Everything Wrong with Final Fantasy IX

by NC1234567

Final Fantasy IX: "The best Final Fantasy ever!" or an overrated and overhyped game with a poorly done love story? This play by commentary will show. Complete.

29. Chapter 29: IX TV Tropes Page

Chapter 29: FFIX TV Tropes page

Yes everyone, I am doing a chapter for the TV Tropes website page about Final Fantasy IX. Why? Because TV Tropes has become a horrible and infamous website, and how it talks about IX really grinds my gears.

But before we get into the actual FFIX page, let's talk about the website as a whole, when it first came out over a decade ago, created by Fast Eddie, it was a fun, informative and entertaining website where you were aloud to criticize and pick apart something, whose slogan was "we are not Wikipedia and some stuffy encyclopedia website, we are a buttload more informal" (somewhere along those lines anyways), but that was the past, TV Tropes took a turn… a turn for the worse.

TV Tropes nowadays has became exactly what it claimed it wasn't, a stuffy Wikia website, where criticism is a "dirty word" and enforces an uptight "NPOV" (Neutral Point Of View) and has become flat out Draconian, TV Tropes back then was more in-jokey and self-aware, and actually aloud to make the pages into discussions but then it became pretentious with tones of moral relativism and "neutral point of view/all opinions are equal" bs, especially with things being ghettoed to the "YMMV" (Your Mileage May Vary) page which allows for someone to say whatever bs they want because "it's their opinion".

Unfortunately, since "subjective" means "in my opinion", the site is large enough where every last opinion is held by at least someone (yes, even the people who think The Human Centipede is "sexy"), and the site policy holds that "all opinions are basically equal" (so long as it doesn't piss off Fast Eddie or the mods, of course!), that basically means that these pages grow like tumors and requiring constant splitting into more and more specific subpages as they lurch towards hosting every last freaking thing as an example, ever.

The number one problem with TV Tropes is that they delete any posts that disagree with their interpretation of the story or characters. I can think of a few examples of pages of certain anime/manga and video games which used to be filled to the brink with what the fans thought and how they could interpret things before the TV Tropes mods enforced an uptight "We are right and you are wrong" on basically these whole series'. I can name more examples if I had the time but the number one problem with TV Tropes is that it seems like tropes can't be subjective anymore. They must fit with their interpretation and if they disagree with you, it is a misuse. The pages have gotten stuffy and boring. Everything is being given a cleanup and several of my favorite pages got examples deleted all together. They NEED to make Tropes subjective again, that is what made them appealing in the first place.

When I first found TV Tropes back in the day, one of the first pages I saw was the page on Final Fantasy IV, and there was some good jokes and commentary, like this one point on how before the fight against the CPU Core of the Giant of Babel, Fusoya tell you to destroy one of the modules that is protecting the CPU first (The Defence and Attack modules), I can't remember which one, but it mocked how Fusoya's dialogue was incorrect on which module you were supposed to destroy first, and it jokingly said that you are "almost happy to see Fusoya get KO-ed first after screwing with you" which showed how fun of a website it was, but now I'm pretty sure those kinds of jokes and humour have been deleted from that page because now TV Tropes has just become what it used to claim that it wasn't, a stuffed up wikia.

I used to edit and comment on TV Tropes as well, trying to address IX's problems on the TV Tropes Final Fantasy general sub-forum, but they just hand waved it away or treated what I have been saying as "already debunked" and acting pretty elitist. When it comes to the Final Fantasy series on TV Tropes, they act like certain games are acceptable targets for trolling and insults, but other games (like IX) are "sacrosanct and perfect" that you are not allowed to criticize a lot, regardless of how valid it could be. I eventually got perma-banned, and before anyone wants to hold that against me, it is pretty easy to get banned on TV Tropes, and if you think I'm exaggerating on what a horrible draconian website TV Tropes is, here are some comments from other people who were banned from the website or are just pointing out how bad it is:

"Well, it happened. I can no longer edit on TV Tropes because they suspended me permanently until I die. So I won't be going there ever again. Screw them. You can all edit the Bleach Happy To Serve You pages there yourselves, and I will still link to them on every deviation page, but I will never edit there again. They're full of SJWs, dictators for moderators, and paid ads anyway. I will not be bothered being on a site that just throws away the work of actual human beings who did nothing wrong."

"What happened?" "Angry moderators who abuse power."

"Oh it's all the people who run it. They been outrageously angry managers from the start. They have ridiculous rules! You can argue something on the forums but not for too long, you can't keep editing an article back and forth "correcting" another editor, you have to know how to spell well, etc."

"Their policies literally state you cannot have "an overall rude manner". ... that is unprofessionally written and is vague enough for you to know their management is bullshit."

"But winning an argument didn't matter. What matters is if the other person is angry enough to report me."

"What did you do that caused them to suddenly remove you? Just out of curiosity." "For arguing about what "cheapquel" means."

"I agree. The site is run by morons who think they're so high and mighty because they run a website. The community is filled with people from the Tumblr or Reddit crowd and any disagreement with them is a sin against humanity."

"That's how I see the TV Tropes community, one of the reasons why I attempt to stay away from the site (but at the same time, look at all the trope pages and edit histories just to laugh my face off at the arguments and hypocrisy coming from the "tropers" and the moderators)."

"I once had an account on there, but one of my edits (which was completely harmless might I add) was against the rules and as a result I got shat on by a moderator (who must've been inexperienced and new)... and then I got banned. All because of that one small edit."

"Regarding the hypocrisy of the site, TV Tropes is supposed to a really informal place - in fact they encourage it, and yet there are still guidelines to follow. The website has no clear identity because of this. It tries to cater to too many people at once. So, you can be as informal as you like - but don't say THAT because it offends THESE specific tropers!"

"used to enjoy TV Tropes, and in current days I'd occasionally look at the pages for fun... but everything else about it makes me cringe and as you've stated, all the nerdy details and over-exaggerations ruin the website as a whole. TV Tropes will not ruin your life, it's just a cheesy statement."

"The site's homepage used to say "we're a buttload more informal than Wikipedia." and encouraged "chatty language". Except only about the things they agree with."

"So you're forced to agree and go with their opinions? Wow... another reason to hate this site with a burning passion. I remember making an edit on Conker's Bad Fur Day's YMMV page regarding the game's vulgarity and how "M-rated" it truly is and it immediately got undone by a moderator because it was "natter" and "against the rules" from what I remember."

TL;DR version: TV Tropes used to be decent and fun but now it sucks and the mods are control freaks.

Sure, the old TV Tropes back in day had some problems (*cough*TroperTales*cough*) but TV Tropes nowadays is far worse. If you're a regular troper, the rules against being an asshole are draconian. Break them, and they will ban you. If you're a moderator, as one of their trope names puts it: "Screw The Rules, I Make Them".

Now I'm going to be going over the FFIX TV Tropes page and picking apart a lot of it's ridiculous statments, more specifically the YMMV Page.

To explain the YMMV pages more, it was basically something that TV Tropes came up with in later years to ghetto any posts and examples that caused arguments and were critical and negative, which is stupid because the entire website was pretty much "Your Milage May Vary" until Fast Eddie and the mods snapped and decided that criticism "is a dirty word" and any "flame bait" examples must be removed from the main page.

I won't be talking about every single example on the page, just the ones that matter.

•Alternative Character Interpretation:

There are actually several examples that were apparently written here, which was apparently enough to put them on a separate page for some reason.

*How much influence did Kuja have over Brahne? Was Brahne's plan to take over the world her idea from the beginning or is Kuja the main instigator? Was even some magical mind-control involved at some point, before Brahne broke free? Garnet claims that her mother was a good person and only turned bad because he corrupted her, but she could very well be in denial. Kuja insists that the plan was Brahne's idea all along, but we know we shouldn't trust him. So the question remains open.

Okay but this is more a case of bad writing because the game never really explained what actually happened. (Which I have already explained in detail at the end of Disk 2) Brahne is just a cheap, shallow cartoon villain.

*It's widely thought that Garland destroyed Madain Sari and the summoner tribe because he saw their power as a threat to his plans. But according to extra material in the game, the summoners' first attempt at summoning Alexander resulted in so much destruction that they moved to the Outer Continent in order to avoid hurting more people while they studied their magic. So Garland may have destroyed the tribe because he feared they would, in fact, destroy Gaia before he had a chance to assimilate Terra to it. Or perhaps both.

That makes no sense, the Eidolons are supposed to be GUARDIANS, why would Alexander cause destruction when the Eidolons are supposed to be protecters? (I not counting what happened with Odin, Atomos or Bahamut because that happened through the artificial means of the Eidolon extractions, which is never really explained) The dialogue clearly states that Garland destroyed them because they were seen as a threat (of course this is also contradicted by what Mikoto says about it in Bran Bal), this is reaching and shouldn't be a real example.

*According to the timeline, Steiner became a Knight of Pluto when he beat Beatrix in a fair fight. This adds a new interpretation to her constant undermining of him (he refers to her as "always trying to one-up me"), as well as the Knights of Pluto being looked down on. Perhaps it's a smear campaign from a bitter general who resents that she was defeated by a man?

That wasn't really implied that much in the actual game, Steiner just sound like he was making a jealous remark and shouldn't be taken as a reliable narrator there. Again, did this really have to be an example?

