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Thirteen years after its release, a new sidequest is discovered in Final Fantasy IX

I'm sure lots of people saw chunks of this story in the game while playing it - it's not a secret quest at all, just a little reward for going back once in a while to talk to people after big events, something that's pretty standard in jRPG's. Maybe most people didn't see the whole sequence, but I'm sure most people saw a least a couple steps in it.
 

Terra

Member
Yep. I have always liked roaming free in RPG's, even in the early days of 'free roaming'. So yeah, this quest was not new to me personally.

Fantastic game! Played it then and played it through again two years ago, collecting chocographs.
 

Venin

Member
They probably didn't intend it as "good design." They probably intended it as "secret that only the hardcore would discover."

Exactly. It's not like it's part of the main story or anything, just something neat for big fans of the game to find.

Thank you for renewing my faith in this community. I can't believe some people are actually displeased with something like this in a video game. I think it's really amazing.

It reminds me of my childhood playing certain games over and over again and thinking that I've pretty much mastered it and seen everything the game has to offer in every one of its nook and crannies, then I find little things (not things as complicated as the topic at hand) that make me throw my head back a bit in awe and smile.

This thread fills me up with warm feelings, and the haters almost ruined it for me.
 

Lost Fragment

Obsessed with 4chan
I'm not joking. Don't get me wrong, it's cool that new stuff can be discovered in old games, but do you actually think this sort of thing is good design?

It's not. But not everything has to be "good design" so long as it's not something really important, or you're OCD enough that everything absolutely must be colored within the lines.
 
I'm sure lots of people saw chunks of this story in the game while playing it - it's not a secret quest at all, just a little reward for going back once in a while to talk to people after big events, something that's pretty standard in jRPG's. Maybe most people didn't see the whole sequence, but I'm sure most people saw a least a couple steps in it.

Yeah on my most recent replay I was surprised to discover the beginning of this quest. Would have never imagined it would have gone beyond what I saw though.

I also felt pretty proud to find Instructor Aki in Final Fantasy VIII on my own. After killing Norg if you go to the 2F of Balamb Garden a student asks to see a display of your magic power. If you do so the angry Instructor comes in and scolds you, knocking your SeeD rank down a notch.

I didn't discover this until after playing through the game more than eight times! Apparently there's a few other times he shows up as well, which I have never seen.
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Instructor_Aki
 

Koren

Member
Just as well the rest of the entire game makes up for that then. People put easter eggs into their games, nothing wrong with that. Kudos to them for keeping a secret like that for this long (regardless of how small it is) in this internet age. It's not meant to be clever or challenging, it's just.. "something" :)
They've not kept anythin secret, they wrote it in their ultimania guide.

It's just that we haven't a trnaslation of the guide here.

And I think they're doing this kind of trick to boost sales of ultimania books, that bothers me.
 
I hate to be "that guy", but this has always been known -- at least since the Ultimania came out around 2002 or so. At the time, reading about it, I remember being a little upset that they would make something so ridiculously obscure and figured that it was another part of the PlayOnline scam.

You mean no Western media have ever mentioned it?

No kidding. The OP even says it was from the Ultimania guide.
 

Lissar

Reluctant Member
Seems a little weird to just "discover" it now. Did no one read the Ultimania? (Sadly, one of the few Ultimanias I don't own. Not sure how that one slipped by me.)
 

Fou-Lu

Member
Time to restart my Final Fantasy playthrough I think. Unforunately I'm still at FFVI, so it'll be a while before I reach the masterpiece that is IX.

People tell me VI is really amazing though and it's now the only game in the series I haven't played extensively so...
 

Minamu

Member
That's a cool find :D On that topic, are there any good let's play's out there? I finished the game when it came out and tried playing it on the psp a few years back but stopped around the icy continent, disc 3 maybe? I'd like to rewatch from there if possible :) But I don't remember where in the game that is.
 
This is terrible. It's a case of Guide Dang It taken to the next level.

One of the worst aspects of most JRPGs, even to this day, is this sort of hidden content. It doesn't require careful thought to find, or interesting gameplay, or even persistence. It requires a FAQ--or even worse, like in this case, a FAQ plus playing the game years later when secrets are discovered. There's absolutely nothing clever or challenging about this sort of design--it's the designers being obscure for obscurity's sake.

Completionists are the cutters of the gaming world.
 
Thirteen years?

A true testament to how poorly designed JRPGs sidequests can be (and still are, in some cases, *cough* Tales *cough*).
 

Jac_Solar

Member
This is terrible. It's a case of Guide Dang It taken to the next level.

One of the worst aspects of most JRPGs, even to this day, is this sort of hidden content. It doesn't require careful thought to find, or interesting gameplay, or even persistence. It requires a FAQ--or even worse, like in this case, a FAQ plus playing the game years later when secrets are discovered. There's absolutely nothing clever or challenging about this sort of design--it's the designers being obscure for obscurity's sake.

