FFIX: What would you change?

^Hmm I actually like the slow battle system, though admittedly there were some areas which made it drag. I completely agree with the trance system - always hated it when a monster just before a boss would activate it....

I would have liked to explore more of Terra; perhaps a whole disc worth of content. The concept, artwork and music was amazing, it really felt like you were in an otherworld. More flashbacks of Zidane's past with Tantalus would have been cool too. :monster:
 
The Excalibur II Quest, a time attack challenge is a good idea but finally you get an item at the very end on a game already destroyed by a too quick progression.

Put the Excalibur II on some quest you can complete all the game long with a normal playing and maybe put the 12 hours time attack with another reward, an extra bonus mini game playable at the title screen, like the blackjack
 
There's virtually nothing I'm interested in changing. People seem to really hate Quina and that's a shame but I love Quina so... not touching that. Trance is annoying most of the time but plot-wise, it's necessary because I don't believe it would fit with the lore for it to be controllable. Necron is a headscratcher but exists as a tool for some of us to postulate and theorize. I was never bothered by the slow pace of the battle system. I like the clothing designs. I like the lack of insight on Amarant. I don't mind Freya fading into the background. I'm ok with any inconsistencies and puzzling blank spaces in the worldbuilding, because I have an itchy left hand.

I guess if I were to change ANYTHING, it would be giving Tetra Master more purpose-- like your rank effecting an ability in battle or something. I personally love tetra master as a game, but it is true that it could have played more of a role in the gameplay-- especially if playing it was gonna be mandatory for a part of the story. But again, this doesn't INTEREST me. I don't actually mind this imperfection.

I guess I'm just a psycho.
 
I'd be down for having Beatrix as a permanent party member. She's probably my favourite character in the game.

Either that, or I would be happy with one final battle with her that's actually winnable. Like, hey, go for it Square. Make Beatrix a superboss.
 
A lot of people are complaining about the Trance part of the game. I also find it annoying that it has to be used as soon as the gauge maxes out, but I always contributed it to when Steiner explains that it’s induced by a surge of emotion… So the bar is like the buildup to that point? Maybe that’s a bit too far-fetched? Either way, I actually loved the Trance versions of the characters!

TheLifeStream.net has a few translations on the Final Fantasy IX Ultimania, has anyone read this before? I felt like I truly understood more about this game and that it really helped clear up a few things that went over my head or I didn’t connect the dots on before.

I haven’t played the game since reading the above (and it has been a few years overall) so I can’t really provide exact and accurate examples, but I feel like things could have been explained a lot more in depth or better, at least when it comes to Terra and Gaia fusing. Maybe I just missed the mark? Or maybe someone agrees?


I feel like Quina was used as just a means to get the party to the other continent and then be the extra character you need when fighting the mirror shrine bosses before going to the Shimmering Islands… and to just have a Blue Mage. Am I wrong? There’s practically no story there for me, other than the little bit you connect with Vivi’s Grandpa. I felt like they had an opportunity to better connect them to the Alexandrian Castle where they were working, too.

Amarant had at least some story, but was he important other than helping build Zidane’s character with his own personal vendetta against him?

Fratley also leaves me wanting more! I’m not sure if it’s that they desired to keep his character/story an enigma, but it was really disappointing that he didn’t regain his memory or the player doesn’t know what caused his memory loss other than just ‘amnesia.’ Can anyone build on this?


I realize that the above points would require a lot more game time, and it was a decently long game as it was, but I feel like they could have cut back on some things and then expand more on others. Let me know if you agree or disagree with any of these points as it’s been a while for me, so I may be a bit Rusty! :tehe:
 
Were the battles actually? Like, the ATB bar fills up too slowly? I haven't played the game in years so I can't really remember, but I know it was never something that crossed my mind.