*Freya forgives Beatrix rather easily, despite the general's hand in destroying half her people. But since Beatrix has a Heel Realization for everyone to see, and it's the torture and planned execution of the innocent Garnet that brings her Heel–Face Turn, could Freya recognise a soldier following orders out of fear of retaliation? Or does Freya not forgive her, but realise after three battles with Beatrix, that the general is better to have on their side? Or is she darkly hoping that Beatrix may get Laser-Guided Karma in battle when she turns on her own queen?

Or maybe everything involving Beatrix was just really bad writing and whoever wrote this is making excuses for the whole thing and refusing to admit that Beatrix is a God-Mode Sue. (You used to be allowed to criticize a character for being a certain kind of Sue on TV Tropes, like Jerk Sue, God-Mode Sue and Villain Sue, but then the mods decided to make them "no examples" pages because they can't handle criticism and negativity)

Why would Beatrix even "fear retaliation" when she is such an overpowered character that could easily tell Brahne to go eff herself and hold a sword to her throat to make her surrender?

*An ancient one in fandom, Garnet's naming scene. Garnet having to ask Zidane what a dagger is called probably the first deciding factor in how the player sees her for the first half of her character arc: a novice diplomat making tough calls in a crisis, or a well-meaning but oblivious and sheltered princess. The line in English is "What is this called?" and serves as the device for naming the character whatever the player wants, but the default answer from Zidane is "a dagger", with a bit of an overly-wordy explanation. The way the scene is framed, Garnet seems to be asking for the name of knife but is too polite to tell Zidane he's not impressing her like he thinks he is, but the way the dialogue is written, she literally doesn't know what a dagger is and Zidane is explaining the way he would to a child. Either way, she listens patiently and names herself whatever Zidane says the weapon is called, and it's up to the player to decide her reasoning.

I think the obvious answer is that Garnet is a clichéd implausibly naive princess stereotype due to getting flanderized after escaping from Alexandria and the Evil Forest and makes REALLY dumb moves as we see in Disk 1 Lindblum. (But TV Tropes is in serious denial of that as we will see further down this list) To quote what I said back in the Dali chapter: "Why make a history of choosing the name Dagger and still give the opportunity to change it? "Oh yes it is a dagger, hmmmmm, well, call me Chuck.""

In fact someone should add Garnet as an example for Flanderization on the page due to her ridiculous denial of her mother despite wanting to escape from her in the first place.

*Steiner doesn't believe Brahne is committing evil until learning the truth later on. Before his epiphany, it's not clear if Steiner genuinely doesn't believe Brahne is doing evil, if she really is but has a "good" reason for her actions or maybe deep down inside, Steiner knows that Brahne is evil but is in denial about it.

Does it matter? Steiner is such an obnoxious character for the first bits of the game and his denial is dragged out far past the point of tolerance, largely because Garnet or Cid never said anything to Steiner when they should have. This is just another post that is really reaching.

Pretty much all of these on the "Alternative Character Interpretation" page for Final Fantasy in the IX folder are cheap examples and shouldn't even be listed as examples in the first place, and are only there because TV Tropes has this really dumb "no stance" nonsense going on nowadays. Someone needs to delete them. (I would if I could, but you know, banned)

•Angst? What Angst?: In contrast to Squall, Zidane spends most of the game either chasing skirts, being Garnet's knight in shining armor, or being her knight while chasing her skirt. He spends little time being moody or depressing despite witnessing multiple genocides. He does get depressed when he and Garnet have to part ways at the start of disc 3 and again when he discovers his true origins and has a Heroic BSoD as a result but he quickly bounces back through The Power of Friendship. It is implied that Zidane also feels a more constant angst over his lonely past such as in Disc 2 when he tells Garnet about it without actually telling her but seems to have learned to live with it.

I've already stated before how Zidane has too little angst, though it was more critical than what is said here (because the mods hate even the slightest bit of negativity and criticism), it also refuses to talking about how cheesy, forced and cliché the "You are not Alone" scene was. Zidane should have also been just a bit more upset with how Garnet abandoned him in Disk 1 Lindblum and never calling her out on it.

Speaking of which, Garnet should be added to the exact opposite of this Trope: "Wangst", which means TOO MUCH angst, For everything that I have talked about, her constant whining and denial over her crazy mom, especially when she blows off Zidane and runs back to her mom and gets many people killed (and almost Zidane) as the results of her stupid actions and is never chewed out for it, the game acts like we are supposed to feel sorry for her and she forces her excessively angsty inner monologues on us. It's especially irritating when it gets in the way of the focus of Zidane and Garnet's love story.

-Among a cast of playable characters defined by a certain aspect of existential angst, Quina stands out by having no angst at all. They don't have a care in the world other than finding new food to eat.

This shouldn't really be an example because Quina is hardly a character in the first place, s/he is just cheap comic relief.

•Animation Age Ghetto: Much of the initial negative fan reception was from those who entered the series with Final Fantasy VII (and to a lesser extent, Final Fantasy VIII), and were put off by the sudden aesthetic change from realistic-as-possible humans in urban settings to a cuter, Jim Henson style fantasy world. Despite this, for those who stuck with it, it's still Final Fantasy at its core.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the art style but also the lacklustre story and bad writing that brought upon the negative reception, which TV Tropes is ignoring.

•Ass Pull: The Final Boss Necron is often criticized for coming across as one. He appears suddenly after Kuja's final battle without real foreshadowing, and vaguely hints at his purpose as some sought of cataclysmic entity that's been roused by Kuja's actions. He's defeated, and the game just moves on in a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment way like he never existed, and instead the finale returns to Kuja's role in the game. As such, he is one of the more controversial parts of the game.

This is pretty much accurate, though it could also state that Necron is really just a plot device for Kuja to have his last minute redemption, which should also be considered an asspull. (Also it should "being one" not "coming across as one")

While we are on the subject of asspulls, Beatrix's sudden moral conflict on the Red Rose airship after Cleyra gets blown up and after all of her earlier bitch behaviour should definitely be listed as one as well.

•Base-Breaking Character:

-Zidane. Are his relentless cockiness and Chivalrous Pervert attitudes endearing and befitting of someone of his age and stature, or does it only serve to make him seem like an obnoxious brat half the time?

How about Zidane's cliché and cheesy dialogue, or the fact that he feels more like a tag along rather than a leader character? This isn't even bringing up how Zidane just feels like a generic JRPG protagonist, and how he never thinks yet the game continues to shill him over this exact thing, and doesn't behave like an actual teenage boy. This example should go into just a bit more detail, especially with how his love for Garnet was handled.

-It's hard to find a neutral opinion on Beatrix. Many praise her for being smart, sexy, strong and capable, while others dismiss her for being kill-crazy or OP. She's the second-biggest obstacle to Zidane saving the world and is guilty of war crimes. But on the other hand, Beatrix does genuinely feel guilt for her actions, and proves herself a loyal ally. Even in her own way trying to apologize to Freya over the invasion of her home.

The latter half of this post is ignoring how much of an asspull that was and how poorly written the whole thing was, and also, it's not addressing how Beatrix didn't even seem to be concerned about Garnet for most of that segment, not recognizing Zidane in Burmecia, not asking him on the whereabouts of Garnet, laughing several times and being an all around unsympathetic, condescending bitch who questioned the obviously insane queen far later than she should have, which this post is glossing over. This example actually used to correctly state that Beatrix was a Mary Sue, until the control freak mods removed it for being "flame bait" (because this site nowadays can't handle even the slightest of arguments)

-Quina. Some enjoy his/her comic relief role and extremely powerful Blue Magic abilities, while others are annoyed by his/her odd appearance, irrelevance to the plot, and because s/he just doesn't shut up about eating.

Yeah, nothing to say about this example, pretty much spot on.

-Kuja. Is he the rare Final Fantasy villain with a sympathetic motive—the desire to break free of a controlling master only to be driven off the edge by the realization of his own mortality—or is he just a petulant Manchild who destroys kingdoms and eventually an entire planet out of narcissism? Some argue both are true, and that it lends him complexity. His infamous outfit is also a point of contention—some think it's simply too outlandish to take seriously, while others argue that it fits Kuja's aggressive desire for individuality.

Both doesn't mean "complexity", that is what is known as "pseudo-complexity" and it's bad and cliché writing. The latter statement is the correct one (it should also use the term antagonist, not "villain") This is what is wrong with modern TV Tropes, it refuses to have any absolutes and forces this "no stance" bullshit.

I'm surprised that Garnet isn't an example for "Base-Breaking Character", she should be for all of her obnoxious and stupid behaviour, and Steiner as well. The love story itself can fall into Base Breaker.

•Best Boss Ever:

-Every Beatrix battle. Between her hopelessly outclassing your party and her theme music, they're very memorable fights.

Okay this is just blatant Beatrix wank, being forced to loose to a Sue THREE FREAKING TIMES is not "best boss ever" it's just unsatisfactory nonsense that will piss the player off.

-The climactic Boss Rush at the end of Disc 3, which puts you up against Kuja's silver dragon, then gives you the satisfaction of taking down the two people responsible for most of the game's troubles: Garland and Kuja.

Except that you don't take down Kuja in Disk 3, did the person who typed this out ever play that part of the game? You don't even properly take out Kuja in Memoria on Disk 4!

•Necron from a gameplay angle. After the satisfaction of defeating Trance Kuja, who retaliates with Ultima, you suddenly find yourself in what seems to be the afterlife, facing down an apparent embodiment of death. The music is amazing, and Necron himself is happily challenging if you haven't done any significant Level Grinding.

