Product Description

Brahne, the evil Queen of Alexandria, is using highly advanced magical weapons to terrorise neighbouring kingdoms. Players follow a group of bandits, knights and magicians as they try to foil her plans. The heroes quickly learn that her wicked doings are part of a much larger plot, and as they progress, they learn about the sinister motives of a powerful sorcerer named Kuja.

More than 30 million copies of the Final Fantasy franchise have been sold, making it one of the bestselling video-game series ever. This edition offers new characters and 3-D environments, plus a rich story line--one of the hallmarks of the series--as well as a new point-based spell-casting system and an item-based ability-learning system.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5441 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Atari
• Released on: 2001-02-16
• Platform: PlayStation
• Number of items: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
As with the other games in the series, Final Fantasy IX has the ability to grab your attention from the time you fire it up until the last boss is put down. Previous entries into the game's lineage took a more dramatic cinematic route to do what a role-playing game does best--tell a story. That style led to some complaints from headstrong fans and role-playing gamers alike. In response to this, while not sacrificing what new technology they've built into the series, SquareSoft has backtracked a bit. To put it simply, they've gone back to their roots.

But even players with no experience in this series can pick this up as a new game. Final Fantasy IX's story follows a group trying to stop Brahne, the evil Queen of Alexandria, in her quest to rule the world. Zidane, a skilled thief, teams with a young mage, a royal knight and a princess, who all soon discover that the queen's threats are fronting an even more sinister plot involving a powerful sorcerer named Kuja. It's your job to control the eight playable characters--each of whom begin the game with one weapon, one piece of armour and one special power--and to uncover Kuja's motives before he carries out his deadly plan.

The game's opening sequence sets the stage for what's to follow and, as we've come to expect from the CG wizards at SquareSoft, what is an utterly amazing visual scene. Long-time fans will revel in SquareSoft's decision to return to the disproportional-character look of the past.

Like VII and VIII, Final Fantasy IX uses the ATB (Active Time Battle) system. With each character learning the abilities and commands appropriate to his or her job class.

An Active Time Event (ATE) lets you see events that are happening elsewhere. For example, while you are controlling the main character in a town, you can view what the other characters are doing in another part of the same town. This function provides additional information and behind-the-scenes details about the story and the characters.

The game's visual splendour touches even the most ordinary scenes, such as shadows in the street alleys and the mazes of cobblestones. Final Fantasy IX's colour palette does a remarkable job in creating interest on every single object, location and person.

This will be SquareSoft's last venture on the PlayStation for the Final Fantasy Series, with its awesome graphics, a good story, and random battles that reveal curious bits about each character, Final Fantasy IX is an epic adventure that'll have long-time fans of the acclaimed series beaming with pride and joy. As for everyone else who has yet to experience the Fantasy, now is the time! --Stuart Miles

Customer Reviews

THIS GAME DOES'NT DESERVE 5 STARS - IT DESERVES 100 !!!!
This is a truly jaw dropping eye opening gob smacking belter of a game. You don't play FFIX, you get picked up whirled round the room and then sucked straight into the midst of a load of black mages in a medieval dream-like world with magnificent eidolons to summon, great palaces, flying airships and a young lad with a tail called Zidane Tribal. This was the second RPG game I had bought, the first Final Fantasy game. Before I had stuck to games like Spyro, Ape Escape, Tomb Raider and Jak and Daxter, but this was something totally new.

Following buying this, I was enjoying it so much I decided to buy FFVII, and I gradually acquired all of the games from FFIV to FFX. Although FFVII and FFX came close to FFIX, they aren't as good. In both of those two, there are a couple of good characters, as well as the magic of Square that is in all FF games. In FFVII there is Cloud, Cid and Sepiroth, who are really strong characters, and in FFX, they have used the formula again so they have all got quite individual characters, but the strongest are Wakka, Lulu, Auron and of course Tidus.

In FFIX, however, you can sympathise or like in a different way each of the characters - they all have very strong characters and attitudes.
You have -

Zidane, who is almost always cheerful and optimistic, and who falls in love with every lady he meets and does his best to cheer Garnet up.

Garnet, who is depressed a lot of the time, because her kingdom's been blown to bits and her mother killed, but she tries to be a good queen and put on a brave face.

Steiner, who is stuffy, old-fashioned and is utterly devoted to the princess, and although he doesn't like Zidane at first, comes to be more relaxed and like him more as time goes on.

Vivi, who you can't help being sorry for, as the little black mage doesn't know whether he exsists, and gets upset when hundreds of black mage dolls like him are found destroying places, working for the evil Kuja.

Quina, who is very strange and lives only to eat lots of tasty food from all round the world, and seems a bit of an annoyance to Zidane.

