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 Final Fantasy IX is an odd duck in a series that's nothing but odd ducks. After the huge success of FF7 and FF8, Square decided to go a different route by making FF9 a big ol' love letter to the awesomeness of the rest of the series. This game really embraces the "fantasy" aspect of the title, with a large variety of different races and monsters while embracing a very light-hearted tone for the most part. The characters are charming, the locations beautiful, the music fantastic, and the battle system...well, it's there. Overall it's a fantastic game and of course I aim to show it off the best I can. Expect the usual, with lots of music links, videos of the FMVs, and of course lots and lots of GIFs of the game's many wonderful animations. As usual, this is a game I played a good bit long ago and forgotten a lot about, so please tell me if I forget or miss anything cool or interesting, ditto for technical issues and typos. At the very least I hope to point out the many, many callbacks to previous FF games as they pop up. I very highly recommend checking out The White Dragon's Let's Play of this game. He does a fantastic job going through the game and it's one of my all-time favorite Let's Plays because of it.  Tag mild spoilers, don't post major spoilers at all. Mild would be stuff like future characters, unimportant bosses, and minor plot details. Don't post major plot spoilers, please. If you feel compelled to comment on a plot spoiler, write your post down in Notepad, save it, and then bring it up when I actually get to that plot point in the LP. Twitter - Useful for lurkers who want to follow when I update, or anyone who cares about crap like whenever I stream. Updates                                                                                    
Mega64 fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Nov 20, 2016 |
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Jul 6, 2015 01:24
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POTENTIAL SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON Orange Fluffy Sheep is doing a Level 1 run of the game! Definitely check this out!  CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER TWO: THEY REVOCER TEH PRENCESS BUT THEY DON'T CHAPTER THREE : "We have to not go in the ice cave because it is danger" and they went into the ice cave and Gitan got caught in a sealion and then he died CHAPTER FOUR: "Hold on," Kukri panicked. "We are driving right into a black waltz." CHAPTER FIVE: But now in the business district of the Lindblum Grand Castle he knew there were Zaghnols. CHAPTER SIX: Quark finds fork and swings "JREAK OUFF" it at black mage's throat hitting it in the nailed him. CHAPTER SEVEN: "Good shoot!" shouted Gitan at the glove man. CHAPTER EIGHT: "NO, NOT ALL OF TRENO!" Which swas target of where they were and it was nice place and my friend lives there. CHAPTER NINE: Gitan was explore for clues in old tree. Time to rock and roll, his thoughtedhead brightened him. CHAPTER TEN: When good Ratchel came back she wanted find her boyfrend but he leaved. "Fratley! You moved to Englind too soon and I did't say bye!" CHAPTER 11: The bandersnatches comes closer and then it gets shot. Where did climhazzard come from Beatrix! CHAPTER TWELVE: "Hey the " guy said. It was having bad day. "Sorry" and so Gitan went to his gargant and he flew away to be by himself at the outer continent. CHAPTER THIRTEEN: He was also eating her ♥ majresty a barbecued fish and silence soup and a rock-fisted potato stew but he also ate just bread. CHAPTER FOURTEEN: "i illh elp you" Bort say with the cry she was sad cause thoughts gitan was dead but it was zombie trick! CHAPTER FIFTEEN: And then when they landed on Treno aeverything was okay and they had a card game but while they were gone a hundred