So guys, I can cross off another game from my list.

Final Fantasy IX

Beat it last night; it only took four hours (and one of those hours was a last ditch hour of level grinding). I gotta' say, it was phenomenal.

And let me tell you, I played that sucker. I played it fast and hard. If it weren't for my paranoia of final dungeons, schoolwork, and a compulsive need to learn every ability, then I'd have had it done two weeks ago. Seriously, I beat everything but the final dungeon within one week of purchasing the game. FFIX now bears the honor of being my longest gaming stint, beating out Twilight Princess by an ungodly amount. The Saturday after I got the game, I was conscious for sixteen hours. Fourteen of those were spent playing IX. And twelve of those fourteen were all in one sitting. _{DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME.}

I love the characters, though I feel like they overlap more than they should tactically. Like, Eiko and Dagger were too similar, which bothered me because I liked both of them, but couldn't have them in the same party without being too imbalanced. It got better at the end, when Dagger had enough MP to actually be worth something as a summoner, but I still used her mostly as a healer, leaving poor Eiko by the wayside. Also, I really liked Freya, but felt like Steiner overshadowed her at higher levels (hence why I never used Steiner; kept him weak that way). I guess I'm spoiled by X's battle system, with each character having very distinct roles in battle; and at least it's better than VII, where everyone is practically identical and the only differentiation is in the materia combinations...

That's in terms of battle, though. Storywise, everyone's pretty cool. Zidane gets points for managing to be a womanizer, a saint, and an antichrist all at once. I will be the first to admit that I spent most of the cutscenes staring at his tail, though. They just - they articulate it so well! The way it mimics his emotions is such an amazing detail that it manages to become infectious.

Oh, and it's very refreshing to have a hero with a dark past that remains upbeat after the revelation. True, he didn't actually know about it; they kinda' just sprang it on him. I (unfortunately) knew the whole Genome thing before playing the game, thanks to my younger and less gaming-inclined self reading up on IX lore years ago. Knowing about it beforehand, I spent the entire game waiting for it to come up, indeed looking for things to lead up to it. To my surprise there was hardly anything at all... they just throw it at you in its entirety at the end of disk 3: "Oh, by the way, I created you to destroy the world." What?

Zidane doesn't even really react either: he yells things like "No!" but then pretty much accepts it all. Despite there being no real proof or anything; Garland's just telling him this stuff. I thought the whole thing was rather anticlimactic. Though, a friend of mine who played the game without knowing said that Zidane's non-reaction is in direct contrast to the player's reaction, which at that point is something like "Holy freaking crud no the crud way." I suppose that's a cool contrast, but it still feels a bit weird.

Anyway, going back to my first point, Zidane gets told all this stuff, and then basically says, "Yeah, well, whatever man." He doesn't let it stop him from doing his heroic deeds. In a way, it's similar to X: even after being told he isn't real, and that defeating Yevon will cause him to disappear, Tidus is still like "Yeah, okay, whatever. I'll still do it." I really love X; having a parallel between IX and X just makes me smile.

So, final dungeon party: Zidane (71), Freya (57), Dagger (58), and Steiner (55). (Levels are what they were entering Memoria.) Don't even ask how Zidane got that high; I don't know. I decided not to use Vivi, since, even though I like him, I never really became a magic user in this game. After having beaten it, I'm glad I didn't pick him - it was hard enough managing Dagger's MP; a second spellcaster would have irritated me to no end.

That place was scary. Thank god for status guards. Oh, and towards the end, after getting sick of healing everybody constantly, I just broke out Odin. I don't even like Odin, but I like Doom, Heat, Stop, and Venom much less.

I beat Hades on the way. Felt all proud for knowing to look for him.

Kuja throws a lead-in boss; I holler and scream. "Gahdang! A boss rush! Razzin' frazzin' feathery floaty-man!" My screams quieted when I was given a chance to heal in between. "Oh man. I like this job. Hoohoo."

I had Zidane spam Thievery, Freya alternately spam Reis's Wind/Dragon Crest, and Steiner spam Stock Break. Dagger healed and, when she Tranced, I skipped her turns to spam Mega Flare. I laughed like Metaknight's uncle.

And then Necron. ARGH. Giant space flea from nowhere. Though the cool music helped. Actually, I didn't have any trouble with this battle. My only annoyance was at the stupidly long animations for its attacks. He did kill half my party, and I spent several rounds healing everybody up, and then just when I was like "Aw yeah, now we're ready for the long haul" he died. Hmm.

Blah blah; I'm ranting.

The ending was awesome. The title of this journal chronicles the greatest line said in the whole game. People are going to tell me that there is no way my yell of "Rip off that cloak, Zidane!" could have miraculously synched up with said action, that there is no way I could have known that Zidane would be under that cloak. I will refute these non-believers by saying there is so a way I could have known: the back of his cloak was moving.

Yeah.