I did not have a great time playing Final Fantasy VIII last year, but that did very little to temper my expectations of the next game in the series. I had a feeling that Final Fantasy IX would be a more enjoyable experience.
I was right.
Final Fantasy IX is the last of a trio of games to be released on the PlayStation. Incidentally, it is the last of the mainline Final Fantasy games that I hadn’t played (until the recent release of Final Fantasy XVI).
Rather than trying to innovate in the Japanese RPG genre, FF9 is a game that pays homage its legacy. For someone like me, the game felt immediately familiar. It was a new adventure in a mode that I’d spent countless hours with across dozens of other games. It made for a perfect experience for my current season of life.
This might be a bit of oversharing, but my family has recently been licensed for foster care. We got our first placement probably around the time that I started playing FF9 on my brand new Steam Deck. The paradigm of our living arrangement drastically shifted in a matter of hours: they called is in the morning, and we had a child in our home that evening. We weren’t ready. There was no way we could have been completely ready.
After getting the kids to bed each night, I’d collapse on the couch and fall into FF9 for an hour before sleep would take me.
Even though I tent to prefer nuanced stories, the world of FF9 is comforting in its simplicity. Everyone sorts themselves clearly into the categories of good and evil. Even after all the sorting has been done, the game seems quite willing to forgive the major baddies for their sins. This unflinching optimism feels medicinal to me after a long day.
Ranking Final Fantasy IX is difficult. It’s good enough to warrant being in my top 50, but beyond that is the rarified air of the video games that are either undeniably excellent or deeply nostalgic. I’ve managed to place the game, but it has shaken some things loose from my current ranking (We Love Katamari fell out of my top 50 😭).
I’ve tentatively ranked it 38 out of 260.
(Special commendation goes to the Moguri mod, which makes this game imminently playable even today… while we wait for the rumored Final Fantasy IX remaster.)
Medium Quality 