disasters happend CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A moogle eats a piece of dead pepper "this is pretty good" CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Gitan has a hard time getting into the kuja lair where the man had a gulug. "It's too late," he smiled. It was an evil smile that he held the gulug with. Ratchel trained at the forest until she was ready "I am ready" When she found Meltigemini CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: LOOK OUT RETCHEL CHAPTER NINETEEN: "And then Ragtimer coughed and a hundred blood came out then he went nothing and everyone sadded. One day they will all would learn to live their lifes without Ragtimer who was dead." CHAPTER TWENTY: An ship of ssteam travel tached down on the remotely desert of the planet that se4cretly was Terra but the ship didn't know because it is plot twist. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: "No, Gitan. You are the genomes" CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: "This is all because Kuja!" Gitan punched fist into air with angry. He was angry. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Gitan ran into to see what was noise and saw that it was naked Ozma. "Oh no, is Ozma!" CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: First he foght the Nova Dragging and hades but a whole bunch of chaoss too until he found teh Kuja. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Gitan laughed "Ha ha you are too slow this time you loving." THE END Gamesfreak13563 is doing a Perfect Excalibur II run! Also definitely worth checking out! TravelLog made some interesting posts about the characters and themes of the game. Worth a read! Dramatis Personae: Zidane/Vivi/Steiner/Garnet Dramatis Personae: Freya/Quina zfleeman did a review for Disc 1 of Final Fantasy IX! It's actually pretty cool, check it out (spoilers, obviously).   Zeikier shows off the skills a true Jump Rope King would have. Zeikier posted:This was a while back, but I was inspired. larchesdanrew takes my "Let's rename Garnet to 'Buster'" idea and runs with it. U-DO Burger has a delightful story worth sharing here. U-DO Burger posted:Thanks to this thread I started playing FFIX again a couple weeks ago. My 3-year-old daughter was watching me play and I tried to explain to her what was going on, and it seems she took in more than I thought. Zeikier shows what happens when Freya gets up with Zidane's posturing. Zeikier posted:So I decided to do a short comic: Winklebottom lives up to their name by depicting Kuja's. Winklebottom posted:
One NPC triggers a revolution that Orange Fluffy Sheep, CzarChasm, and FeyerbrandX all get involved in. FeyerbrandX posted:Can't let Brahne monopolize the war crimes. ApplesandOranges reveals the secret alternate eighth party member. ApplesandOranges posted:
Fister Roboto shows just why Orange Fluffy Sheep constantly got screwed by Stropers. Squarely Circle shows us what Orange Fluffy Sheep sees every time he closes his eyes post-Iifa Tree. Squarely Circle posted:A little late, but I've been wanting to draw something for the thread for a while, here's something to congratulate OFS on getting through the Iifa Tree. Squarely Circle also shows Steiner participating in his favorite past-time. Squarely Circle posted:Press X to eat pickles. bluerocker shows how things might have looked for the black mages at the end of the game. bluerocker posted:Sorry if this is messy. I wanted to get it out before the thread closed. Zeikier goes back to the end of Disc 2 and tells us how Vivi really feels. Zeikier posted:I was meaning to do this around the end of Disc 2, but here's Vivi in the Exposition Void bluerocker puts into picture what OFS was probably mumbling constantly during the Iifa Tree. bluerocker posted:
 Click here to see 48 avatars made during the course of this Let's Play! 
