FFIX is one that slipped me by during my youth - I'd yet to truly fall in love with the franchise at the time. When revisiting earlier titles, I didn't find the character designs too appealing compared to its other PS1 counterparts at the time. While it was still a fan-favourite then, it held nowhere near the kind of reputation that FFVII does.
Taking much more inspiration from the roots of the series as a sort of last-hoorah before the series forged full ahead with the more sci-fi-inspired beats that VII & VIII brought to the table, IX maintains an almost comfy & Disney-esque feel to it throughout the grand 4-disk adventure. Every character is goofy yet charming and offers some of the series's best character growth and arcs.
In terms of gameplay, it offers a decent amount of strategy, and while not overly complicated or particularly engaging to any degree, it's certainly not as easily breakable as some of the earlier titles and offers a bit more variety. The story is surprisingly well-paced, although the constant flittering between open-world and rail-roaded segments during the first half of the game would make the more linear segments feel much more cumbersome than they should have at the time. Visually, it's impressively astounding for a PS1-era game - although, take that claim with a grain of salt, as I was using the Moguri mod to spruce things up a little. While I regret leaving it so long, I'm delighted to have experienced this game eventually.
Taking much more inspiration from the roots of the series as a sort of last-hoorah before the series forged full ahead with the more sci-fi-inspired beats that VII & VIII brought to the table, IX maintains an almost comfy & Disney-esque feel to it throughout the grand 4-disk adventure. Every character is goofy yet charming and offers some of the series's best character growth and arcs.
In terms of gameplay, it offers a decent amount of strategy, and while not overly complicated or particularly engaging to any degree, it's certainly not as easily breakable as some of the earlier titles and offers a bit more variety. The story is surprisingly well-paced, although the constant flittering between open-world and rail-roaded segments during the first half of the game would make the more linear segments feel much more cumbersome than they should have at the time. Visually, it's impressively astounding for a PS1-era game - although, take that claim with a grain of salt, as I was using the Moguri mod to spruce things up a little. While I regret leaving it so long, I'm delighted to have experienced this game eventually.