>>3459896
Ugly Art = Ugly Game = Do not Play

>>3459896
Your mother didn't kill you in the womb

>>3459896
slow as fuck combat due to the load times, animations with leading and trailing blank frames, and a broken ATB queue.

>>3459896
8kun pls go

>>3459896
It didn't cater to edgy 12 year olds like 7 and 8

>>3459896
On rails with no exploration.
Bad character design aside from Vivi.
Every boss has a low % steal that is also tied to what abilities you have, making fights drag on.
Equipment tied to learning abilities so you are stuck with shit equipment at all times.
Mini-games are outright obnoxious to the extent the people who played the card game can be counted on one hand.
Shifting party composition.
30s load times for battles as mentioned.
Fuck you time limit for strongest weapon that doesn't even have a meaningful use.
Strategy guide apparently just had constant references to Squaresoft's website they shut down.
Villain is evil because he's evil and constantly wins in cutscenes while you run away.
Music is shit compared to 3 previous entries. I only like 2 songs.

Why are you like this, 8fag

>>3459896

Nothing. IX is the absolute quintessential FF game. Great art, great music, great story, great main cast, great villain. It´s literally what every FF should be like.

>>3460240
I believe it when FF fans who want to do nothing but consume movie games with shallow gameplay believe it's what every FF game should be like. You don't actually like jrpgs or RPGs for that matter so you naturally love FF9 which is the definition of shallow on rails movie shit

>>3460218
>On rails with no exploration.
False. A plenty of content is entirely optional.
>Bad character design aside from Vivi.
Untrue.
>Every boss has a low % steal that is also tied to what abilities you have, making fights drag on.
You are not obliged to steal anything.
>Equipment tied to learning abilities so you are stuck with shit equipment at all times.
Except the times when you learn the ability and get to wear something different? And how is the equipment shit if it teaches you an ability that you want to learn? Isn't the equipment USEFUL and DESIRABLE then? If you don't want the ability, you can choose to wear something else.
>Mini-games are outright obnoxious to the extent the people who played the card game can be counted on one hand.
Everyone who has beaten the game has, in fact, played the card game.
>Shifting party composition.
How awful that the game makes you use more of the characters! Also makes the game narratively more interesting.
>30s load times for battles as mentioned.
It's at least half of that. And you can think about battle strategy while waiting.
>Fuck you time limit for strongest weapon that doesn't even have a meaningful use.
It's an easter egg. If it weren't there, you wouldn't complain about its absence.
>Strategy guide apparently just had constant references to Squaresoft's website they shut down.
Okay so now you're complaining about some piece of paraphernelia?
>Villain is evil because he's evil and constantly wins in cutscenes while you run away.
He has his own motivations. And you win in the end.
>Music is shit compared to 3 previous entries. I only like 2 songs.
You have bad opinions.

>>3460325
The masterpiece of Dark Souls is that it's tough, but fair. I didn't watch a YouTuber, I formed this opinion myself. It's tough... but also fair.
As we all know difficulty can't be justified in any way outside of further reference to the GAMEplay, why have a GAME if the GAMEplay stripped of all context isn't the point, this is why I play Rabi-Rabi I'm totally not a pedophile or anything, you might as well just have DeviantArt visuals and CrazyBus music and a porn plot, GAMEplay is all that matters, I get down to what MATTERS, not like video games are an aesthetic experience or anything, why do they even bother hiring artists and musicians and writers?
It's not possible that the difficulty is there to make the world's atmosphere more immersive due to the hostility, it's not like video games have the unique potential to interweave gameplay into story and audiovisuals to create a holistic experience that's more than the sum of its parts including the GAMEplay, no the only reason something being TOUGH can be good is if it's also FAIR, I treat all video games like that they're disposable entertainment to play between work sessions or hanging out with my middle-class stoner friends, all games are Puyo Puyo to me. And if I pay any attention to story at all it'll be to unearth "deep lore" that totally isn't just worldbuilding trivia or assets the devs accidentally slapped in, and I will ignore the relatively-complex-for-video-games themes interwoven into the game or deny their existence at all because I can only process things in terms of immediate entertainment value like a true ludophile. IT'S TOUGH, BUT FAIR.
Why play a GAME for any reason other than GAMEplay? When I watch movies I only look at the cinematography, why watch CINEMA for any reason other than CINEMAtography? Stories in films should all be porn plots, it's expected to be there but its purpose is to give an excuse for the cinematography, in other words all movies should be pornos.

