Final Fantasy IX

Final Fantasy IX
Studio	Square
Publisher	Square Square Infogrames
Erstveröffent- lichung	PlayStation: July 7, 2000 November 13, 2000 February 16, 2001 PSN: May 20, 2010 June 15, 2010 May 26, 2010 iOS , Android February 10, 2016 Microsoft Windows April 14, 2016 PlayStation 4 September 19, 2017 Xbox One, Nintendo Switch February 13, 2019
platform	PlayStation , PSN , Xbox One , Nintendo Switch , Windows , iOS , iPadOS , Android
genre	role playing game
Subject	Fantasy
Game mode	Single player
control	Gamepad
medium	4x CD
language	German , Japanese , English
Age rating	USK PEGI
PEGI content rating
information	The planned PC version was canceled shortly before publication.

Final Fantasy IX (OT: Japanese フ ァ イ ナ ル フ ァ ン タ ジ ー IX , Fainaru Fantajī IX ) is the ninth part of the video game series Final Fantasy . The game was released in Japan on July 7, 2000 . Releases in the USA and Europe followed in November of the same year and on February 16, 2001, respectively.

Final Fantasy IX was initially released exclusively for the PlayStation . The originally announced PC version was discarded in the course of development. Since May 20, 2010, the game has also been available in the Japanese Playstation Network Store for 1500 yen (about € 12.70). It later appeared in the European and US stores. In February 2016, a revised mobile version of the game for iOS and Android devices was released. After almost 16 years, a graphically revised version for the PC was released on April 14, 2016. On the occasion of the Tokyo Game Show 2017, Sony announced an implementation for the PlayStation 4 . This was released on September 19, 2017. In February 2019, Final Fantasy IX was first released for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch .

General

FF IX has the motto "Back to the roots"; especially the earliest parts of the series served FF IX as inspiration and were essential influences in the design of the characters and the game world, but also the entire game system.

As part of the return to "old values" of the series, a fight party again contains four characters, which was last the case in Final Fantasy VI . The occupational system last used in FF V also experienced a renaissance in a certain way, even if every character has a permanent job that cannot be influenced by the player. With this job, each character has certain special skills that he can use in battle. For example, the main character Zidane is a thief, while Princess Garnet is a white mage or Vivi is a black mage.

As an homage to the classic robe of the white magician, a white robe with red accents, Princess Garnet wears a suitably patterned robe when she escapes / abducts from the palace. The other characters are also largely similar to the classic depictions of their respective occupations from the previous parts.

action

The story has its starting point in Alexandria, capital of the kingdom of the same name. The group of thieves Tantalus has received the order to gain access to the royal castle and kidnap Crown Princess Garnet. Contrary to the expectations of the Tantalus, the princess does not offer any resistance to her kidnapping, but rather escapes voluntarily from the castle. The princess has had the feeling for a long time that something is wrong with her stepmother, the queen. The main character of the game is Zidane Tribal, whose unmistakable characteristics include his ape-like tail and his loose mouth. Zidane is a member of the Tantalus and was raised by their leader Bark. The kidnapping was commissioned by Cid Fabel, Grand Duke of the neighboring state of Lindblum. The Grand Duke also saw the change in Branes and suspects warlike intentions behind her actions.

These assumptions turn out to be true to Garnet's regret. With highly developed magical weapons, Brane succeeds in destroying the capitals of their neighboring states and thus subjugating the entire continent. These weapons are supplied by the antagonist Kuja. The troops around Zidane and Garnet therefore decide to leave the continent in order to locate Kuja. They find the source of Kuja's weapons in the tree Iifars , but get caught up in a battle between Kuja and Brane, who, drunk with power, only thinks their allies are between themselves and world domination. Kuja planned this from the beginning and brings the bestia Bahamut summoned by Brane under his control in order to turn the fight in his favor. Brane is found dying by the troops, where she apologizes to Princess Garnet in deep remorse for her terrible deeds.

After Brane's death, peace initially seems to have returned. Princess Garnet is to be crowned queen while the cities ravaged by Brane are rebuilt, but Kuja surprisingly attacks Alexandria with the stolen beast. When Garnet summons the bestia Alexander to defend the city , Kuja believes he has reached the goal of his plan and tries to usurp control over this bestia. To his surprise, an old man named Garlant appears and destroys Alexandria along with the Bestia, fearing Kuja might become too powerful.

