Part One: Getting Hooked on Tetra Master


Final Fantasy IX is the ninth game in the series of JRPGs put out by SquareSoft / Square Enix.
It is a throwback to the style of older Final Fantasy games such as those on the SNES and NES in terms of gameplay and story.

You start off in a dark room on a ship with nobody around apparently. After lighting the candle, the game asks you to name the "Tailed Human".

For this playthrough, I will be sticking with the default name of Zidane.

You are greeted by three other crew mates: Blank, Cinna, and Marcus.

It's revealed that they are waiting for a boss to go over some sort of plan.
Out of nowhere, the boss comes out dressed up in a dragon costume. This serves to teach you how combat works, turn-based with an ATB to determine who makes the next move



After a couple rounds of attacking your boss, his costume bursts off of him and you leave him yelling out in pain.
You and your team are pretty exhausted after the short exchange. Maybe that's a good sign that we need to level up quite a bit?



The boss then starts the meeting and begins to explain his awesome plan.
The team will head to the city of Alexandria to put on a play to serve as a distraction in order to kidnap Princess Garnet,
who is to be the heir to the throne.
Cinna takes over explaining the mission's finer details.



The play is "I Want to Be Your Canary". It kind of reminds me of the whole Opera event in Final Fantasy VI.

Marcus will play the lead while Blank and Zidane will be doing the kidnapping.
Blank also has a plan to cause a distraction with some creatures that he found called oglops.
While this is going on, Zidane will be tasked with retrieving the princess.

After this scene, we're back to some fantastic looking CGI cutscenes which blew me away back in the PlayStation 1 days, along with some theme music to get you pumped for the game ahead.
We then take the perspective of a new character, Vivi the Black Mage.
You get trampled by some of the residents in a hurry to get to the play and end up dropping your ticket.

A little girl hands it back to you, and bids you adieu.
As you are walking down the street into the main area of town, a Rat Kid bumps into you. Doesn't seem very friendly.
You now have a bit more free control of your character and can explore some of the menus and options of the game.
You can also challenge people to play a card minigame unique to this Final Fantasy entry but similar to previous games.



After walking a bit further down the street, you're greeted to a cutscene involving Herald greeting some nobles and guiding them to the castle for the play.

You can use them as a guide to know where to go next. But first, I decide to stop by the tavern.
I find a potion in the corner on the right side of the tavern, and talk to Maggie who is really excited about getting back to work.
You can talk to a Male Red Mage who doesn't have too much useful to say except to mention that he is depressed even though he gets to go to the play.
The bartender Ashley appears to be excited to serve all of the patrons that will be leaving from the play later tonight. Or maybe before the play, so that they can watch it wasted.
He laments that it may not be that busy ever again.

In the left corner between the table and a barrel you can find a Flan card, which may be helpful later. On the opposite side of the table near an archway you can also find 27 Gil.

A very spiffy hippo person named Hippaul is hanging out in the corner musing about the Nobles.

A person named Mick suggests that we go to the ticket booth to have our ticket approved before trying to get into the castle.
You can also find a shop here, where you can purchase some healing items which may be useful later on.

He has:
Potion 50g
Phoenix Down 150g
Antidote 50g
Eye Drops 50g
Tent 800g

Tent prices sure are expensive in this world. Must be made of some high grade material.

In the central area of town, there's a jump roping mini game which you can use to earn some gil. I kinda sucked at it.
I could only get up to 34 times.

This game doesn't have the most exciting introduction in the world. But the story and gameplay does get better as time goes on, trust me.

After failing miserably at jumping rope, I decide to go check out the ticket booth.
You show the ticketmaster your ticket, but he notices something very... odd about it.

He points out that it's a fake ticket, and that he's been seeing a lot of them lately.

Vivi get depressed at the news. To try and cheer you up, the ticket master gives you some playing cards for the minigame I mentioned earlier.
Goblin, Fang, Skeleton, and Flan are in your possession. It looks like you only need to find one more card to be able to play.
In the corner are some people that you can challenge to play cards, or you can have a pointless conversation about flowers.

I walked into the Synthesist's house and his wife told me that they worked for 30 years to afford the ticket to the show.
The synthesist says that they are closing early to go to the play, which makes sense. Sometimes you just gotta take a break from the grind...

The shopkeeper laments about his lazy son never showing up for work, so they may have to close down the shop.
You can find a poster talking about how the Knights of Pluto are looking for new recruits.
Hippaul is next to the Synthesis shop, and apparently he hid three cards somewhere throughout town. It appears that we found one of them -- the flan card.


I went into the inn, and there's someone getting really animated about the inn having no vacancies. The humanoid creature rudely runs into Vivi.
There was a balcony area up stairs, but nothing of real interest to explore.
Dante the Signmaker throws a fit because you distracted him while he was hard at work putting up a sign.
The Rat Kid returns with an insulting nickname and knowledge about your fake ticket.
He agrees to help you with your fake ticket as long as you agree to be his slave.


If you pick no, he'll excuse himself to do whatever Rat Kids do when they aren't harassing black mages.
I walk down the alley way and explore a nice looking house. Near the stove I find some Eye Drops.
You can find the kid that helped you off the ground up the stairs.
You can find a tower with a ladder, and there is a Potion hidden on the right side of this map.
On the left side, you can find a tent.

You can find a boatman who will warn you about trying to sneak into the castle by boat, and then another old man complaining about new fangled mist-powered boats
Up above the old retired man, there's a kid concerned about his missing cat Mittens.