>3 threads up sucking 8 off
>1 thread up shitting on 9

it's the same spammer again, same filenames and everything

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>>3459896
it's good actually, just not as edgy as the previous ones

>>3461741
always is

>>3459896
It was so good that nobody has been motivated to create another quality JRPG since.

>>3461772
>not as edgy
Has anyone who says this ever actually played the game? FFIX is full of fucked up shit and impromptu genocide. People just assume otherwise because of the cuter graphics, relative to 8 and 7.

>>3461792
But that's just part of the story, it doesn't try hard to be portrayed that way. Zidane is your typical anime trope buffoon, while Cloud and Squall are edgelords in a dark world.

long as fuck loading times, battle system being horrendously slow because of it.

>>3460218
>On rails with no exploration.
Has more exploration than ff8 maybe on par with ff7.
>Bad character design aside from Vivi.
Nah that's you being a dumb retard.
>Every boss has a low % steal that is also tied to what abilities you have, making fights drag on.
Steal wasn't really mandatory but you know your character IS a thief so is in character to peel every boss.
>Equipment tied to learning abilities so you are stuck with shit equipment at all times.
Prioritize ap gaining skills. Only endgame shit has three digits learning points and usually basically everything gave you 3ap.
>Mini-games are outright obnoxious to the extent the people who played the card game can be counted on one hand.
Tetra master was shit because it was relying 100% over rng. Chocobo hot and cold was... ok i guess.
>Shifting party composition.
It's not that bad at least you know that you'll have to use everyone, like a group you know.
>30s load times for battles as mentioned.
Not really an issue honestly.
>Fuck you time limit for strongest weapon that doesn't even have a meaningful use.
Yeah, fucking stupid.
>Strategy guide apparently just had constant references to Squaresoft's website they shut down.
Who cares? Is that even a point? You can find shitton of guides online.
>Villain is evil because he's evil and constantly wins in cutscenes while you run away.
True, that's stupid.
>Music is shit compared to 3 previous entries. I only like 2 songs.
It litterally has the best battle theme of all the modern ff games.

And i would also add
>Tons of missable shit because you didn't cross a door before another door (ate).

>>3460568
>>3461951
Being contrarian isn't a personality.

>>3461954
I argued, faggot. You were right on some terms, but you cant even fucking read.

>>3461954
>NOOO DON'T ARGUE BACK JUST LET ME SHITPOST AND SPAM MY BAD OPINIONS

>>3461954
Your lack of self-awareness is comical. Autistic, even.

>>3460325

JRPGs have never been about difficulty anon. Ever. As for gameplay mechanics there´s certainly been JRPGs with more interesting mechanics like Vagrant Story or Valkyrie profile but that´s irrelevant because we are only considering FF here. Furthermore a game is more than it´s gameplay, more than it´s story, more than it´s graphics, more than it music, it´s about how all those elements relate to each other to produce something that´s more than the mere sum of those traits. In that sense the PS1 FF games are the pinacle of FF as a series. VII, VIII and IX are undoubtedly the best most polished FF games and among those IX is not only the most refined and stylized but the one that best captured the spirit and history of the series. So yes, IX is the best FF game.

>>3462225
FF9 doesn't capture the spirit of the series and has a terrible story. It's the pinnacle of what Sakaguchi considered to be important, which was to continually rob players of all agency and shove melodrama in their face and that's why it's a disaster of a game. I always think of how this series slowly got pigeonholed into this position where everything became secondary to the cinematic movie aspect of the cutscenes when the older FF games excelled at being able to tell worthwhile stories through gameplay, FF9 doesn't make this attempt but would rather it didn't have any gameplay at all if could. To that matter, unlike other games like Xenogears which also forsook the gameplay aspect of the game, the story was well worth telling but it isn't the case for FF9.

>>3461800
>Zidane is your typical anime trope buffoon, while Cloud and Squall are edgelords in a dark world.
What makes Squall and Cloud interesting is that there was an actual attempt at a character who has to grow. Both Quall and Cloud get shit for having their heads in the clouds and their thoughts and feelings confined to their own little worlds and you get to experience growth and express things more outwardly. Zidane... I don't even know, he doesn't even have the courtesy of looking cool and can't even use his thievery outside of combat.