Mega64 fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Dec 6, 2016 |
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Jul 6, 2015 01:25
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 First off, let's show off the FMV that rolls at the start of the game. Note that a few pictures come up after the title screen, but I'll show those off at a later point in time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqU4fUKwT0o   Simple but nice logo. The crystal is there to say, "This is like those old-school Final Fantasy games with crystals and stuff" even though only half the games in the series to this point had anything to do with crystals. Also, as you expect from the series at this point this game has an excellent soundtrack that you should definitely listen to if possible. Anyway, once we start a new game, we're treated to another FMV. A couple neat tidbits here and there, but mainly it's another "Look at all these wonderful graphics" reel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H67UqNZ5uzw    In particular, it's a brief introduction to a character that'll be pretty important soon enough.   And of course to show off exciting imagery. After we finish all that, we meet our main character. ENGINE NOISES   Guess nobody's here yet... The hand icon means we have control now.  More on our menu in a bit, but let's mess with some config options.  I always go Memory. Run of course is always recommended.  And this is supposed to be a love letter to old-school FF titles, right? Gotta go with that classic blue since we don't have the "eye-searing neon chocobo abomination" FF6 option.  After a few seconds of wandering around, the game screams at you to light the candle in the middle of the room.  However, you shouldn't rush in this game. There are secrets galore.   And this is evident by there being two secrets just in the first room. I'm not going to show off all of them since a lot of these are just small items that aren't worth much, but I'll show off enough to demonstrate just how many weird little details there are in this game.  We've looted the room, so it's time to progress the plot.    Default is Zidane. I'm going with default names for this run.   From top to bottom, these guys are Blank, Cinna, and Marcus.  Hey, Zidane! You sure are late! Sorry. So, where's the boss? Ain't here yet.  Some GIFs will look a bit janky to get them under 2MB. Still think this GIF is awesome enough to be worth it. A good opportunity to warn you guys that GIFs are gonna be pretty large for this one, so this may not be a LP to view on mobile.   Anyway, a giant dragon man is now attacking us because of course he is.   Welcome to our first battle!  I won't go into too much detail right now. Zidane has his own skills, but all four of these characters have the ability "Steal."  Since our main character knows Steal, it's actually a big part of battles, especially bosses. Each enemy has four slots for steals, from common to rare. Of course, rarer items will be a pain to grab and take multiple tries, but there will be ways to mitigate this later. And not all enemies will have four items to steal. This guy only has three for instance.  One big perk compared to past titles is that you can steal all these possible items rather than get stuck with one. This is especially nice since bosses usually have some nice things to steal, usually letting you get items earlier than normal.  For instance, this guy has a rarish weapon that Zidane would love to make use of. It's gonna take a few tries to grab it, though.  Meanwhile, this fella has three attacks.  This attack is a bit stronger than his first attack.  His third attack is just embarrassing. I feel bad for him.   Cinna can die pretty easily because he's a chump. He's also got the worst offense of the four by far.  Eventually I get what I was looking for, the Mage Masher. This weapon is one of many that makes an appearance in several FF games, though usually it comes a bit later than the first battle of the game.  After that, it's just wail on the guy until he's defeated. He doesn't have much HP so you have to have really bad luck with steals to lose this battle.   Oh, my head! Go easy, you guys!ENGINE NOISES    You're lookin' a lot better! Gwahahaha! This is Baku, the leader of this lot. He was wearing a dragon mask and beating us up because that's just the kind of guy he is.    Tantalus, the infamous band of daring thieves (that's us), is headin' to the Kingdom of Alexandria... I'll take it from here, so listen up! And when it does, we're gonna put on our costumes...and perform "I Want to Be Your Canary," the most popular play in Alexandria! Break a leg, Marcus! 'Cause you're playin' the lead! Leave the actin' to me! Of course, the real kidnappers'll be Blank and Zidane! I can't stand oglops... But I'll manage, so don't worry about me. And that'll be your cue, Zidane! Yeah, yeah, kidnap Queen Brahne, got it.   You can repeat the Queen Brahne line 64 times and you'll get a small easter egg telling you to stop being a smartass. I'm not going to go through the effort though so let's go the canon route and kidnap the princess.  And let's close the first update off with one more FMV! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6SbQQW8xYg    A random black mage gets to experience first-hand the majestic presence of a giant freaking airship.  And so the giant playhouse airship flies to the giant sword castle because, of course, Final Fantasy.   And with that, welcome to this Let's Play of Final Fantasy IX. See you next update! Mega64 fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Jul 6, 2015 |
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Jul 6, 2015 01:25
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When you mentioned recording PSX in the tech support thread I knew to be excited. I wasn't excited enough.
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Jul 6, 2015 01:37
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This is gonna be great.
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Jul 6, 2015 01:40
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Awesome. I just started my nth playthrough last week and I haven't made it past the first dungeon yet. I'll be playing along. Also, you mentioned the gifs. It might just be my new computer but those are ridiculously smooth.
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Jul 6, 2015 01:41
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I love how Baku just inexplicably has a Queen Brahne doll here.  ... I love a lot of things about this game, in fact. 
