Final Fantasy 9 Review: A very good story with a medieval feel

Final Fantasy 9 is a lot of things. For one, it is a great turned based RPG. The different ways that they use items as a way to get abilities is addictive, and keeps you wanting to go through the grind of the system. Another thing is the great story. Instead of a futuristic steampunk city, we instead have a story with knights and castles and yet is still able to bring its own supernatural elements to the story as well. The story of Zidane and his struggle with trying to figure out what he is as well as trying to figure out how to woe Princess Garnet was very interesting. Garnet herself is also a standout character, going from someone who does not believe that her mother could be evil to someone who is able to stand up for herself more than others, and in the end, discover she was never evil to begin with, was a really interesting story. And then we have Vivi. The whole entire theme of this gmae is centered around him, and his dilemma about his creation and the relationship between life and death, and the meaning of life itself. There are a lot of different side quests that occur in the game, such as the Chocobo side quest and the Mog Central quests. These side quests are good at keeping you going to each location in the story, knowing that eventually, all of these side quests will end up being over before you know it if you are good at making sure that you remember where to get them during progression. Other side quests like the card game known as Tetra Master was a lot more difficult at first to master, but the longer you go at it, the better you are able to become at it as well. The new additions included in the digital version, being that of the speeding up to make things like Excalibur 2 (Steiner’s Ultimate Weapon) way easier to get. However, things like the 9999-attack cheat into a game really softens the difficulty, as it takes away from the games system and makes the game not challenging. You can put that in later, as you level up, but it does not seem to fit in well. Also, the stance system in this game is a lot more annoying than usual. Instead of a special attack you can do after taking too much damage, you get a certain amount of time where your attacks change to more specialized moves that can do a lot for you, but also locks off some of your other characters moves. This can lead to game over in some cases, but if done right, the results are still rewarding. Overall, this medieval Final Fantasy is a great game. Final Fantasy 9 gets a 10/10.