Final Fantasy IX - Video Games - http://maxpages.com/pocketstation/Final_Fantasy

Aaaaaahhhh. Final Fantasy Nine/9/IX is finally out. It has been for a while, but I just got a taste of the action in late April. I am now on Disc 3, and I can honestly say that I like this as much as it's big brother, FF Seven/7/VII. The graphics are superb, as well as the mini-games, Chocobo quest (new and improved!), the plot, and the game itself.

The movie that introduces you to the game when you start the first disc looks REAL until you see the people, and they dont look half fake either. The graphics as you play are not much worse, keeping Squaresoft's reputation alive and well.

In the mini-games department, the game reintroduces Triple Triad with a few new twists (though it is now called Tetra Master). Some new additions to the family are jump rope (more challenging than it sounds) and frog catching (also more challenging than it sounds, but more fun than it sounds as well).

My favorite part of the game is obviously, and for a good reason, the Chocobo Quests! You first find the Chocobo forest and a Moogle gives you a Chocobo named Choco who is ownerless. You can then use Choco to play Chocobo Hot & Cold, which is one of chocobo's best games in the history of, well... Chocobos. You search a small map for items hidden underground. Ocasionally, you find an item called a Chocograph, which is a picture of a location on the world map. You use the picture on the Chocograph to play Chocobo Hot & Cold and find a tresure chest containing many useful items. But if you are lucky, the Chocograph leads you to Chocobo's Dream World! Once there, Chocobo confronts the Chocobo God (or something) and gets a new ability. The first time there, Choco learns to walk on reefs. The second visit, mountains can be leapt in a single bound. The third time, Choco will have the ability to walk over any land mass after getting the ocean ability. The fourth and final time, Choco can fly in the air. This Chocobo game is EXTREMELY FUN AND ADDICTIVE! I reccomend it.

Summary: A crew of thieves is sent to a castle in Alexandria, one of the four empires of the Mist Continent, to kidnap Princess Garnet while posing as a group of traveling actors acting out "I Want to be Your Canary". Their plan succeeds, with one unplanned twist: the Princess asked to be kidnapped! The Queen does not like this, so she shoots down the thieves' ship. The pirates, Zidane, Blank, Cinna, Marcus, the leader, Baku, along with Vivi, a black mage they picked up in the city, a knight sent to protect the princess, Steiner, and Princess Garnet all crash-land in the Evil Forest. No one is said to have returned from the forest alive. But the Princess, Steiner, and Vivi are lost, so Zidane has no choice but to search for the three. He finds them, all infected with a deadly poison, and brings them back to the wreckage to be cured. Once healed, the party goes through the woods searching for the source of evil. They find a giant plant and kill it, but doing so petrifies the whole forest- and Blank, who didn't escape in time, is petrified with it. In his last animate moment, he throws a map of the Mist Continent to Zidane. Meanwhile, the rest of the thieves are still in the forest as Zidane, Princess Garnet, Vivi, and Steiner march on to the Ice Cavern.
The party trudges through the Ice Cavern and comes out of the other end only to be put to sleep by unknown causes. Zidane is the first to wake up, and the first to hear a chant being... chanted. He investigates and to his surprise finds an evil black mage who looks a lot like Vivi! After defeating the monster, he returned to his now-conscious group and guided them to a small nearby town called Dali without telling Vivi of the black mage he encountered.
The party arrives at Dali after Princess Garnet decides to change her name to Dagger to preserve her identity and stops by at the inn to rest there. They don't notice, but the innkeeper is acting very strangely towards Vivi. After awakening, the rest of the town follows the innkeepers' example and chant strange things like "They're the reason we don't work." Before long, Vivi is kidnapped, and the rest of the group is in panic searching for him. They soon hear yells coming from underground, and after listening inside a well, they discover Vivi has been kidnapped and taken underground. After finding the entrance inside a "vault" in a windmill, the group follows the cries of their lost friend to a box, which they break open and reveal Vivi, the box's contents. After further exploring the catacombs, many large machines are sighted. Perhaps a factory of some sort? It turns out that it is, and it produces none other than the strange Vivi- like creatures (and raises chocobos for one reason or another, and no, as hard as you try, you can't get one here)! The party leaves in haste, and just in time to get on the nearest flying ship and fight a second black Vivi- like mage! Vivi becomes very confused, and thinks quietly in a corner on the ship after the mages' defeat. No one can console him, and having a third black Vivi- like mage attack the ship followed by an army of the same kind doesn't make him feel any less confused. The Black Mages after taking too much from Zidane and his friends, float back to the ship in bubbles. Zidane decides to follow. Upon landing, Steiner recognizes it as the Queen's ship. Zidane and the party investigate the ship and overhear the Queen's evil plans to take over Lindblum, the largest of the four Mist Continent empires.They decide to head for Lindblum and warn the King, so they escape and head back to their own ship. Finally, the party flies through the North Gate usually used to check a ship's cargo and barely makes it through to lose the Queen's ship.

Please insert Disc 2.

Dan

killer_chocobo@hotmail.com

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Page Updated Wed Jul 11, 2001 9:28am EDT