I just happened upon Final Fantasy IX by accident. It was very easy to start, very difficult to put down, and now I've made it to the end of the game. This also happens to be my first exposure to Final Fantasy, as I haven't played any other Square games besides Super Mario RPG for the Super Nintendo prior to this.

FFIX executed its love and war story very well with some pretty good character development. I'd even place it as probably one of the best games I've played. I'm looking for the next thing after this, perhaps something similar or something different. From what I can tell so far, FFVII and FFVIII exhibit much darker stories and characters. I tend to like the upbeat mood of FFIX. Then again, I've also read that FFIX attempts to take FF back to its roots. I'm a sucker for the old school stuff, perhaps.

Also, since I've just finished the game, I played with the story as the first priority and thoroughness as a second. This means that I may have missed out on some of the side quests/locations (i.e. I found Chocobo's Forest, found the Chocobo, but never got around to doing anything with the Chocobo).

In short, a primary question:
What would be a good Final Fantasy followup to IX?
As in, what would be an appropriate next Final Fantasy game to play? Your choices are wide open here.
(I'll accept that I started at a bad place, as in FFIX is hard to top. Yes, I know the stories are disjointed.)

And a secondary question:
Is it worth going through FFIX again to see what else I've missed?

1st: Followup being good or bad?
2nd: If you want to fight a boss harder than Necron, yes.

A good followup.

Good...

If you didn't like the ATB system, you can always do X.
For machinery in most of the game, VII or VIII.

Do you like the classic games?

I was fine with the ATB. I also like the castle fantasy style of the game.

If you liked brilliance, I'd say VIII.

If you liked brilliance, I'd say VIII.

Hear that? It's your credibility flying out the window. Anyway, netbaron, welcome to FFS. Most players who liked FFIX liked FFVI as well. It came out on SNES as FFIII, and was rereleased for PSX in FF Anthology. I do believe there's a GBA release, too, but as I don't much follow portables, I'm not 100% sure.

Edit: Upon doing a bit of looking, I found a Feb '07 release date for FFVI Advance on gamefaqs.

I'm going to agree with Cy (whose name went back to Cy... OMG! XD) and suggest FFVI. Since you mentioned liking "old school," I'd definitely say that FFVI should be the one you look into playing next.

But... there's also another game I'd suggest looking into getting in the future if you have an Xbox 360, and that's Blue Dragon. It shares the same upbeat, colorful style and, like FFIX, has its serious and dark moments but for the most part, remains light-hearted while not being "childish."

I might be getting ahead of myself, though, because so far that's only released in Japan, with the English version likely coming out next year. :)

I daresay that Blue Dragon has come very close to usurping FFIX as my favorite game... ^___^;

The reason I reccommend Blue Dragon is becuase it was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, who created Final Fantasy and produced them up until FF10. The characters were designed by Dragonball's Akira Toriyama, but it also has a few of FF9's staff on board, including Hideo Minaba as one of the monster designers. And Nobuo Uematsu also wrote the music. I think it has a lot of heart and spirit in it, so if you ever do get the chance to one day, that's the game I'd go with.


As for your second question... well, I'm someone who has played FF9 many times, and in two languages, so....... yeah, I'd definitely say that going through it again would be worth it. I don't know if you did all of the sidequests the first time through. If not, a lot of them are fun to try to complete. But the main reason I play it over and over ... and over and over and over and over again is because I love the characters and the story. ^_^

I would say VI if you do not mind the 2d graphics of course (a remake is coming for GBA if its not even out, im not sure), or XII, although xii has a very different battle system.

Final Fantasy X was after Final Fantasy IX. I don't see what the discussion's about ^.^

1. FFIV has a very similar battle system, plot elements and characters to FFIX, if you can stand a fairly outdated RPG. Although this shouldn't be a problem, since you said you like 'old school' games anyway.

2. Unlike its immediate predecessors, FFIX's story doesn't really benefit from subsequent playthroughs; you can pretty easily comprehend everything during a single playthrough. You might want to go back and play the game again though after playing through all the older FF games, so you can pick all the references it makes to them.

Aside from that, there is an optional boss on disk 3 that you might have missed and there is always the 'beat the game in 12 hours to receive Excalibur 2" challenge. Those could be reasons to play the game again I guess.

What would be a good Final Fantasy followup to IX?
FFIX was my first exposure to Final Fantasy as well, and I picked up FFV and FFIV (Anthology) as the second game(s). I started on FFV and it was incredible; the entire game just blew me away. Sure, it didn't exactly top FFIX, but a damn good game in it's own right. Trust me.