Until recently I would have agreed completely with everyone about the Trance system, and I suppose I do to an extent, but I think it just needs a little bit of tweaking. Like everyone, I would regularly get my Trance bar filled right at the end of a fight, or right before a boss fight which was annoying. However I'm replaying FF10 at the minute, and while I always used to be for having the Trance system a little more like that (store it until you want to use it), the Overdrive system is just so deeply flawed, especially considering how ridiculously over powered they are. Obviously the temptation would be to hold onto your filled Trance bar until the next boss fight came along, but that would just ultimately make bosses so... easy. And it's not like any of them are particularly challenging already anyway, right? I'd maybe go for a system where the Trance carries over for one fight if it's activated but unused, but storying it would make it overkill for me.
I think a lot of characters' Trances needed a little more thought put into them. Zidane's was okay - a little bit original. Vivi - double black magic - fair enough, makes sense. Steiner - just gets more powerful. Hardly that imaginative is it? Dagger - repeated summons. Not hugely helpful if you don't use summons all that often like me, but fair enough, I can get behind that. Freya - different jumps. I liked it, not too different but interesting enough and powerful enough to be useful. Eiko - double white magic. Basically just a copy of Vivi's. And I mean, how often do you need to use TWO white magics in one go? Amarant - what did he even do? Some weird monk abilities that weren't even helpful? Pointless. Quina - eat is a bit easier. Fair enough for the early part of the game, but once you have all of Quina's abilities, it's completely useless. It should have been replaced once you had them all, or you get a new one for beating Quan (Quale? I forget which is which).

I've mostly never had any huge issues with FF9. It's got a lot of interesting and entertaining side quests which gives you plenty to do throughout the game. I'd make the game generally more difficult if I could. Necron is far too easy for a final boss, and both Ozma and Hades are challenging, but not impossibly so. I'd have really liked to see Burmecia and Lindblum's rebuilding process a lot more. That could make a really good side quest itself - you have to find various tools, items and equipment for each city to help the rebuilding effort. Like imagine for Burmecia - the king decides he wants to see Burmecia rebuilt, but doesn't know how to start. He doesn't have the belief of the people. You go off and find Sir Flatley in a random encounter (á la Yuffie) and if Freya is in your squad, you can talk to him and convince him to return to Burmecia. From there, you can find certain items which will help rebuild it all. "We're nearly there with the [building], but we're running low on [specific material]. If you get some for us, we'd really appreciate it." Stuff like that. It could even tie into rebuilding Lindblum a little - Burmecian: "we're so close, but we need some more [material] to make better cement. Do you know where there is some?" Linblumian: "we have a little of that [material] but we need it all to rebuild the Business District. If we had [part] we could fix the [machine] and then we'd have plenty to spare." How good would that be?! The prize at the end of each is a previously inaccessible area, where you can fight a boss (maybe the Weapons?) which ultimately give you someone's ultimate weapon. Obviously Burmecia would give you Freya's.
You could also have a side quest for building a settlement for the Terrans. Maybe a run-down/abandoned town outside Ispen's Castle on the Forgotten Continent? You can provide suggestions on alterations to make, which would give you a specific item based on your choices. Maybe you can choose to build a weapon shop over an item shop, where you get an exclusive piece of armour/item. Beat a boss at the end of this and you get... something else. Maybe unlock a new area in Memoria with another optional boss?

I got a bit carried away there.

I'd definitely get rid of Amarant. He has absolutely no purpose in the game really, story wise or battle wise. I'd have much preferred if if you got Lana instead of him at that point.
 
I need a moment to take my rose coloured glasses off regarding FFIX, which was the first video game I ever truly got to grips with as a child so nostalgia is pretty powerful ;)

What would I change? Are we talking for a current generation version of the game, using the same engine as FFXV or if the game was being designed for the original hardware?

I have the most ideas for a current generation game taking advantage of the varied scenery and locations in the game (FFXV really had some amazing locations and FFIX would shine so much if some of their locations like Evil Forest, Oelivert, Ipsen's Castle, Lindblum, Burmecia, Terra et al) were able to get the Luminous Engine treatment.There are several scenes involving Airships which could easily be expanded upon - such as the Airship Fleet and the Red Rose, the game could easily be expanded and the chapter system could add so much more in terms of story without hopefully, ruining too much of the open world aspect. I would live a type of overlay for piloting the Airship - which we've not really seen since FFX but I'm sure it could be done, even if they need to present it as a Radar/Computer type screen to make sense.

I can literally go on for hours here but I'll stop.

