Final Fantasy IX Community Playthrough

[Lex]

And so, the decision has been made! This'll be our official thread for The Lifestream community playthrough of Final Fantasy IX.

​

Participants

Aaron (Rory Williams), Alex Strife, Arianna, AvecAloes, Chloe Fraser, Fangu, Flintlock, ForceStealer, Hitoshura (Strangelove), Kuroto, Loki, Midnight Rider of War (Noctis), Monterosa, Novus, Prince Lex, Sprites, Tennyo, Obsidian Fire.

People are listed from people who posted saying they were playing in the poll thread. If anyone is missing/ no longer wants to be on the list, let me know.

How To Play

If you have the original discs, you can play it on PS, PSone, PS2 or PS3. The game is also available for download on the Playstation Online Store for PSP, PS Vita and PS3. It costs £7.99 in the UK or $9.99 in North America.

Alternatively, if you happen to have ripped an ISO to your PC from the game disc you legally bought 13 years ago, I recommend you use an emulator called pSX or another one called ePSXe. If you want the perfect, original experience go with pSX (also recommended for older PC's etc). If you want to upscale and have fancy smoothing options go with ePSXe.

Controller instructions: You want to have analogue sticks with this game. It makes exploration so much smoother and it was built for them. The left analogue stick only, it's not like it has camera control. It's possible to play without, but not as nice.

If you didn't know already, you can plug your PS3 controller into your computer using a driver called PS3 Motioninjoy. It also allows wireless connectivity if your PC/Laptop has bluetooth.If you have a USB XBox controller, that works too.

Beware: If you're using pSX (recommended for a no hassle experience) you might come across a problem while setting up your controller. In pSX, go to "File->Configuration->Controllers" and make sure you choose the device you want to use under "Device" and then "SCPH- 1200 Dualshock" under "Type" if you're using an analogue controller. The tricky part is, when you're mapping the controller (by clicking in each box and then pressing the appropriate button on your controller) both "L" options and "R" options are sometimes reversed. You might have to mess around with that to get analogue to work properly, although it's entirely possible they fixed this in the latest version.

NOTE: Play the NTSC version. Not only is it slightly faster than the PAL version, it's missing a SECU-ROM thing that the PAL version has requiring a .ppf patch. Trust me when I say you don't want to bother with that.

If you have any trouble getting a hold of the game ISO's or BIOS required for the emulator, PM either me or Flint. I'm considering just making a zip file and uploading it somewhere with all the premade settings. If enough people want this I'll do it, but it's genuinely not difficult to find the stuff you need using Google. There's more than one site out there offering the ISO's of every PS game ever. Just make sure it's NTSC.

Chapters and Timing

Provisionally, the chapters will be split as follows (not final, may change as we play):

1. Paces in the Dark (Prima Vista, Alexandria, Evil Forest)
2. An Icy Welcome (Ice Cavern - Dali)
3. Metropolis (Lindblum - Qu's Marsh (Optional) - Chocobo Forest (Optional))
4. Open, Sesame! (Gizamaluke's Grotto - South Gate I - Burmecia)
5. A Change of Pace (South Gate II - Treno - Gargan Roo)
6. A Tree Worth Hugging (Cleyra - Alexandria II - Pinnacle Rocks)
7. Rally ho! (Lindblum - Qu's Marsh - Fossil Roo - Conde Petie - Black Mage Village)
8. That Damn Fairy Flute (Mountain Path - Madain Sari - Iifa Tree - Madain Sari II - Iifa Tree II)
9. Holy Judgement (Alexandria II - Treno II - Alexandria III)
10. Taking Demure Too Far (Lindblum - Blue Narciss (Side Quests))
11. The Desert Crossing (Black Mage Village II - Desert Palace - Oielvert - Desert Palace II)
12. A Melody of Ice and Fire (Mount Gulug - Lindblum - Ipsen's Castle - The Four Mirrors)
13. You're Not Alone (Terra - Bran Bal - Pandemonium)
14. A World of Mist (Side quest completion, levelling, preperations)
15. A World of Memories (Iifa Tree - Memoria)

Each chapter should be around 1 - 3 hours in length. As I'm sure a lot of you have noticed, they're fairly beefy. Doing the weekly Skype & Play for VII we averaged about 2 chapters per week so I took that into account. One chapter weekly seems like the best way to proceed with this list.

We should also arrange another weekly Skype and Play. I'll stream each chapter to my Twitch account. If anyone else is emulating and interested in doing so, you can also stream to the TLS Twitch account. PM me or Flint or Fangu for the login details.

Ideally I'd like to start this coming weekend if no one has any objections? That's Friday 18th January. Remember, you don't have to have a microphone to join in with the Skype chat. You can listen to people talking while playing and converse in the chat box if you're shy. It's a lot of fun though.