>>3459896
nothing really

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>>3461951
>Has more exploration than ff8 maybe on par with ff7.
Completely false, there are less sidequests and the few that exist are terrible
>Nah that's you being a dumb retard.
I agree with the other anon completely, most of the characters in FF9 look retarded, see Legend of Mana for a game that actually succeeded at whimsical fantasy aesthetic
>Steal wasn't really mandatory but you know your character IS a thief so is in character to peel every boss.
Which is why it sucked, steal should become a reliable and creative interesting move for this game, see Chrono Cross.
>Prioritize ap gaining skills. Only endgame shit has three digits learning points and usually, basically, everything gave you 3ap.
Use shit gear for longer so you can get more skills sucks ass and does nothing but add more to the grinding list
>It's not that bad at least you know that you'll have to use everyone, like a group you know.
It's not that the game becomes impossible but rather that it never feels like you have a reliable party at any point because the game constantly feels the need to switch things up at every given opportunity
>Not really an issue honestly.
LOL
>It litterally has the best battle theme of all the modern ff games.
Boring safe call-back music, FF7 blew this shit out of the water

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>>3459896
Its a respectable game that did away with materia/junction shit to return to a traditional, rigid class system, with characters that have universally relatable development arcs rather than being about gay teen angst, which is not limited to the MC but instead the entire party with their own personal flaws to address, and despite being one of the tightest entries in the entire franchise adventure-wise it has such an impressive repetoire of side content that one such side quest wasn't discovered until 13 years after release. Too bad square has no interest in making any more games like this.

>>3462341
Your entire post is wrong

>>3462342
Skill issue.

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>>3459896

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>>3459896

>>3462278

>It's the pinnacle of what Sakaguchi considered to be important

And he was right. In a 50+ hours game you need a good story and characters to keep invested. I disagree with your statements that the story was terrible and that the player has no agency in it. It was certainly no Shakespearean drama to be sure but the setting was great and the plot actively gave the player reason to travel the world.

You may argue it´s on the rails but such is the nature of a narrative pushed by urgency. You are not supposed to just take your time sightseeing and completing meaningless quests and hunts like in XII or contemporary open world games. Traditionally sidequests were provided for pacing reasons, to give players a break from emotional moments and maybe hunt for some very rare treasure available.

These days there is an overabundance of meaningless quests that give meaningless rewards and are basically just for grinding and trivializing the games. The latest FF games even go a step further and won´t allow the player to progress unless they complete those quests. Not kidding. FF XV sends the player on some goose chase for some random item for random looking NPC and only when the player completes that waste of time does the kingdom fall.

VIIR is the same, go clean this trash yard of monsters. When you come back "oh no, they are kidnapping Aerith" and you are like "ok, it´s urgent to go save her... but not before i collect this water filter money or something". In the old FF games you could choose to do this shit or just focus on the plot but the new ones don´t allow that anymore.

>>3463364
>>And he was right.
He was wrong and nearly bankrupted the company. Hate how everyone worships this hack when he basically was responsible for the worst FF game (IX) and was hard carried by others for the classic entries

>>3463424
Also one of the most emotional games Square made, Mana series started out on the Gameboy and valued exploration and non-linear gameplay while still being cinematic, Sakaguchi literally wanted it to fail but the enduring series (as well as SaGa) living today will forever prove him wrong. Sakaguchi is a hack that doesn't know how to make FF

>>3463428
>SaGa fan is a subhuman bug retard
Imagine my shock.

>>3463431
>Subhuman bug retard thinks FF IX is a good game
Imagine my shock

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>>3462282
Zidane is there to facilitate the growth of everyone else in the game. If you've ever been a big brother, you should understand what Zidane is and that archtype is brought to its logical conclusion in Pandemonium.

>>3463479
He's a stale and boring character even if that were true. Has the worst design of all FF protagonists

>>3463501
>He's a stale and boring character even if that were true.
https://youtu.be/3xqtQwC-hwM?si=b6yq7Pt6KP-61BQT&t=674
He's the classic hero and the perfect MC. As the character controlled by the player we should be invested in the stories of everyone he interacts with, not the MC himself, and that's what makes FF9 so compelling. He's the most well-adjusted and human MC... until he steals the show and finds out he's not human at all.

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>>3463501
Nah he’s cool and actually the least gay of all FF characters.

https://youtu.be/gLEZuDkEuDk

>>3463501
>I don't like the art style therefor everything else is bad
Anti-FF9 tards in a nutshell

>>3464001
Final Fantasy is a series that has always lived and died on its music and artstyle. If one of those is not to the player's tastes, it's perfectly cromulent grounds for dropping the game.

>>3464038
FF9 has the same art director as 12.

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FFVIIIkun...I support your vision. VIII is pure kino. But IX is at least ludo to some extent.

