One of the most charming and solid JRPGs I've ever played. FFIX has a fantastic story with great themes and tone, all reminiscent of a Shakespearean play. The music is amazing and the graphics hold up surprisingly well, mostly because of its art style, specially the cutscenes that look straight out of a 90s computer animated movie. The gameplay is pretty solid, it doesn't bring anything new to the table but everything here is pretty good (except for the speed of battles and that freaking card game, but hey they're pretty minor things). But the real meat and bones of this game are the characters. Zidane is a pretty charming and fun main character, Garnet and Steiner have compelling character arcs, Eiko is really cute and Kuja is a pretty complex main villain. One with missed potential is Freya, whose development completely stops after the first half of the game, and there are some that straight up suck like Amarant and Quina (even if they have some cool designs), but all is forgiven by the inclusion of Vivi. Everyone has sung their praises for this character, so I'll just say that he's a ray of sunshine and he has got one of the best character arcs in gaming history. So yeah, FFIX may not be my favorite Final Fantasy game, but I believe it is the best one to start and that it encapsulates everything that made this saga so great.