The troops decide to put an end to Kuja once and for all and chase him all over the world. They find out that Kuja was originally from another planet called Terra . Through a portal they get to Terra, where Garlant gives them information about the true background: The civilization of Terra tried thousands of years ago to prevent their own death by assimilating the game world Gaia . This failed for the time being, which is why Garlant was commissioned to rob the world of Gaia of its souls with the help of the tree Iifars. Kuja was artificially created by Garlant and sent to Gaia to speed up this process through the outbreak of war and destruction. For his disobedience, however, Kuja was banished and since then has been looking for limitless power in order to become ruler over both worlds.

In the meantime Kuja has managed to acquire the power of the souls he has killed and defeats the troops in battle. At the moment of his triumph, however, Garlant confesses that his artificial life was limited from the start and that Kuja will die very soon. In a rage, Kuja decides to destroy the entire universe. With Garlant's help, the troop pursues him to the place of memories , with the help of which one can reach the origin of all life, the crystal . The troops succeed in stopping Kuja, but his boundless envy of everything living calls an omnipotent being called "Eternal Darkness" onto the scene, which Kuja wants to fulfill. Only after defeating this creature is it possible to avert the apocalypse. The troops are rescued by the remorseful Kuja and teleported back to Gaia, where Zidane decides to go alone to save Kuja after all. He fails and dies trying.

A year later, Gaia recovers from the events. To everyone's surprise, Zidane survived and is able to reunite with his beloved Princess Garnet.

The world

Gaia, the game world of FF IX, consists of four continents. The largest of them, and at the same time the most densely populated and politically and technologically highly developed, is the fog continent, whose name comes from the thick blanket of fog that covers the land mass. The other continents of Gaia are the Outer, the Closed and the Forgotten Continent.

The continent of the fog is politically divided into the kingdoms of Alexandria and Burmecia and the Grand Duchy of Lindblum. Burmecia is largely destroyed by Alexandria in the course of the plot, and large parts of the city-state of Lindblum are also destroyed by Alexandrian attacks. Alexandria itself is ultimately the victim of an attack by Kuja that destroys large parts of the city, including the castle.

Besides the three states mentioned, there does not seem to be any more complex political systems on Gaia.

In addition to the four continents of Gaia, there is the parallel world Terra and the place of memory, the latter is a transcendent projection of the memories of all people.

While Final Fantasy VIII can best be classified in the category of science fiction or possibly cyberpunk and Final Fantasy VII is completely dedicated to this, the world of Final Fantasy IX can be assigned to steampunk , similar to last time in Final Fantasy VI . In contrast to classic steampunk, the world of Final Fantasy IX is not based on Victorian England; rather, it is a question of a late medieval and renaissance-inspired world.

Races

Although humans are the main race represented in the game, there are a number of other races in addition to this, but not all of them are of greater concern and need to be examined more closely. The important ones include the ratmen, which include the playable character Freia, the esper, a now largely extinct race of human-like beings with a horn on their foreheads, the moogle, the genomes from Terra and the black magicians. However, since the black magicians are an artificially created race, which is sometimes compared to robots , it can be discussed whether they can really be viewed as a separate race. The less heavily treated or marginally appearing races mainly include other types of anthropomorphic animals or animal people such as dogs, hippos and various birds.

Moogle

For the first time since Final Fantasy VI, the moogles (also known as "Moogles" or "Mogs") take on a more prominent role again after they were only used as a stuffed animal, as a summoner and as a character in a slot machine game in an arcade and in the eighth part in the seventh part except in an expansion published exclusively in Japan only appeared as a playing card in the card game Triple Triad. In Final Fantasy IX, on the other hand, the player meets two representatives of the moogle within the first few minutes of the game. One of them, Stilzkin, appears again and again later in the game, especially before key moments such as boss battles, and offers the party a so-called "adventurer set" that contains various healing items. Otherwise, Mogrys are helpful and generally friendly characters, so they serve as save points in the game, among other things. Moogle seem to be at least as intelligent as humans, but tend to be obsessed with their favorite food, kupo nuts, and their pompons and prefer to talk about them or to allow the mention of their pompom to flow into their everyday language and in idioms. Like humans, moogle have a pronounced social life and, among other things, engage in correspondence with one another and marry. It is characteristic of the Moog's style of speaking to end sentences with the phrase "kupo" and to replace some words within a sentence with "kupo".

