I just finished FF9 recently by sheer fluke as it was the one PS1 Final Fantasy i hadn't played. Great music and generally a fun setting that's quite refreshing after some of the edgy-ness from 7 and 8 but I have some... complaints. I never got why Vivi was there at the beginning in the first place and pretty much the fact that he just randomly gets involved with plot shenanigans of Zidane et al was a bit clumsy. None of the other characters really go "Wait, who are you and why are you tagging along?". Also FF9 has a case of some really strong characters and then some incredibly weak ones. Zidane is fine, if a little gross in the way he seems to want to fuck everyone in disc 1. Dagger i think has a good arc and Vivi is of course a wonderful character despite the clumsy way he is initially shoehorned into the narrative. But Steiner is just one note, Quina and Amarant are beyond terrible and the less said about the little six (!!!!) year old girl who's one character trait is thirsting after Zidane the better (again, she is fucking six, that shit is grim and would not fly in this day and age unless the game in question is a Fire Emblem game).
The game also pulls my most hated RPG trope ever quite a few times: The unwinnable battles. After the third (or fourth? I legit lost count) time i had to lose to Beatrix i wanted nothing more than a proper fight against her where i could beat the absolute shit out of her. And of course when she briefly is controlled she is suddenly much weaker than in boss form. Kuja pulls this stunt a few times too along with the double whammy of "I have defeated the protagonists and could easily finish them off but i shall let them live because reasons" cliche.
The whole endgame souls plotline reminded me a little bit too much of FF7's lifestream and Garland was a bit meh. I feel like the first two discs are the game at its best and it kind of loses the magic it had towards the end. I was not a fan of there suddenly being a new final antagonist that the game pulled out of its arse right at the last minute. I also can't get over how stupid the whole "Zidane trying to rescue Kuja at the end" thing was. Kuja has been an irredeemably evil piece of shit responsible for countless deaths and general destruction throughout the entire game and IS GOING TO DIE ANYWAY so Zidane feeling the need to pointlessly go after him just made me legitimately angry. And of course Zidane doesn't die, instead he feels the need to wait a year and then re-emerge as part of some elaborate stage production like the world's biggest drama queen which is played off as some sort of sweet and magical moment when in actual fact Dagger should be like "Excuse me, you let me believe you were dead for a year, get absolutely fucked you psycho".
This isn't related to the quality of the game itself but I gotta say, the recent ports to all the modern systems is a bit of a travesty. I do not like the mobile friendly menu's being used for the console ports, the game has some inexplicably long loading times and of course the common problem with the PS1 ports with the ugly backgrounds contrasting terribly with high rez menus/character models/etc. I would also like to get a hold of the person who was in charge of the achievements and give him or her a giant slap in the face for the "Jump 1000 times with Vivi" achievement. Fuck off with that tedious shit.
All in all I'd rate FF9 higher than 8 but 7 still has my heart when it comes to the PS1 FF's.