People not joining in with the Skyping but still playing through should complete chapter 1 by Friday 26th January (assuming we all agree to start next weekend). A chapter target and chapter questions will be posted for each chapter (similar to Flint's VII structure).

You are not obligated to do anything other than finish the chapter within the week given, then make a short post about it. Either me or Flint will post questions relating to the chapter. If anyone wants to take the helm or ask questions about a chapter just post here, the more input from everyone the better. If you like, you can make mahooosive posts with screenshots and opinions and likes/dislikes as well as answering chapter questions. It's also not necessary to answer the chapter questions, you can just post how you felt about the chapter or whatever. They're really just there as a guideline to get you talking about the chapter .

And that's about it for the time being. If there's anything anyone wants to add/ mention/ discuss, post it here.

 

[AvecAloes]

I am very much looking forward to this! I think the chapter break-ups are quite reasonable. The weekend/week that you are suggesting we start might be a bit iffy for me, as I will be moving that week, but if I can't get it done that week, I will get caught up for the next week.

 

[Flintlock]

Good stuff. I'll make a front page news post once the first chapter target post is up. Or you can. One of us should

 

[Lex]

I'll probably do that later tonight or tomorrow (the chapter target), I'm just waiting to see if anyone objects to starting next weekend/ so we can arrange a time to Skype and play next weekend.

What day/time suits everyone? We seem to like our Friday nights here, but we ended up Sunday nighting quite a lot with the VII playthrough.

 

[Lord Noctis]

Not sure if I can manage this weekend. I'll have to get back to you once the schedule at work is out. That'll be in the next day or so.

I would really like to join in the skype call. Anyway, I just need to see about getting everything I need to play the game with my computer.

How long do the downloads generally take?

 

[Strangelove]

Got the PSN one downloaded and ready now. I will have to see if I can make any Skype things closer to the time.

 

[Lex]

How long do the downloads generally take?

Depends on your internet connection. And also, wherever you're getting it from. A standard broadband connection will probably download all 4 discs (which are around 2GB in total) in about an hour (assuming it downloads at a rate of about 500Kb/s). Fibre optic can download it in about 15 minutes.

Again people PM me if you need links to anything.

 

[Carlie]

I'm looking forward to finally finishing FFIX, yes I've never actually finished the game, go ahead mock I deserve it.

 

[Tennyo]

I never finished it, either, but I have an excuse. The final disc was faulty and I had to order a new one. But the time I got it I just...never got around to finishing it, but it is on my to-do list!!!

 

[Lex]

^I can't really blame you. There are certain parts of the game that it's so easy to just get crazily sidetracked in. On my most recent playthrough (the one I streamed), I got sidetracked doing chocographs when you get the Blue Narciss. There'll be no stopping this time!

 

[Carlie]

I asked my mom to buy me the game when it came out, she bought me a cheap pirated copy which glitched out after Zidane and Blank do the sword fight for Queen Brahne, instead of buying me an original copy after that she bought me another cheap pirated copy. All was going well with that one until disc 2 in which it glitched out, I still had the other copy so I tried the Disc 2 from that one, it glitched out in the exact same place, my mom told me she wasn't going to buy another copy because she had already spent too much money on it. The lesson here is that parents should sometimes listen to their children instead of trying to be sneaky to save money but end up paying more instead.

I wouldn't get a chance to play the game until it came out on the PSN and every time I tried to finish it something else grabs my attention.

 

[Alex Strife]

I'll make a confession.

I once made a playthrough all up to disc 3, to where

Spoiler

Kuja captures the party and you go to Oeilvert

. At that point

Spoiler

I chose my usual party; Dagger, Vivi and Eiko, and of course the place is hideous for magic users!

. So in the end, as I was always underleveled (I enjoy a bit of challenge; not too much, but I didn't want to powerlevel through the game), and

Spoiler

my character choice was the worst possible choice for that dungeon

I had to re-start the game. It was heart-breaking.

I think something similar happened to me on disc 2, but I can't seem to remember exactly how it went. But all in all, it meant I had to start the game three times before I could finish it.

 

[Flintlock]

I once made a playthrough all up to disc 3, to where

Spoiler

Kuja captures the party and you go to Oeilvert

. At that point

Spoiler

I chose my usual party; Dagger, Vivi and Eiko, and of course the place is hideous for magic users!

. So in the end, as I was always underleveled (I enjoy a bit of challenge; not too much, but I didn't want to powerlevel through the game), and

Spoiler

my character choice was the worst possible choice for that dungeon

I had to re-start the game. It was heart-breaking.

Oh no! Didn't you read Kuja's hint?

Spoiler: Conversation

Kuja: "I'm going to send you to a place called Oeilvert."