Again, you don't really take down Trance Kuja, there is no satisfaction, and what this post think that Necron is is completely wrong.

•Best Level Ever: The opening sequence. The combination of the play, the kidnapping, the swordfighting minigame, the wacky chase scenes when the kidnapping goes awry, the music (the sequence includes variations on "Melodies of Life", "A Place to Call Home", "Vamo Alla Flamenco", "Jesters of the Moon", and a special battle theme), and the introductions of Zidane, Vivi, Steiner and Garnet—all the game's most charming characters—all in rapid succession is a joy to sit through every time.

More wanking. First off, the entire open sequence is rendered completely pointless later by Garnet when she runs back home like an idiot (which this site will really try to ignore), secondly "most charming characters" is a huge stretch, especially for Steiner.

-At the start of Disc 3 the player is treated to the chance to use Beatrix, previously an invincible foe, along with a highly cinematic scene and a rock version of her theme unique to this sequence. The real Moment of Awesome is when Steiner, who has basically been beat on for the entire game to that point, confesses his love and goes into Trance.

Said love was incredibly forced, but keep doing all this shilling. TV Tropes has such forced positivity.

-The alternative world of Terra. Beautiful music, amazing visuals, and great character development.

"Great character development" is extremely debatable here (especially with the dumb "You are not alone" scene), seriously, don't you think you are overhyping it just a teeny bit?

-Memoria. The monsters are challenging but not annoying, the music is awesome and the scenery very interesting.

Funny that Memoria is here considering that this page will contradict itself on that lower down the page.

-The "You're Not Alone" sequence, is not only a sweet, cool and awesome short battle gauntlet with a boss at the end, demonstrating the powerful bonds among the party and their ability to kick ass. The BGM Override adds to the cool factor.

This is also HIGHLY debatable, I've already talked about how stupid and forced that whole scene was, and how it should have put more emphasis on love with Zidane and Garnet and not the cheesy and cliché "friendship" nonsense.

•Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Ragtime Mouse is one of the most bizarre enemies in the series. This odd, cycloptic creature with a giant mouth randomly appears in forests to ask you trivia questions, rewards you gil for a right answer, then flees to be encountered again. Do this enough times, and it'll simply drop dead. There is no explanation ever provided for what it is or where it comes from.

Well, Ragtime mouse is just a gameplay gimmick that purely optional and has no presence in the canon story, so it should be seen as a case of "what happens in battle stays in battle" (as I've mentioned in the Evil Forest chapter, and how Trance stupidly broke that rule), so I don't see how this could be seen as an example of a "BLA moment".

-The sacred ritual to strengthen the sandstorm around Cleyra is...a riverdance. Keep in mind that the citizens of Cleyra and Burmecia are anthropomorphic rats. Even for this game's art style and tone, the sight of a group of anthropomorphic rats riverdancing is just weird.

How is this also an example? If anything in Cleyra should qualify, it should be the Harp breaking and the Sandstorm disappearing because the game never explains what caused that.

•Broken Base: The game, naturally, created a huge rift between the people who thought it was a good tribute to the old classical SNES-era games with its lighter tone, idealistic themes, and colorful world, and those who thought Final Fantasy should aim for mature audiences and saw IX as a big step backwards. This is why the game was both Vindicated by History and suffers from Hype Backlash — some who wrote it off for its art design and cliched setting have come to appreciate it for still being a good game, while others don't think it's worthy of the heaping praise its more die-hard fans give it.

Again, "good game" is highly subjective and arguable here, especially when I've made a commentary fic pointing out a lot of IX's problems. Also funny how it says "lighter tone" when the game had some edgy grim-dark moments (thanks to the stupidity of the characters), and the page will also contradict itself on this later down below. The latter is correct, IX was a step backwards, and isn't really "Vindicated by History" but I'll get to that in a moment.

-Another point of contention regarding IX: fantasy versus science fiction. VII and VIII had more sci-fi leanings mixed in with the fantasy elements. While the earlier V and VI featured robots and steam engines—Final Fantasy hadn't been this purely fantastical since IV.

Funny because IX also had some Sci-Fi elements, particularly when Terra came into the picture.

-VIII featured the series' most realistic art style yet, and the sharp transition to a more moe look was a bit much for some fans.

That and, as I've said back in the first chapter, it's ironic how IX is mimicking the classical style of the NES and SNES games, yet it didn't use Yoshitaka Amano's work, the guy who did the art of those NES and SNES games!

•Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Most players will stick with Zidane, Vivi, Steiner and Garnet. On top of being very first party formation you get that doesn't include any Guest-Star Party Member, it's also one of the most effective. Zidane is a good physical attacker and can steal items from bosses, Vivi is easily the best magic damager, Steiner is both the best tank and best physical attacker, and while Garnet may not be the best healer, she has powerful summons when you don't need her to heal. Freya and Quina are powerful, but they do need more time and effort to bring their full potential out, Eiko is a better healer than Garnet but her summons don't deal as much damage, and Amarant suffers from Late Character Syndrome hard.

This just shows how badly balanced the PC roster is in IX, especially with how it wouldn't let you manually switch between party members early in the game like VII, VIII or X did, leading to some under-leveling.

•Disappointing Last Level: The fourth disc. The story runs out of steam with the destruction of Terra and Garland, and descends into Mind Screw territory with the final dungeon—Memoria, an odd pocket universe made of the accumulated memories of the world featuring numerous Giant Space Fleas From Nowhere, including one of the most infamous examples (since he's the Final Boss and all) in Necron. Also, the dungeon itself is just a long corridor with Infodumping and occasional side treasures and characters.

Well Terra wasn't really "Destroyed". But anyways, I completely agree with this being an example (though I would say the story started to run out of steam when Disk 1 Lindblum rolled by), but it's ironic how up above the page, Memoria was stated to be a "Best Level Ever" and this says the opposite. Can't keep things consistent, TV Tropes?

•Draco in Leather Pants: Kuja is a smug bastard that manipulates heads of state into war, kills Dagger's mother, and taunts Vivi with his artificial origins. When he discovers he will die soon, he throws a cosmic tantrum and destroys a planet, and tries to destroy all life after that. Many fans view Kuja as a poor sympathetic guy who is brainwashed to destroy and just needs some affection. While he gets an Alas, Poor Villain death, this assessment is inaccurate.

Well again, Kuja couldn't have completely destroyed Terra because it was inside Gaia and that would have meant that Gaia would have been highly devastated as well.

But anyways, I also agree with this being an example, but it ignores how the game itself pretty much starts to treat Kuja as a Draco in Leather Pants by Disk 4 with Vivi at the end of Disk 3 in Pandemonium and with Zidane and Mikoto in the ending, and this post is also overlooking that that whole "Alas Poor Villain" scene was an asspull, as I've explained in that chapter. (Also, seriously, TV Tropes, you should change the "villain" word to Antagonist, villain is too cartoony and black and white a term and make the name really cringey. TV Tropes uses a lot of cringe-worthy naming actually)

Which makes this fall into another category called "Unintentionally Unsympathetic", it basically refers to a character that the narrative tries to claim is sympathetic, but the poor way it's handled and executed doesn't make it succeed in that, and Kuja definitely falls into this category and this page needs to have Unintentionally Unsympathetic on it's list, and several other characters also certainly need to be added as examples:

Brahne: the reasons are pretty similar to Kuja, acting like a psychopathic cartoon villain for most of the game but then getting an asspull sad moment and "redemption" at the end of Disk 2.

Beatrix: For causing war crimes, doesn't at least wonder why Brahne, who was perfectly peaceful and rational up until a short time after the death of her husband, suddenly starts acting like a warmongering lunatic and ordering genocides left and right until too little, too late, being an all around unlikable, arrogant and condescending bitch with no hints of hesitation or remorse from her until the scene on the Red Rose airship just after Cleyra's destruction which comes completely out of nowhere, and not even showing any concern for Garnet's whereabouts or feelings for most of that time.

Steiner: For being extremely obnoxious and ignorant of Brahne's insanity which is dragged out for far too long (though that is also Cid's and Dagger's faults for never telling him any important info), it doesn't help that he took part in Dagger's dumb "return to Alexandria" plotline, speaking of which…

Finally, and especially, Garnet/Dagger: For drugging and abandoning Zidane and her friends to run all the way back home to her crazy mom like an idiot, rendering the entire beginning of the game with the "kidnapping" and Zidane's (and the player's) efforts completely pointless, even saying that she didn't care about Zidane and placed the blame on him, resulting in her Eidolons being taken and used as weapons of mass destruction thus causing a lot of death including almost Zidane and the others, and never getting called out for any of this, even especially by Zidane, who should have rightly been upset with her, the game acts like you are supposed to feel "sorry" for her, and I've already rigorously talked about this throughout the fic.

Also the page will, again, contradict itself on Kuja with things said lower down.

•Evil Is Cool: Kuja. He purposefully invokes every villain trope he can from his lavish underground palace, and it works.

Things like this, it even admits how cliché Kuja is, and saying that it "works" is just more cringey wanking. (Actually TV Tropes has a bunch of tropes, including this one, that are pretty much just wanking and shilling tropes)

•Ensemble Dark Horse:

-Black Waltz No. 3, the flying Black Mage who is Made of Iron and features in multiple exciting CG sequences. He gets much more screentime and characterization compared to the first two Black Waltzes and causes the ultimate example of a Heroic One-Winged Angel in Vivi.

