Hi, all!

I admit it, I'm slow. I didn't beat FF9 till last night. I had put the game down for awhile, then decided to just get EVERYTHING and then kick Kuja's ever-lovin' ass. I ended up getting all chocographs and chocobo treasure, and ALMOST finishing Mognet. (I was on disk 4, and Mois was sealed in the Ice Cave so I couldn't deliver the letter x_x) I got just about every ability and fought a lot of monsters.(Though, now that I think about it, I forgot to look for Ozma . . . maybe that should be my next quest)

Pardon if these were answered in that big review that someone did on FF9, but I hadn't beaten the game yet, so I didn't read it.

My questions are:

a) Did ANYONE else find the last monster to be a total pussy? I mean, I went with Amarant, Steiner, Zidane, and Vivi, with AutoLife, AutoHaste, AutoRegen, and AutoPotion (just to give more time for AutoRegen to work) on everybody. Was I being cheap? Did I just get incredibly lucky? Only Vivi and Amarant died, once a piece, and I had no more trouble after that. I didn't even get Zidane to trance, although I he had on High Tide and was awfully close.

b) What the FUCK happened to Vivi? I couldn't understand it one bit.

c) Alright, I get that Zidane survived cause he sang Dagger's song. Being Bardic, I accept the power of music. But, if that's so, did Kuja just stop running or what? Zidane made it clear he wasn't gonna leave him, and . . . well . . . it's odd.

d) Why did Zidane wait so long to contact poor Dagger? Effect is effect, but cruelty is STILL cruelty.

e) Eiko adopted . . . never mind, it's cute. And now she and Dagger are cousins. I like that.

f) Where are all the moogles? I didn't see any in the ending. There is NO CG of moogles at all. Did they just all retreat to Mognet, saying "Screw the Gaians" and that's why there were no Moogles in the final palace? ^_^

That's it. I liked the ending, but I was expecting something better than the "home video" footage at the end of FF8 and was slightly let down. All around, a great game-- thanks Square!

--Darylohki, who says "Summons are for wimps!"

You were able to put down FF9? How'd you manage that?
Anyways, I'll try to answer some of your questions. First of all, as long as you freed the moogle in the Ice Cave from the ice he will move to the Qu's marsh by the entrance to the Roo when the Ice Cave gets blocked. So you can still finish the Mognet quest.

A) Not really, I did twice before I beat him. Then again I was using Zidane, Dagger, VIVI, and Steiner. And after the second time I lost I went out and pumped up the skills of the people, including some of those that you mentioned.

B) I'm guessing he "stopped moving" but before then the Black Mages figured out how to have (make?) kids. End result a bunch of little VIVI's. He might have been their, but none were directly stated to be him.

C) Kuja was already dying. They the Iifa tree turned on him. But yeah, Kuja basically stopped running and accepted his fate.

D) Not sure on this one. I think it was at most a couple years though. So maybe it took him a while to get out of the Iifa tree, recover from injuries, and get a ride to Alexanderia. The dramatic entrance was probably something he came up with enroute.

E) It is a bit odd, but Cid didn't have any kids, and they couldn't just leave Eiko on her own.

F) I don't know. Maybe Square decided that they couldn't do moogles justice with CGI.

I liked the ending too. Heh, am I the only person who things that cliched FF9 did a much better job of being a "love story" than FF8?



Krono
"Sanity is relative."

I agree the moogles got ripped off in the ending (grrr)

I don't think it took place between a few years, more like a couple of months at least tho, I beat it before you :-p

The thing that made me say aww was the Beatrix and Stiener thing. God I can just picture the kids....

As for Vivi, I think he was there, he probably went up ahead with the rest of the team, I mean they didn't say he died or anything.

That's my thoughts



Todays quotes:

I'm not afraid of dreams.
and
You are too dangerous. You must be eliminated!
and
I shall terminate your program.

You can find that particular Moogle at the entrance to fossil roo. You just have to go through the Qu's Marsh on the Mist Continent and find the entrance again.

The moogles were ripped off in FF IX as in the FF V remake they had FMV moogles.

As for everything else, here's my thoughts. First off, Vivi's dead. A large plot point is that all of the Black Mages are eventually going to shut down. Therefore it would fit in with the theme there if Vivi did indeed stop. And plus, unless Vivi was up ahead (highly doubtful. He seems like the type to stick with his kids) he would have recognised Puck and gone up to him. As for what happened to Zidane, I think that something happened to Kuja in all of that so he couldn't move very far and Zidane stayed and tended to him until he finally died as it's made pretty obvious that he doesn't have long left to live. After that either nobody was around or else (and I think this more likely) he was found and picked up by a Lindblum scout airship (the only real reason he'd go to Lindblum first as Alexandria is closer and he'd probably want ot see Garnet more than Tantalus). From there either him or Baku ame up with the play plan.

But that's just my thoughts on this.

As for Necron, I actually found him tougher with my level 60, almost all abilities party, than with my level 45 most abilities and no auto-life party. Then again, it all comes down to what Grand Cross does to you.

Excal, who's still annoyed about Eiko getting killed and zombified in the same Grand Cross.

I'm quite sure that at some point in the game someone said that Vivi, being a prototype Black Mage, was likely to survive longer than the other, mass-produced Black Mages. Other than that there's no explanation, but someone said it and we must accept the possiblity that he is alive at the end.

