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Final Fantasy IX now out on Android and iOS
- Thread starter Martylepiaf
- Start date
So I gave in, bought this and... I'm pretty impressed. I was expecting some half-assed port like FFVII and nope, this is legit:
- The 3D is clean and pretty as fuck
- The 2D is ugly as expected, but my eyes haven't melted yet, that's good. I'm assuming it looks better on a phone/tablet than on a PC anyway
- The revamped UI is great
- The touch controls are great
- The resized art and menus are great, everything looks super clean
- The turbo is amazing, it's even faster than FFVII I think. In slower phones it might not go so well, but in a One Plus two it's VERY fast.
- Cheats are huge: max gil, max levels, learn abilities instantly (these three are permanent), turbo, no encounters, max damage and recover hp/mp (these four are on an activation basis). I'm currently going with no encounters and the three permanent ones. No fucks given, brehs, and come at me, Kuja, I'll crush your ass.
On the bad side, the loading times are stupidly high. Maybe they can fix that with a patch or something? It's strange because flash memories are supposed to be faster than discs, so the access to content should be almost instant, right? Anyway, it's not that big of a deal.
This game was supposed to have auto-save I think, but they don't mention nothing in the tutorials and such, I don't know how it works.
PS: Oh and it's multi four plus brit/american english.
- The 3D is clean and pretty as fuck
- The 2D is ugly as expected, but my eyes haven't melted yet, that's good. I'm assuming it looks better on a phone/tablet than on a PC anyway
- The revamped UI is great
- The touch controls are great
- The resized art and menus are great, everything looks super clean
- The turbo is amazing, it's even faster than FFVII I think. In slower phones it might not go so well, but in a One Plus two it's VERY fast.
- Cheats are huge: max gil, max levels, learn abilities instantly (these three are permanent), turbo, no encounters, max damage and recover hp/mp (these four are on an activation basis). I'm currently going with no encounters and the three permanent ones. No fucks given, brehs, and come at me, Kuja, I'll crush your ass.
On the bad side, the loading times are stupidly high. Maybe they can fix that with a patch or something? It's strange because flash memories are supposed to be faster than discs, so the access to content should be almost instant, right? Anyway, it's not that big of a deal.
This game was supposed to have auto-save I think, but they don't mention nothing in the tutorials and such, I don't know how it works.
PS: Oh and it's multi four plus brit/american english.
Shin-Ra
Junior Member
The hat's good but the other three lack a thorough understanding of the original icons' shape, perspective and some of the shading. The head's completely round instead of pointed to a chin and the staff looks laid flat rather than propped up against the knife.What do you mean? The icons look very good. They redrawn them. In stead of enlarging and smoothing here and there.
Comparison between FFIX on PS and iOS:
Look at the feathers on the hat. You only get that level of smoothing in Crime Scene Investigation.
Adam Prime
hates soccer, is Mexican
THANK YOU. I was waiting for these kinds of impressions. I think I may get it on iOS, but I'll also wait to see what the PC requirements are, my laptop is a garbage business Dell PC. I mean, it can run Trails in the Sky SC just fine, but I wonder if it would keep up with this game.
Can you refund a game on Steam if your PC doesn't run it well enough?
Pyrrhus
Member
Kinda ruins the ending a bit, doesn't it?
As long as your in-game time is under 2 hours and you've owned the game for less than two (? I think) weeks, yeah.
potatohead
Member
Pretty sure that's the neck, not a chin.
LizardKing
Member
I can't believe people are on here complaining about optional cheats being available. I think they are awesome, some people would like to relive parts of the game while diminishing others after beating it so many times already.
Few questions before I buy...
-What does the speed boost do to the soundtrack? Do the tracks play at normal speed, or is it a garbled mess?
-Does the speed boost advance the game timer faster, like running an emulator at 200%? Like, if I want to get Excalibur, will the speed boost help, or will it make the run impossible?
-How well does the game run on an iPhone 6S Plus? Is the lag in battles gone?
-What does the speed boost do to the soundtrack? Do the tracks play at normal speed, or is it a garbled mess?
-Does the speed boost advance the game timer faster, like running an emulator at 200%? Like, if I want to get Excalibur, will the speed boost help, or will it make the run impossible?
-How well does the game run on an iPhone 6S Plus? Is the lag in battles gone?
nogoodnamesleft
Banned
I'm almost 100% sure he's messing with us and he's not being serious.
Interesting. Does learn abilities instantly apply to every time you use new equipment with that ability? Like, I assume you do NOT get Meteor right away with that lol.
Hmm, too bad there's a No XP gain toggle. I like to run through with normal encounters and AP gain, but keeping relatively low levels (I still toggle it off to level up sometimes). Lean abilities instantly is an interesting way to sort of mimic that, but I'd get XP every time I fight. I'd also be broke unless I used max gil.
I'd buy this if I could simply do No XP. This is how I play the game on emulator. I do like to fight afterall, just not being silly overpowered (in this game equipment and abilities is more important than levels, but still).
- The soundtrack sounds normal, but the cgi videos do speed up, in sound and image. Oh yeah, I didn't mention that before, but you can skip cgi videos and even speed them up!
- Nope, I tested and time runs the same with and without turbo. Sooooo great news for Excalibur II!