What "One-Winged Angel"? Vivi never transformed into anything like that, unless this is referring to Trance, but that doesn't really count as a One-Winged Angel form, that's more of a Super Mode.

Black Waltz No. 3 doesn't really have that much more characterization from the first two Waltzes, especially with his one-note "I EXIST ONLY TO KILL!" ranting, which is just edgy teenager writing.

•Blank, the Tantalus badass who appears briefly as a temporary party member and makes an excellent Heroic Sacrifice.

No, he just got temporarily petrified by accident, don't twist the facts.

•Beatrix is an incredibly popular character within the fandom. So much so that modders not only turned her into a permanently recruitable and fully-functional party member in the PC version, but also ''integrated'' her into the plot so that the game acknowledges her new modded role. To date, none of the other Guest Star Party Members have received this treatment.

Yeah well, I'd say that popularity isn't really deserved considering what a poorly written person she is and all her problems that I've extensively talked about.

•Epileptic Trees: Fans have come up with any number of theories for Necron's role in the game (See Giant Space Flea From Nowhere on the main page) and some have been listed as "official" explanations on this wiki. The game supports approximately zero of them. For the record, the game only gives hints that he is some incredibly powerful being that watches over all life and has the power to destroy the Crystal. On a meta-textual level, it's clearly meant to be a direct embodiment of the concept of (and fear of) death and a representation of our characters facing such directly (at the end of a journey that's all about addressing mortality), but how this translates to in-universe lore is ambiguous at best. It is possibly a manifestation of 'evil' emotions of sentient creatures.

This is what I meant when I was talking about the theories made about Necron in the Memoria chapter, and the Ultimania (which TV Tropes doesn't really bring up here) josses all of them. The "Meta-textual level" and symbolism still don't justify his appearance, Necron is really only there to be a plot device for Kuja's forced heel turn and a cheap shout out to FFIII's Cloud of Darkness, which whoever posted this example is overlooking, along with Necron's actual name in Japanese.

•Fanon: Some fans imagine Kraken as being female, because Tiamat and Lich are male and Maliris is female - to give the Chaos Guardians a Gender-Equal Ensemble (and Kraken is fought by two female party members the first time around). Any supplementary materials refer to Kraken as just 'it'.

Okay? Why did this need to be listed? Kraken is such a minor character that this isn't really a big deal and I've haven't seen anyone that has ever talked about this. This should be deleted.

•Genius Bonus: The in-universe play "I Want To Be Your Canary" looks like a Gaia version of Romeo and Juliet but it has more than a few elements of King Lear - which is about a heroic princess getting disillusioned with her once-brilliant father who's now gone mad for power. Quite a lot of Garnet's story parallels Cordelia's, including a Redemption Equals Death for the parent figure.

What about Zidane's? The play is paralleling Zidane and Garnet's whole love story, not just Garnet, which this post is implying. Also, "Redemption" is a big stretch but I've already talked about how lousy Brahne is, what the play showed with the father doesn't even match that well with Brahne. The problem is that "I Want To Be Your Canary" doesn't parallel everything in IX well (especially the love story), which I've been talking about since the first chapter. The play should have had way more foreshadowing and parallels with the whole plot, and the in-story explanation was that Avon, the author of "I Want To Be Your Canary" based it off of dreams he had that were actually visions of the future, or however those details should be ironed out as long as it makes the play have more significance.

Speaking of the love story, "Designated Love Interest" should be added here for Zidane and Garnet, for all the reasons that I have already talked about in this fic, and for how overhyped it is with even most of the tv commercials and ads acting like they were a big deal and playing the love song throughout the videos.

•Hype Backlash: A small but growing segment of the fanbase is getting tired of hearing this game getting praise and acclaim while VIII and to a lesser extent X get spat on.

Yeah this is pretty much accurate, the fact that this review fic is a thing is proof of that. Though this could go into just a bit more detail into why it's hype backlash, such as IX's grade school writing and cheap rehashing of storylines from previous FF games, and the poor love story, which itself can be considered hype backlash for how much the game itself and the advertisement hypes it up.

•Jerkass Woobie: As big of a Jerkass as Steiner is in the early stages of the game, it's hard not to feel bad for the guy when he is consistently made a fool of and made to feel like a failure in life. It gets worse once he has to accept the shattering of his entire worldview by taking a stand against his own kingdom.

Debatable, granted this also falls to Cid and Dagger for not telling him anything when they should have, but his development would have been better done if he actual saw what was happening instead of taking part in Dagger's dumb "run back home" subplot.

•Magnificent Bastard:

This is just another annoying trope for wanking, and hoo boy, are we about to see some cringe.

-Kuja is a stylish, sophisticated Artificial Human created by the warlock Garland to spread war and destruction across the planet of Gaia with the goal of transforming Gaia into a copy of Terra, Garland's homeworld. Aware he is not trusted and will be disposed of once Garland can afford to be rid of him, Kuja pulls double-duty on his villainy, aiding Queen Brahne in taking over much of Gaia while discretely seeking Eidolons, the one power Kuja believes Garland fears. When Kuja learns of Trance, he shifts focus to acquiring the power for himself and does so. Trance Kuja is strong enough to kill Garland and pushes the playable characters to the brink of death, Kuja sparing them only to contemplate how to kill them to best show his "gratitude" for their help in achieving his Trance. While initially driven mad by the revelation of his impending death, attempting to wipe out reality in the process, Kuja eventually comes to regret his deeds, choosing to save the main party and make peace with Zidane as he draws his final breaths.

Okay, ignoring all of the cringey wanking and shilling, first off if Kuja was "not trusted" how did he have control of the Invincible when he used it to hijacked Bahamut out of Brahne control at the Iifa Tree when Garland shouldn't have let him anywhere near it after what Kuja did with Zidane? I've already talked about that particular plot hole.

Secondly, the only reason everything had been going Kuja's way (until Disk 3 when Alexander is summoned), is because of bullshit contrivances like Dagger being a moron and running back to Alexandria, after just escaping from there, to get captured and basically handing all of her Eidolons over to him and Brahne on a silver platter, not much careful planning on his part there.

And Thirdly, this post is glossing over how it made no sense that Kuja didn't know about Trance from the beginning and how it makes his whole hunt for the Eidolons a huge waste of time, not to mention that when he actually did find out about Trance, it made no sense because Mog wasn't going into "Trance", Mog was changing back into her true form as the Eidolon Madeen. Kuja's last minute development of regretting his actions was also pretty asspulley.

Also the writer of this post doesn't fully understand the whole "Gaia-Terra fusing" thing, I've already talked about how that should have been rewritten and how "Zelda: A Link Between Worlds" did this thing better.

Skipping Garland's example, it's more of the same cringe. This also contradicts the "Draco in Leather Pants" statement above, TV Tropes is so schizophrenic.

Honestly, all of the wank tropes like "Magnificent Bastard" should have been the ones to be deleted, instead of restricting legitimate criticism tropes like the Sue pages to "no examples, please".

•Moe: Vivi is perhaps the best example in the series. He has many of the standard moe traits: he is clumsy, shy, young and innocent. Add in existential angst to justify his social awkwardness and a doll-like appearance and you have a character that most players just want to hug.

Well, the existential angst part was a little pretentious considering that the Black Mages are actually deceased people from Gaia that have been resurrected into artificial doll bodies, for a short while.

•Moral Event Horizon:

-Brahne uses an Eidolon to annihilate a city, laughing about it, then coldly stating that now Garnet is no further use to her she'll have her executed (in a rather gross manner).

And yet the game made a cheap attempt to try and make you feel "sorry" for her at the end of Disk 2, which this example is leaving out.

-Kuja crosses this over and over. He was created to wipe out all life on Gaia, and doesn't actually care for his orders, but works at it of his own will to prove his superiority to Zidane. He manipulates Brahne and creates the Black Mages, which, as he gloats, are short-lived weapons created from souls of the dead. His worst moment is when he learns how little time he has to live, and decides to destroy all reality just because he feels the universe shouldn't exist without him. In the end, he regrets crossing the horizon and learning too late what it means to live.

Well, thanks for clarifying why the game did a piss poor job at making Kuja a sympathetic and complex character, I guess.

•Never Live It Down: Garnet is frequently criticized for her decision to ditch the party with Steiner and return to Alexandria. While it does go badly, some of these critics forget that Garnet had no idea Brahne was after her Eidolons—and judging from the sackings of Burmecia and Cleyra, Alexandria could take on anyone with just the Black Mages and Beatrix's army. It's not as if acquiring the Eidolons turned the tide in Brahne's favor.

Oh boy, these are going to be some big and ranty ones.

This is completely wrong, acquiring the Eidolons DID TURN THE TIDE IN BRAHNE'S FAVOUR! Brahne would have never been able to take Lindblum without the Eidolons considering how much more advanced it was (the fact that she attacked Lindblum last and only after getting the Eidolons shows this), and as for the sackings of Burmecia and Cleyra, in Burmecia's case, I have already explained in the Gizamaluke's Grotto chapter that it was a bit contrived that the Burmecian rats lost so easily to the Black Mages that only knew the most basic low level spells, yet the game expects us to buy that the rat knights struggled so much against these mooks? The Black Mages are stronger than they should be.