Conclusion: Final Fantasy V.

And a secondary question:
It's always worth going trough the game again. I've lost count on how many times I've finished this game.

1. I'll tell you this - Don't play FFVIII next. FFIX was also my first exposure to the series, and when I played FFVIII it was a huge let down to me.

I would listen to the other shriners and play FFVI next.

2. Definitely play through it again. I've played it over 7 times I believe and after being on the shrine for a month or two, I have a strong desire to play it again. It never gets old to me :)

Plus, I found FFIX's Chocobo sidequest to be one of my favorites.

Ive got to agree with most people here that ff9 is excellent and that ff6 is a great choice for a second game.

Although i was a little dissapointed with some of the games, they're all quite good to play through at least once.

FFIX was actually the first FF I beat so I was in kind of the situation you were in. The order I played was:

- FFIX
- FFVIII
- FFVII
- All other older FF's
- FFX and on wards

Was a good way to go because FF8 is my favourite FF :).

Well, thanks for a good discussion. For what its worth, I'll probably be checking out FFVI next (thanks to your discussion), and probably running through FFIX with a fine-toothed comb in whatever spare time I have left.

There's just so much to see with so little time.

And to throw a speculative question out there, will Square Enix be trying this kind of FFIX branch again?

I guess it's only fair that I throw something in.
From what I've read, it seems as if FFIX was a mixed bag for Squaresoft. A bit of experimentation with the internet-oriented strategy guide didn't work out for them, and while FFIX was one of the top sellers during its release time, it didn't top other FFs in sales. Additionally, there are also the players who have different expectations of the FF series if they started in the first Playstation FF runs. Players old and new definitely enjoyed it (as evidenced in this discussion).

I hope a branch will come, but seeing how FFXIII seems to be quite a massive project (three different games at the same time), it may be a while since they probably have few extra development resources to dedicate for such a project.

You'll have lots of fun mixing around espers in FF6 when you get them. ^^

And to throw a speculative question out there, will Square Enix be trying this kind of FFIX branch again?


Well, they did not say anything about a remake or port to another system, but it may be available for the ps1 emulation on the psp. Nothing official has been announced though

1. I'll tell you this - Don't play FFVIII next. FFIX was also my first exposure to the series, and when I played FFVIII it was a huge let down to me.

Plus, I found FFIX's Chocobo sidequest to be one of my favorites.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with this one. I played VIII right after IX and i found something really lacking... I then proceeded to play VII which i really disliked so i eventually just stopped playing it altogether and didnt bother beating it. Then once we got a ps2 i went out and got X and i can say that it honestly was better than VIII and a LOT better than VII. After that i started to play the originals and i just barely started on XII which so far id call it amazing, right under IX in my charts.

To answer what you want, id say either play X or XII. If you want more of a traditional feel then you can play VI no problem, although i advise playing some of the newer ones because it will make you appreciate the root games more. I suggest this mainly because if you play the earlier ones right after IX and start liking those a lot, then you will probably start thinking the newer ones are dumb and you wont want to play them and you will definitely miss out.

Second question - If you havent done many of the side-quests then i have to definitely tell you to play it again. Besides, you will love that you got to re-experience the game which is what we all really want deep down. Id give up all my other consoles to play IX and feel like i did when i first played it.

8 was a let down, 7's story lines sucked but hte materia system was orgasmic, 9 was sweet. ea character had his or her own role (mage knight whatever amerant was) and 10 was a let down again but i liked the lvl up system. 6 was fun but i only played thought once and found it boring the secound time i tried

Heya friends, I also really liked FF9. Definately my favorite story out of all the FF's I have played.

I thought FF7 and 8 would be great cause of all the raving when they first came out. FF7 was alright except for the fact that IT HAD NO REAL ENDING. and ff8 was also quite good if you didn't mind the 'WHAT'S HAPPENING?' reaction to the story.

Now, I really recommend playing final fantasy tactics or ff6 (remake on the psx includes amvS - i really like those).

I'm not really too experienced yet with giving reviews, but I quite like whoever wrote this bit about the game: http://www.fantasyanime.com/finalfantasy/ff6/ff6about.htm

ff tactics is great but i cant beat it
its too complicated for me

yays first post in this epic forum that i found when searching for somewhere to dwl halo soundtracks lol :P

anyways - FFiX BEST EVER NO DAMN COMPETITION lol

as for VIII, some of u are now going to hate me coz ITS FUCKING SHIT

ahh hum, moving on


NEEDS TO BUY FFXII lol