As for if it was just the original, I'd want to maybe look at amending the Trance system so some of the abilities make more sense, Zidane's in particular are basically big hints to his Terran heritage as you see the Terran glyphs when he's using them but besides giving a lot of damage they don't really do much. I would like more thief/rogue/etc related abilities. I'd also fix the steal rate because that can get aggravating fast.

I'd like more background on Eidolons - while I liked Dr Tot's musings on it, the stuff in Maiden Sari is so easily missable late game, and Brahne/Kuja's ranting and raving about the power they wield is pretty empty. I would have also have liked the ability to use North Gate later in the game like Disc 3 to travel on foot between Alexandria and Burmecia, or to explore the cavern/etc inside/between the two nations. I'd like some background on the conflict the two nations had, and think we missed out on a lot of lore/interesting information regarding why Brahne tried to use "I heard they were plotting against us, and had to take action to defend ourselves" as an excuse -- what happened during that prior conflict, and why?

:censored::censored::censored:
 
The only thing that comes to mind for me for changing FF IX which is my 2nd fav FF game to date, only topped by 6 and closely in front of 12.
is the horrid Rope Jumping game. I played the original and just skipped it after a few tries. then I bought the remastered game on the PS4, and guess what.
1.000 Rope Jumps for a bronze trophy.

1st I'm a Trophy Hunter. Always aiming for platinum.
2nd I'm a Final Fantasy Completionist trying to 100% all games (managed 1 thru 10 and 10-2 so far. got sidetracked at 12.)
3rd. It's a FInal Fantasy Game with Trophies. so I had no choice but to get it done.

I tried like a 100 times, then gave up and went to google.
Here I found a guide to ace this.

U hook up a PS4 controller to the PC. install the program to press buttons on your controller at a certain interval. you login to remote play. connect your PS4 to your PC and then go to the jump rope. let the PC play the script. it sends its commands to the controller. which in turn sends it back to the PC thru remote play to your PS4.

Still not as simple as it sounds, because 1 u have to calculate the lag interval as well with trial and error.
turns out my old pc (have a new 1 now) wasn't fast enough on the connection so couldn't get it to work.
Had to resort to using my little brother's laptop.

to give you a general idea here's the link


This still gives me nightmares thinking about it, after several jumps the speed increases so that had to be calculated by the script aswell. I remember sitting on the edge of my seat every time it would get over 500. it failed several times until finally, I was able to get it to work.

So yeah this part I could have done without.

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Screenshot of my achievment.
 
As previous comments have already said, I would have liked a more populated map. There are very few cities and the continents are basically empty. I also would have liked to be able to decide when to activate the trance and an improvement in Quina's abilities.

I wish we could go deeper into the history of Terra and be able to explore the planet a little more since the areas you can visit don't tell you much about the planet.

Lastly, Beatrix would have to be a full-time member of the team.
 
Final Fantasy is to me, perfect in every way. The only thing I would add was more optional boss fights. In that area, even FF8 had more boss fights, mainly due to the number of GF.
 
I would like to have Beatrix as permanent party member during the final part of the game instead of Quina Quen (worst FF character).
 
My unrealistic wishlist:

- more optional bosses
- more (secret) locations
- Daguerreo included into the storyline
- the existence of Necron being slowly revealed through story
- Beatrix' redemption arc, and her becoming one of the main characters
- an option to save Kuja, and have him join our side
- Ozma sidequest where it is confirmed that he truly is an Eidolon, and after the fight with him we get to be able to summon him, both in his spherical, as well as never before seen original form
 
My knee jerk reaction was about to be how dare you, nothing



But i think the battle system could be abit faster it reminds me of 6 and how slow paced that was on the playatation port



I would also like more towns as well as someone else mentioned several years ago, there's a couple more vast continents that could have had more settlements, that said though the story was absolutely amazing so anything else may just feel like pointless filler

Also, im not here for all this Quina hate, Quina is amazing and i love themb

I must admit the lack of control over when you get to use trance is annoying but i suppose i can let that go

What i would have liked though was a new game plus option where you could carry over excalibur 2 - nothing else but the weapon. Maybe it be unequippable until a certain point/level or just equip from the get go as the reward for obtaining it. Just seemed abit pointless to skip half the game for the weapon to get right at the end
 
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