Okay, granted the Alexandrian knights could have been attacking alongside the mages, but we don't see any Alexandria soldiers in Burmecia during that point, a plot hole that I pointed out in the Burmecia chapter, and even if we disregard all of the contrivances surrounding that whole thing, while not having the Eidolons may not have affected the sackings of Burmecia and (initially) Cleyra, it certainly would have allowed the Cleyra Tree to be still standing instead of being completely obliterated by Odin, if Brahne had the Eidolons right from the start, Burmecia would have been completely obliterated into a crater like Cleyra was, and if Dagger didn't run home like an idiot and give her Eidolons to her mom and Kuja, Cleyra would have at least been still left standing even if the Alexandrian army attacked it, the rat people would have been able to evacuate like they did in Burmecia, and the casualties would have been kept to a minimum, not that this whole thing is believable with how Beatrix was handled, the Lindblum airship fleet never showing up to help despite Cid saying that he would send help and the dumb planning and strategizing from the main characters. (Like not destroying the Black Mage factory in Dali so that Alexandria loses it's weapons supplies)

Also, even if the part about her mother being after her Eidolons was unknown to Garnet:

One) That could have been easily rectified by Cid (who DID know about that) simply telling her about this when he had the chance in Disk 1 Lindblum.

Two) That doesn't negate all the other reasons that show why this doesn't make any sense and that Dagger is being really, really stupid. She wanted to escape from home because she knew her mother was going nuts and saw tons of evidence that supported that, the devastated North Gate that you can visit before heading to the Ice Cave, her mom recklessly firing on the Prima Vista putting Dagger and civilians in jeopardy and even using a monster bomb, sending the dangerous Black Waltzes after her and Zidane that didn't care about any collateral damage, seeing the Black Mage factory in Dali that was clearly sending the Mages to Alexandria Castle (which she even says later in Lindblum that she thinks they will be used for war) etc., yet she suddenly acts like her mother could be just talked down by her (despite beforehand saying the Cid was the only one that could talk to her mother but then she pulled a one-eighty flip on that), and if she was so convinced of that, why didn't she do this when she had the chance BEFORE running away from home? (Something that a person with an allegedly perfect relationship with a parent would do FIRST) Even if she is right, that "mom isn't evil, there's just someone controlling her to act this way," she's making a HORRIBLY big assumption to think that the same scenario couldn't happen to her, too. To go back and have her be brainwashed and controlled to do bad things like her mother. She wasn't even uninformed, even if you can claim she wasn't "omniscient". There was zero, absolutely zero reason to return beyond, "Let me appeal to my loony mother by begging them to just stop."

That's one rant down, time for the other one just below…

-While she is still popular among fans, Beatrix does have her detractors pointing to her actions during the first half of the game. While she does eventually reform, some feel that she gets off too easy for her actions (helping with the genocide of Burmecia and Cleyra). Not helped is that all of her boss fights are unwinnable, adding more frustration around her character. Though she wasn't entirely at fault for what happened during the Mist Wars (Brahne, Kuja, and Garland are much more to blame for what happened).

They may be "more to blame", but that doesn't excuse Beatrix for being a poorly written character. Ignoring the fact that she is a God-Mode Sue, the fact that she doesn't at least wonder why her queen, who was perfectly peaceful and rational up until a short time after the death of her husband, suddenly starts acting like a warmongering lunatic and ordering genocides left and right, doesn't speak well to Beatrix as an individual. Nor does it help that she gets away with killing hundreds of Freya's kind without even at least apologizing for it until too little too late.

Garnet also said in Disk 1 Lindblum that she tried to tell everyone in Alexandria Castle that her mother was going nuts and nobody believed her, which included Beatrix, but what happened in Burmecia should be direct proof to Beatrix that Garnet was right, yet she doesn't consider Garnet's feelings in any of this. What makes this worse is that neither Garnet nor Steiner are around to witness Beatrix committing these atrocities and call her out on it. And even when you get to the Red Rose scene with Beatrix just after Cleyra's destruction, she only seemed to be expressing discontent with Brahne's actions because she didn't say "thank you" and Beatrix and her troops weren't doing it all themselves.

Then there is Beatrix not even showing that much worry and attention for Garnet throughout most of that scenario, we didn't see Beatrix's reaction when Garnet was kidnapped at the beginning of the game nor questioned why the queen wasn't immediately sending her after Garnet instead of the dangerous Blacks Waltzes, Beatrix seemed to have more interest with attacking Burmecia and not thinking about how Garnet would feel about all that and not even recognizing Zidane as the one who "kidnapped" her and asking where she was when he showed up, she didn't even notice the unconscious Garnet in Brahne's room until Zidane had to literally point her out (and this was just a while after Brahne said to Beatrix's face that she was going to execute the princess.

And as a reminder of what I said before about Beatrix, she should have been the queen and Garnet's mother instead of the cartoony Brahne.

It feels like whoever wrote this and the Garnet one above as "examples" of this trope is sounding like an apologist and trying to excuse bad writing. These need to be deleted.

-Necron is such an infamous case of It Was His Sled that "pulling a Necron" has become fan speak for Giant Space Flea from Nowhere final villains in general. Even beyond that, Necron's sudden appearance and lack of any explanation, tends to be brought up as a major sore spot for fans even years after the game came out.

Okay, I don't really disagree with what this is saying, but why is this an example of "Never Live it Down"? Well, the next trope below explains…

•Older Than They Think: People who came aboard the series later tend to overlook the fact that most of the older games (which this one homages) had some sort of twist or surprise final boss with little to no setup. The closest to Necron would probably be Cloud of Darkness, which appears after the seeming antagonist is defeated and announces she's going to turn the world to nothingness.

This may be true, but "most" isn't an accurate assessment, in regards to the FF series, of the games before IX, III was the only one with an out of nowhere final boss (unless you count Zeromus from FFIV, but honestly, I don't because Zeromus and Zemus are pretty much the same entity) and even then, the CoD still had a connection to the plot. (as I've explained in the Memoria chapter) It would have been more accurate to state that several JRPGs have done this, not solely Final Fantasy.

•Player Punch:
-The mindless Black Mages aboard an airship. They all resemble the party member Vivi, and they get annihilated by Black Waltz No. 3 as they try to protect the party.

Which Dagger rendered completely worthless afterwards when she went back home anyways, which is what the Black Waltzes were trying to do.

-The destruction of Cleyra and Lindblum, thanks to Queen Brahne's Eidolons. The former is horrible, because it's performed by Odin, a summon that most players have likely used in previous games and was generally righteous, and there was an evacuation mission beforehand that specifically required the player to make the right decisions to prevent the citizens from getting killed by the invading army which may have been rendered pointless in the end anyway. And the latter lets the player see the inhabitants getting sucked into the abyss within Atomos.

Which is, again, Dagger's fault for pretty much handing the Eidolons over to Brahne and Kuja. What's worse is that you, the player, are forced to play through her stupidity and guide her back to being captured in Alexandria, rendering all your gameplay efforts to get her out in the first place completely pointless, which should be the real player punch that this post is glossing over.

-Vivi's voiceover saying his goodbye to everyone in the ending. It's strongly implied that Vivi dies, or is about to die, at the end of the game.

Well he was technically already dead, going by what the Mist really was. But anyways, that still took a back seat to Zidane and Garnet.

•The Scrappy: Zorn and Thorn are annoying lackeys to Queen Brahne who habitually repeat what the other just said. All the time. They also like to use a status effect that blocks AP gain during their boss fight, which will slow down your characters' skill growth.

They are just one boss though, you can still get a lot of AP from other enemies and bosses.

•Scrappy Mechanic: The Trance system, largely because of how uncontrollable the transformation is. It can take several hours of fighting in-game to charge up Trance, and when charged you immediately enter Trance, and then when the current battle is over the gauge completely depletes. Imagine this — your Trance bar is almost filled, when you order an attack on an enemy in a random encounter. Before the attack goes through, the enemy attacks, the Trance bar fills, and the character enter Trance. They attack and kill the enemy, the battle ends, Trance gauge is depleted. This will happen. That's also not getting into how unbalanced the Trance abilities are between various characters; Quina just gets to use Eat on enemies with higher health and Steiner gets an attack power buff, while Eiko and Vivi get Dualcast and Zidane becomes a god of destruction able to deal massive damage to enemies for trivial amounts of MP.

This sums up what I meant when I said Trance was a badly done mechanic in battle back in the Evil Forest chapter.

Actually I'll just leave the rest of the Scrappy Mechanic examples here since I didn't talk about gameplay issues that much in my review.

-Quina's "Eat" ability. It instantly kills the enemy and possibly earns Quina a new ability, however it will only work if the enemy is at 1/4 of its health, a rather small window. Oftentimes whittling down the enemy's health will result in accidentally killing it. It doesn't help that a lot of the powers can be collected from enemies when you first meet Quina, meaning you don't yet have Scan to determine how much health they have left, only figuring out when he/she says "I no can eat until it's weaker!". Luckily, a Blue Magic skill Quina learns (Matra Magic) is a HP To One move, but it comes with its own problems, as its accuracy, while not bad enough to make it unusable, doesn't guarantee a hit, and it means Quina (a party member that, by default, is as fast as Steiner) needs extra turns to attempt to hit Matra Magic, and once it hits, one more to Eat the enemy.

