Product Description

Queen Brahne of Alexandira has begun using highly-advanced magical weapons to terrorise neighbouring kingdoms. Her daighter, Princess Garnet, runs away from the castle and befriends a group of good-hearted bandits lead by a skilled thief, Zidane, who intends to end the evil queen's desire to dominate the world. Soon after embarking on their quest, they discover that the queen's threats merely cover a far more sinister plot. For the sake of mankind, Zidane and his friends must put an end to the Queen's reign before she and the evil forces that accompany her can carry out the deadly plan. Play with eight unique characters that use a variety of weapons, magic and abilities. Step into a magical world with superbly detailed pre-rendered environments. Almost one hour of seamlessly integrated full motion videos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4189 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Atari
• Released on: 2001-12-07
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: PlayStation

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

Manufacturer's Description
Queen Brahne of Alexandria has begun using highly-advanced magical weapons to terrorise neighbouring kingdoms. Her daughter, Princess Garnet, runs away from the castle and befriends a group of good-hearted bandits lead by a skilled thief, Zidane, who intends to end the evil queen's desire to dominate the world.

Customer Reviews

Quite easily the best FF game out there =0)
Before I even get going, I am going to point out that yes, I am biased towards this game over FFVII, for reasons that I will explain later. However, to a certain extent, everyone who writes reviews will be biased for whatever reason, and so I feel no guilt in promoting this FF over VII.

This game captures some of the old FF magic that the newer games appear to have lost. Alright, the progression onto PS2 with FFX was okay. The graphics were stunning, the music far superior in many respects, and (of course) the fact that all speech is actually heard as well as portrayed on the screen was a major bonus. On the other hand, a little bit of the magic was lost for me then, which was further exacerbated with the complete disaster of X-II.

And then we go the other way. FFVII was, there is no doubt about it, a fantastic game. It was the first of its time, and the first 3D FF game, with all new materia and characters. While many think that this is a bonus, it could also be seen the other way - that square used FFVII a bit to find their feet for the ones to follow. I never really got into the materia system like I did for the system in IX. Similarly, in FFVIII, I was annoyed by the complexity of the guardian forces (although I now see this is a work of genius). But enough about the other games - FFIX.

It was the first FF game I ever played, which does partly account for the biased nature of my review. However, there are other reasons too. It is probably one of the easiest FF games to get to grips with, and while it's not too easy, it is definitely much easier in many parts than the other major FF titles. The method of equipping armour and learning abilities appealed to me, and certainly makes for a more complete and rounded abilities system; once you've learned an abilty, it's there forever. I also quite liked what some other reviwers didn't: that the characters were all varied and from different walks of life, although Vivi was (and still remains) my clear favourite. The card game is brilliant fun too, if slightly annoying, as are the mognet and chocobo sidequests. The music is, as far as the first few FF games go, inventive and catchy too.

Remembering that the game was released many eons ago on the original PS, the graphics are amazing, with some absolutely STUNNING cinematic sequences; it is seriously almost worth playing the game just to watch them. Contrary to many viewers' opinions too, I didn't find the game to be too short. Not that I've ever tried it, but it is possible to get 80% of the way through in 12 hours (in a possible "sidequest", but I won't spoil it for you), although in no way do you experience the game as a whole. Going and doing the entire game, sidequests, abilities et al took me well over 100 hours, although admittedly I do like to wander around, redoing bits I've already done. I could go on about the game forever, but for the sake of your sanity, I'll stop.

As a final point though: don't get me wrong, I do love the other FF games, but this is the only one I have repeatedly played, over, and over again. If you have yet to experience the Final Fantasy magic, I would recommend starting with this title, as it is easier to get to grips with than its predecessors =0)

Final Fantasy 9 out of 10
Many Final Fantasy fans, after playing FF7, found the 8th instalment to be disappointing compared to the series' previous incarnation. Luckily for us, FF9 is a treat to play, from the graphics to the story, and the incredible hour (well, almost) of full motion video in the game. The character development, although a bit on the sparse side for some characters, is usually very good, and the truth behind the main character Zidane's tail (which is cleverly kept inconspicuous) isn't revealed until about three-quarters of the way through, and it comes as a great surprise to find out just where he came from! Also, for die-hard FF fans, there are lots of references to previous Final Fantasies, such as Cloud Strife's sword, from FF7, on a shop wall. The ability system, using different equipment to learn new abilities for each character, and having two sets of abilities, magic/skills that are used in battle for MP, and support abilities that, for example, grant immunity to status attacks, that have to be equipped with a certain number of points known as Magic Stones, is another new ability system to the series, and works incredibly well. Each character is completely unique in his or her abilities, for example a black mage that can only cast damaging magic, and two white mages that can cast varying degrees of healing magic, make for careful battle strategies and party seletion. The addition of a 'magic-free' zone adds to this element, especially as there is a boss battle to fight in this area. The storyline of a princess being kidnapped, turning into a quest to save the world, isn't new, but then where would any RPG be without saving the world? Also, there are many sub-games in the world, including a skipping game for Vivi, the little black mage, and of course a new chocobo system (for those that don't know, a chocobo is a large bird that you can ride on the world map) that involves digging treasures around the world to gain items. The new card game is, in my opinion, easier to play than Final Fantasy 8's card game, the rules are slightly simpler, and there's no annoying random rule to mess up your hand! But there's one main problem I have with this game, it's way too short compared to the last two. To complete Final Fantasy 7 within 24 hours was considered legendary, in this game there's a weapon you can only get by almost completing it withing 12 hours, which isnt that hard if you dont read much of the storyline and skip the ATEs (Active Time Events, things that are happening with other members of the party at that moment). So overall, I give this 5 stars, but 9 out of 10 if I could.

Almost flawless
For me,Final Fantasy 9 is one of the very best games of all time-in fact it is probably one of the ten best games i have ever played- in amongst the likes of Final Fantasy 7,Halo 2,Shenmue,Goldeneye ,Sonic 2,Super Mario 64,Morrowind,Broken Sword 2 & Resident Evil 4.
Yes,it is that good.It has the one of the best battle/level-up systems on a Final Fantasy,(beating FF8 on that Score)one of the very best storylines and scripts (you actually CARE about your characters) and a brilliant ending that you feel actually warrants making the effort to complete it.