Final Fantasy IX PSA

I just wanted to go ahead and post this. This is something that Bamidele and I constantly talk about: Final Fantasy XI's popularity. Although it was the ninth iteration in the series, it was the first Final Fantasy game that I ever owned. Not to say that I had not played any of the other games, it was that IX was the first one that I could say "Hey! This is MY game!" with. When I started playing FF9, I realized how different it was from the Final Fantasy games that I had played previously. First of all, I was happy to see that my team had four spots instead of three. I had always thought that 3 was a step back considering the amount of characters that were allowed on-screen in Final Fantasies I-VI was four. I've heard that some were put off by the look of the game, but personally I preferred the way it was designed. From the look of the Tantalus ship to the city of Alexandria, all the way to Memoria and the final battle with Necron. One thing I could never understand was the overall disdain that some had for the skill learning system. I thought that the skill system was really cool and made a whole lot of sense. Wouldn't you have to learn a skill over a set amount of time before mastering it and knowing it forever? To be fair, games usually don't have that kind of 'realism' to them, but I felt that it gave me something to shoot for when I was level grinding. I'm sure that many of us were thinking, "Right after I learn Zidane's skill 'What's That?!' I'm goin to Gizamaluke's Grotto!" It made me really work for some of my levels and made some of the boss battles a little more even in my eyes. Another thing I loved was the fact that every character had their own job. This made every team combination unique since not everyone was an all-rounder type like in Final Fantasies 7 and 8. Some might disagree, but for me, if every character has a specific job, then I'm gonna be more likely to utilize them when the time comes. That's one reason why most people level up characters that they don't like isn't it? You don't want to be caught during a story battle with a character who you don't use at the forefront. Any experienced player will tell you that's bad news. I could go on and on about this game, but the bottom line is that people need to give this game a second look. It may appeal to some a lot more especially now when games with decent storylines are hard to find. Check it out sometime.