Product Description
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Brahne, the evil Queen of Alexandria, is using highly advanced
magical weapons to terrorise neighbouring kingdoms. Players
follow a group of bandits, knights and magicians as they try to
foil her plans. The heroes quickly learn that her wicked doings
are part of a much larger plot, and as they progress, they learn
about the sinister motives of a powerful sorcerer named Kuja.
More than 30 million copies of the Final Fantasy franchise have
been sold, making it one of the bestselling video-game series
ever. This edition offers new characters and 3-D environments,
plus a rich story line--one of the hallmarks of the series--as
well as a new point-based spell-casting system and an item-based
ability-learning system.
.co.uk Review
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As with the other games in the series, Final Fantasy IX has the
ability to grab your attention from the time you fire it up until
the last boss is put down. Previous entries into the game's
lineage took a more dramatic cinematic route to do what a
role-playing game does best--tell a story. That style led to some
complaints from headstrong fans and role-playing gamers alike. In
response to this, while not sacrificing what new technology
they've built into the series, SquareSoft has backtracked a bit.
To put it simply, they've gone back to their roots.
But even players with no experience in this series can pick this
up as a new game. Final Fantasy IX's story follows a group trying
to stop Brahne, the evil Queen of Alexandria, in her quest to
rule the world. Zidane, a skilled thief, teams with a young mage,
a royal knight and a princess, who all soon discover that the
queen's threats are fronting an even more sinister plot involving
a powerful sorcerer named Kuja. It's your job to control the
eight playable characters--each of whom begin the game with one
weapon, one piece of armour and one special power--and to uncover
Kuja's motives before he carries out his deadly plan.
The game's opening sequence sets the stage for what's to follow
and, as we've come to expect from the CG wizards at SquareSoft,
what is an utterly amazing visual scene. Long-time fans will
revel in SquareSoft's decision to return to the
disproportional-character look of the past.
Like VII and VIII, Final Fantasy IX uses the ATB (Active Time
Battle) system. With each character learning the abilities and
commands appropriate to his or her job class.
An Active Time Event (ATE) lets you see events that are
happening elsewhere. For example, while you are controlling the
main character in a town, you can view what the other characters
are doing in another part of the same town. This function
provides additional information and behind-the-scenes details
about the story and the characters.
The game's visual splendour touches even the most ordinary
scenes, such as shadows in the street alleys and the mazes of
cobblestones. Final Fantasy IX's colour palette does a remarkable
job in creating interest on every single object, location and
person.
This will be SquareSoft's last venture on the PlayStation for
the Final Fantasy Series, with its awesome graphics, a good
story, and random battles that reveal curious bits about each
character, Final Fantasy IX is an epic adventure that'll have
long-time fans of the accled series beaming with pride and
joy. As for everyone else who has yet to experience the Fantasy,
now is the time! --Stuart Miles
- About this item Play with 8 unique characters that use a variety of weapons, magic and abilities Step into a magical world with superbly detailed pre rendered environments Almost one hour of seamlessly integrated full motion videos.