A moogle named Stilzkin also appears in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for the Gamecube and also plays a helpful role here.

Esper

The Esper are an ancient, powerful race that is distinguished from humans by a horn on its forehead. With the help of the horn they are able to communicate with powerful beings - the bestia - and can also summon them. Her old hometown is called Madain Sari and is on the Outer Continent . The Bestia are sealed in precious stones and can be learned by Garnet and Eiko in the course of the game, provided that they have created the corresponding precious stone. Failed beasts like Leviathan were sealed on the Iifar tree behind a shield that was also created by the espers.

While Garlant tried to wipe the peoples from the planet, he had to realize that the planet is also populated by powerful beings. He then used the Invincible to destroy the Esper capital, which happened during Garnet's early childhood, so that she remembers the events in the present, as soon as she sees the Invincible's eye and faints. The only Esper still alive are Garnet and Eiko. However, Garnet had her horn removed on the occasion of her foster mother, which was very painful. Both Eiko and Garnet can summon Bestia.

Bestia

They are creatures created by the esper who can summon and control them. Communication takes place via a horn on the esper's forehead. A beast often embodies an element or evokes certain traits when summoned in combat. Bestia are sealed in gemstones and can thus be learned again from Garnet and Eiko after the extraction. However, each of the two can only summon certain beasts: Garnet summons offensive and Eiko defensive beasts.

During the escape over the Zinnengebirge, after the extraction, Garnet meets an old man who introduces himself as Ramuh, a god of thunder, and hands her the peridot after having found his story and put it together, with the help of which one can learn Ramuh as a beast.

Queen Brane summons certain bestia when attacking various cities, which sometimes completely devastate the cities. Athmos rages like a tornado in Lindblum and Odin destroys the city of Cleyra with his spear .

The moogle, who is Eiko's constant companion, later turns out to be Madhin, who inflicts sacred damage.

During the Battle of the Tree Iifar, Queen Brane conjures up Bahamut, whose will is unceremoniously broken by the eye of the Invincible and thus becomes Kuja’s property. With Bahamut's power, Kuja finally attacks Alexandria, where Eiko and Garnet conjure up Alexander, the patron saint of the city, who cannot be used in battle. Without the intervention of Garlant it would have been possible to subdue Alexander's will here too.

Genomes

The genomes are soulless creatures created by Garlant that serve as a shell for the souls of the deceased Terras. They can follow Garlant's orders and are viable, if callous. In order to free Gaja from his population, he equipped three genomes (Kuja, Zidane and Mikoto) with a soul each in order to proceed independently, but Kuja was not obeying his command. Garlant then planned to replace Kuja with the secretly created Zidane. After Kuja learned of its existence, he kidnapped Zidane to thwart Garlant's plans.

All genomes are characterized by a tail and blond hair. An exception is Kuja, who however hides his true form. But both he and Zidane get a distinct, red fur almost all over their body during the trance.

Characters

Playable characters

Cosplayers as Garnet and Zidane

Final Fantasy IX has eight controllable main characters, in addition to these there are four others who only belong to the party for a short time. The four characters that can be played for a short time include Zidane's friend Cinna and Markus, who help defeat the “masked man”, as well as Blank, who also helps in the forest to defeat the boss and escape from the forest. Beatrix, Alexandria's sword master, can be played at the side of Steiner and Freia for a short time after she decided to support the heroes and to rebel against her queen. Although all characters have first and last names, except in one scene they are only mentioned by their first names. Adelbert Steiner is the only character who is always named by his last name.

Zidane Tribal

Zidane Tribal is the main male character in the game. He is 16 years old and a member of the Tantalus (Greek: Tantalos ), a gang of thieves based in the Grand Duchy of Lindblum that also works as an acting troupe.

Zidane's most noticeable feature is his long monkey tail, otherwise he looks like other people. He is the first controllable character in the plot. The player meets him while he is still in the Tantalus airship on the way to Alexandria to kidnap Princess Garnet there on behalf of the Grand Duke of Lindblum.

