A retrospective on FFIX

[SkyPress]

Hi guys,

I'm new to the forums here but a long time Final Fantasy fan. My favourite games in the series were 7,8 and 9 with 9 being my all time favourite. I'm not a big fan of the last four titles and i really wish they would revisit the style from the late 90s.

I took some time to look back at what I thought made 9 so special to me, using the opportunity to increase my understanding of the game development process that Square USA used when making the game. I have a background in game design and art direction and these games were the reason i decided to make a career in art for games.

Please read the article below and leave your thoughts. You can also ping me on twitter if you want, my handle is twitter.com/sky_press.

http://theskypress.com/blog/2013/11/19/thoughts-on-final-fantasy-9

Thanks and I look forward to discussing this with you guys.

 

[Starships]

Loved this, FF IX is and was so amazing


Are you ever planning to do one with FF 7 & FF8 ???

 

[SkyPress]

I am working on some articles about game mechanics in other games at the moment but I will very likely make an article on FF7. FF7 is actually the game that inspired me to become a games artist in the first place so I think I would very much like to discuss that game down the road. I'll make sure to link it to this thread aswell.

Thanks for the comment!

 

[Razberry Knight]

to be honest, the game holds up as being a solid designed game compared to 7 and 8, only because the graphics weren't upto snuff to have the detail they needed to pass the concept stage.


I hate how people say ff9 went back to its roots. it really didn't do all that much. FF1-6 were limited by the technology, they weren't designed to take literal presentation. the 8-16 bit era was an era of imagination (thats why back then we had some ridiculous looking box art. because half the time of localization, it was based on the artist's imagination).

ff9 is a valuable entry in the series, i just find it difficult that some claim it to be a game more closer to the fantasy side.

 

[Shaissa]

A couple errors, under the FFXII picture, you put FFX

And to say they were "limited" for FFIX I think is way off. Limited to now what you can do on consoles, sure... but at the time, FFIX pushed The Playstion to it's limits, graphically at least...


Don't get me wrong, the story and gameplay were amazing to me, and this I think it is one of the best RPG's out there, but I have to agree with Razberry Knight, this game never "brought Final Fantasy back to it's roots" because all these games are so vastly different that it really has no "roots" the "roots" were that it bailed Square out of bankruptcy..

Yes it was the first game in the last 3 to go back to a more fantasy feel to it, rather than the more... modern/industrial feel to it. But that doesn't mean that it "went back to it's roots"
Although I have to say, if I had to pick one Final Fantasy to call "the ultimate Final Fantasy." this would have to be on that list...

 

[SkyPress]

Hey guys, thank you both for your comments and for reading the article. I'd like to speak to my reasons behind my wording;


Razberry Knight -
I see where you are coming from when you say that the 16 bit era forced players to use their imaginations more since the graphics were much more simplified so your mind had to fill in the details. This is very true. When I say it's roots Im not referring to its art style just the vision behind the core of the franchise, I've elaborated on this a bit below if you want to check it out. Final Fantasy 7,8 and 9 even though they appear leaps and bounds beyond 1-6 are actually very limited by technology when compared to gaming platforms of today (or even the ps2) and my article was more a comparison with modern days technology than the earlier 16 bit era.


Shacae -


Thanks for pointing out the typo in the caption, i will fix that asap.


I feel like i should explain why i used the term 'limitation' to describe FF9's art direction. This article is a retrospective of FF9 comparing it to games on the market today. You are correct that at the time of release it was considered to be the latest and greatest in graphics and stood out against earlier games. The point of the article was actually to show how the developers used the limitations of the Playstation platform and pushed it to the maximum to achieve their look.


Also in terms of FF9 being a return to its 'roots' I was speaking about the intention of the developers at Square USA. You can read more about it in this interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi here. Whether or not they achieved this is a matter of opinion. I personally consider the roots of Final Fantasy to be about pure high fantasy stories based around the vision of Yoshitaku Amano. By this criteria i find Final Fantasy 9 to be very true to original idea of what Final Fantasy should be, technology aside.


Thank you both for commenting and making the discussion more interesting. I agree with both of your points I just thought i would clarify where i was coming from. Looking forward to reading your responses if you have the time.