it’s about closing old doors and facing the future. Unfortunately, without this point, what Ari says makes sense . . .

On to more specific nitpicky points.

FreeOhio’s Girlfriend: Who cares if there’s an omnislash? ALL the characters have their own specific ultimate attack, each powerful in its own way.

Both: The card game RULES!!

FreeOhio: We did eventually determine that there are rules, although there does appear to be some randomness. The rules are there, they’re just not explained very well. We’re STILL not sure how some of them work.

FreeOhio’s Girlfriend: The summons may have been wasteful, but at least they were preeeeetty. The Grand dragon was NOT the hardest enemy in the game – that was Ozma. Or the tantarian.

FreeOhio: Most of all – Characters. Now this is strictly a matter of taste. To call them undeveloped is simply untrue – they get as much spotlight as any game character ever does. Each character has an individual personality, and each character grows and changes throughout the game. How is this different from other games?

FreeOhio’s Girlfriend: While Ari is entitled to his opinion, We merely wish to point out that this game is not as horrible as he makes it out to be. In fact, we found it quite enjoyable and entertaining. We spent many happy hours, lying in bed together, playing FFIX.

Thank you and Good night.

FreeOhio and FreeOhio’s Girlfriend