>>3459896
Not much. Only thing I didn't like was how much cool shit happens near the end when they could've made the whole game like that, instead of all this meandering that feels like filler.

>>3467260
Not surprising given how ugly 12 is too.

>>3467557
12 is beautiful also that anon is lying, they don't have the same art director

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Character design in this game was sublime and by Amano. If you don’t appreciate a character like Quina then not only are you tasteless, but also stupid. Zidane is designed to resemble a monkey by the way. Even his jawline is ape like.

Zidane’s character was the opposite of Cloud and Squall, yet similar. While they were brooding annoying guys, he was living his life happily and optimistically. More importantly, he had his life built on it being so well defined that he went apeshit the second he found out his brother is a fag, and that despite what he does, he’s actually out here to kill anyone.

There’s way more exploration in IX than the previous two but that would actually require exploration and I’m sure that would’ve been deemed difficult for you.

Amount of battles is just enough to make you gain almost all the AP needed to learn all the skills. By the time you’re buying new items, and provided you didn’t escape any battles, you’ll be able to switch to the new ones almost immediately.

You don’t really need to steal anything and Tetra Master is terrible.

Uematsu himself said it’s the best OST.

Kuja wasn’t even evil, Garland was doing his job, and Necron was the ultimate enemy, i.e., death.

I wonder what the main theme of FFIX is.

The game design and art direction were pure art.

I won’t explain further because this game keeps on getting pulled down by mid-tier IQ morons who ruin its reputation.

I'm torn on 9. It's the comfiest but the most difficult to get through because you just can't deny it is a SLOW game. Thank goodness the encounter rate is so well-tuned, otherwise this would be unplayable. Beyond that my only gripe is that the overall plot structure is a bit too much of a carousel of character concerns for my taste.

>>3470482
Quina is shit and you can't explain why it's not.

post her ASS we are 57 posts deep wtf is wrong with you!?

>>3470482
Agree on most things but I will add a couple of my opinions:

Quina is shit.

The second half of the game doesn't utilize the main party and focuses soley on Zidane and Garnet. Yes they got more focus on the first half but its still unfortunate their arcs pretty much end halfway through the game.

Necron came out of nowhere. Nothing can defend this. They had a chance to tie it with ExDeath from FFV which would have been a sweet nod, but no.

Agree about stealing though its annoying that it tempts you so since the main character is the thief.

Kuja is an underrated imo and should not have been redeemed. People only hate him cause he's girly but he literally wins every battle against the heroes.

Chocobo hot and cold is a guilty pleasure and it also helps it leads you to the superboss.

My brother actually thinks FF8 is better and I can only lol at him. 9 and 8 have similar flaws but they are more glaring in 8.

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>>3470742
Whose ass? Be more specific. Queen Brahne?

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>>3470742
>>3470753
N E X T G E N

>>3470751
>People only hate him cause he's girly
My problem is less with Kuja himself as with the writing around him.
>haha yes I'm the sinister bad guy and I'm going to do mysterious bad guy stuff for obscure personal reasons that won't make any sense for 2-3 more discs because it's all tied into the japvoluted metaphysics of the setting. And in the meantime you're going to watch Steiner gradually learn how to not be an oblivious retard all the time.
Yes I'm being glib I'm not in the mood to go in depth.
>Yes they got more focus on the first half but its still unfortunate their arcs pretty much end halfway through the game
To me, that's part of the problem. With all the focus on side characters, Zidane and Kuja seem to be going through the motions for too much of the story.

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>>3470482
>Character design in this game was sublime and by Amano
They are all terrible and btfo'd by Legend of Mana
>Zidane’s character was the opposite of Cloud and Squall, yet similar
He is the opposite because he has no depth unlike Cloud and Squall who are constantly misunderstood by low IQ FF9 fans like yourself
>muhh dark muh brooding
>Amount of battles is just enough to make you gain almost all the AP needed to learn all the skills
The system is terrible regardless
>Uematsu himself said it’s the best OST.
Uematsu is the most overrated square composer
>Kuja wasn’t even evil, Garland was doing his job, and Necron was the ultimate enemy, i.e., death.
Necron is a horribly written allegory or metaphor for death and is a total asspull, Kuja and Garland are just extremely forgettable
>The game design and art direction were pure art.
The game design is terrible, but the art direction is pretty good thoughbeit
>I won’t explain further because this game keeps on getting pulled down by mid-tier IQ morons who ruin its reputation.
You described yourself to a t

Hot take: I played and did not care for FF9 and I think it is one of the more overrated games in the series.

