It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do

So I've spent about three hours with the new Steam version of Final Fantasy IX and my first impressions are extremely positive. Square-Enix is not known for their ports on PC so I was a bit worried about what I would find here but so far I'm happy with it.

Look at those resolutions!

Something I wasn't expecting with this update were several decently substantial changes that came along with all of the modernization enhancements common with these types of projects. You've got your resolution settings going up to 1080 (what I'm playing it on thanks to my new laptop!), controller support (which actually changes button prompts this time which is incredibly useful during the quick time events this game has), and updated graphical sprites which were all expected but masterfully done all the same. If I have one complaint about the graphical enhancements it's that only the characters were redone in higher resolutions so they sometimes stand out against the lower res backgrounds or unrefined characters. It's not as glaring as the PC port of Type-0 but same basic idea.

The other changes I'm talking about are minor but welcome. In the original game, you could find things on the ground by walking around and hitting X a whole bunch in hopes that the character will find an item. Now, whenever there is anything of interest to your character, an exclamation mark appears above his/her head. While some may be irritated by this modernization, I won't miss running into walls constantly as I mash the X button. Also, on top of the standard controller support, they actually made sure that all controls are completely re-mappable. Finally, they appear to have added a few tutorial screens that I don't recall seeing in the original. This is something I could do without as tutorial screens have been a pet peeve of mine for a while but hey, that's the way the world is going and I know I'm in the minority on that issue.

Just in case I'm too dumb to figure out how cursors work.

 There are some other changes too like optional boosters (read: cheats) that work similarly to how Final Fantasy VIII on PC had it but with more robust options such as no encounter modes, maximum Gil and other things. I won't be using any of these for my playthrough but I know some will appreciate being able to blaze through the story quickly.

Otherwise, things are so far pretty much the same as in the original. Quirks and all. I haven't delved too much into the battle system so there is still a ton to see and I look forward to every second of it. I realized I haven't spent much time talking about the background of this game so I'll probably get into that in my next post. For now, enjoy this scene showing off some of the new character models. They're pretty great!

Game on!

Try giving him the wrong answer 64 times and see what happens. No joke.