In contrast to his predecessors Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII) and Squall Leonheart (Final Fantasy VIII), Zidane is a decidedly optimistic character whose actions (at least initially) are characterized by outstanding idealism and a sense of justice and not by self-doubt, the urge to confirm or the desire to be revealed is motivated by one's own past.

Zidane's job class is that of the thief, which is why he has, among other things, the “steal” command, which he can use to rob his opponents. Zidane is one of the characters along with Garnet and Eiko who can use two different branches of weapon. Most of the time he uses daggers, but he also has blade-armored staff weapons.

In the course of the game, it becomes clear about Zidane's origin that he does not originally come from Gaia, the main world of the game, but from Terra, a world that exists parallel to Gaia. It is also revealed that Zidane is not a human, but a so-called genome, a kind of artificially created soulless human pattern. Zidane comes to this conclusion after the adventure takes the party to Terra, which is exclusively inhabited by genomes. However, Zidane differs from the others in that he has his own character, as he - like Kuja too - is a kind of prototype of the genome, which is superior to the later production series.

Vivi Orunitia

Vivi is a nine-year-old black magician who, despite his young age, is burdened with strong self-doubt. The reason for his uncertainty is the question of whether there is any evidence of his own existence. Because of his doubts about the veracity of his existence, his behavior is marked by great uncertainty.

He makes the first contact with the party after he sneaks into the theater performance that the Tantalus is giving to distract the courtiers and kidnap Garnet with a street boy. Vivi uses a staff in combat, but his physical attacks are also comparatively weak. His strength lies clearly in black magic, that is, offensive attack spells. If Vivi and Steiner are in the party at the same time, Vivi can magically charge Steiner's sword and, for example, briefly transform Steiner's regular sword into a fire sword.

Adelbert Steiner

Adelbert Steiner is the captain of the Pluto Troop, a section of the palace guards of the royal palace of Alexandria, which is designed as an elite guard. However, the Pluto troop usually turns out to be incompetent and can do little to protect the royal family. She is therefore also the object of ridicule on the part of the regular palace guards under General Beatrix, with whom Steiner is later connected through an intimate love-hate relationship. Adelbert is loyal to his queen and princess to the point of self-denial and would do anything to protect them. He initially encounters the hero party as an opponent and later only reluctantly takes Zidane's side. Despite the trust that Princess Garnet, which Steiner still feels obliged to protect, places in Zidane, Steiner is initially suspicious of Zidane, but can ultimately overcome this doubt, even if he remains aloof in his dealings. Adelbert admires Vivi for his magical abilities, often calls him "Master Vivi" and addresses him as "Her" instead of using him like all other characters. If Steiner is in the fight party with Vivi, Steiner can have Vivi magically charge his sword. Steiner's character class is that of a knight, so his attacks are predominantly physical. His weapon is typically a sword.

Garnet "Lili" Till Alexandros XVII.

Garnet is the Crown Princess of Alexandria and the main female character of the game and an Esper. In contrast to her stepmother, the queen, Garnet is a tender, lovely and clearly gender-specific creature, which is also characterized by its friendly and mild nature. However, given their courtly upbringing and their isolation from the people, Garnet has some problems when it comes to dealing with simpler people. Garnet has long been concerned about what is going on at court, and especially about the changes she has noticed in her stepmother, and so readily accepts the "offer" to be kidnapped by Zidane and Tantalus. Garnet uses a staff in combat, but it is more likely to be used in the second row, as neither its attack nor its defense value are outstanding. As a job she is a mixture of white magician and conjurer. Therefore she is especially valuable as a healer. As it turns out later, her father is Ifrit and her maiden name is Sarah and her mother's name is Jane , this is a "crossover" to Final Fantasy Part One; the princess there was also named Sarah and her mother Jane. (In the Japanese and US versions her nickname was "Dagger" instead of "Lily", she named herself after Zidane's dagger.). Lili's real name is "Seila", since she is only Queen Branes' stepdaughter. Garnet is an esper from Madain Sari. Madain Sari was destroyed when Garnet was 6 years old. She fled across the sea with her mother Jane, where her mother died. Garnet sings Madain Sari's hymn a few times in the game, but she doesn't know where she got the song from or what it's called.

