Final Fantasy IX just hit PC this week.

[Odbarc]

FF9 is probably the last great Final Fantasy game in my opinion. It has the medieval themed non-technological kind. That 'gem' system to set your immunities and other passive abilities you learn off your weapons is great. The story is pretty good.

I kind of hate the design of a lot of the characters. Steiner almost makes the great but his character and that hat and mascara aren't good. Vivi is good. Compelling. I like Quina. Long stupid tongue. Um, the rat/kangaroo Dragoon lady I don't like her design either.
But it's a lot of fun. Challenging at times too. The Chocobo mini game side quest is a lot of fun. I hate the card game.
Recommendable all the same.

 

[Xerosch]

The port is really well done. I've tried playing the PS1 version on an emulator (don't worry, I own every FF game in multiple versions) just because I wanted to see the very detailed character models at a higher resolution. The port still uses the blurry backgrounds but I'm finally able to see the high resolution models and battle arenas.

In fact, Squareenix didn't change the overall experience but added little details that make the whole game so much better. Skip the fly by camera in random battles, very sharp movies, optional cheats if you play for the story and a high res font. For a remaster this is a very, very good one.

And let's be honest. Final Fantasy is best when it uses strategy based battles. Making the gameplay action oriented feels just wrong.

Now I would absolutely LOVE to see the same treamtent done to Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, Chrono Cross and Xenogears.

 

[Hades]

Okay this may be a silly question but...how do you flee from battle? I never see the option in the battle menu to do so.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Okay this may be a silly question but...how do you flee from battle? I never see the option in the battle menu to do so.

Either have Zidane use the flee skill or you hold l1 and r1 on a controller. Not sure about keyboard controls, but presumably it's whatever takes the place of l1 and r1.

 

[linwolf]

Really like it, it's a good port that does very little wrong and have more than a few improvement. Had 2 crashed but since the game autosaves at every area it didn't feel to bad. Also if you hit f1 the game speeds greatly up, used this to skip battlestarts.

 

[Hades]

Okay this may be a silly question but...how do you flee from battle? I never see the option in the battle menu to do so.

Either have Zidane use the flee skill or you hold l1 and r1 on a controller. Not sure about keyboard controls, but presumably it's whatever takes the place of l1 and r1.

Well..Zidane doesn't really have the flee skill. He does ''flee-gill' but that's just saving money when fleeing..which he can't.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Okay this may be a silly question but...how do you flee from battle? I never see the option in the battle menu to do so.

Either have Zidane use the flee skill or you hold l1 and r1 on a controller. Not sure about keyboard controls, but presumably it's whatever takes the place of l1 and r1.

Well..Zidane doesn't really have the flee skill. He does ''flee-gill' but that's just saving money when fleeing..which he can't.

You have to learn flee from a weapon (though I thought the starting weapon had it?).

 

[Hades]

Okay this may be a silly question but...how do you flee from battle? I never see the option in the battle menu to do so.

Either have Zidane use the flee skill or you hold l1 and r1 on a controller. Not sure about keyboard controls, but presumably it's whatever takes the place of l1 and r1.

Well..Zidane doesn't really have the flee skill. He does ''flee-gill' but that's just saving money when fleeing..which he can't.

You have to learn flee from a weapon (though I thought the starting weapon had it?).

It did but I sold it before I knew it taught me that.

 

[loa]

The boosters are an excellent addition, particularly the fast forward and no encounter ones, meaning you can grind easily and quickly and turn off encounters in those particularly arduous dungeons.

Oh wow, they did a bravely default?
That's really neat.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Okay this may be a silly question but...how do you flee from battle? I never see the option in the battle menu to do so.

Either have Zidane use the flee skill or you hold l1 and r1 on a controller. Not sure about keyboard controls, but presumably it's whatever takes the place of l1 and r1.

Well..Zidane doesn't really have the flee skill. He does ''flee-gill' but that's just saving money when fleeing..which he can't.

It did but I sold it before I knew it taught me that.

You have to learn flee from a weapon (though I thought the starting weapon had it?).

In any case, you can still hold L1 and R1 (or Lb and Rb if you're using a 360 controller) to run away from a fight.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The boosters are an excellent addition, particularly the fast forward and no encounter ones, meaning you can grind easily and quickly and turn off encounters in those particularly arduous dungeons.

Oh wow, they did a bravely default?
That's really neat.

I think Bravely Default did an FFVII re-release. They've been doing this with their PC ports since they re-released FFVII a few years back.

