THE ENDGAME: Final Dungeons of the Final Fantasy Series Part IX

Final Fantasy IX: Memoria and the Crystal World

Kuja, already miffed that Zidane was to be his replacement, lost all rational thought upon learning he would die. Like the petulant, spoiled child he is, he’s decided that he’s going to destroy the source of life. That’ll kill everyone including himself, and thus the world will not have to endure going on without him. What a guy.

“Why should the world exist without my fabulous fashion sense? That wouldn’t be fair.”

Despite Final Fantasy IX being an homage to the eight games before it, its final dungeon is unique in a couple ways. First, most dungeons sit innocuously until the overlevelled and ridiculously equipped party barrels into it, lacking any real fanfare apart from badass music. This still waits for you of course, but it has a fantastic lead-in with hundreds if not thousands of silver dragons taking flight to guard the portal above the Iifa tree. All the secondary characters arrive in previously seen or used airships and Lindblum’s fleet to clear a path for the Invincible. This is all the buildup this final area gets, as you have no idea where you’re going. It certainly got me fired up though.

The second unique thing about Memoria, in particular, is the amount of plot taking place there. There aren’t so much elaborate cutscenes or anything, but a lot of exposition is encountered as you make your way through. The fact that the world is composed of the party’s memories allow for character development long after other FF games have finished with that stuff. You’ll usually get some choice words from the villain, maybe learn some ulterior motive to his or her plan, but that’s about it.

This dungeon is pretty, by the way. There are some amazing backgrounds, such a Memoria literally being constructed as you approach it to walking through space, to the violent backgrounds appearing in the Crystal World. Some backgrounds involve the creation of Gaia and Terra, at one point you walk into the eye of the Invincible over Madain Sari, and one segment even has the ‘memory’ of the Eidolon showdown in Alexandria in the background.

That’s way too pretty to make a ball joke.

Despite the mindbending locations you walk through, it is a straightforward dungeon without any attempts to show the entire party being used, half-hearted or otherwise. Also gone are Final Fantasy VIII’s puzzles. You simply plow through Iron Giants and Behemoths while listening to Garland Explains It All. Naturally, any good homage to the FFs of yore would have a boss gauntlet. True to form, its just as unimaginative as its forebears. You merely fight the four fiends again as I have done several times now through this retrospective. Again, this is supposed to reference the old ones, so it doesn’t bother me too much. What does bother is that once you get to the Crystal World, the only random encounters are crystal copies of these same fiends again. Fortunately, they are vulnerable to Petrify, but they couldn’t have drawn up a few more monsters?

The last crystalline final dungeon was four games ago, miss it?

It can be pretty tough, some of the fiends may surprise you (since you merely run into them without warning) and get the best of you and punish your unpreparedness. A loss should teach you what you need to know to beat them, however. The last boss before the ending battles will sometimes open with Meteor which may get to the point that you need to simply restart until your luck improves, as it can cripple you.

Clearly after Final Fantasy VII’s unbelievably awesome final dungeon theme, they did not try to top themselves with rousing scores, as Final Fantasy IX features more of the ominous, unsettling style. Once again it does fit the trippy scenery with Memoria featuring a song that I find very reminiscent of Can You Hear the Cry of the Planet from FF7’s Forgotten City and the return of the crystal dungeon is heralded, appropriately, with a remix of the Prelude, perverted by Kuja’s intentions.

Take on this satisfying dungeon (another of my personal favorites) and restore the serenity of the crystal song, take Kuja out, save him from himself if you can, and prepare for one of the longest endings in the series.

Next up, we’ll be solving the world’s troubles from the inside out!