Eiko Carol

Eiko Carol is the last resident of the ancient city of Madain Sari. As you can tell by the horn on her forehead, she is an esper. The only other residents are moogle. Although she lives very closely with them, she longs for human friends. Her loneliness is her greatest fear. Although Eiko is the youngest playable character in the game at just six years old, she is by no means the most immature and naive; Although Eiko tends to speak of herself in the third person (e.g. "Eiko wants but ..." instead of "I do but"), however, her physical development does not seem to be able to keep up with her intellectual and emotional one . Eiko is much more mature than is usual for a six-year-old. So she competes with Garnet for Zidane's favor, even if the latter (understandably) has no interest in Eiko in this direction and Garnet is not necessarily aware that she is in a competition for Zidane's affection is located. Just like Garnet, Eiko is a mixture of summoner and white mage, but she has other summons than Garnet.

Freia Crescent

Freia is an old friend of Zidane and the two meet again by chance in a bar in Lindblum. Freia's actual home, however, is in the kingdom of Burmecia, which in the meantime fell victim to an attack by Alexandria and was largely depopulated. Freia suffers from the loss of her partner and has been looking for him for a long time, but meets him in various places, for example in the temple of the desert city of Cleyra. She is a dragon knight by trade and as such is the only character who has the ability to jump, with which she can get out of combat and thus avoid any attack by any enemy. Your weapon is a lance.

Mahogany coral

Mahogany was hired by Queen Brane as a hit man for Zidane and his party. However, after being defeated by Zidane in a duel, he takes his side and supports the party. However, he has a personal grudge against Zidane, who has forgotten what he is said to have done to Mahogany. Mahogany is a mix of the fighter and ninja classes, its special ability includes throwing money and objects at the enemy. Mahagon is the last of the eight main characters to join the party and relatively little information is revealed about him during the remainder of the game. All you learn is that Zidane made him the most wanted criminal. His weapon is a claw.

Quina Quen

Quina is a member of the Q, a race whose culture, if the little that is available or described as such, concentrates in principle solely on the subject of food. Like other Q's, Quina has an almost irrepressible appetite for every possible and impossible food, but frogs are his special favorite food. That would actually describe Quina's personality exhaustively. Quina is possibly the flattest and most simply structured character in the hero party, as he hardly undergoes a noticeable change in character in the entire course of the story and the player generally learns very little about his character. He seems to be loyal to Zidane and the others, but his actions are mainly determined by a motivation - namely hunger - and not by a more detailed character, unless this character is defined by being hungry. In combat, Quina uses oversized cutlery, as a class he is a blue magician and as such is able to copy the abilities of his opponents and incorporate them into his own repertoire. Significantly, he does this by eating the opponent in question. Although the Q are actually genderless, Quina is always referred to as "he", which is probably not least a courtesy, since the term "it" could be viewed as quite disparaging. In the English version, however, the term "s / he" is used, which leaves open what you want to see in Quina.

Non-playable characters

Brane, Queen of Alexandria

Brane is the ruler of the Kingdom of Alexandria and the foster mother of Garnet. She appears as a matronly, colorfully dressed woman. Before adopting Garnet, however, she was a good-natured and friendly woman with a husband and a biological daughter. After her biological daughter - her name was also Garnet - died early, a small boat drifted with a small, almost dead girl on the coast of Alexandria. Brane and her husband recorded it and named it after their late daughter Garnet.

After her husband passed away, Brane's character changed completely, and she became as angry as she was sad. So she set herself the goal of conquering the foggy continent with the help of the bestia slumbering in Garnet. For this purpose, she is even prepared to risk the life of her foster daughter during the extraction. With the help of the extracted Bestia and the black magicians created by Kuja, she manages to destroy Burmecia, Lindblum (through Athmos) and Cleyra (through Odin). In an attack on Kuja near the tree Iifar, she uses Bahamut, which Kuja brings himself under control with the help of the airship "Invincible" and who instead attacks Brane. Close to death, Brane remembers in the presence of Garnet that she made a mistake and that she is wishing her old, happy days back.

Kuja

Kuja is the main antagonist of the game. At first he only appears as an accomplice to Queen Branes, but it quickly becomes clear that he has much bigger plans.