I agree that Zidane's reappearance was a bit cruel to Garnet, but far more people than one young queen would have felt indignant if he had just knocked on the castle gates with nothing more than his grubby theiving self. Don't get me wrong though, I like Zidane. Certainly I like him a lot more than Squall, whose love story attempted to prove the old saying, "You can find love by being a humongous jerk to the one person who is actually interested in you, then, later, being a little less of a jerk." Zidane is easily the most likable hero of any FF game I've played: Squall was a monstrous jerk, Cloud and Cecil were unremarkable, and Bartz of FFV had no personality whatsover.

Stiltzkin, at least, should have gotten his role in the ending. He's awesome. How did he get off Terra, anyway?

About the Zidane-taking-two-years-to-arrive thing, I actually believe that it wasn't the original Zidane we see kissing Dagger in the end. I just couldn't accept that Zidane had got away from there, and to confirm my disbelief, there's a very good Final Fantasy IX fanfic at RPGamer, Understudy by Ashlea Lierman, which puts a lot of pieces together and gives a very logical explanation to Zidane's unexplained, impossible survival.

'Bout Stiltzkin (bet I wrote it wrong), he obviously got away from Terra with the clones in the Invincible.

I have to agree with you there; Stiltzkin should have been in the ending...

In fact, he should have a game modeled after him! We need an FF with a moogle as the main character, and not a stereotypical 'kupo-kupo-be-cute' moogle, either! We need to have a game where the main characters are all moogles! And it should be a good game, with a wonderful plot, not some mess of quite disturbing cuteness, spoon it!

Now, I'll admit - Disturbing cuteness has it's place, but it wouldn't be in my archetypical moogle RPG. Or at least, not much.

A serious moogle game hmmmm... well you would have to some humor or else it would get boring quickly.

Other choices for a main hero for a FF game.

A badass (think someone sort of like Shadow or Magus) as the main character, someone if they were any more evil they would be the villain.

The comic relief... make someone that wouldn't naturally fall into the hero type the leader.

Cid... He's been in 9 games and is in the upcoming movie, I think he deserves a shot at being the main character.

A female... it would be nice to get away from the guy protects girl cliche.

Of course it would have /some/ humor, it just wouldn't be a dominant element. Say, roughly around FFIV or FFVI's serious vs. humor elements.

As for the main character being a female...Doesn't Terra count?

...A bard?!?!? THE ULTIMATE CLASSE FOR A LEADER!!!

A friggin' Mimic. Someone who can mimic his allies and enemies, there's what I'm waiting for.

And I'm gonna be waiting a while...

I always thought of FFVI not having a hero at all, which was an interesting element that I liked. Terra is, in many ways, the center of the plot, but she doesn't occupy as much "space" as heroes in other games. She doesn't have to be in your active party all the time, for one thing, and in the second half of the game, you don't have to pick her up from Mobliz at all. The second half switches the focus to Celes, another female, but she isn't really the hero either. I always liked that about FFVI; I don't believe that one person must always be the hero in a group of people. FFVI was in the same spirit, and the ending reflected it. Terra's story was but one of many.

On a lighter note, about the game about moogles: there was mention of removing the prevalence of cuteness in the game. Strictly speaking, that's not possible: moogles ARE cute. But their surroundings could be more realistic than the world of Chocobo's Dungeon. That said, I like the idea. The main characters would have to be unique-looking moogles, like Stiltzkin, because otherwise you're left with the problem of that battle in the beginning of FFVI, trying to remember which one of these identical moogles dances. Except now the problem lasts the whole game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, by the way, but weren't Biggs and Wedge conspicuously absent from FFIX?

While I think you're probably right about FFVI not having a hero, I also think that, in the context I used her in, Terra was a good choice...unless the beginning of the game counts, she sure doesn't fit the cliche of 'guy protects girl' cliche ^_^

As for the moogles, you're right about having unique looking moogles. Also, it makes sense that the main moogles should look different for more then remembering who's who. After all, they'd be adventurers, dressed in the wear of their professions and carrying their weapons, so they'd look different. Most of the NPCs wouldn't need to look too different, however, since most NPCs in other video games don't look too different.

And, about the cuteness: Of course moogles are cute ^_^ But, their cuteness could actually contribute to the game, if the story line is good enough.

Consider the scene at the Temple of Ancients from FF7: What if Sephiroth stabbed a moogle? The cuteness would be such a contrast to the tragedy that could potentially make it even stronger...

On the other hand, it could backfire and /lessen/ the impact: Despite being an ancient, Aeris still looked, felt, and acted human, and thus we could feel her death in a very real way. But a moogle does not look human, so some may have trouble sympathizing with it.

I suppose that it's a matter of characterization: If the personality and development of the moogle is good (and it could be difficult resisting the urge to just give them all cute personalities, but if whoever made this hypothetical RPG can't, then this whole sub-thread's moot), then everyone will become attached to the moogle and feel their pain despite the fact that moogles are another species...

And I think Biggs and Wedge were in FFIX somewhere, but I can't recall.

How bout a game with a FEMALE moogle lead character

And no Biggs and Wedge were NOT in FF9

I wanted people to make fun of like I did in FF8.

Ah well back to my attempts to murder Ozma in a brutal fashion...


God bless Eiko and all her little moogles.

Todays quotes:

I'm not afraid of dreams.
and
You are too dangerous. You must be eliminated!
and
Destroy this valley and everything in it! The human race will never have existed!

I didn't think that Biggs and Wedge were in FFIX... They do have Tall Guard and Short Guard!

General Leo!

Or maybe Mog. His picture IS on the cover, anyways. I always considered him to be the hero the first time through.