I have both of thees games and got about a quarter of the way thru each before I got distracted and couldn’t finish them. I Am going to start playing one again but can’t make up my mind which to play!
What is the general feeling about FF9? I never hear anyone talk about that one. I think both FF9 and X have a little too much dialogue compared to the previous ones. FF9 took too long to get going, but FFX seemed like it was on rails far more than any of the others due to the lack of a world map.
So which should I play? I loved both 7 and 8 (and 1,2,3,5,6), but only have time to play one.
My GF’s been playing FFX for quite a while now, and the first parts did seem to be very rail-esque, but the last half seemed pretty free-form, at least from what I watched. I’ll point her to this thread.
I think that FFX is a better game than 9. Nine is very old school, and fantasy based. I never really could get into the story of the game. Where as 10 is more technology based, has a pretty cool story, and great characters. Just from personal experience I’d recommend FF 10 to continue playing. Though if you want a really fun RPG that is more focused on gameplay than story, I’d go for Dark Cloud 2. I think its better than either FFX or IX.
I have to recommend FFX as well. I have 9 and still have never completed it. I’ve logged over 100 hours on FFX (that Monster Arena is a beast) and still enjoy playing it. I would make my decision based on which battle system you prefer. That is what really sets FFX apart.
I like both of them, a lot, but Final Fantasy IX is my favorite game of the series (if you don’t include Final Fantasy Tactics, which is The Best Game Ever Made). Sure, it’s completely straightforward, and even “old-school” as some people describe it, but that’s part of why I like it. It’s just a solid, well-told story. That may be why it never got a ton of attention; it just does everything right, but it doesn’t ever really break from convention. And being a fan of FFT (but not really the FF games before 7, because I never played them), I was really happy to see all the Final Fantasy job classes make a comeback.
FFX has more interesting characters, and a better battle system overall. And of course, the most jaw-dropping cut-scenes of the entire series. But as pointed out before, it’s extremely linear. And there were points towards the end where I just wanted it to be over; it got pretty tedious.
So I’d say it comes down to whether you want to play something new(ish) and innovative but completely single-threaded (FFX), or something that doesn’t try to break any new ground but is the culmination of all the games up to that point (FFIX).
The simple truth is this. FFIX, while a good game, was kicked out quickly by Square in order to make their first release for the PS2 FFX(which sounds cool). FFX opens up big time at the end(almost too much) and there is a ton to do.
The final battle, which has an amazing atmosphere and spirit to it, ranks high on the list of great video game moments. It is worth it just to see that.
FFX is very straight forward from the beginning, but I kinda like that better. And as Ryujin said, near the end I can go where I want and explore as I need.
I don’t know, I’d say IX. IX is my favorite of the entire series ranking right up there with IV and V. The chocographs, the moogles, jump rope. If it had the card game from VIII I’d have nothing to complain about.
With X I always felt confined, trapped and when you look at the whole world and see how few places you can go it got really frustrating to me. And you never get the fun of flying the airship.
Although with a sequel coming down the line, perhaps we’ll get it, you probably should finish X so you have the option of playing X-2 if it comes out.
I’m a veteran of the series. I’ve beat all of them except 7 and 9. 7, I keep losing interest right around the final dungeon–too much leveling up to do–and 9, I walked right through everything up to the final boss, who promptly told me to squeal.
Both 10 and 9 have some problems. 9 doesn’t give you enough choices–I don’t want a dedicated white mage anymore, and I’d definitely like to occasionally pick the active members. 10 is kinda short. They both suffer from being very linear up till the end. 8 definitely had the best pacing of side quests–you could start some of them halfway through disc 2.
Of the two, I’d say I like 10 better, just cause of the combat system. Being able to swap weapons when my current one is healing the enemy is pretty cool. I also like not being locked into a single path of character development, while not having the total freedom to flounder about as in 8.
But whichever of the two you play now, make a point of playing the other one later. They’re both good games.
See, this is where game morality helped me. Once I learned that junctioning was potentially dangerous I stopped junctioning and went the rest of the game without it. It was a lot more challenging.
It took me about 100 hours to beat, and I didn’t get everything. Of course, I don’t know how much of that time was due to blitzball, which I played a lot.
In terms of the actual story, FFX is the shortest. Throw in the side quests, some of which are downright hard, and however many hours you can eat up playing blitzball, and it does take a while. But if you didn’t want to do any of that stuff, you could probably beat it in 25 hours, although that would make some of the boss fights a bit challenging.
Most of the others take 30 or so, cause they have a longer main plot. btw, y’all know about the ultra-powerful sword for those who make it to the end of FF9 in under 12 hours, right?
A friend of mine spent a lot of extra time in FFX finding and enabling the most powerful weapons for all of the characters. This had the unfortunate effect of making the final boss fight way too easy. I’m in the process of doing the same thing, though, because I have FFX International, which has the Dark Aeons – orders of magnitude more powerful than the final boss. If you have a chipped/Japanese PS2, it’s a worthy purchase (if you haven’t played FFX before, that is).
And FFX-2? It’s the latest “Star Trek IV – Let’s Lighten Up” installment of the series. The first mission of the game has a lot of “Charlie’s Angels” moments to it – not that that’s a bad thing! And, when one of the first job classes you have is “Idol Singer,” you know that this game shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Actually, I’d get it even though I have been through FFX, just so I could take on the dark aeons. As I understand it, it’s a bit of a misnomer to say that they’re more powerful than the final boss–they make anything in the monster arena look like cake.
Well, I decided to press on with FFX. I have put in about 3 more hours into it and about 1.5 of them were exposition. God these characters ramble on. Took me a while to figure out where I left off in the story because I haven’t played this since last winter.
Some obeservations about things that bug me about this game:
Combat is way too easy. Once you have sensor equipped you may as well turn on the auto pilot because it tells you exactly how to beat any monster. They should have made that skill a spell like they did in the previous ones and not automatic.
Battles are really lop sided. It seems like my guys are always way more powerful than any of the regular enemies and there is really not too much challenge.
I don’t really care for the sphere grid system. On the surface it appears that you can make all your guys uber powerful, but really its very linear thru the grid. At least at this point and I am about 27 hours in.
Kimahri sucks eggs. He is a waste of a character. Or I messed up developing him. One or the other.
I wish I could rename Lulu “DD”.
I wish there was a way to skip cut scenes and dialog. If there is one I haven’t found one.
Blitzball sucks. I prefer the card games.
The facial expressions are great in this game.
I like the little piano piece on the title screen.
I put FF9 in for a couple minutes but I Was so lsot as to where I was that I may need to start that one over. The graphics on that one are worse than I remember too.
Right now in FFx I just got the airship. How much more game is there? Is ti nearing the end?
As for the Dark Aeons, I’ve only beaten one of them so far, and that was due to a lot of luck and a magic user with a “break damage limit” ability.
The sphere grid in FFX International has been revamped too. Everyone starts in the middle, and you can take them down pretty much any path you want. For a while, my Rikku was a white magic user.