Kuja corresponds in appearance to a bishon , a beautiful, androgynous young or at least young-looking man. Due to his pronounced androgynous or already effiminated appearance, some players tended to mistake Kuja for a woman or to speculate about his sexual orientation. Although the sexuality of Kuja (or any other character) is not discussed in the game, it can be assumed that Kuja is only devoted to himself and has no interest in other people or looks down on them with contempt. In his demeanor, Kuja shows a dry, cynical sense of humor, which creates the impression that he is rather bored and does not attach much importance to all efforts of the Hero's party to thwart his plans. In general, Kuja didn't seem to have been as well received by many of the show's fans as previous villains on the show. Especially in comparison to Sephiroth, the main opponent from Final Fantasy VII, Kuja did not convince many fans. Most likely one reason for this is that many fans found that Sephiroth remains much more mysterious, whereas in comparison you get a wealth of information about Kuja that may demystify his appearance. On the other hand, a smaller part of the fans rated this closer illumination of the character Kujas as positive and took a liking to his dandy , playful and mannered manner.

Garlant

Garlant is the mastermind behind the events and appears as a very old man. He is the last survivor of an unknown people who lived on Terra and managed their souls there. In order to resurrect his people, he created the genomes from his DNA , which were to serve as shells for the souls of the deceased inhabitants. However, since the process of awakening requires a great deal of energy that only an entire planet can muster, he chose Gaja for this purpose. This energy is to be used by means of a fusion.

To this end, he planted the Iifar tree in Gaja, a giant tree on the Outer Continent, the roots of which extend over the entire planet, and created the soul catcher , which was to purify the soul of the planet and prepare Gaja for fusion by making the Life flow disturbs and the souls cannot be reborn. The poisonous fog, from which the fog creatures arise, is created as a product of soul capture.

Additionally, to make room for his own people, Garlant created a genome and endowed it with a soul. This genome was Kuja and was supposed to be sent out as a killer. After the latter turned against him, he created Zidane, who was kidnapped by Kuja and so did not fulfill his destiny either. Mikoto was created as the third genome, but it has not yet taken action.

As soon as the player reaches Terra, Zidane is informed about his origin and his destiny until Zidane passes out. After the group defeats the silver dragon in Pandemonium, the player also competes against Garlant and defeats him, but does not kill him, which Kuja does in a trance state. At the place of memory, Zidane can hear Garlant's voice, which is only a memory of him. He asks the group to kill Kuja before he can destroy the crystal and thus extinguish every being and every memory.

Cid Fabel, Grand Duke of Lindblum

The Grand Duke of Lindblum was turned into an itchy chirp by his wife as a punishment for his marital infidelity and is mainly used as a comic relief at the beginning of the plot . However, Cid is also an important character for the progression of the plot, as he turns out to be the "mastermind" from whom the kidnapping of Garnet and some other plot-relevant moments emanate. Otherwise, Cid corresponds - even in his itchy robe - to his classic role as an inventor and technician, he is the monarch of the most technologically advanced state in the world and, moreover, personally involved in the development of new airship technologies, including the introduction of the revolutionary Steam drive, which replaces the fog drive that was used until then - which is, however, also necessary because the fog disappears in the course of the action and another form of drive has to be found.

Hilda Fabel, Grand Duchess of Lindblum

Hilda is Cid's wife and the reason why the Grand Duke is first introduced to the player as an itching chirp; As a punishment for Cid's repeated adultery, she has transformed her husband into a form in which he can no longer commit adultery.

In the first part of the plot, Hilda does not appear in person, because at that time she still has to find herself in the role of the kidnapping victim Kujas. However, she is released from the party and returns to Lindblum.

Hilda is quick-witted and even defeats her husband in a battle of words - which may be due to the fact that she is right and her husband only has to counter her with excuses and excuses. She also knows how to distribute tips in a subtle way, for example when she points out completely en passant and, without addressing her husband directly, that Kuja is a real gentleman who definitely never cheats on his wife. Despite her sharp-tongued tongues, the Grand Duchess is kind and loves her husband.

In the epilogue of the game, the player also learns that Hilda and Cid have adopted Eiko because their own marriage remained childless.

