The many races of FFIX

[Dionysos]

One of the first things I noticed with FFIX was that is had LOADS of bizzare races of human-like talking creatures.

I'm not just talking about the named races such as moogles, burmecian/cleyran, qu, black mages, genomes etc. I'm talking about the many (as far as I know, correct me if I am wrong) unnamed races that just exist without really being given a significant part of the plot.

I'm talking about the animal-human races that wandered about he streets of Alexandria, Treno, Lindblum and countless other places.

Hippaul and Hippolady of the hippo people.

The weird beaked bird man with the trumpet in Alexandria and (I think) Treno.

The Nero brothers of Tantalus.

Bear beaver people like Baku.

The yak-men in the orchestra (again, memory here, not sure if this is actually where they were but I believed they played cymbals or something).

And so on...


They appeared everywhere, just walking about. Just as common, or sometimes even more common as the humans were.

I think FFIX pretty much has the largest number of races than any other FF game. FF12 had a lot of named races, but not so many random ones. FFIX has plenty of main named races as well as plenty bizzare, unimportant, but interesting to look at other races.


Anyway, point of thread etc...

Did you like the amount of weird races they added to this game?

Was it nice to see hippos walking the streets and talking to humans and the like?

Or did you feel it was a bit too farfetched, and perhaps you groaned a little and wished they hadn't gone too far into fantasy in that way?


If you did like them, what race was your favourite?




Me, I enjoyed them. I thought it was pretty interesting seeing that many races walking about for once, rather than just seeing human characters all the time. The only FF games I had played previously were FF7 and FF8 which pretty much consisted mainly of humans, so seeing this mix in FFIX really felt like a breath of fresh air in this respect, and I felt it created a pretty fun environment.


Thoughts?

 

[Khadaj]

Well...I liked that there were a variety of races, but the fact that they were unnamed and unplayable kind of bugged me a tad.

I have a similar complaint of FFXII...all humans in the party except for one Viera. I would have loved a Moogle. That would have been badass.

 

[Dionysos]

Well...I liked that there were a variety of races, but the fact that they were unnamed and unplayable kind of bugged me a tad.

I have a similar complaint of FFXII...all humans in the party except for one Viera. I would have loved a Moogle. That would have been badass.

True, but FFIX actually gave us quite a selection of races within the party. In fact very few are actually human.

Zidane = Genome.
Garnet = Summoner (in this game it could be counted as its own race).
Eiko = Summoner.
Vivi = Black Mage.
Quina = Qu.
Freya = Burmecian / cleyran.
Amarant = God knows... He was blue and bulkier than most humans, so he was some sort of unnamed race I think.
Steiner = The games only true human main playable character.

Out of the temporary playable characters...
Cinna = WTF.
Marcus = Goblin type man.
Blank = Human? Perhaps... But he has like patches on his skin etc and looks really weird as well, but I take it he might be human.
Beatrix = Another human.


Anyway, what I am getting at is that it is an odd game in that humans actually seem to appear less than in most other FF games, and we have all sorts of either named races or races with no name or background given that fill the world.

 

[DarkClaymore]

I think it is kind of the Star Wars thing. There you have the same things.
Both humans and many other strange unnamed human-like people walking on the same street. It seems as humans are just another one of those races, even though the main characters are mainly humans.

It was nice in my opinion. Some of them were quite funny.
But I think that there wasn't really much effort put into creating those races. For example the hippo is just a human+hippopotamus thing (that is why he is called hippo ). So they are just animals which became more human like. Maybe it is the effect of the Mist or something, turning some animals into humanoid people or something.

So I can't say which I really like the most, but the idea itself was quite nice and I like when humans aren't the "main" race.

 

[Totoro]

I think it's nice to have a break from an all human cast, (Mainly VII and VIII). IX was very diverse, controlling at least 4 different races, (I'm assuming Amarant is just a massive human! )

And again in XII but I thought they would have explored some of the inter-race concepts a little more, but the game was massive so perhaps thats asking too much!

So yeah, it's good to mix it up every now and then.

 

[HighwindPilot]

I don't think the races ever really bothered me.

It's weird, because when I was younger, I think I was just like, "Yeah, Hippo people, Bird people, alright", and just kind of went along with it as though they were natural. It's FF after all.

Even looking at them now, their presence don't bother me. I mean, Mr. and Mrs. Hippo aren't the most attractive couple in the bunch, but they aren't really bothersome either.

I think the intent for the wide variety of races was to present a heavy cultural clash in the game. It may have been meant to make the world of IX to seem especially massive, by way of so many different kind of species. That's certainly the feel I received from it.