>>3470898
This isn't a hot take, it's the objective truth

>>3459896
your taste

>>3470873
No one cares about your feelings.

>>3470873
>Uematsu is the most overrated square composer
Nah Uematsu is great and FF9 is easily one of the top Final Fantasy sountracks.

>>3459896
4 party members, too much for the PSX so battles were sluggish all the time.

Fairy tale asthetics and characters that did not resonate with people who loved 7 or 8.

No one is really memorable except Vivi.

Games always forces party members on you, like its scared to give you some actual freedom.

>>3471334
>characters that did not resonate with people who loved 7 or 8.
Fwiw, FF9's characters are different from most of the series up to that point. The only one that even comes close is FF6 and that's just because the cast was so huge. Imagine FF6 except with only Relm, Gau, Umaro, Shadow, and Cyan but instead of Cyan's silly distrust of machines being a little comic relief in a scene here or there it's a source of major interpersonal conflict over and over and over again. (All of Cyan's good traits went to Freya).

The moral of the thread is this, the Final Fantasy games are relatively "okay" at conveying their message - while it is FFIX that is total, and extreme in it's message. Zidane's words have stuck with me throughout my life, and have impart a truely good moral upon the youth who played it. You don't need a reason to help people.

>>3471424
Naive though

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Don’t you mean what went so right?

>>3470751
>Necron came out of nowhere. Nothing can defend this. They had a chance to tie it with ExDeath from FFV which would have been a sweet nod, but no.
Necron is the nothing before the crystals created the universe; the characters are going back in time so, obviously, after going through the crystal world they're going to find said nothing.

Why do people keep saying that FF9 has slow combat? Are people parroting some video essay or is it a meme because it's literally not true. Also, the game has more side content than all the other FF games combined, you're looking at 200 hours of gameplay if you do everything.

>>3472709
>Why do people keep saying that FF9 has slow combat
They mean the transitions into each battle, which is fair complaint.

>>3472709
>Why do people keep saying that FF9 has slow combat?
Because of the original PS1 release. The original game was plagued with slowdowns and loading times compared to 7 and 8, most visibly on the world map and battle screens. Modern emulators and PC releases somewhat alleviate this but there's no getting around how the game was designed to be slower on account of the original hardware.

>>3472714
This. Huge IX fanboy here. The battles are fairly slow, but also yes those transitions / intros take forever, especially if you’re playing on a PS1. You spend at least an entire hour of a normal play through just watching the padding around battles.
It was fine the first play through. But now I have all of the transitions cut out and a 3x speed boost and it’s much more enjoyable (and actually difficult).

>>3472715
>Modern emulators and PC releases somewhat alleviate this but there's no getting around how the game was designed to be slower on account of the original hardware.
Steam or Switch with Moguri Mod (free and installs itself). You cut out all of the transitions, You can skip cinematics, it’s got a general speed setting (that doesn’t change the music), and a separate battle speed slider setting. The entire game can be incredibly fast. Comedically fast even.
It’s my favorite game but I would never replay it without speed mods.

>>3470751
>Necron came out of nowhere.
Unironically based of him to do so. Necron was GOAT and the ultimate pleb filter.

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>>3472768
>unironically
>based
>GOAT
>pleb filter

>>3472709
>Are people parroting some video essay or is it a meme because it's literally not true.
It's literally true. Have you even played any other actually good ATB game?

So, there's this one obnoxious enemy in Final Fantasy VII in the subway tunnels when you revisit Midgar, this little gun thing that sits on the floor. It seems like there's some glitch in the animation where the game just seems to stop and not do anything for a few moments before the gun does its attack. Makes the battles feel really sluggish.

Well, in FFIX that is like every single fucking battle. All the animations take so long and are so awkwardly integrated that the ATB queue is constantly getting all crudded up. You sit there not sure whether you should just queue up another action or wait to see whether Garnet's heal actually fires in the order you expect or something went wrong and you should do something else. It's all really annoying to keep track of. And now everything stops to watch Zidane come out of trance for 10 seconds. It takes a lot of the fun out of ATB, which should feel fast and responsive to your commands. FF4 for SNES and FF7 are the best examples of FF games doing this well, although none of them are as bad as 9.

This is all apart from the blatantly obvious and easily-measured transitions between the map and combat which are twice as long as the other PSX games and 5x longer than the pre-PSX games. Those at least can be fast-forwarded.

>>3472709
>Also, the game has more side content than all the other FF games combined, you're looking at 200 hours of gameplay if you do everything.
Quantity over quality. One of the biggest problems with FF9 is the way it turns everything into a fucking chore.