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Jul 6, 2015 01:41
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Aww yeah. FFIX. This is going to be fantastic!
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Jul 6, 2015 01:44
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I get an alert on my phone that there's a new LP on the SA forums. "Hmm... wonder what it is?" Pushbullet mirrors it to my computer. "Final Fantasy IX". Oh hell yes! I've been waiting for someone to do another LP of this. I missed The White Dragon's LP when it happened. And Mega64's gonna do it? Bonus! 
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Jul 6, 2015 01:50
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Literally the first game I bought when I picked up my first PSX. Used a MASSIVE walkthrough from Gamefaqs to be sure to find everything, there was just one optional boss I never got to. To this day, FFIX has my favorite combat music of any game played since.
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Jul 6, 2015 01:55
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May as well go for the hat trick and follow LPs of all three Playstation FFs. I remember when this came out, I didn't like it. But going back much later and playing it again, I completely changed my view on it and love it. This game is a perfect definition of the word charming.
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Jul 6, 2015 01:59
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IX is the only main series FF game I have yet to play at all. I heard from a lot of people that it is the best (though VI sits with me as my favorite). I'll be sticking around to read through this, at least until it gets to a point where it gets too awesome that I have to tell myself to stop and play through this game myself, crippling laziness forbidding.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:00
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Fun fact: Final Fantasy IX has bar none the best, finest, most awesomest opening hour of any game of its type. More than anything else, the thing that comes through the strongest about it is that the entire game was made by people who loved what they did.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:04
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Absolutely love the game, given it was my first. Can't wait for the LP - even if it last as long as Elentor's.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:09
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Fedule posted:Fun fact: Final Fantasy IX has bar none the best, finest, most awesomest opening hour of any game of its type. I fully agree with that, but (and this may be just me) once you play through once, the first big chunk after the first hour is a slog. But I feel that way about a lot of games. And I agree. This game has tons of love in it and is incredibly polished. I really only have one complaint about this game, but that's a ways away. There's no world in the series that feels as vivid as this one.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:11
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:Awesome. I just started my nth playthrough last week and I haven't made it past the first dungeon yet. I'll be playing along. I wanted to do 60FPS for the GIFs but couldn't get the speed to match the original game's well. 30FPS is still plenty smooth and it'll be what I'll stick with unless size is an issue (like it was with Dragon Baku leaping in, had to reduce colors and cut to 15FPS but still looks pretty good). GIFs will be pretty big but as long as they're short enough they should look pretty good. Also, the idea struck me once again to do banners for update titles. Should be fun to do.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:36
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Mega64 posted:I wanted to do 60FPS for the GIFs but couldn't get the speed to match the original game's well. 30FPS is still plenty smooth and it'll be what I'll stick with unless size is an issue (like it was with Dragon Baku leaping in, had to reduce colors and cut to 15FPS but still looks pretty good). GIFs will be pretty big but as long as they're short enough they should look pretty good. Did you try 59.94 FPS?
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Jul 6, 2015 02:44
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The GIFs really make this the LP FFIX desperately needed. There's incredible animation work that was naturally an evolution of what they did with FF8's models. Though The White Dragon's LP had a lot of cool Hawaiian references as the game was created in Square's Hawaii studio.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:46
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senrath posted:Did you try 59.94 FPS? No, but at this point I'm probably just going to stick to 30FPS anyway since the GIFs are big enough as is while still smooth enough, plus all the FMVs seem to be 15FPS anyway. I could record at 30FPS for a bit of convenience (unless there's a reason why I should go 29.97 or whatever instead)
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Jul 6, 2015 02:48
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Everything about this game just makes me so drat happy.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:52
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:I really only have one complaint about this game, but that's a ways away. I have one complaint about the game as well. Well, not the game exactly. To Find out what that complaint is, type "FUKU" Into Playonline! On the other hand, Brady Games also published the actual artbook for the game, so that was a very big plus.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:57
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I love the fact that the first fight in the game is against your boss, and he doesn't hesitate to straight up
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Jul 6, 2015 03:21
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:I fully agree with that, but (and this may be just me) once you play through once, the first big chunk after the first hour is a slog. But I feel that way about a lot of games. The first hour or so of gameplay afterwards though... FF9 is my favorite of the PSX era Final Fantasy's because of all the love and detail put into the game.
