Okay that actually sounds nice, not too niggerdly.
The party in FF IX is great, for the most part. All told, you have:
- A rogue from a troupe of thieves who sort-of moonlight as a theatre troupe (they take the theatre thing just as seriously as the stealing!). Though amnesiac, he has practically zero angst over his situation, and is charming and puckish instead. He's the hero, by the way.
- The princess of the largest kingdom on the continent, who, had the aforementioned rogues not been planning to kidnap her, was actively making plans to stow away on their ship.
- The little chap in the OP, who is an adorably naïve individual. He just wants to see the world and is an absolute sweetheart, while also being not-quite-human and in command of significant magical power.
- The princess' self-proclaimed bodyguard, captain of the sole squad of male knights in the kingdom, who are one and all regarded as bumbling fools by their peers. Yes, he's your comic relief, but even he is allowed to be competent and treated with a surprising amount of dignity at times.
- A... thing... you find in a swamp, that just tags along on the promise of finding new and weird stuff to eat. Mostly frogs.
- A taciturn Dragoon searching for any trace of her companion/friend/lover/relationship-never-really-specified-counterpart, who knows the thief from some unsaid shenanigans in the past.
- A token 10-year-old living in some ruins, acting as companion and caretaker for the other creatures that live with her. She's
far more mature than her age would suggest on some things, but is still very much a child when you get down to it.
- Vegita, as described above.
It's not perfect, yeah. The villain is kind of weak and the story takes a bit of a dive near the end, but the game does
a lot of stuff right.
There have been rumors of a FF9 remake for a while, and I hope it looks similar to this.
That game has so much SOVL.
What really needs fixing are the slow battles however. Story, characters and world hold up fine, but those slow-ass battles with the shitty limit system really hold the game back.
Above all else, I fully expect Square to fuck up Alexandria six ways from Sunday.
You can't make a matriarchy that
doesn't go out of its way to demean its male population in Current Year +X. Stiner would be robbed of his moments of respect and glory, such as they are, and instead be a 100% bumbling idiot, Queen Brahne would be re-written to have done nothing wrong, and Beatrix would become a lesbian thirsting after the princess.
And they'll flatten Garnet's ass.
Cynical? Yes, but if you beat a dog enough times, it's going to run whenever you raise your hand.