Zon & Son

Zon and Son (English Zorn and Thorn ) are the diabolical court jesters of Queen Branes. Their most noticeable feature is their style of speaking, in which they take up the previous sentence of the other and also end each sentence with "Say I!" (Son) or "Say I!" (Zon), except for questions that start with the formula " I ask? ”to be ended. In the English version they also twist the syntax .

In principle, the two are less amusing than life-threatening and serve Queen Brane more as a henchman than an entertainer. Among other things, Brane gave the two of them the job of extracting the bestia trapped in Princess Garnet. Brane's goal is to use the Bestia as weapons. The queen is not interested in the fact that her daughter could very likely die as a result of the extraction. After Brane died at Kuja's hand, Zon and Son, banished from Alexandria, now serve Kuja, who is pursuing a sinister plan. In the course of the game, at Kuja's behest, the two will try to extract the bestia from Eiko, but this fails due to the little Mogry Mogu.

General Beatrix

Beatrix is ​​the General of Alexandria, a mighty fighter and legendary sword master, whose reputation also earned her the nickname “1000 trolls at one stroke”. She is loyal to Queen Brane and destroys Burmecia under her command. There she faces the party to fight, but defeats it easily and escapes. She later procures the magical treasure crystal from Cleyra for Brane and defeats the heroes again. Cleyra is immediately destroyed by Brane. Through this bloodthirsty murder, the lack of thanks for her "heroic deed" and the pure greed of Branes, Beatrix first doubts the correctness of her loyalty to Brane and her plans and travels with her back to Alexandria. The heroes pursue them to save Garnet, but on the run Beatrix stands in their way for the third and final fight. After another defeat, Zidane appeals to her role as protector of the princess (she carries the “ Infanta Guard ” as a weapon ), whereupon Beatrix turns away from Brane and covers the heroes as they escape. Later, when Alexandria is attacked by Kuja, Beatrix and Steiner defend the city together, it being clear that they have feelings for each other. When the heroes travel to Memoria towards the end of the game, Beatrix supports them with the Alexandrian air fleet by fending off the attacking dragons. When it is all over, she wants to leave Alexandria, but is stopped by Steiner and the two want to serve Queen Garnet together in the future.

Barque

Bark is the founder and head of the notorious gang of thieves "Tantalus", whose headquarters are in Lindblum and to which Zidane also belongs. In the run-up to Final Fantasy IX, he received the order from Grand Duke Cid Fabel von Lindblum to kidnap Princess Garnet from Alexandria in order to remove her from the evil influence of her mother, Queen Brane. For this purpose, Bark stages the play in Alexandria Castle using the Prima Vista and his gang of thieves so that Zidane and Blank, another member of the gang, can kidnap Garnet undercover. Later in the game you learn that Bark was also Zidane's foster father, while Zidane was desperately looking for his real home in his childhood.

Professor Toto

Professor Toto is Garnet's former private tutor. For his old age, the old gentleman retired to Treno, where among other things he does astronomical research.

Similar to Bugenhagen in the seventh part of the series, Professor Toto also explains something to the party about the stellar relationships in the world. He is also involved in healing Blanks, which were petrified while escaping from the Haunted Forest.

Mikoto

Mikoto is a genome that was created by Garlant and just like Kuja and Zidane received a soul from him to serve as Gaja's angel of death, since both Kuja and Zidane did not act according to Garlant's wishes and ideas. Mikoto grew up on Terra, but after the player arrives, he asks a lot of questions in order to learn and understand. But after Kuja destroyed Terra, she now lives with the other genomes and black magicians in the village of black magicians on the Outer Continent.

puck

Puck initially appears as an ordinary street boy who befriends Vivi. In the course of the game, however, it turns out that he is the heir to the throne of the destroyed Burmecia.

Character management

Especially in comparison to the eighth part of the series, the character management has been greatly simplified and also saw the reintroduction of armor and accessories, and it is again possible to buy improved weapons directly. The characters learn new skills (abilities) with the help of their armor and weapons. Every weapon and every armor has a certain selection of abilities "implemented" that the character who has equipped the armor or weapon can access. As soon as a certain amount of Ability-Points (AP) are gained with a certain piece of equipment, the skills associated with it are permanently transferred to the repertoire of the respective character, and he can use them from then on without having to wear the piece of equipment. A single item can open up different abilities for different characters depending on their profession. Likewise, several objects can contain the same ability, but u. U. only for certain characters. The abilities are divided into auxiliary and action abilities. While an action ability provides the character with a new combat command, for example a fire spell, a special sword attack, a protective spell or a summoning, auxiliary abilities only have a passive effect and, for example, improve the character's defense and increase the maximum number of his power points or immunize him against certain status changes. In contrast to action abilities, which are automatically accessible, auxiliary abilities must be activated with a certain number of crystals. Since each character only has a limited number of these crystals available, the player must decide which passive advantages he would like to give his characters. However, it is possible at any time to remove and redistribute crystals and thus make other auxiliary abilities accessible.

