D
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I've tried really hard and have officially given up. I've put 20 hours into it and I've made it all the way to disc three but I just can't for the life of me finish this thing. So with that I'd like to go down the list of things that bugged the hell out of me with this game.
The customization is almost completely gone from 6, 7 and 8. In the other FF games I could customize a character to do whatever I wanted him/her to do, make them a healer, a tank, a weapon damage or a magic damage dealer or all of them at once if your good. They completely removed that, the characters in your party are assigned to do specific things and there is no changing it at all. This wouldn't be a bad thing if they gave us more characters with the option to swap them out but they don't even do that. Instead they force you to use a specific party because the characters that I actually want to use (Steiner and Freya) are completely removed from the party throughout most of disc 2 because the "story" demands it.
I don't even think the story is necessarily that great either, it's not complicated like FF8's story was, Vivi is a good character and the active time moments were cool but that's all I can think of. Steiner is very annoying from the beginning and slowly gets better but god it takes way too long for him to even be remotely interesting. Zidane is a generic "good guy" monkey thief kid that should've been aged up because he's portrayed as a womanizer at age 16. (he looks like a 12 year old btw) He's the weakest protagonist in the series and probably shouldn't have even been the protagonist, Vivi feels more like the main character in many ways. Garnet is very bland and somehow I think Rinoa has more depth and that is saying a lot because it's well known that the FF8 characters had very weak characterization. Freya is somewhat interesting but a bit generic, she has a tragic backstory about her lover that suffers from memory loss, sound familiar? I don't have much to say about every other character other than that they seem even more bland.
The limit break system or "trance" if you prefer, is completely broken and poorly thought out for reasons that should be extremely obvious to anyone who has played the game and on top of that the combat is incredibly slow, much slower than 7 and 8. It's clear this game is trying to be a homage to the old-guard FF games and that's cool, I'm into that but those games had a completely different flow to their battle systems. FF3, FF4 and FF6 (the only old-guard games I've played) have very fast paced combat at the cost of the characters barely animating. In FF7 and FF8 especially, they made the animations better at the cost of combat speed. This is where FF9 completely fails at being a homage to the old-guard because it carries over the worst elements of the new-guard and throws away the best elements. The combat speed is very slow, even when the battle speed setting is maxed out in the options. In my opinion, this game is almost a complete failure as a homage to the old-guard games, even the chibi "super deformed" art style looks bad, it worked better for the NES and SNES games.
I know, it's weird to be ranting about this on a Fallout forum and maybe I'm in the wrong place but I had to get this off my chest and this is the only forum I go to. So if there are any FF fans that feel the same way I do or if you disagree, let me know... And by the way just to make it clear, if you do enjoy this game, I have nothing against that and I'm glad you enjoy it. I hope none of my criticisms ruin your enjoyment of the game.
http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/guest-column-learning-about-life-and-death-from-a-/1100-5456/ This is a fantastic article from a fan of FF9 that almost brought me to tears, so if this game fits with you I'm glad, I'm just disappointed that I couldn't enjoy it.
The customization is almost completely gone from 6, 7 and 8. In the other FF games I could customize a character to do whatever I wanted him/her to do, make them a healer, a tank, a weapon damage or a magic damage dealer or all of them at once if your good. They completely removed that, the characters in your party are assigned to do specific things and there is no changing it at all. This wouldn't be a bad thing if they gave us more characters with the option to swap them out but they don't even do that. Instead they force you to use a specific party because the characters that I actually want to use (Steiner and Freya) are completely removed from the party throughout most of disc 2 because the "story" demands it.
I don't even think the story is necessarily that great either, it's not complicated like FF8's story was, Vivi is a good character and the active time moments were cool but that's all I can think of. Steiner is very annoying from the beginning and slowly gets better but god it takes way too long for him to even be remotely interesting. Zidane is a generic "good guy" monkey thief kid that should've been aged up because he's portrayed as a womanizer at age 16. (he looks like a 12 year old btw) He's the weakest protagonist in the series and probably shouldn't have even been the protagonist, Vivi feels more like the main character in many ways. Garnet is very bland and somehow I think Rinoa has more depth and that is saying a lot because it's well known that the FF8 characters had very weak characterization. Freya is somewhat interesting but a bit generic, she has a tragic backstory about her lover that suffers from memory loss, sound familiar? I don't have much to say about every other character other than that they seem even more bland.
The limit break system or "trance" if you prefer, is completely broken and poorly thought out for reasons that should be extremely obvious to anyone who has played the game and on top of that the combat is incredibly slow, much slower than 7 and 8. It's clear this game is trying to be a homage to the old-guard FF games and that's cool, I'm into that but those games had a completely different flow to their battle systems. FF3, FF4 and FF6 (the only old-guard games I've played) have very fast paced combat at the cost of the characters barely animating. In FF7 and FF8 especially, they made the animations better at the cost of combat speed. This is where FF9 completely fails at being a homage to the old-guard because it carries over the worst elements of the new-guard and throws away the best elements. The combat speed is very slow, even when the battle speed setting is maxed out in the options. In my opinion, this game is almost a complete failure as a homage to the old-guard games, even the chibi "super deformed" art style looks bad, it worked better for the NES and SNES games.
I know, it's weird to be ranting about this on a Fallout forum and maybe I'm in the wrong place but I had to get this off my chest and this is the only forum I go to. So if there are any FF fans that feel the same way I do or if you disagree, let me know... And by the way just to make it clear, if you do enjoy this game, I have nothing against that and I'm glad you enjoy it. I hope none of my criticisms ruin your enjoyment of the game.
http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/guest-column-learning-about-life-and-death-from-a-/1100-5456/ This is a fantastic article from a fan of FF9 that almost brought me to tears, so if this game fits with you I'm glad, I'm just disappointed that I couldn't enjoy it.