>>3472709
>spend 150 hours collecting shitty cards
Holy fuck anon, ask your doctor about euthenasia.

>>3459896
One of the criticisms I'd say is that even by FF standards the amount of gameplay is thin in 9 - you can see throughout they wanted it to be a story first and game second. The evidence of this is that In most FF games there's an obvious point where the railroading eases up and gives a sense of freedom where you run around for a bit doing errands, grinds or dipping in and out of mini games until you decide to get back to it. 9 never really does this and there's not much to do outside of the shitty card game.

Also the cast is hard to relate to. All of them are too rigid and don't really grow over the game. Zidane is childlike in mentality and physical form throughout. Steiner progressively becomes more and more mentally retarded, Garnet is delusional long past the point her "sheltered life" argument allows. Whilst Freya, qu, amarant, Vivi, eiko and Freya are intentionally difficult to give a shit about by design.

>>3473098
Weirdly hyperbolic post. I agree with most of the main points sentiment but have to nitpick the details
>The evidence of this is that In most FF games there's an obvious point where the railroading eases up and gives a sense of freedom
9 gets there eventually, it just takes a long-ass time.
>All of them are too rigid and don't really grow over the game
I think they all grow, although I can see why you might not notice. Their character flaws are extremely unsubtle and hammered on for so long by the time they finally come around you may have just stopped caring.

>>3473405
Yeah I don't get this guy's >>3473098 perspective here. I first assumed it was ironic, because freedom, random things to do, and character development are what the game stands out for.
I've played 1-13 and 9 has the most freedom and things to do (once you get out of Lindblum the first time it opens up, then more later as you get vehicles).
Almost every time you hit a new moment in the story (beat a boss, get to a town a second time, whatever) there are more things you can do, if you look. There's always some minigame, sidequest, a new chocograph to dig up, NPC dialog only available at one moment in the game, or off-the-path location with loot.
As far as character development, I don't think there's a ton, but it's there and what many people have praised the game for in the past.

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>>3473414
>freedom
No, definitely not. FF9 is extremely story dominant and even though there are lots of "things to do" in terms of sheer volume of random side content like minigames and collectathons, you absolutely are heavily railroaded for almost the entire game, far moreso than any previous entries (except 8 maybe, I haven't played more than 2 hours of that one).

>once you get out of Lindblum the first time it opens up
The fact that one walled-in overworld field with 2 minigame locations counts as "opening up" is part of the problem, the other part being that it takes several hours to even get there in the first place. FF7 at least has a convergence of good reasons for the way they did Midgar and everything up through the bike chase event is a fantastic combination of gripping narrative, appropriate atmosphere and solid gameplay.

>then more later as you get vehicles
It takes forfuckingever to get access to vehicles in FF9.

Here's the basic problem. Prior Final Fantasy games featured "incrementally expanding" access to the world. Story was linear, but progression would be rewarded with vehicles and shortcuts to get back to places you'd already been as well as new areas to explore. Occasionally you'd hit a one-way event that closed off access to prior locations for awhile, and sometimes certain locations would remain restricted, but on the whole the incremental access trend was true. And speaking of events(which are inherently anti-freedom), triggers were typically far more limited. You'd explore to find the main event trigger and there would usually be only one or two per location.

FF9 isn't designed this way. FF9 routinely closes off prior areas and the game is LOADED with events. In FF9, simply entering a new town almost always triggers an event. Progression through areas often involve frequent interim events before the big event.

>>3473824
>Prior Final Fantasy games featured "incrementally expanding" access to the world. Story was linear, but progression would be rewarded with vehicles and shortcuts to get back to places you'd already been as well as new areas to explore. Occasionally you'd hit a one-way event that closed off access to prior locations for awhile, and sometimes certain locations would remain restricted, but on the whole the incremental access trend was true.
This is more true of FFIX, that's what I'm saying. You can upgrade chocobos shockingly early to open up water, mountains, and air. And you get a boat then an airship.
In IX these unlock more things to do and places to go than vehicles in any other FF game. That's the freedom I'm talking about. They all have railroaded plots.
Every FF game has times when you close off previous places (esp at the beginning) or you're closed off to one part of a town for a story event. Look at your pic and tell me Cloud doesn't constantly get walled in to certain sections of Midgar or Junon early, and Squall is stuck in locations and towns all the time for story moments. Or in earlier games you couldn't leave a castle until talking to an NPC that triggers an event for example. That's normal in these games.
This is just a comparison to other FF games, in most other FF games once you hit an event you'll open up the next town or a cave and that's usually it even with an airship / dragon.