I have to mention there are two kinds of controls:
1) You press your finger anywhere on the screen and a little joystick appears, from then on you just move your finger like a normal joystick. It works really well and is fast and responsive.
2) You press on the screen like a point and click game and your character goes there. This requires you to press and let go, and it works good but I'm still trying to figure out how to cross doors with that lol
You can skip the initial combat animation via an option in the menu and there is a turbo option that you can toggle anywhere in the game that speeds up things a fucking lot.
Really, they worked in this game way more than in VII.
go-on...
Sounds great... the speed is the worst thing about IX, one of my favorites in the series.
panthapanda
Member
Don't know if this has been asked but
How does the impressing the audience work with touch screen controls?
How does the impressing the audience work with touch screen controls?
GreenMonkey
Member
I take it this has the normal garbage call-home internet required Square DRM on Android?
Because it only covers a small amount of the total of backgrounds in the game and even then some are unfinished or lack their original animations.
Game changer right there. Just tested and it's great. I had no idea this option was available, thanks!
So yeah, loading still sucks, but now you can skip the camera panning before the battle and fast forward for easy grinding. FFIX finally made playable.
I would say the game in its current state is not worth $18, considering the complete lack of controller support. What the hell, Square Enix? I refuse to play a PS1 game with crappy touch controls and my ugly thumbs covering the beauty of FFIX.
If there's not a patch out soon I'm requesting a refund and waiting for PC release. I was going to double dip but oh well I guess.
If there's not a patch out soon I'm requesting a refund and waiting for PC release. I was going to double dip but oh well I guess.
Yep. This is my only gripe with the game so far. Why are the side bars not functional? Makes no sense.
But yeah, that aside, excellent port.
RanoNL
Member
There is a weird crossbreed between an PlayStation and SNES controller on the scene. In Dutch we have a name for these situations. "It's a strange duck in the bite".
It's actually displaying the 360 controller layout, not SNES. Probably because people will be playing with a 360 controller on PC.
It's definitely out of place, but it works just fine.
Just did some quick testing.
Playing on epsxe it takes around 19~20 seconds from the moment you trigger a random encounter to the moment you can take action.
Playing on an iPhone 6 it took 9~10 seconds with the battle camera skip option enabled. With the option disabled it took 14~15 seconds.
To me the ideal time for random encounters would be 5 second max, so it's still a bit long in the tooth, but definitely a nice improvement.
Edit: actually, tested again and the loading is exactly the same, around 15 seconds, which means the only improvement of the mobile version is the removal of camera panning, which shaves around 5 seconds.
Playing on epsxe it takes around 19~20 seconds from the moment you trigger a random encounter to the moment you can take action.
Playing on an iPhone 6 it took 9~10 seconds with the battle camera skip option enabled. With the option disabled it took 14~15 seconds.
To me the ideal time for random encounters would be 5 second max, so it's still a bit long in the tooth, but definitely a nice improvement.
Edit: actually, tested again and the loading is exactly the same, around 15 seconds, which means the only improvement of the mobile version is the removal of camera panning, which shaves around 5 seconds.
Not as good as it should be honestly. My expectations are low but I really hope the PC versions straight up eliminates this, or realistically get it down to 2-5 seconds.
Ghostoflies
Neo Member
Yeah 1gb of ram on that phone is what kills the game. Sorry you can't run it.
artsi
Member
1) It's not as simple, in the game a lot of the backgrounds were touched up after resizing to PSX resolution, and add layering etc. to that
2) There's hundreds of backgrounds, only a handful of them is preserved in HD
Yeah, I agree. It should be 5 seconds tops.
But it's a noticeable improvement at least. And the fast forward button plus auto battle options should ease the pain a little bit more.
darkhunger
Member
This is the discounted price.
Damn, that's pretty rich. $27 in Australia. Not sure if I can take it up at that price.
Jo Shishido's Cheeks
Member
Wait, wait, wait...
WHERE IS 8!?
Was there a reason given for it being skipped over?
WHERE IS 8!?
Was there a reason given for it being skipped over?
potatohead
Member
Still kind of crappy.
Add to that the battle swirl on the mobile versions is ugly af.
Not sure how you tested on ePSXe but I found 10 to 14 seconds about on FF IX.
Well back then in PSX days it probably was a lot of data, FF IX was way more detailed than VII or VIII.
darkhunger
Member
FF7 just came out a few months ago on mobile, and the team that ported that over from the PC version is different than the FF9 team, which is porting the PSX version to Windows and mobile all at once. So they are probably still working on FF8. I don't see why they would completely skip over it otherwise.
You are right. There was something wrong on my end. Tested again and it's indeed 15 seconds. Which means the only improvement on the mobile version is the removal of camera pan, which shaves off about 5 seconds.
ChrisMahoney
Banned
I know it probably won't because FF7 isn't, but I really really hope this game is released on OS X
LizardKing
Member
That 5 seconds off brings it right in line with VII and VIII though, I just checked all 3. They are all pretty much the same within a second or two. It makes a difference and it's more playable. Plus the addition of the other cheats gives you tons of control in how you want to play. Just played for 4 hours and this is a great port.
It's better than nothing for sure, but disappointing still. Missed opportunity.
Still a great port, in my opinion.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
None of my devices are able to play this 
anyone have a cheap tablet that can play this? What is it?
anyone have a cheap tablet that can play this? What is it?