One thing that strikes me about the game thus far is that it makes for a pretty great introduction both to the story and the gameplay. So far, we've essentially been playing though a tutorial without even realizing it. So far, we've been introduced to:
- Interacting with the world via the candle in the very first scene
- Combat, in low-risk environments
- Exploring towns and finding items
- Saving the game
- Minigames and sidequests
- Over a dozen characters, including four main party members, a major villain, and plenty of supporting characters
- A major game location
- A mysterious plot
And most of this was accomplished with hardly any blatant exposition or making the story slow down. The urgency of the unfolding plot justifies and draws attention away from the limited range of exploration and options available, and the frequent cinematics interspersed through the gameplay help to keep the plot moving and the player's interest piqued. I remember the graphics in these cinematics being mindblowing when they came out, and even more than a decade later they hold up pretty well, likely due to eschewing the photorealistic art direction of the other PS 1 Final Fantasies in favor of a more stylized, cartoony look. Photorealism was the holy grail of aesthetic design in those days, but it doesn't hold up well once the graphical cutting edge has been pushed.
This is everything that a tutorial should be: fun, engaging, and all but invisible. My only major criticisms are that the frequent changes of which character the player is controlling could be a bit jarring for a new player, and the Pluto Knights are hard to keep straight since they all look basically the same. That second one's more of a nitpick, though, since they're largely irrelevant to the plot; I only make note of it at all because there's a bit later in the game where their introductions here are important.
Speaking of tutorials, picking up where we left off gives us one on Active Time Events, or ATEs. These are short narrative snippets taking place at the same time as current events, but to a character or group you're not currently controlling. In this case, we see Garnet and Vivi fleeing from an unseen monster.
Zidane goes off to search the forest for Garnet, and this is where we first start running into random encounters (and where I finally remember to equip that Mage Masher I stole half a dozen fight scenes ago). Zidane soon finds Vivi, Steiner, and... a tentacle monster that's captured Garnet in its head-cage and periodically sucks health out of her.
Wow, if this game had been released today that thing would have become one of the most recognized characters in all of internet hentai.
Entering battle, Zidane immediately goes into this game's version of the Limit Break: Trance. Rather than being a super attack like in Final Fantasy VII or VIII, Trance is a state that increases the character's stats and abilities for several turns. Zidane and Steiner put aside their differences for a moment to team up against the hentai monster, which can be a pretty touch fight if you don't happen to notice that Trance has turned Zidane's "Skill" command into "Dyne," which includes the "Free Energy" attack that can drop the boss in two hits. Don't use "Tidal Flame," though, or you'll accidentally kill Garnet and have to go back to the last moogle.
The hentai monster runs off after being defeated, and Steiner and Vivi both beat themselves up for failing to save the princess. Zidane reassures them that the monster was just a minion, and they can still rescue her before it takes her back to its master, which he knows because... moving on.
Another hentai monster drops out of the trees and snaps up Vivi. There's no Trance to help you out this time, but Vivi casts his Fire spell on the monster from inside its cage, which speeds the fight along. Just be sure to keep an eye on his health each time the monster hits him with Absorb, and toss him a potion to keep him alive between your attacks. The monster sprays Vivi and Steiner with Leech Seeds
as it dies, knocking them out, and Zidane brings them back to the crashed ship where they're given an antidote that the Tantalus crew has because... reasons.
Zidane and Baku get into an argument over the princess. Zidane, of course, wants to go after her, but Baku doesn't like their chances of moving through a forest full of monsters with the crew members that were injured in the crash. After a quick chat with to perk up a miserable Vivi, Zidane resolves to rescue Garnet despite Baku's orders. Zidane has to quit Tantalus to do this, but beside trying to murder Zidane with his giant sword again, Baku's pretty amicable about it.
Everyone's pretty bummed to see Zidane go, especially Blank, who's jealous that Zidane is more interested in the princess's cute butt than his. The two flirt a bit before Blank gives us another dose of the Leech Seed antidote and a quick tutorial on abilities. IX has characters learn their skills and abilities from equipped weapons and armor. Every piece of equipment teaches up to three different skills or abilities, which can be used as soon as the item is equipped, but go away when the item is switched out if the character hasn't gained enough AP to master the skill yet. Skills are unique to each character, but abilities can be learned by multiple characters, though not every character can learn every ability. Abilities are passive effects like increased damage against certain enemy types or immunity to certain status effects, and require "magic stones" to activate, of which each character has their own limited supply that increases as they level up.
The whole thing is only slightly less of a contextless meta concept than the junctioning system from VIII. What exactly are we doing with these "magic stones" when we assign them to different abilities? Where are we putting them? Where are we getting them from? Why can't characters share stones they're not using? At least the system is more interesting and strategic than junctioning, and doesn't require any stockpiling of a resource that you should be wanting to use for other purposes, but never will because it's more hassle than its worth to restock that resource as you deplete it than to just go without using it.
The moogle outside has a letter from Ruby, who got left behind in Alexandria when the rest of the crew made their escape. I'm not sure why the moogles need us to carry their mail for them if they're perfectly capable of getting mail this far this fast on their own, and that's without taking the flying moogle who can swoop down out of the sky to save the game for us instantly at any point on the world map.
Despite being called the "Evil Forest" and being full of monsters, this place is actually kind of pretty, what with the lush green vegetation, glowing mushrooms, and soft moonlight all over the place. A little way in we come across a spring in a hollowed out stump that restores health and mana, and revives death, so I take a few minutes to grind a couple levels and steal a bunch of medical supplies from the local fauna before moving on. The giant, flying, carnivorous flowers that can Blind the entire party at once got old pretty fast, though.
The party eventually finds Garnet unconscious in the lair of a giant venus flytrap that is apparently the boss of the hentai monsters, whatever sense that makes. Blank shows up after the trio attacks, but Steiner is the MVP for this fight, as he has gained the ability to have Vivi channel magic through his sword for additional power, and his Fire Sword is devastating against this boss.
Zidane give Garnet the antidote, but she remains unconscious even as the ground under the boss's carcass drops out and a bunch of giant plant-bugs spring out. Cue the thrilling escape cinematic! Not only is an entire colony of giant half-rose-half-ants chasing the team, but the entire forest is turning to stone, including anything in the forest, because... I don't know, because the hentai monsters forgot to pay the existence bill. It's implied that it's because we killed the venus flytrap, but there's no apparent reason why its death would cause this. It didn't release any petrification spores into the air, it didn't issue a curse with its dying breath, and the monsters that came out from beneath it when it died are getting petrified too, so what sense does that make?
Blank gets nabbed by one of the bugs and petrified with them, and Zidane barely makes it out ahead of a writing tangle of giant blackberry vines. Not exactly the Millennium Falcon escaping the second Death Star, but not half bad. Zidane is understandable bummed about his friend getting stoned in one of the bad ways, but concern for what the group is going to do next comes first. Garnet's waking up, but is still too weak to travel, and there's no way out of the valley they're stuck in, anyway. Their best bet is to rest for the night and see if they can get out of the valley through a cave on the map Blank gave Zidane before getting petrified.
Before they set out the next morning, though, we're introduced to the "Teach Me, Mogster!" ATEs. This is another form of tutorial, and unfortunately, not nearly as good of one as the Alexandria sequence. Framed in the context of a moogle teaching his little brother, the Mogster segments are tutorials on game elements in the sad tradition of straight up text dumps. These kinds of tutorials are what often come to mind immediately when someone brings up the "t" word, and are one of the laziest, least effective ways to teach players how to play a game.
At least it's skippable.
