Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Final Fantasy IX

     The following is going to be very gushy, nerdy, and nostalgic, but I feel like it's my DUTY as a gamer to say these things. So, abandon all pretense of coolness, ye who enter here.

     So I reread my Top 10 Video Games list that I wrote a while back, and I think I'd like to revise it. Clearly, Ocarina of Time is superb; I know it, you know it, anyone remotely aware of those games that you make move with a piece of plastic in your hand knows it. But Final Fantasy IX is number one to me, no questions asked.

     You see, I'm writing a comic script, and as the pages come out, it's becoming abundantly clear that this game has influenced me in a way that no other singular piece of media has. I owe SO much to this 11-year old game about a polygonal monkey boy and his adventures with his friends around the world. Whether it's the cheerful, reckless main character Zidane giving older-brother advice to Vivi, a young character who struggles with self-confidence and the uncertainty concerning his own mortality, or the beautiful, imaginative towns and landscapes, or the mostly-uptight cast gradually learning to welcome a sense of adventure into their lives, this whole story made an impact on me which I'm still realizing today.

     I remember every time I ever played through this game. Whether it was my first time playing on my brother's Playstation, my chubby little eyes watering from every cheesy Zidane/Garnet moment, or my playthrough when I was snowed in free from school, drinking hot chocolate with way too many marshmallows, or my venture through it in high school where we narrated the dialogue with ridiculous voices, or hell, even my last playthrough this past year where I picked up the controller when I felt overwhelmed or just a bit down. Every time I go through the game it's like embarking on an adventure which somehow never gets old.

     I should also explain something about my first playthrough; it was at the beach where my brother had brought his Playstation and this game. After we left that beach house and I no longer had access to a Playstation, I started to literally *miss* the characters. Like, I honestly really wanted to see more of them, and that's the *only* video game that has ever done that to me. True, I was also a stupid little kid, but even so!

     It has my favorite soundtrack (and guess what? Nobuo Uematsu, the composer, says it's his favorite out of all the ones he's done too. So YEAH.), my favorite characters... hell, the only strikes I can mark against it are the moments when the standard RPG random battle nonsense gets excessive (FOSSIL ROO HNNNNNNNG). Oh, and also the strategy guide sucked; after you bought it they had the nerve to put half the content online. But hey, at least it had pretty pictures.

     I don't really know why I'm telling whoever's reading this right now, though. I'm not trying to convince you to play it, because even if you did and liked it; hell, even if you did and LOVED IT and declared it *your* favorite game ever, there's no way you'd have the same stupid, nonsensical nostalgic connection I have to it. Your childhood's only constructed once, and for better or for worse, Final Fantasy IX was a fairly strong part of the foundation of mine.

tl;dr: I like Final Fantasy 9. A lot.