 

[Raddra]

I played it a bit. The graphics are a serious improvement and I was impressed. This was probably the game they wanted us to play back then but couldn't due to console limitations of the time.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Just finished it. The FMVs are of course not scaled up (I wouldn't expect them to be). It's okay except for the big climactic action cutscene at the end. The mosaic of moving low def FMV with hi-poly models is noticeably jarring.

 

[Dalisclock]

I played it a bit. The graphics are a serious improvement and I was impressed. This was probably the game they wanted us to play back then but couldn't due to console limitations of the time.

Technically, at least. Unfortunately, there's still the nagging issues of certain characters being underdeveloped or, in one case in particular, having her whole character arc cut short at the worst moment.

And then there's the issue with Necron, who feels like he should have had some kind of explanation who it is and why you are fighting it, but instead the game just goes "Oh, you thought that fight which effectively completed the story was the last battle? Well, here's something weird and big to fight! Have fun". I know this kind of thing happens in this series but that doesn't make it better.

 

[infohippie]

I've never played any Final Fantasy, mostly due to them being primarily on consoles. Is IX good? I might think about getting it, I have wanted to try out the series for a long time now. Does anyone know if the PC version has decent controls? If you have to use a controller, I'm out before I even start.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I've never played any Final Fantasy, mostly due to them being primarily on consoles. Is IX good? I might think about getting it, I have wanted to try out the series for a long time now. Does anyone know if the PC version has decent controls? If you have to use a controller, I'm out before I even start.

Most people will say that Final Fantasy IX is one of the last good Final Fantasy games (perhaps the last depending on how they feel about Final Fantasy X's characters and story). Personally I maintain that it is, by far, the best story of any Final Fantasy game; and that FFX has the best battle system (although the best 'complete package' is Final Fantasy IV).

I very rarely hear anyone saying much bad about IX and I couldn't recommend it enough for someone who is interesting in playing a Final Fantasy but doesn't know which to start with. Its a good example of what to expect from every traditional-styled Final Fantasy.

As for the PC controls...can't help there. I have it but I've not played it yet. Though in fairness I'll probably use my XBox controller for PC anyway. >_>

 

[EvilRoy]

I've never played any Final Fantasy, mostly due to them being primarily on consoles. Is IX good? I might think about getting it, I have wanted to try out the series for a long time now. Does anyone know if the PC version has decent controls? If you have to use a controller, I'm out before I even start.

I enjoyed it a lot, although it does have something of a pacing issue. Starts fairly interesting, goes into a slog for a little bit, gets interesting again, sloooog, then you get into the game proper and its pretty good from there on out. The minigames are decently fun which is always a plus, even if I never cared for the card games. It does do a fixed camera in towns that can make navigation a pain at times but you don't spend the majority of the game in town anyway.

The major complaint people have mentioned to me is the art style. It is different. They employ caricatures in some cases but not in others, so you have a mix of bizarre exaggerated people right beside fairly mundane people right beside extremely anime people. A secondary complaint is party balance - I may as well warn you now, if you choose three people to get all the levels and do all the fighting you will fuck yourself at certain points of the game. They do mandatory party splits and if you have three people who kick ass and three people who suck it then you will have a hard time even with distributing your good characters. At times you will also just temporarily lose characters for stretches, so that is a danger too.

 

[Dalisclock]

IX, IMHO, is basically the last and best game in the Final Fantasy series. It combines the asethic and feel of (most of) the games up until that point(VIII was kind of a weirdo here, having more in common with X then the games that came before and after it) with improvements to the game engine and battle system that the series had been using for a while. It even feels like the game was designed as a goodbye to fans of the series up until that point, especially the end sequence.

While I realize there's FF X and games after that, none of them really feel like they're part of the same series as IX and previous games were, but some other series using the name and pretending to be related. At least not to me. I'm sure others disagree.

That's not to say it's perfect. The game has several character arcs just kind of stop(one in particular I've already mentioned) and there are some elements to the plot that aren't really explained. The PS version had several technical flaws(long load times for battles, Trace being unpredictable, the whole blue magic system), which I've been told have been fixed in the PC version. The character designs may or may not be your cup of tea(though are more in line with the classic games then the newer ones). While the game is generally easier then some of the others in the series, being forced to use certain parties for a good chunk of the game(and at one point being "tricked" into screwing yourself over with your party selection) can make things a lot more difficult and force more grinding then should be required.

Still, It feels like it's a great game to start the series off with if you've never played any of the games before. Especially if you're into high fantasy with a bit of steampunk thrown in.