Pixels or Death's Adam Harshberger writes:
"There is a week that I regard with sanctity. November 14thof the year 2000 through November 21st of the year 2000 – the day that Final Fantasy IX was released through a week after the day Final Fantasy 9 was released. I do not remember a lot about the game – the characters, sure, and fragments of the plot, definitely. Most of it, though, is lost somewhere.
What isn’t lost, though, is that week I spent voraciously eating through the game. I would walk home from school faster than usual, foregoing the valuable time one could spent flirting with crushes, to seat myself in the blue chair in my room and lose myself inside the screen. For some reason, I remember eating an entire pack of pepperoni in one day. I remember faking like I was going to sleep to clandestinely get out of bed and play the game on mute. I remember being panic-stricken in homeroom, furiously doing the homework I skipped the night before. I was in 6th grade.
And...
Get ready to hear the FFIX soundtrack like never before when the FINAL FANTASY IX - House Grooves album drops in March 2026.
Square Enix is a cautionary tale. The have some of the oldest fanbases out there a instead of giving them what they asked for, the strung them along so hard that they no longer sale what they once did because their audience is literally dying off. And even when they finally got around to doing FF7 you can feel that while good, the game is lacking the polish it deserves. It is can be clunky, slow, and fights you for no reason with layers of artificial difficulty masquerading as challenge.
we'll get anything but the game announcement
i wonder if they had to delay the game internally and all the other unnecessary dtuff they did had stiff deadlines.
not an excuse, Square is terrible with their own damn deadlines.
The FF9 remake was part of the Nvidia leak many moons ago. Not sure what happened since then but Square seems to excel at mucking things up.
I'm an avid House Head especially the genres of Tech,NY Hard,Tribal, Deep & Progressive House including the now sound of Techno with 125 to 132 BPM. I'm very curious to how this sounds.
The tracklist for the Midnight Jazz: FINAL FANTASY IX album and more merchandise have been revealed as part of the FFIX 25th anniversary.
The FFIX 25th anniversary celebrations continue with the announcement of the Midnight Jazz: Final Fantasy IX CD, releasing in early 2026.
I quite honestly have grown bored with this particular "anniversary". It's pretty clear we're not getting a remake and yet this one has been especially drawn out compared to other anniversaries. We've had new key visual art for the famitsu cover, interviews, exhibition, picture book, new figurines (in which they've gone out of their way to give a slightly more refined look and change), jazz arrangement, a bunch of merchandising. They've given you every way of experiencing this anniversary through seeing, listening and even touching excepting for playing.
Nice article. FFXIII was my first Final Fantasy and after playing through it and enjoying it quite a bit I knew I had to go back to the older games to see what they were like. FFVII was the first and I thought it was fantastic. But FFIX was next and I absolutely adored the game, even though I was a little unsure of it from the start (crazy fantasy lands with an odd wizard kid and what looked like flying pigs really made me thing "what am I doing playing this?"). The lore of the world, the world itself, the memorable locations like Alexandria and Treno (which is one of my favourite towns in gaming), the pacing of the story, everything did it for me.
But the thing I liked the most was the characters, and the fact that almost all of them were equally important and had a large part to play in the plot, as opposed to perhaps a game like FFVII (not that I dislike FFVII, I mean it may focus on the one protagonist and antagonist for the majority of the game, but they are two detailed and brilliant characters in that with a great intertwining story). I've been itching to replay it at some stage again but since I've been trying to get to other titles such as FFVI, through which I have been progressing incredibly slowly, and FFVIII and FFX (which I recent bought) I figure it could take a while before I get a chance to replay it and really enjoy it again, but whenever that day comes, like you, I will be ready for it and will look forward to jumping into the story again.
Interesting. I did pretty much the exact same thing, but I was a little older (high school). I bought the game on a Friday afternoon, sat my ass down and played it until the end, which arrived at around 5am Monday morning. No showers, no sleep, just eating and bathroom. My most hardcore gamer tweak ever. Like the author, I also don't remember everything about it, especially now, but I know I loved it. It's still my favorite FF title from the PS1.
Makes me nostalgic for the days when I was younger, when I'd have a friend or two over for the weekend, and we'd do little more than game and sleep. Back then your console wouldn't implode if you left it on for days.
" beating games isn’t even, usually, a matter of craving or satisfaction – it’s a compulsion. It’s a relief: “Thank God I beat that one. I don’t have to make time for it anymore.”"
My god - this is so true. I'd like to think this is more a product of the games being produced now than me as a gamer. Surely it's the failing of the game for failing to leave me hooked and rabid and wanting more, not my failing as a gamer for being unable to connect anymore.
Right?
I can't say I didn't enjoy FFIX, because I did.
It's just... unlike all the other FFs I've played- every main game since VII- FFIX just didn't stick with me the same way. I suppose it may have something to do with the fact that I only played through it once, but then, maybe I only played through it once because it didn't stick with me?
I loved FFIX, it was my first Final Fantasy, and still my favorite