Zidane and the thieves take over the theater ship and started the play. Soon, Zidane takes off to capture the princess. However in a twist of event, Princess Garnet offered herself to be kidnap, knowing that her mom is not herself. However Steiner her bodyguard in the call of duty followed Princess Garnet along as to protect her not knowing what is happening.

In the amidst of chaos, Vivi the young black mage joins the party too after the Theater ship was being damaged by Queen Brahne and crashed into the Evil Forest. There Queen Brahne continues to pursue them by sending black mages but the party first must get out of the Evil Forest.

Final Fantasy IX is story-driven like the previous games in the series. The plot often switches focus between different characters or parties. The ATE (Active Time Event) is another great additional to the storyline. The story also involved huge twist that have the wow factor in it. The storyline explores the emotions and fears of each character making it more realistic.

Artistic Elements:
In terms of graphic, Final Fantasy IX has improved more and is slightly better than the previous Final Fantasy. The gameplay is more enriched, vibrant and realistic. With the background being animated it is a huge plus to the series as it increases the background visual details. As for the FMV (Full Motion Videos) it is still as breathtaking as the previous Final Fantasy. Square have reached the full limit of the console and Final Fantasy IX will be one of the few games in the console as one with stunning graphics.

I personally love the music in Final Fantasy IX. Nobuo Uematsu once again takes up the role as the main composer for the game soundtracks. Soundtracks such as “Crossing Those Hills and Melodies of Life” successfully bring out the lighthearted feeling of storyline well. Notice that the sound changes into more tension like while you progress on the game and it completely fit the whole feeling of the storyline.

Gameplay:
The gameplay has been tweaked so that Final Fantasy IX has one of the more balanced combat systems of any game in the series. Each character that joins your party has a character class and unique skills. For instance, Zidane is a thief, Garnet is Summoner, Steiner is a Knight, Freya is a Dragoon, Vivi is Black Mage, Quina is a Chef that can eat and cook enemies and learned Blue Magic. Eiko is a healer and Amarant is a rogue that throws items and uses his Flair techniques on enemies. Abilities are learnt through by equipping of weapons, amours and accessories. After learning the abilities through the gaining of AP’s after battles, players can equip the abilities by spending magic points. Each character has different abilities making each character unique.

The battle system has been expanded into 4 party members instead of 3 in the previous two installments. With more party members in a single party its enable more interaction and much more tactical. For instance, Vivi can cast magic on Steiner Sword and making the sword stronger with elemental effects this is a great additional to the series. While the battles system often takes much longer time to load and start unlike the previous two installments.

The limit breaks returned back to Final Fantasy VII standard with enemies hitting the character the bar will increase but this time round its being rename as Trance. Trance is the main key point for the entire story. Tranced characters have glowing skin, a more powerful appearance, and access to a new set of techniques and skills which is very powerful. However once the character is tranced it cannot bring its trance like mode into the next battle unlike the previous two installments.

Summons is back and this time round the eidolons' animations are truncated to a short splash-damage effect if the damage isn’t critical. However the game summons seems rather useless due to the weak damage they give out.

Replay Value:
There is so much to do in this game, an array of mini-games to play and secrets to achieve like the Chocobo hunting game that rewards you with good items and the mognet sidequest which is very interesting by delivering mails to Mogs. With Steiner strongest weapon to be required you must reach certain cateria within a limited time given. This is one major factor of the game being replayed.

Value:
This is definitely one a Final Fantasy that is worthy to play even if you’re not a fan of it. The storyline, graphics and soundtracks is by far one of the most impressive in the platform to date. With the lighthearted and humorous storyline content one will say: Rally Ho! after playing it.