Final Fantasy IX: Part I

My good friend Jacob has persuaded me to try Final Fantasy IX as the introduction to that series. He has been so good as to loan me a copy, and so I will make every attempt to finish the game. In my turn, I shall blog my efforts in hopes of amusing and enlightening my readers. These entries shall be stream of consciousness accounts of what I encounter, and as such may be disjointed. Needless to say, they will also contain spoilers. Well, let us begin.

- ... Wow. For PSX era graphics, for a game I remember reading about in an old gaming mag while still in middle school (or thenabouts), the cutscenes look good. You can tell they're dated, but you don't care. It puts SoA:L (my favorite RPG of Dreamcast era, ported to GCN) to shame.
- Regular graphics, not so much. And everything's so smudgy and pixelated. Then again, I play the Golden Sun games, so I'm used to that.
- So far, so good. Wandering around the city (Alexandria?) trying to go see this show where some abduction is going to go down. No ticket, but instead I get trading cards. Will I have to challenge the castle guards to a children's card game?
- Okay, this card game is pretty darn addictive.
- Annoying children run into me and won't move until I do.
- Wish I understood how they're getting the, like, HP of the different cards. I can't tell if the symbols on them are supposed to be numbers?
- Okay, let's go and move the plot along, if I can figure out how to do that.
- This game has such a fairy tale feel to it.
- Theatre! Jacob knows what I like. X3
- That's actually a fun run of minigame sequences.
- Poor sad princess.
- Mysterious figure. I wonder who that could be.
- And now I have to go search for the missing princess.
- I do like how the viewpoint character changes up. Gives it more of a rounded story feeling.
- Except Steiner moves so slow, and I don't know what I'm looking for. The princess, yeah, but there's so many bland rooms and corridors. Oh well, probably won't be long.
- Ugh, searched everywhere. Well, pretty much. If I can't find her in this last place, I'm checking a guide.
- Staaaaaairs.
- Oh, guess it really is the last place you look.
- Haha, Steiner. I like that guy already.
- Cutscene! And now more chasing.
- Is that band made up of zombies?
- These days it's more shocking if a princess doesn't want to escape/run away/be kidnapped from her privileged, pampered existence. I'll be interested in finding out Garnet's motivation.
- Poor Steiner. He just wants to do a good job.
- Bwahaha, yesss, that play. Jacob, when you read this, know that I fully support putting an homage to it in our stuff. So much melodrama and farce.
- I was wondering when Vivi would show up again.
- Just the sort of coincidence to cause the most plot trouble.
- Harpoon Cannon, fire!
- Did... Did they just fire a literal sun at them or something?
- Not sure what's up with that queen aside from the fact that she is cray cray.
- Garnet's all, "what the heck did I just get myself into?"
- Oh right, those creepy jester guys. Creepy.
- SAVE EARLY. SAVE OFTEN.

Well, there's our first entry. I have to replay a bit of the game due to some technical difficulties, so I'm going to call this a good stopping point as far as this entry goes. I'll update again soon!