Common Sense Media Review
Sprawling, retro role-playing game with hefty size, price.
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Final Fantasy IX
What's It About?
FINAL FANTASY IX is set on Gaia, a fantasy world made up of many diverse cultures. It starts with a gang of thieves set out to kidnap a princess (who unexpectedly wants to be kidnapped) and goes on to chronicle a multifaceted tale of political intrigue, friendship, and war. Its complex turn-based combat system takes time to absorb but allows players to think before they act. Players can upgrade a party of adventurers, explore different lands, and collect and craft weapons and armor. Relatively faithful to the PlayStation game (which was released in 2000), it shows its age graphically but does a reasonable job of conveying the original experience.
Is It Any Good?
Though fans of the series might be excited to play on mobile devices, the technical glitches, price, and size are definite drawbacks. The most glaring issue is the background graphics. Though characters were upgraded for the modern release, the backgrounds were left as-is, and their blurry pixels are hard to look at. Remaking all the backgrounds in such a huge game was no doubt impractical (or technologically impossible), but during combat, the game stutters and drags to a distracting degree, and the fun suffers because of it. The touchscreen controls are equally imperfect: The good news is, the developer has included a series of cheats you can use when things get too irritating, and they let you speed up combat by skipping combat intros. Funny and quirky, the characters and the classically convoluted story line are still charming. Good and bad being nearly equal, your enjoyment of the game depends largely on having a tolerance for technical clunkiness or fond memories of the PlayStation version.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the violence in the Final Fantasy games. What kind of violence is it? How does it differ from violence in other games or in movies?
Discuss why the characters are portrayed as they are. Which characters are the most appealing? Why? Do the male and female characters have different abilities?
Talk about the use of alcohol and potions in the game. Is it a main focus? Why is it included? Does the game make substance use seem realistic?
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android
- Pricing structure : Paid
- Release date : February 9, 2016
- Genre : Role-Playing Games
- Topics : Fantasy ( Magic ) , Adventures , Friendship
- Version : 1.0.8
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 7.0 or later, Android 4.1 or later
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
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