-The card game, Tetra Master, qualifies too. Particularly because first time one plays the game is during the very beginning of the game and there's a half hour long tutorial with unlimited consequence free practice games available, and since the game doesn't come up much during the actual plot, they aren't expecting to have to win a couple of games to progress the storyline. Moreover, playing it the way it looks like it ought to be played (stronger cards beat weaker ones) doesn't help you much, because there's some kind of random element to it, to the point where even FAQ writers haven't been able to fully figure out how the mechanics work. Back when still existed, at least it revealed that strength of the cards is based off their Hexidecimal Code values. However, despite that, there is an RNG factor in the game that has such a range to it that the stats could border on meaningless. The one time you're forced to play it to progress the plot is the only time in the entire game where being good at it gets you anything besides more useless cards. Finally, the only Tetra Master card that does anything outside the minigame (which allows you to rename your party members if you show it to a specific NPC) can be found without ever playing it.

This is also what I meant about the card game sucking in the first chapter.

-There are several segments in the game where you either do not have a healer (any time the game does not let you use Dagger, Quina and Eiko), said healer not having the ability to heal yet (Quina until halfway across Cleyra unless you somehow manage to beat an enemy several times your level), said healer being crippled due to the storyline (Dagger for half of Disk 3) or simply being in an area where magic just plain doesn't work (Oeilvert). Anytime that happens, you have to heal or revive using other means, specifically items (which, while decent early, lose effectiveness pretty quickly and, in case of Phoenix Downs in particular, only recover single-digit HP) or rare healing abilities on other characters (of which Zidane's Sacrifice kills him, Freya's Reis' Wind only grants Regen and, and Amarant's Chakra is fairly weak and only targets a single person unless he is in Trance).

-The fact that being killed does not negate the Zombie status. It prevents the character from being revived, until it is removed and Remedy does not work on it, so if you forgot to bring along the appropriate item (Magic Tag) you're out of luck. On a related note, using a Phoenix Down to revive gives that character *single-digit HP*. Hope you're quick enough to get a heal off.

-Stop does not wear off with time, making it one of few games in the series where a party afflicted with Stop faces the Game Over screen. There is also a worse version of the Poison status called Venom, which combines the slow HP drain of Poison with the effect of Stop and adds a slow-MP-drain on top of that. Additionally, the version of Stop that is available for players to use is also essentially an instant-death spell when it's affecting a solo enemy, and winning a battle in this manner will give no experience or gil (though AP will still be awarded).

-The Overly Long Fighting Animations can be quite tedious, as well as the long camera pan around the battlefield at the beginning of every random encounter. Worse, they interfere with the attack queue, leading to multiple scenarios where you'd press a command, but the opponent gets to move because they were queued during the previous attack animation without you knowing, and your attack only goes off long after you initiated the command. This is particularly frustrating with the Heat status effect, which would qualify itself since it kills you for taking any action at all, but the unintuitive attack queue means many players have wiped out after an enemy inflicted Heat in between waiting for their characters to act.

-During the mid-point of the game, Dagger will frequently fail to perform actions, instead presenting you with a "Can't concentrate" message. When Garnet goes through a broken phase note , she becomes useless in battle. She completely loses her ability to go into Trance and has a random chance of skipping her turn, because she is incapable of focusing. It also doesn't help that the other white mage of the party has gone missing. Fortunately, you can still use Garnet's magic outside of battles. While justified based on story-related reasons, from a gameplay standpoint this renders one of the stronger mages in your party (the primary summoner at that) effectively useless.

It's not really "justified", I've talked about how wangsty and overdid it was in the Disk 3 Lindblum chapter.

-The stealing mechanic can drive players up the wall, they're widely hated due to how luck based it can be. Most enemies carry up to 4 items to steal, ranging from common to rare and bosses, naturally, tend to hold the better items. Even with add-on abilities that increase the success rate of stealing, it still doesn't help a lot. Almost every boss has several items and the more rare ones are harder to steal. Rare items have a 16/256 success rate in being stolen and very rare items just have a 1/256 odds. note While the majority of the items from bosses can either be found/bought/synthesized later on, you will pull your hair out trying to get the best items early so that your characters can have stronger stats and/or learn abilities sooner. All the above is made even worse during the Hopeless Boss Fight against Beatrix since she'll automatically end the battle after a few minutes passes or if her HP is depleted, which means you lose out on any items you didn't get to steal from her. The Hilgigars is infamous among players for having its Fairy Flute being nearly impossible to steal (it has a 1/256 chance of success).

•Sequel Difficulty Drop: Not a bad thing in this case — the mechanics of the game are a little more straightforward compared to the more recent Final Fantasy titles, and the game itself also has a very friendly difficulty curve outside of a couple candidates for That One Boss on the first and second disc. This actually probably makes it a very good game for newcomers — perhaps a better introductory game than Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, which was intended as one.

Except that Mystic Quest is a spin-off, IX is a main entry and should have more of a challenge. (Of course, in the development stages IX was originally going to be just a spin-off but then got promoted to a mainline game, resulting in it being made on a lower budget and lacking higher quality writing)

•Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: The Tetra Master card game got so popular that PlayOnline released a pay-to-play online version of it along with Final Fantasy XI.

Was it that "popular"? Wasn't that same card game described as a "Scrappy Mechanic" here that even FAQ writers couldn't fully figure out?

•Signature Scene: The You Are Not Alone scene, where Zidane experiences a Heroic BSoD after discovering his origins and you play through a short battle gauntlet as the rest of the party reminds him of The Power of Friendship.

You mean that very forced, cheesy and clichéd scene that was just a rip-off of Cloud's and undermined the love story by making it more about friendship than love, unlike how Cloud's was handled?

•Signature Song: "Melodies of Life", the game's main theme. It appears in-universe as a song of Madain Sari, tying it to the central mystery of Dagger's identity.

It's also a love song representing Zidane and Garnet in general, which TV Tropes seems to also overlook.

•Tainted by the Preview: The announcement that the animated adaptation would be a kid's show immediately made some fans wary about the studio falling victim to Animation Age Ghetto as even though the game has one of the most cartoonish graphics in the main Final Fantasy series, the game touches on topics and shows events that are definitely not kid-friendly.

Well those "non-kid-friendly" events and topic are a bit contrived and try-hard, IX isn't dark so much as it's edgy for the sake of having a "dramatic" moment.

In fact, "Mood Whiplash" should be added as an example to IX here, because it suffers from it a lot.

•They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Most of them, really. Other than Zidane, Garnet, and Vivi, every character has a point where they not only stop contributing to the plot but almost stop talking completely.

This is mostly accurate, but Zidane, Garnet, and even Vivi should also be considered wasted, Zidane especially with how him being apparently stronger than Kuja doesn't really go anywhere since we never see him awaken his true powers, Vivi is also a little wasted in regards to the game never really properly exploring the Black Mages being deceased people whose souls were spat out of the Iifa Tree as Mist and placed into doll bodies.

-Freya. She has a focus during the Burmecia and Cleyra plotlines in disc 1, but after that she becomes almost completely irrelevant to the story, with her plot around Sir Fratley being left unresolved.

Got nothing to say here, that is completely true.

•The Black Waltzes, powered up and self-aware Black Mages, are all killed off in disc 1. If any of them survived we could have seen how they would react to learning of their limited lifespans. Would they have reacted violently, like Kuja did, or would have they accepted it peacefully?

Well the Black Waltzes were pretty one note anyways, I think the bigger wasted plot is what I've been saying about the game not giving attention to the Black Mages actually being ghosts in shells.

•They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Brahne spends the first part of the game laying waste to the Mist Continent until she is betrayed by Kuja, who kills her and lays waste to Alexandria. It would have been interesting to see victims of Brahne's campaign treat Garnet and her friends harshly, forcing Garnet to try and make some form of reparation to appease them, or even to see the angry war survivors try and attack the devastated Alexandria out of revenge. We can only assume Alexandria getting partly destroyed by the Invincible served to quell any desires for revenge.

Yeah, it was weird that everything that Brahne (and Beatrix) did is swept under the rug and is forgotten about. Not to mention that bullshit at the end of Disk 2 where Tot claims that "people are still fond of Brahne" despite what she caused.

•When trying to break the seal on the Shimmering Isle so the party can get to Terra, the party splits up into four teams of two. Each pair of characters is attacked by a Guardian based on the Final Fantasy Four Fiends. Only the Earth Guardian is actually fought. Two others appear briefly with detailed character models, but their fights only appear as snippets in cutscenes. They are all later fought in the Memoria, and Maliris's dialogue implies they are the same ones. The game's dummied content hints that they were supposed to be fought individually in the planning stages.

Nothing to say here. This is exactly what I was talking about in that chapter.

•The summon Alexander doesn't factor into the plot as much as the game seems to hint. It's summoned in a cutscene at the start of Disk 3 to protect Alexandria, but is then quickly destroyed by the Invincible. The backstory in the game is very interesting; the summoners split the jewel into four and departed for Madain Sari out of fear of what would happen if they summoned Alexander again. The player never gets the opportunity to summon him in the game.

Same here, this is spot on. Alexander had a bad pay off and was wasted.

•Steiner and Freya stay behind with Beatrix during Disc 2 to buy the rest of the party time to escape to the Outer Continent. Unlike in Disc 1, which consistently switches POV between two different parties, Steiner, Freya and Beatrix don't show up again until Disc 3 in no worse for ware without any explanation. There's not even an ATE to explain what they were up to while Zidane's party was exploring the Outer Continent.

This is also what I was already talking about within the review.