>>3459896
Nothing really went too wrong in this one, it was a great game.

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>>3461772
Beatrix and Lani are clearly best girls.

>>3474008
Why Lani?

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>>3474108
Physically-oriented angry tomboy who wants to prove herself, skinny with big ol titties. That's hot to me.
Bra and spats? Nice.
She deserved more.

>>3473972
You're wrong, except mildly about FF7 which would require another post to explain and do justice. Chocobos in FF9 don't save it.
You don't seem to have actually played any FF games prior to 7.

>>3472998
>It takes a lot of the fun out of ATB, which should feel fast and responsive to your commands. FF4 for SNES and FF7 are the best examples of FF games doing this well, although none of them are as bad as 9.
Do you like X-2 and/or 13 at all? Curious your thoughts on the modernized ATB implementation there.

>>3463364
>VIIR is the same, go clean this trash yard of monsters. When you come back "oh no, they are kidnapping Aerith" and you are like "ok, it´s urgent to go save her... but not before i collect this water filter money or something". In the old FF games you could choose to do this shit or just focus on the plot but the new ones don´t allow that anymore.
When did that happen? I don't remember that part.

>>3474830
>Do you like X-2 and/or 13 at all?
I haven't played either one. From a glance, 13 looks overly convoluted but without actually playing it it's not really fair to comment. Haven't even glanced at X-2.

>>3474903
>13 looks overly convoluted
It really isn't. The big weakness is that you can't switch who are controlling mid battle, and that is rectified in 13-2. X-2 has pretty much the same system but no stagger-gauge (and no queuing lesser commands). The overdrive forms in X-2 are pretty much the same as the Eidolons.

>>3473972
For reference, there are 3 one-way events in Final Fantasy IV before you unlock the airship. (Kain and Cecil crossing the bridge to lock out Baron Castle, Titan's earthquake locking out Mist Valley and Baron Region, and the Leviathan attack locking out the western continent.) There are a few more points where you're locked out of the overworld or underworld but they are brief.

In contrast, FF9 is non-stop one-way events for the entire first two discs. There's at least 10, and you never have a moment where you have full access to previously explored areas. And that's not even counting one-time only areas that you can't ever return to like Cleyra.

>>3474916
>you never have a moment where you have full access to previously explored areas
To be clear, I mean in the first two discs. On disc 3, you FINALLY start having some actual freedom to roam the world, and eventually get a ship and an airship.
Before disc 3, freedom is extremely limited.

>>3474916
>you never have a moment where you have full access to previously explored areas.
Um, when you get the Hilde Garde III. And even earlier than that if you keep up with Chocobo upgrades. Did you even play the game or did you just watch a youtuber do it?

>>3474916
Normally I'd always say more freedom is better, but I honestly like when JRPGs kinda parse out the world. Even though you can't just pull up stakes and go back to any town you want at any time, it's not as if there's any shortage of things to do at any time.

I always think back to Grandia, which, despite not having a world map and completely dictating your progression and locking you out of past locations, feels more like an adventure than 99% of JRPGs. Sometimes an adventure is about not being able to just go back to wherever, whenever you want. Then when you finally get the ability or means to do so, it feels that much more special.

>>3474931
>Um, when you get the Hilde Garde III.
Um, I said before Disc 3. Even clarified that here: >>3474923
For two whole discs. That's 20 hours, easily.
>>3474948
>Normally I'd always say more freedom is better
There are many ways to balance it. I'm not even saying FF9's is bad but there's definitely no emphasis on freedom at all.

>>3474931
Also, fuck FF9 Chocobos. Hot and Cold is a terrible minigame.

>>3475000
>Hot and Cold is a terrible minigame.
skill issue

>>3474998
>there's definitely no emphasis on freedom at all.
Until there is. You just seem butthurt that the game won't let you warp to any ubisoft tower you want at any point. You actually have a good deal of freedom, but you're fixating on all the places it won't let you go. It's not even like there would be anything to do in those places. They specifically designed it that way.
>For two whole discs. That's 20 hours, easily.
You say that like it's a long time or something. And if it only takes you 20 hours to get to disc three, then you're clearly not doing a lot of open-ended backtracking or exploration in the first place, so why do you even care that you can't freely go anywhere at any time?

>>3475003
No, the game requires no skill. It's extremely boring.