You'd have a point if tons of people complained about FFIX having a lack of content, but I don't think that's the case. If it had happened in Max Payne, or any of the "cinematic" 5-8 hour games that barely have any content beyond whatever you find in the straight line you walk, it wouldn't really be awesome -- it'd actually be annoying.

But this game has lots of content regardless, so the fact that they "hid" obscure content in the game as well is incredibly awesome.
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
This is why gaming is a great medium for entertainment.
 

neoism

Member
I love this game... every time I think about it I just smile... It was the first game I got for my PS2 :p yep I got a PS2 on launch day and no games... this came out two weeks later :D I played this for 2 solid month's...I still got my copy.. I really should buy it again on PSN for the PSP when its on sale again.. I'm a fan of all PSX FF's but this one was just amazing... best ending too.. and best FF character EVVVER..
<3

Vivi fo lif
 

Dunan

Member
No kidding. The OP even says it was from the Ultimania guide.

Well spotted; in my eagerness to mention the Ultimania, I completely missed that!

Wasn't there a guy in FFIX that rated you on the amount of chests found??

Yes; he's a famous multi-armed treasure hunter
named Gilgamesh
; I thought I'd been diligent about finding treasure, and the first time I met him, I was shocked at my low rank!
 
It's called Chris Houlihan&#8217;s secret room in Zelda LTTP. It took many years for someone to find it.

That was covered in Super Play magazine in the early/mid nineties. Everyone knew about it. Only thing that was unknown back then was a certain, non-actionreplay trigger.
 

NekoFever

Member
This gives me another excuse to play Final Fantasy IX and annoys all the anal retentive people who can't enjoy a game unless they do everything. A double win.

It's nice to see this game getting the credit it deserves in recent years. So many people were all about FFVII at the time and it walked right into the PS2 hype machine.
 

IrishNinja

Member
crazy...best one ive seen since shenmue duck racing was unearthed a while back.

been wanting to replay this one since beating it around launch...held out for a remake but it just doesn't feel likely.
 
Yes; he's a famous multi-armed treasure hunter
named Gilgamesh
; I thought I'd been diligent about finding treasure, and the first time I met him, I was shocked at my low rank!

yeah, i faintly remembered that. Are you able to get a perfect rank without the chest found in this quest? if not, what does he say after finding every chest in the game including this one with the protect ring?
 

turnbuckle

Member
I discovered this on accident when the game first came out. I forget what sequence I must have been following, but I fell into the hole covered by a shrub right by the river, and landed in the secret room. None of my friends believed me.

same thing happened to me. I convinced myself it must have been a dream until seeing it years later on the internet
 

Lionheart

Member
I'm sure lots of people saw chunks of this story in the game while playing it - it's not a secret quest at all, just a little reward for going back once in a while to talk to people after big events, something that's pretty standard in jRPG's. Maybe most people didn't see the whole sequence, but I'm sure most people saw a least a couple steps in it.
It did seem familiar to me, but I never completed many of the sub quests at all, so I wondered why I'd know about it. But yeah, seems like I just saw a tiny chunk of this back then and remembered that.

Somewhat cool that so many missed it, but I agree with many that hiding stuff that you can't find out about without a guide does not make this game 'more awesome' at all, I usually hate it in (J)RPGs.
 

Meteorain

Member
Damn, I remember a few of those dialogue lines, but I did not know it was an entire sequence!

I just can't stop a smile forming on my face whenever I think about this game. Definitely the best in the series.
 

Mashing

Member
This is terrible. It's a case of Guide Dang It taken to the next level.

One of the worst aspects of most JRPGs, even to this day, is this sort of hidden content. It doesn't require careful thought to find, or interesting gameplay, or even persistence. It requires a FAQ--or even worse, like in this case, a FAQ plus playing the game years later when secrets are discovered. There's absolutely nothing clever or challenging about this sort of design--it's the designers being obscure for obscurity's sake.

This is why I use FAQs on my first playthrough. Other than for new game+, I do not like replaying RPG's (because they are so time consuming) and I hate missing content.
 

Valnen

Member
This is terrible. It's a case of Guide Dang It taken to the next level.

One of the worst aspects of most JRPGs, even to this day, is this sort of hidden content. It doesn't require careful thought to find, or interesting gameplay, or even persistence. It requires a FAQ--or even worse, like in this case, a FAQ plus playing the game years later when secrets are discovered. There's absolutely nothing clever or challenging about this sort of design--it's the designers being obscure for obscurity's sake.

I agree that this is a huge problem. I've been playing Tales of the Abyss with some friends and we've missed quite a bit of content. And we were even trying to be thorough too! This is bad game design.
 
Ok, wait a minute there...


... so, basically, Japan knew about this all along, it's just that us westerners didn't notice up until now?

The gap between what the Japanese FF fanbase knows and what the rest of the FF fans knows is immense. For instance, the FFX Scenario Ultimania plainly states that Tidus was originally an undead plumber, but since a large majority of Ultimania interviews have never been translated by anyone, the general English fanbase didn't know it until two years ago.
 
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