•Tier-Induced Scrappy: Amarant's characterization is relatively popular; maybe not as much as Vivi or Steiner, but he has his fans. Gameplay-wise, not so much. Of course, it doesn't help that you get him towards the end of Disc 2, long after other characters have joined and learned plenty of abilities. His level is on par with everyone else's, but he'll have to learn abilities from scratch, making him easy to ditch.

Really? Steiner's characterization, which is obnoxious and largely consists of slapstick clichés, is "popular"? I have to question the accuracy of that.

•Toy Ship: Many shippers interpreted Eiko's bossiness and Vivi's nervous compliance as cute enough to warrant one. Which, canonically, would end in tragedy, since Vivi is a very short-lived creature.

Well again, Vivi isn't really a "creature", he is a spirit within a doll body.

•Ugly Cute: Most of the non-human character designs (and even some of the humans). The production team has stated they were inspired by The Dark Crystal, and it shows.

Oh, The Dark Crystal, huh? I guess that explains why they went with a lot of the anthropomorphic designs.

Also, this is ironic, considering that The Dark Crystal actually had it's crystal appear right from the start and was the main driving force of the movie, while IX, even though it was apparently inspired by the movie and had "The Crystal comes back" as it's tagline and the crystal was on the logo art and the game's main title screen, had no crystal throughout most of the game and no real build up.

•Values Dissonance: Many critics and analysts note that the game's central themes (the inevitability of death, duty versus personal aspirations, conformity versus individuality, and having a place to belong) are all expressions of important Japanese cultural mores. Zen Buddhism is centered around the inevitability of death and how one should live in the meantime (represented by Vivi and the mages). The Pillars of Moral Character are about how one juggles a divide between personal feelings and duty (represented by Dagger, Steiner and Freya). Zen Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism and Shintoism are largely about knowing one's place in the world and how an aggressive ego leads to suffering for oneself and others (represented by Kuja), while over-conformity leaves one soulless (represented by Garland). Japanese society in general is based on in-group culture, where everyone needs a place to belong and can both achieve more and live happiest once they've found a place to fit in (represented by Zidane, Eiko and Amarant). For these reasons, FFIX is very poignant and beloved in its native Japan while in the Anglosphere, the reception to it was a bit more mixed and some of the characters and messages (Zidane, Garnet and Kuja especially) are interpreted a little differently. In particular, Western audiences tend to think of Kuja's fear of losing his soul as being akin to losing out on an afterlife from a Christian perspective. In comparison to the principally Shintoist Japan, Western fans can very much relate to doing anything it takes to save your eternal soul.

Okay this is a big one that I've been wanting to pick apart when I first saw it for a while. Whoever wrote this is looking too deep into things, is seeing stuff that isn't there and making pretentious postmodernist interpretations. Which on TV Tropes, is it's own trope called "Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory". For those who don't know what this all means, it basically means that what the author actually intended and meant with something is completely disregarded for someone to pretentiously project what they want to see, to sum it up in a quote:

Book: "The curtains were blue."

Pretentious English Teacher: "The curtains represent the main character's emotional struggle."

What the Author intended: "The curtains were freaking blue."

Now, getting back to what the post actually said:

• Who exactly are these "critics and analysts" that are making all these claims? Unless the writer provides source, I'd say they are just pulling it out of their ass.

• Placing Zen Buddhism stuff with the Black Mages is pretentious because, as I've been saying a bunch of times, the Black Mages are already dead and are ghosts in the shells.

• "The Pillars of Moral Character" is also nonsense, especially with Dagger and Steiner their dumb denial of Brahne. Also why is Freya even being included in this? Wouldn't Beatrix make more sense?

• The whole "Excessive Individualism and Excessive Conformity" thing is kind of one-sided towards Individualism, with how the game acts like Kuja is suddenly a "sympathetic character" despite spending most of the game being a hyper-individualistic, narcissist cartoon villain. Also Dagger's extremely selfish actions of drugging and abandoning Zidane to run back home to see her mother by herself like an idiot because of her self-centred "independence" definitely falls into excessive-Individualism, but she never gets called out on it. It's not very balanced.

• Not everything necessarily ties into Japanese culture or "cultural differences", especially since IX has a more European appearance to it. The Zidane, Amarant and Eiko example is also really reaching. Also being "poignant and beloved" even in Japan is really debatable and an exaggeration, even in Japan, where while sales were admittedly higher than in the West, IX was still one of the least selling FF games for the Playstation, it was almost half of the original VII's sales, and X sold more as well, and the IX rereleases also have low sales compared to rereleases of other FF games on Android and Steam. Heck, the VII Remake sold a million copies in Japan in just three days after it came out. IX isn't as popular in Japan as the trope writer is making it out to be, just look this up on the Video Game Sales Wiki.

• "Some of the characters and messages (Zidane, Garnet and Kuja especially) are interpreted a little differently" Care to explain to how? Kuja is the only one you actually explain, speaking of which… "Christian perspective"? Did you even read the Ultimania or the FFWiki on the whole Crystals and Souls thing, what about this is implied as "loosing out on an afterlife"? Nowhere in comments sections or reviews that I have seen have ever made a Christian interpretation of this. It feels like the writer is flat out making things up now. Whoever wrote this clearly doesn't even understand the actual game and has never bothered to look up the Wikia.

I'm surprised this whole thing hasn't been removed yet, this trope has been on this page for quite a while and is clearly saying bullshit.

•Vindicated by History: Despite selling less than either of its immediate predecessors and often being overshadowed by VII in particular, both new and old fans of the series have come to appreciate the narrative and character development of IX far more than when it came out— and so, generally speaking, this is the least "contested" of the PS1-era Final Fantasies, and the one to most widely have its virtues acknowledged. It helps that the game was a massive critical darling from the get-go, and to this day it is generally regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, an opinion that many Final Fantasy fans have come around to agree with (though how it ranks compared to other similarly-acclaimed entries in the series is still up for debate). Word of God also has this to a certain extent, as seen on the main page.

Okay this is so untrue and is blatant shilling. This quote from another commenter sums it up best: "I've been here since '04 and FFIX being "universally beloved" is wholly some 2010's nonsense.

People used to dickride FFVI and act all contrarian about FFVII because that was the hot shit to do.

Then for awhile it was cool to insist that V was totally your favorite one.

People universally shat on FFVIII until just the last few years, too.

I'm sure I'll see the day when you come around on FFXIII as well and act like I'm some noob when I talk about how it wasn't always some 'beloved hidden gem' of the franchise or whatever bullshit people are saying about IX nowadays."

Seriously, there is a lot to unpack here.

"Both new and old fans of the series have come to appreciate the narrative and character development of IX far more than when it came out" and "the least "contested" of the PS1-era Final Fantasies, and the one to most widely have its virtues acknowledged"? That's only because IX isn't as noticed as other FF games and thus doesn't have as many players noticing and pointing out it's many flaws, really IX just has a really vocal minority of nostalgia fanboys who won't stop blindly praising it just because it has castles and airships in it. I don't see how the narrative and "character development" of IX can be appreciated when it's full of grade school writing and plot contrivances, like Beatrix's robotic dual personality of being a cold-heartless warmonger and a remorseful conflicted knight, and especially Garnet's stupid behaviour and abandoning Zidane, how it that "good development"?

"It helps that the game was a massive critical darling from the get-go, and to this day it is generally regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, an opinion that many Final Fantasy fans have come around to agree with"? By whom? The same westerners who think that Neon Genesis Evangelion is some "deep and profound masterpiece" and not a pretentious wreck that Hideaki Anno, the shows creator, just made up as he went along, didn't even plan out an ending and put some stuff in it just because he thought it "looked and sounded cool"? I have seen several books talking about best video games and IX isn't even mentioned in some of them (while games like VII, X and XII are and given a lot of attention), heck, one of them barely gave IX a passing mention with no pictures, while other games like VII and X got double pages and pictures, it even went as far as to criticize IX for shunning realism. The fans that think that IX is "one of da best video games" is still a minority and also this contradicts what the "Hype Backlash" post said above. If anything IX's bad writing is becoming more and more easier to see with new releases like the VII Remake which actually improves it's writing from the original.

"Word of God also has this to a certain extent" Oh you mean Sakaguchi? You do realize that he said the exact same thing about FFV when it came out, does that mean that V should be placed at the top of every list entirely because the creator "claims" so? Again, no. We should grade a game based on that game's merits, not a nice statement a producer said about an upcoming game. Nostalgia shils always bring this up like it means something. This is the same guy that nearly tanked his entire company with that awful "The Spirits Within" movie and then went on to make Blue Dragon and The Last Story. Sure. His opinion is gospel. The golden age of FF (VII, X and XII) were all made/written/designed by people other than Sakaguchi. Same went with Mistwalker. Lost Odyssey was mostly made and written by others (Daisuke Fukugawa, and good parts of the plot (like the text stories, world concept and characters) were done by Kiyoshi Shigematsu), while the games Sakaguchi did have more input on are the ones nobody really remembers. What input Sakaguchi DID have on the good entries with his name slapped on them were so absolutely minuscule, and usually rewritten/redesigned by other people anyway.

•What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The game might appear to be cutesy and sometimes silly with the colorful cast of characters with their quirky designs and personalities, but underneath it all is a much darker game; the game will not hold back showing scenes of murder, war, genocide, existential crisis among certain characters, and similar themes. The game is rated T for teen, but it's not unheard of for parents to have bought the game for their children thinking it was another cute game.