>>3475012
> You actually have a good deal of freedom, but you're fixating on all the places it won't let you go.
LMAO
Freedom means there aren't places you can't go. The more places you can't go, the less freedom you have.
>You just seem butthurt that the game won't let you warp to any ubisoft tower you want at any point.
No I'm just disputing your definition of freedom, and your absolutely retarded and ignorant claim that prior Final Fantasy games are just like FF9 in terms of constraints on player's freedom.

> it only takes you 20 hours to get to disc three, then you're clearly not doing a lot of open-ended backtracking
First of all, that brings up another issue with FF9 which is the amount of god damn padding.
Suppose you are in the field outside dragon's gate and want to save 700 gil by staying at the inn in Lindblum. You have to go through Dragon Gate, ride the train to base station, take the elevator up to mid level of Lindblum Castle, run through the castle to the flying car, ride the car to the business district, finally go sleep in the inn, then go all the fucking way back outside.
I just timed it: 3 minutes and 40 seconds. In FF4, the most inconvenient inn I can think of is the one in Fabul, and the round trip is 52 seconds. And half of that is FF4's rather long inn animation. FF9 is 420% more bloated to simply to accomplish the same thing.

But, to the main point, I'm drawing comparisons. There's no universal measuring unit for progress in a JRPG so I'm using "amount of time taken by someone not messing around too much" as a proxy. If you assume unlimited amount of time spent dicking around, a time comparison is meaningless anyway.

The point being that given an equivalent relative progress through the game, FF4 gives you far more freedom than FF9
(and not just FF4, I'm picking FF4 one as one of the simplest and most linear examples of earlier FF games, with nothing like FF6's World of Ruin complicating the discussion)

>>3475012
Also
>so why do you even care that you can't freely go anywhere at any time?
That's just the definition of freedom and that's what's up for debate.
Whether you like it or don't like it, you can't claim a game emphasizes freedom and then cry about someone pointing out how heavily the game restricts freedom.

>>3459896
Nothing

>>3459896
same issue as the other ps1 games, hours if just mashing dialogue to get through the talking scenes with not enough actual gameplay in between. the older games and newer games dont fuck this up, but that ps1 trilogy is unbearable for it in my opinion.

>>3475051
>Freedom means there aren't places you can't go. The more places you can't go, the less freedom you have.
Dunning kruger post.

>>3475136
No, I'm trying to spoonfeed simple concepts to retards in the limited space of a 4chan post.

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>>3475051
>Suppose you are in the field outside dragon's gate and want to save 700 gil by staying at the inn in Lindblum. You have to go through Dragon Gate, ride the train to base station, take the elevator up to mid level of Lindblum Castle, run through the castle to the flying car, ride the car to the business district, finally go sleep in the inn, then go all the fucking way back outside.
Jesus christ this convo is still going?
You're talking not using a tent and passing a cheap inn right by the city entrance just to save like 200 gil? What even is this?
>>3474679
>You don't seem to have actually played any FF games prior to 7.
I've played them all up to 14 if you count the MMOs. I haven't played 1-4 since '02 or '03 though.
I fully stand by there being more freedom in IX than any other.
I think you didn't play the game, or didn't look around enough. You can go back to almost anywhere until disc 4. You can get a red chocobo and go back to pic related early in disc 2 if you want to, there's even loot if you go. There are very few places blocked off compared to other FFs.

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>>3475000
>Hot and Cold is a terrible minigame.
Yes, absolutely, fuck that shit. It was fine when I was a kid and only could use dial-up like once a week so there was nothing else to do, but damn it's brutal in a replay.
I've mentioned Moguri Mod before, and I'm sure no one cares, but it really really helps with Hot & Cold.
The biggest way to get points and level up your chocobo is to get the limit of 8 items and get a big bonus. The minigame timer isn't affected by speed boosts, so you throw a 3x speed boost in there and you get 8 items every time and find the chocographs more quickly. It's such a boring minigame (that's necessary for items and sidequests) that it's worth cheating.

>>3475270
>You're talking not using a tent and passing a cheap inn right by the city entrance just to save like 200 gil? What even is this?
I suddenly realize you said "Dragon's Gate" so you've gotta use the tram and elevator for either bed. My bad. But hey, this is FFIX, and there are tents. At no point in the game should you be poor, even if you avoid grinding. There's no reason you couldn't just tent on the world map.
There are these things called Pheonix Pinions that you get quite a few of (esp if you steal all the time) and don't actually make sense to use. They sell for 1000G each, you should be able to afford tents the whole game. If not, enjoy walking back to the inn / castle, sucka.