The Legend of Final Fantasy IX: Creation - Universe - Decryption by Collective

Author:Collective, [Collective,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9782377843022
Publisher: Third Editions
Published: 2020-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

RELEASE AND RECEPTION

In the end, over 300 people worked on Final Fantasy IX (including contractors outside of Square): they worked for over a year and a half; designed around 180 backgrounds for battles; 200 monsters; around 70 main characters and summons; 100 weapons; 130 items; 200 inhabitants of the world’s cities and 50 side characters modeled; the list goes on. The game was released in Japan on July 7, 2000, in the United States in November of the same year, and finally in Europe in February 2001. A notable detail is that the entire game was optimized to run on the PS2, offering faster disk access times and textures with better renderings (the development team had to specially rework them and redo many backgrounds). In the end, the game was very well received by critics, who were generally delighted by the game’s return to the series’ roots (Famitsu, for example, gave it a rating of 38/40).

However, while FF IX is the game that gets closest to Sakaguchi’s vision of what a Final Fantasy is supposed to be, as we mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, it’s worth noting that the game resonated less with players. In spite of its many positive qualities, FF IX was less successful than the other two installments released for the PlayStation: 5.3 million copies sold worldwide — a great success in absolute terms, yes, but just half of Final Fantasy VII’s sales and significantly less than the 8.15 million copies sold of Final Fantasy VIII.

First, these results can be explained by an unfavorable sales environment: Enix’s smash hit Dragon Quest VII was released just a month later, consuming the attention of Japanese gamers (at the time, the series had rarely been released outside of Japan). There are other possible explanations for the more muted response to FF IX: for starters, the arrival of the PlayStation 2, which rendered Sony’s previous console and its games less attractive. The most probable explanation, however, is one that the creators themselves had foreseen: a significant segment of players was disappointed with the game. It didn’t appeal to them because, in their opinion, it diverged too far from the two previous games, which had made them fall in love with the saga (a very common case among Western players). FF VII and VIII offered settings that were closer to science fiction than fantasy, as well as universes with a darker ambiance. With its return to SD style and a brighter color palette, Final Fantasy IX bucked the trend of “realism” that would guide the evolution of future role-playing games. The cartoon-like characters such as Vivi, Freya, and Quina perhaps seemed more old-fashioned and childish than Cloud, Squall, and the like.

Others — the old-school RPG fans — also reproached the game for having too many cutscenes, as was also the case with the eighth installment. The style of combat was also heavily criticized, particularly because of its “limits” system, which was viewed as poorly designed in many respects: the “trance”

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