Okay but a lot of that happened due to unbelievable bullshit, like Garnet's stupidity and the unrealistic black and white cartoon villains. IX also has a lot of Mood Whiplash, another example that should be added here. IX is not really 'dark' so much as it's edgy for the sake of trying to have a dramatic moment. The game is very obvious about how it was a goofy spinoff that suddenly got promoted to Main Installment halfway through development because Square wanted to start a new console generation with a double digit final fantasy game for marketing purposes, it's very schizophrenic up to the final boss who's the posterboy for random bullshit final bosses.

•The Woobie: Vivi. You spend the first half of the game visiting places the Black Mages have been to, causing townspeople to demonize the poor boy while he just shakes, cowers, and protests he has nothing to do with them and doesn't understand the situation. This comes to a head when he finds out that he's the prototype to a more controllable make of Artificial Human, and that he will probably stop moving one day just like them. The ending heavily suggests that he had less than a year from when he found out. There's even an optional, easily-missable cutscene that makes it even worse: his adoptive "grandfather" Quan actually wanted to fatten up the boy into something more edible, but innocent young Vivi completely missed this subtext. Granted, it's implied that Quan changed his mind along the line and instead found fulfillment in raising Vivi (established in a special cutscene with Vivi, Quina, and Quale), but yeah, it still counts big time.

Again, I refer to the game missing out on what the Black Mages really are.

"More controllable"? Where was that implied? We never even saw the other prototype mages, there had to be more than just Vivi, right? Also the game could have given more details to Quan's regrets and feelings on all that for a better emotional pay-off. I never address this before but that special cutscene involves going back to Quan's dwelling with Quina and Vivi, and somehow Quan appears as a ghost, and Quale also shows up, despite having no idea that this would happen and was on the other side of the continent in his hut in the marsh with no way to get there so fast. It was a pretty nonsensical scene, it should be added to "Big Lipped Alligator Moment".

-Princess Garnet, or Dagger, had her father die when she was young, has her once-loving mom go insane and try to take over the world, is hunted down when she tries to tell her "uncle" about her mother's genocidal tendencies, has her magic ripped out of her by two freaky clowns, is sentenced to death by her mother after she stops being useful, sees that stolen magic destroy entire cities, and finally watches her pathetic mother die at her feet. This is all before she finds out that she wasn't the queen's real daughter and her real mother had also died getting her to safety. Eventually, this gets to be too much for her, and she has a nervous breakdown and goes mute.

Yeah well, this post is missing that a lot this was kind of her own fault for running back home like an idiot, and would never stop having annoying inner monologues of whining, couple that with the mute thing and it's just overdone and wangsty.

-Freya Crescent, who loses everything she has during the first half of the game. Everything. She suffers a massive Trauma Conga Line over the course of the game that sees her forgotten by her lover and her entire civilization destroyed. Her quote is also particularly chilling given how the game promptly forgets her existence.

Well at least even TV Tropes acknowledges how wasted Freya and Fratley's plot was.

-Zidane. He spends the majority of his life trying to find a place where he belongs, being that he had dreams about Terra and all. When he doesn't find it, he returns to his adopted father Baku. Just like Tidus, Zidane is welcomed back with a punch from Baku. When he finds out he is not from Gaia and realizes he was created to be Garland's puppet, he has a breakdown rejecting his friends and all. The whole game for him, he's basically a Stepford Smiler.

Well Baku never gets called out for his questionable parenting, and it's not the same as Tidus because with his father, Jecht, this is deconstructed. As for Zidane himself, this was all so last minute and forced, as I've already explain, and, opposite of Garnet, he has too little angst.

-Eiko, at only six years old, is the sole survivor of the summoner tribe aside from Garnet, making her an orphan with only moogles to look after her. As her quote in the game suggests, she doesn't want to be alone anymore and is overjoyed at Zidane coming to her home. In the third disc, her love letter to Zidane is misplaced, she's kidnapped by Zorn and Thorn (who are now working for Kuja), loses her guardian Mog, and finds out Zidane loves Garnet more. After all this she gets her happy ending when Regent Cid adopts her.

She didn't "lose" Mog though, Mog was actually an Eidolon. Also her being adopted by Cid and Hilda came out of nowhere, there was no real build up.

-It's implied that your chocobo ran away from an abusive owner before being taken in by a Moogle.

Okay but why is this an example? This is so minor and the game itself didn't even put any emphasis on that.

-Even the eventual true Big Bad himself Kuja could qualify, though he's probably a Jerkass Woobie. He's a product of an assimilation plot started by the Terrans and while he did have a good life, Zidane and Mikoto came along, and were to replace him, meaning he'd end up having to give up his soul just because Garland didn't think he deserved to live after better prototypes were made. And he does eventually redeem himself by teleporting the heroes out of the Hill of Despair, using the last of his strength. With all this, can you blame his selfish outlook on life and eventual Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum? Even Zidane and Vivi felt sorry for him by the end.

I refuse to acknowledge Kuja as the "true" main antagonist, Garland fits into that more, Garland was way more complex, sympathetic and interesting, the game just forces Kuja on you.

Yes, I can blame him for his selfish behaviour and tantrum, he is just a whiny, narcissistic manchild with serious special snowflake syndrome, he was a B-list anime cartoon villain throughout most of the game, it's not like Garland programmed him to be that way, because if he could, Garland would have also made it so that Kuja wouldn't betray him. (It doesn't even make sense because Garland didn't even need an "Angel of Death" in the first place, as I've said in Pandemonium) In Memoria, Garland tells Zidane to take care of Kuja, implying empathy for both Zidane and Kuja.

Zidane and Vivi suddenly feeling sorry for Kuja felt really forced. This whole post is doing exactly what an earlier trope example said above, it's treating Kuja as a "Draco in Leather Pants".

Lastly…

What an Idiot: Princess Garnet is kidnapped by Zidane and his crew under the order of Cid, the ruler of Lindblum (though Garnet wanted to get taken anyway). The reason for the kidnapping was to protect Garnet from her own mother, a queen that had gone mad with power. Garnet talks to Cid about her mother and hopes he can do something. Cid assures her that everything will be fine and he'll form a plan to deal with her mother. Garnet wants to go with Zidane to Burmecia so she can see why her mother attacked the kingdom. Zidane and Cid tell her that it's too dangerous and she could be killed.

You'd expect: Garnet would stay put in Lindblum and let her companions get to the bottom of the situation without risking her life as Alexandria's princess.

Instead: She laces everyone's food except Steiner's with sleeping weed to knock them out so that she can return to Alexandria herself to talk to her mother. This results in Garnet being put under a knock-out spell by Kuja, having her eidolons extracted from her in order to be used by her mother for war, and then being set up for execution due to her "treason". If it wasn't for Zidane overhearing Brahne's plans to kill her own daughter, Garnet would have been dead.

-After putting everyone to sleep, Garnet leaves Lindblum with Steiner agreeing to follow her.

You'd expect: That she would go to Burmecia to see with her own eyes whether or not her mother really invaded the country. Zidane and Cid even assume that this is what she was planning once they wake up.

Instead: Garnet goes to Alexandria to ask her mother directly whether or not she attacked Burmecia. Because there's no way her mother could just lie to her. As a result, Garnet is captured and her eidolons are extracted. Said eidolons are then used to wipe Cleyra off the map and devastate Lindblum, and later nearly destroy Alexandria as well after Kuja siezes control of the extracted Bahamut.

I'd like to point out that these are actually more recent additions, even back during the old days of TV Tropes when it allowed criticism and wasn't acting like a dictatorship, and several examples from the FF series was added to the "What an Idiot" page, there wasn't an example written out for Garnet in IX (though probably mostly due to lack of attention) and only recently has this been added. But what is irritating is that now these examples have been removed from the FFIX YMMV page. Why? Because, I'm not even kidding, they say it and "What an Idiot" have become "Flame Bait" and moved to the "Darth Wiki" (Which I copied and pasted this from) because nowadays TV Tropes can't handle anything that might spark "controversy" and start arguments. Notice how Fast Eddie's and the mods solution to something critical that they can't just outright delete is to ghetto and hide it somewhere else and pretend that it doesn't exist.

Getting to the examples themselves, this is mostly good, though it skips on some things, like not pointing out how Garnet's dumb actions render the whole beginning of the game pointless, Zidane wanting to leave Garnet in Lindblum being really out of character for him, why didn't Garnet try talking to her mother before running away from home, addressing the plot hole of no Alexandrian soldiers being in Burmecia so that the Burmecian that showed up in Lindblum inconveniently doesn't say that Alexandria was behind it, not using a "To make things" worse statement such as pointing out that Garnet never rightfully gets called out on any of this by Zidane or the others, and not pointing out how it ruins the love story.

Garnet's stupidity should also be added to the "Idiot Ball", "Nice Job Breaking It, Hero", "Stupidity is the Only Option" and "Idiot Plot" pages and listed on the IX page, along with several other examples, like the characters stupidly going into quicksand to try and get to the Desert Palace and Beatrix never questioning Brahne until too little, too late. Seriously, it feels like TV Tropes is giving FFIX special treatment.

End of Chapter 29.

And that's the end of it, you readers can use what I've said here to try and edit the FFIX TV Tropes page… at least if the asshole mods won't ban your asses.

With this, my review is finally complete, thank you to everyone who didn't flame me and make sure to share this on other social media platforms to spread the word. If the IX cartoon and Remake get announced, I might say something extra. Please point out any other things that could be said about IX's issues in the comments.