Zidane: "Where's that?"

Kuja: "Oeilvert is south of the Seaways Canyon on the Forgotten
Continent. It really isn't my kind of place."

Zidane: "What do you mean by that?"

Kuja: "You see, there's an anti-magic barrier around the place. And I
want to send you because you're too stupid to use magic. Once
there, I want you to retrieve the Gulug Stone for me. What do
you say? Isn't it a simple task? I'll even send you on my luxury
cruise ship, so you won't have to worry about transportation.
Perhaps it's too much for you. I'd better send you with three of
your friends just to be safe. Besides, nobody likes to fight
against himself."

 

[Alex Strife]

I thought it was part of the taunting!

 

[Sprites]

Ohhh that's great I can't wait to play and as for skyping at the weekend, well a lot of you guys here already know why I can't skype anymore, but this weekend coming won't be a problem on Saturday and Sunday as my parents switched their week going to Galway, so skyping is a definite to look forward to if it's on Saturday night or sunday, either way even without skype I'm in

 

[Lex]

Could people say when they'd be available to join in for a Skype and play this coming weekend? A good "time" to start would be around 7pm UK time (since that's the afternoon for most North Americans and later in the evening for the less western Europeans), the problem is deciding on a day. If there are enough people who want to join in the Skype thing but can't make this weekend we could try to arrange a day during the week following it, since the target for finishing is the following Friday. The weekend seems to be better for most people though.

 

[Flintlock]

Any time is fine by me. I'll probably be with Kuroto, who needs to get a headset of her own

 

[Kuroto]

I'll be taking part in the playthrough, but I'm not promising to Skype yet, so you don't have to think about my timetable. First of all, I don't have my own headset, like Flint said, and also I should mention that the closer we get to summer, my time will be more limited, so there will be a good chance that I'll have to stay behind a bit. Still, I'm looking forward to playing, even though I just finished this game about a month ago. ^^

 

[Arianna]

I asked my mom to buy me the game when it came out, she bought me a cheap pirated copy which glitched out after Zidane and Blank do the sword fight for Queen Brahne, instead of buying me an original copy after that she bought me another cheap pirated copy. All was going well with that one until disc 2 in which it glitched out, I still had the other copy so I tried the Disc 2 from that one, it glitched out in the exact same place, my mom told me she wasn't going to buy another copy because she had already spent too much money on it. The lesson here is that parents should sometimes listen to their children instead of trying to be sneaky to save money but end up paying more instead.

Or at least go to a reputable game company. Sometimes the games are just too expensive at first; perhaps she should have told you no and waited instead of buying cheap copies? It would have been a better experience when you did finally get the game.

 

[Captain Jack Harkness]

i'm ok for this weekend (if something happens, i'll let you know).
i've just a little problem with the emulator (well, two, tbh): when i fight, the screen became black when i have to select the action, but the game doesn't stop or anything else (i can select the action). it simply go black and after i select the screen came back to normality. i fear that i have to learn by heart the orther of the actions.
minor problem, the animation is slow and lag and the graphic is 'little bit pixel' (not sure if right).

 

[Lex]

You shouldn't have that problem with pSX. Which emulator are you using?

 

[Lex]

Chapter One: Paces in the Dark

Each week I'll post an image like the one above to show where to save at the end of the chapter and questions to get a discussion going. I'm stealing Flintlock's structure but it worked well, so why deviate?

Everyone is encouraged to submit questions of their own that'll be added to this post, and answer them when the Chapter is complete. So with that said; here are a few of mine:

• What did you think of the opening? How would you rate it against other FF openings?
• There are a tonne of minigames in IX. Did you try skipping? Did you start Mognet or meet Stilzkin? How did you find the sparring minigame? Did you impress Queen Brahne?
• What do you think of the controls/exploration compared to other FF titles? What about the battle system?
• Are you enjoying the story? What do you think of it so far?

A link will be added to each chapter heading in the opening post when a new chapter post is made so that no one needs to scroll back through posts to find the questions for their responses.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Random question: how spoiler free should our posts be? and how many of us have already played the game?

 

[Strangelove]

Spoiler tag stuff talking about the story points in each chapter?

Also, is there some catch to screencapping on the Vita now? I could do it using the PS + Start buttons, but I tried with FFIX and it wouldn't let me. Also wouldn't let me on Resident Evil 1, which I could before (there is an option by using the system/Home button menu which FFIX lacks). Right now, after testing the four games I have on my system (Resident Evil 1, FFIX, Saga Frontier, Linda3 Again) only RE1 worked and only in the menu. Which is annoying, I was hoping to take proper screenshots.

 

[Flintlock]

I made a new image (hope you don't mind, Lex) and made a front page post about this.

Can't wait for it to start