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Jul 6, 2015 03:29
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ddegenha posted:I love the fact that the first fight in the game is against your boss, and he doesn't hesitate to straight up Cinna is a chump, he'd probably fall over like that from a stiff breeze
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Jul 6, 2015 03:37
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You're just going to LP every Final Fantasy game, aren't you? Excited to be on the ground floor for this one.
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Jul 6, 2015 04:08
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Oh hey, its the best Final Fantasy. Ok, ok, you might disagree, but it's easily the best PSX FF game. You better become Jump Rope King, Mega64.
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Jul 6, 2015 04:12
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Oh my god is this going to get a proper screenshot treatment at last???
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Jul 6, 2015 04:21
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Oh how lovely, a FF9 let's play. I have a copy of this game myself, got it just a short while ago, and it is a nice game. The music is good, the story is good, and the graphics are beautiful. There are something that made me want to pull my hair through, but overall, I like this game. I'm looking forward to this.
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Jul 6, 2015 04:26
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Unless you count the various world themes in FF14 this one has the best world map music bar god drat none and I can't wait to hear it again.
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Jul 6, 2015 04:27
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Never played FF9 (or any past 5) so this will be fun I see Zidane has a tail for some reason. Is he going to be  in disguise?
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Jul 6, 2015 04:29
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Ohhh, the one FF I never finished due to unfortunate circumstances. Given I enjoy your LPs, I'm definitely gonna be following this. I forgot how drat charming it is, just from the opening alone.
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Jul 6, 2015 04:29
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 Oh boy oh boy! FFIX is just the most charming drat game. There's just so many little hidden tidbits everywhere that the world really feels alive. The battle speed never bothered me like it seems to bother everyone else, so it in my opinion the game really has no downsides.Edward_Tohr posted:I love how Baku just inexplicably has a Queen Brahne doll here. Since he tosses it over his shoulder and you can keep selecting that option, he apparently has a huge stack of Queen Brahne dolls.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:00
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This is the best Final Fantasy game, I will fight anyone who disagrees.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:06
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Fister Roboto posted:This is the best Final Fantasy game, I will fight anyone who disagrees. The only reason to say this is a bad final fantasy is because it gave us a taste of what a modern final fantasy could be, and instead we got something else.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:45
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FeyerbrandX posted:I have one complaint about the game as well. Well, not the game exactly.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:46
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I hope for your sake you're playing this on an emulator so you can speed it up, because this game is painfully slow.
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Jul 6, 2015 07:36
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FFIX is my favourite game of all time. The characters are so strong, the world is vibrant, the music is gorgeous and it's got just the right level of challenge. I'm can't wait for you to show everything
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Jul 6, 2015 07:47
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There are a ton of things I love about IX. A ton. But man, I think most of it stems from that loving title song. It just sucks me right in, every single time. I don't think I'll ever forget "The Place I'll Return to Someday" for as long as I live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw4wyNiQa6I
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Jul 6, 2015 07:49
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Shinjobi posted:There are a ton of things I love about IX. A ton. But man, I think most of it stems from that loving title song. It just sucks me right in, every single time. I don't think I'll ever forget "The Place I'll Return to Someday" for as long as I live. i remember trying to play that song on the flute as a kid because it was just so good and calm. this is seriously the best final fantasy ever produced, specially shocking since it came after VIII
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Jul 6, 2015 08:04
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It really feels like when they were making this game they were doing it as if they were making the last FF ever, so they made it as referential as possible.
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Jul 6, 2015 08:41
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