Freya, who is also upset (everyone is in FF games, because they've mainly got a dark past or something bad happens to them), because the love of her life went away, and when he finally returns he can't remember her at all.

Eiko, who (you've guessed it!) is also quite unhappy inside, but she puts on a bright face and is very bouncy and spirited. All her family is dead and she lives in the empty shell of a town called Madain Sari with her pet moogle and moogle friends. At six, she is the youngest character, two years younger than Vivi.

and finally;

Amarant, who is a loner, who fights first and asks questions later. He is rude and rough, and thinks he can handle things on his own. He rejects the idea of working in a group, but later softens a little, and co-operates with the others.

The graphics are simply stunning, the cut-scenes are breathtaking, and the emotions shown by the characters are so realistic, that the characters could well be live people if they were in modern dress. The in - game graphics aren't quite as good, but the backdrops are beautiful, and the characters move without glitches and smoothly.

The music score suits the game perfectly, the medieval music and Dagger's song suit the atmosphere, which is a relief as it would be awful to spoil an otherwise perfect game with bad tuneless music.

I have completed this game with all Chocobo treasures, defeated Master Quale, Ozma and Hades, uncovered the secret of the eidolons, delivered all Mognet letters, received Excalibur, known how to get Excalibur II (get to Disc 4 in under 12 hours - it is at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Invincible),found all 12 Stellacio coins, found Ultima Weapon, learnt to summon Ark ..... the list could go on and on - there is no end to the sub-quests in FFIX, as well as the main story there is always something you need to put on your "Stuff to be doing" list. I am sure that I have missed out loads of sub-quests, as some are complex and hidden, while some are presented to you to do.

Overall this is the best game I have ever played on any console and it will take any time up to 70 hours to complete if you try to do everything. The only two tiny flaws are a) the random encounters can be annoying after a while and b)when digging for Chocobo treasures it can be very tedious when you don't find any for ages. These flaws are tiny however, and the good points outweigh the bad so much that the scales tip over to the good side.

Anyone who doesn't own this game has my sympathy and deepest regrets, and anyone who doesn't like it should get their head checked because they have obviously either had their brain stolen or they are an escapee from a mental hospital.

My favourite! In my opinion the best!
When I saw Final Fantasy IX on the shelves, staring at me, its case twinkling in the lights of the multi-storey floor building, I just HAD to get it. I guarded it to make sure no one else would have it and when it reached my PlayStation console my dreams had come true.

Oh the emotion! Oh the story! Oh the heart wrenching brilliance! Being a fan of Final Fantasy this one, in my oppinion, is the benchmark. Simply wonderful. For its time it had the greatest graphics off all of the Final Fantasies as well as a beautiful musical score and outstanding storyline. The way the game evolves and grows throughout the course of the adventure is truly marvelous. This game, if you put your heart into it and please say you do, will probably take you about 70 hours including ALL of the side quests and mini games.

I have never gotten tired of this game and I have completed it over 5 times. That's about 350 hours of my life gone to one of the greatest experiences I've ever encountered. I truly believe, though Final Fantasy VII is named the greatest RPG of all time, that this is emotionally, lovingly and heart fulfillingly better.

With the upgrowing commotion of Final Fantasy XII this must be played before its memory is forgotten. I believe that you should place your copy of Final Fantasy VII aside for just a little bit to experience the true accomplicity of what Final Fantasy IX has to give.

Nothing like it!
As far as I'm concerned, the Video Game Industry can just stop now and continually pay homage to the Demi-gods who have created Final Fantasy IX. It has a similar, incredibly thrilling, battle mode to VII, and THE most beautiful CG cinemas to date. The charcters have more depth than those of any other game in the series. Zidane, the main character, doesn't fit the stereotypical butt-head warrior that has been the mold for years. In lieu of this, he's a wonlderful HERO. Before playing this game, I thought that VII was the number of completion, and I couldn't imagine anything this glorious, but I was so wrong.
It pulls many themes from the EARLY final fantasies, such as Black Mages, White Mages, Summoners, and so forth. It even has "Garland" as a main villan.
Given, the plot isn't as dense as that of VII's, but I found it to be a much stronger story. Let me warn you though, the ending is NOTHING like the ending of VII. VII's ending is "cool," but IX's ending is gorgeous. It's truly touching. You can actually feel the characters in a way that has never been presented before. Every time Vivi speaks, it's heart-breaking.
And the score, Nan Doss, the score! I'm really not worthy to give it any praise.
The main villan, Kuja, doesn't have anything approaching the horriffic attributes of Sephiroth. In fact, he seems more like the supreme lord of androgenous egoists, but one definately hates him more than Sephiroth.
Well, I don't think any more of my mindless dribble could affect the way you view this game, but know this: It is easily the best video game I've ever played.