FFIX: Poor, poor Necron....

by Rob Leo aka Trevor Lyniad 

It starts off action-packed and chop-full of entertaining scenarios that not only allow for the player to become increasingly familiar with the game's already simplistic format, but also dramatically promote quick and noticeable character traits.

The middle chunk of the game is full of interesting plot lines that twist and turn. Garnet becomes Dagger (and is later found to be Sarah) as Zidane grows a stronger bond with Vivi due to their similar situations. Enemies are introduced, the bloodthirst that is revenge begins to beat violently within the hearts of the main characters as their homes and friends are attacked and destroyed. Drama at it's best.

Then, Final Fantasy IX stops being polite, and starts getting real.... The Real Final Fantasy: 9

Why oh WHY did this game, once so riveting and compelling as to the likes of Xenogears and Grandia, have to become yet another hollow production of the Final Fantasy series? Closing into the end of the game, I found that the issues brought forth earlier in the game had become, well, meaningless to me, whereby making the game insignificant:

- Kuja became another Sephiroth, a villain that you chase throughout the game only to realize at the end that you've been chasing around the main villain the whole time.... SURPRISE! A villain that, through experimentation, was produced as a tool for a greater power, only to rebel and flourish on his own. A villain with really crappy hair.

- Garnet's true identity is revealed to be none other than "some chick from the summoner village." Everyone who didn't know this before the second disc's end, raise your hand. Good.... You may leave now.

- Once again, we have the typical hero. Zidane is Cloud, an experiment that cannot remember his origins. Zidane finds out that he is in fact just a Genome, a walking shell, a tool. He also discovers that he was only constructed to serve a simple task, the annihilation of Gaian peoples. Somehow, I cannot help but remember that Cloud was also meant to be a part of the annihilation of the planet's inhabitants. Zidane, may I add for no reason but to vent, is so similar to Locke it hurts.

Given, they are not EXACTLY alike, Zidane and Cloud, but c'mon people. Can you seriously tell me that looking back on both characters, it's not kinda easy to mix them up time to time?

- OK. Final Fantasy VIII managed somehow to throw something about "time compression," a concept that was gone into a depth that is almost as deep as a Terminator movie, in at the end of the game in order to introduce a character who had no purpose whatsoever other than to cause this compression of time because she's a selfish slut. Not to mention the fact that even though Squall and the gang defeat Ultimecia in the future, the very same scenario will be lived out: SeeD will be at war against the sorceress, so it isn't like they're saving the immediate future so much as saving the future after SeeD gets near annihilated.

Final Fantasy IX takes upon this tradition of traditions with a heavy heart. Not only is the ending scenario and explanation hurried, but insanely ludicrous. It isn't that I don't understand the concept so much as say to myself "What the hell was the point of the other 40 hours of the game?!" Stop Kuja? Why? Did it really matter at the end? If you had left Kuja be, he would have killed Garland with his summons, and would had taken Garland's spot in power, only to die soon after due to his Genome's expiration date (All in all, Kuja is like an old carton of milk.). Oh, and who in the HELL is Necron? Sigh, Ultimecia was bad enough.

It isn't that the ending was bad so much as hurried and made to seem bad. At least with Final Fantasy VII, everything melded together nicely when all was said and done. And don't even get me started on the sheer magnificence that is Final Fantasy VI.

Final Fantasy IX let me down. I swear, if Square doesn't come out with a Xenogears prequel soon, I may just go insane, steal some summon magic from the body of some princess, and take over the world. But I'll probably just get killed in the end anyway by some kid who turns out to be my "brother," who then will kill Necron.... Poor poor Necron....

Go fig.

- Written by Rob Leo aka Trevor Lyniad