Tetra Master

Like Final Fantasy VIII, the ninth part of the series also has a card game, this time called "Tetra Master". Success in the card game also has no effect on the course of the main game, even if the progress of the plot requires participation in a Tetra Master tournament at one point (which, however, does not have to be successfully completed). Compared to Final Fantasy VIII, the card game has no permanent advantages such as: B. Objects or money. After the publication of Final Fantasy IX, Tetra-Master became available as an independent online game via the Square Enix online portal Playonline and was even implemented as a real card game.

music

The game's soundtrack was again composed by Nobuo Uematsu . Compared to Final Fantasy VIII, the selection of music styles represented is less diverse and mainly offers pieces with classical orchestration. Electronic songs are less represented, which is mainly due to the medieval-oriented scenario. Despite the limited stylistic variety, the selection of pieces is quite extensive, extensive enough to justify its publication on a four-CD soundtrack album as well as a supplementary album entitled “Soundtrack Plus”.

In addition to the classic Final Fantasy pieces of music that appear in their various variations in every game, for example the Chocobo theme, the victory fanfare and the prelude , the soundtrack unusually also contains some variations of pieces that are only used in individual parts of the series occurred. Among other things, there is a modification of the volcano theme from the first part and the pandemonium music from the second part, a variation of the reception march that is played for Rufus Shinra in Final Fantasy VII and a variation on the prelude.

Final Fantasy IX offers with "Melodies of Life" as the second game in the series a fully orchestrated title theme with vocals. The interpreter of the piece in both the Japanese and the English language version is the Japanese singer Emiko Shiratori (白鳥, zuvor Shiratori Emiko), who previously sang at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Sapporo in 1972 and in Nagano in 1998 . As with “Eyes on me” from Final Fantasy VIII, “Melodies of Life” is a ballad.

Localization

The German localization of the game has been done much more carefully and does not contain such gross translation errors as were found in the seventh part of the series in particular. The translator Josef Shanel , also known for his translation work for The Legend of Zelda , tried to give each character in the game an individual character, for which he gave individual dialects, among other things, a member of the Zidane thief group speaks in broad Bavarian Dialect and ends almost every sentence with the exclamation "zefix!". Interestingly, Shanel also considered that this character is an actor who speaks dialect-free on stage or in his role, which is why his text is shown in the corresponding scenes without dialect coloring. It remains a mystery why certain characters and locations were renamed. Garnet's nickname or their code name, which is “ダ ガ ー” (English: dagger, German: dagger) in the Japanese original, became “Lili” ( Lily dagger). The last name of the black magician Vivi was also changed from "Ornitier" to "Orunitia". However, “Orunitia” is a perfectly possible transcription from Japanese. Josef Shanel brought himself into the game as a character, namely both as a soldier Shanel, who serves under Adelbert Steiner in the Pluto troupe of Alexandria, and as the supporting character Grand Vadder Josef, to whom you have to bring different types of coffee in the course of the game, which are real parody existing ones.

reception

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Web links

Commons : Final Fantasy IX  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Final Fantasy IX at MobyGames (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1] Report from Square Enix via Twitter.com (Japanese)
2. ↑ Final Fantasy 9 has been released in a revised form for Android and iOS. In: 4Players. February 9, 2016.
3. ↑ Save 20% on FINAL FANTASY IX on Steam. In: store.steampowered.com. Retrieved April 17, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Major Sock: Final Fantasy IX - Implementation for PlayStation 4 confirmed . Article from ps4info.de , September 19, 2017, retrieved on September 19, 2017
5. ↑ Final Fantasy 9 released for PlayStation 4 . Article from eurogamer.de , September 19, 2017, accessed on September 19, 2017