Perhaps the biggest negative to it, is because this was probably a contributing factor to the perspective that the game itself was "cartoony".

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Amarant = God knows... He was blue and bulkier than most humans, so he was some sort of unnamed race I think.

I'm pretty sure Amarant is human. Both he and Brahne (who I'm surprised wasn't mentioned =p), if I'm not mistaken, are both considered to be blue-skinned humans.

In the concept art for Amarant, he looks exactly as he does in IX, but with "normal" colored skin. This implies that he was merely shaded blue in finalization, but he remained as he was in everything but color.

Blank = Human? Perhaps... But he has like patches on his skin etc and looks really weird as well, but I take it he might be human.

Blank is definitely a human. If you look closely at the patches on his skin, the concept art for his character, and the CG-rendering of his character - you can see what appear to be cross stitchings where the patches are. It almost appears to be some sort of cloth (supported by the location of each: his torso, above a leg, above both gloves, and his eye), but whatever the case, it's definitely some kind of "work done", as oppose to a genetic kind of thing. I suppose it's the game's spin on an FF, "new aged" pirate look.

 

[Freyaa']

I like the range of diffrent races, even if they are just wanders, what id didnt like is when you have a party of diffrent races, and everyone else you find ar humans?? they will just think you are a freak

 

[HighwindPilot]

To be fair, FFIX kind of had the most rag tag group of champions anyway. Thus, I think they'd get those looks either way.

 

[Volbia]

it was a bit strange but it didn't become all that big of a deal to me.

and personally i didn't think they had a ragtag bunch of champions.

 

[Light's Warrior]

The Four Armed Man was the best.
He was stocked with Airship Cards.
(I dont really know if you'd consider him a different race...but whatever)

 

[Exire]

I think its the sheer amount of different races that make IX so different and unique. It might be because of all the strange looking characters that a lot of the 'mainstream' people who played FFIX didn't like it as much. It was meant as sort of a return to earlier FF's. It definitely wasn't as appealing as VII, VIII, or X were to gamers in general. But its still one of my favorite FF's anyway.

A random note. The Nero brothers look a LOT like this black enemy with round snouts like a bugle in Super Mario RPG for the SNES. I don't have an image to compare it to, but I remember it clearly and they both look very close. Not sure if anyone else has played that game or would remember something like that though.

The hippo people scared me a bit, but I think FFIX had more culture in the game through all of its unnamed races than even FFXII had. Though obviously FFXII displayed the 'culture' as a whole a lot better. I thought it was really unique, mysterious, and strange that you didn't know even half of the races. They were just...there and themselves. Along with the story being fairly light hearted in comparison to most of the other FF's, it made for a very enjoyable experience.

 

[Lemon]

Have to admit that the Burmecian Knights and the Black Mages were pretty awesome..
It took a while to get used to it all and the shock of Hippo people and Beaver people..
and reckon that after a couple of CD's of playing, it grows on you ? You get used to it.
But some were just plain strange for some strange reason couldn't handle bug Cid..
Maybe because was so used to a old aged rough talking smoking pilot guy..

But really enjoyed how the Blacks Mages had more of a part within this game and not just a mysterious figure in your battle party, and you also got to know more about their race and their culture and even their emotions and even views on life and death..

Didn't mind the new races after around about the middle of CD 3.. but does anybody know what Cinna is supposed to be ? ... Is still lost on trying to work out what animal. creature he is originally meant to be..

 

[Valkyrur]

I didn't exactly care so much about the many races in the game. Actually, I merely saw them as one and the same- just normal humans, thanks to their humanoid statures. Furthermore, it's not like their races were stereotyped in any manner, so, all the more I didn't pay the differences any heed.

 

[Oliver Queen]

I liked all the different races. I liked how they went away from the old style of just humans in the group, and pretty much the whole game. My favorite races are the black mage and the burmecians/cleyrans.

 

[Azkera]

Certainly added to the visual aspect of the game but I did wish their backgrounds were a little better backed-up or at least have more of them in the game. Like a village of hippo folk like Hippaul so you sorta think "Aaaah, so that's where his parents came from" or at least a racial name. I did like the variation of named races to like the Bermecians and the Qus.

 

[Sir Fratley]

I love the wide variety of races. It kind of detracts my interests if it's all one race, like ff7 (though you did have Red XIII which was a relief. And no Cait Sith doesn't count because it was a human-controlled robot). I loved the Burmecians. The Black Mages were also cool. Not sure what the heck the Queen was or Zorn & Thorn. The Qu's were...interesting, though it would have been nice to give them genders or simply call them genderless.