Going back to where the Rat Boy and the Signmaker was, you can see that a minitheater is under construction.
Returning back into town, I noticed the Three Heroic Knights of Pluto. I also found a Phoenix Pinion on the other side of the street from Hippaul.
The Alexandrian Soldiers refuse you passage into the castle.
I explored some of the earlier starting areas and I found an interesting letter explaining that a business moved because the residents were not accepting of Oglop Goodies.
I found a potion against the wall of one of the pathways.

I walk into the home of an old woman on a sewing wheel and an old man. The old woman is working on a dress for someone by the name of Ilia. You can steal the grandmother's meager savings of 9 gils. Don't you feel great about yourself?! You can also steal her medicine in the form of a potion on the other side of the room.
On the other side of the room, is a pattern that will make Vivi dizzy and fall on his ass.
Checking the dresser up the ladder will reward you with a Fang card.
Going further down the road into an area with a statue, you recover Tom's kitten.
You can examine the statue of General Madeline, a heroine who fought int he 9th Lindblum War.
The fishman explains that commoners have to watch the play from the rooftops, away from the stage.

I found a Lizard Man card in the background.
I also found a Sahagin Card.
There was also a Zombie card hidden in the corner.

Since I found all of the playing cards, I decided to move the story forward by talking and agreeing to go along with the Rat Boy.
He wants me to keep a lookout to make sure no one spots whatever it is you are doing.

We return to the steeple with a ladder, and climb up the tower.
A moogle lands on our head, causing laughter from the Rat Boy.
I learn that we can save the game by talking to Moogles.
Before continuing up the ladder, I save with the Moogle. Before I do, another Moogle by the name of Stiltzkin appears. Stiltzkin is planning on an adventure and promises to write.
There's a big animation involved in saving the game, which may get annoying if you plan on saving a lot. Which you should do in a game like this.
You can also accept a mail deliver quest through Mognet. We need to deliver a letter to a moogle named Monty.

Since we saved our game, I think it's safe to play some card games. The card game in Final Fantasy IX is called Tetra Master.

Not really understanding the rules, I bravely jump into a match. It mostly makes sense, and I did a lot better than I thought that I would.

With that, we unlock the first achievement for beating a Tetra Master match!



I play against the old man, and he beats my ass. So I reload my save, since I saved after the last match.
I get a narrow victory against the old man in a rematch. End up getting a Zaghnol card.
I go and talk to Tom who we assisted with finding a missing cat. He rewards us with a Bomb card.
Saved the game, and then challenged Tom to some Tetra Master.
We ended up getting an Ironite from defeating Tom.

Ended up getting mugged while typing while waiting in the Alleyway where the ladder was.
Kicked a Noble's butt in Tetra Master, earning myself a Carrion Worm.
Defeated the girl in the house next to the moogle, and ended up winning a Skeleton card.
Almost lost to the noble dude, but then I decided to stop making horrible mistakes.

I think playing from an emulator would be a better experience because it gives you all of the options that this remaster has plus you get additional features such as saving wherever you want with save states. I think the fact that you can't save everywhere is kind of annoying.
You can do a quick save by exiting a area and returning into it. By clicking continue from the title screen, you'll load from the start of the last map you entered.

So I ended up getting lost in the Tetra Master minigame for a while. Once I'm done with that, I'll post part 2.

Will add all of my images to this topic soon.

Part 2 Kidnapping the princess?

We continue our adventure by climbing the ladder to the top of the church, and following Rat Boy.
Rat Boy is at the top carrying a ladder that he stole from the signmaker.
He tells us that we need to hurry to catch the play

We follow the rat person through a maze on the rooftops of the city.

The boards between the roofs shake while we walk across them.

Rat Boy advises us to hurry the hell up. The boards fall beneath us but we still make it safely across for now. We give Vivi his default name.

We learn that the Rat Boy's name is Puck. We find 63 gold in a birds nest. We search another bird's nest and find 92 gold.

It appears that we make it to our destination. We go over the wall into a castle, and another cinematic plays.

It shows the gathering crowd of nobility gathering to see the play as well as the stage for the play.
We are also introduced to Queen Brahne and the Princess. The band plays and fireworks light up the stage. It's quite the commotion.

And with that the play and the plan to kidnap the Princess begins.

The play uses the games battle system as an additional tutorial for how combat works. After fighting for a few rounds, the story of the play continues.

After a few moments, you get to do a sword fighting minigame where you can issue different movements based on what buttons you press. You can repeat the scene if you want to try and get a better score.

All of the sudden, the screen goes to darkness and there are comic book-esque fighting noises.
The scene changes to one inside of the castle, with Zidane and Blank changing into the uniforms of soldiers that they beat up.

From there, we head out to locate the princess who is up the stairs above where Zidane and Blank are currently located. We walk down a hallway next to the stairs, and Blank warns us to hide. Two soldiers appear, going over any findings. They had nothing to report (yet). But I have a feeling that things are about to get very interesting for them. If you go down either of the hallways, the cutscene will repeat. No going off the defined path allowed.

We go upstairs and immediately we find the Princess in peculiar garb. She is called Hooded Girl by the game in this cutscene, but Zidane is pretty confident that he knows who it is. Zidane exams her face just to be a bit more sure. Or perhaps to mess with her. Not really sure.

Zidane tries his best lines to flirt with the girl.The "hooded girl" grows tired of his shenanigans and takes her leave. Or at least tries to, but is stopped by Zidane for another second.

Zidane believes that he has met the girl before. Which leads to more awkward flirting. The princess smacks into Zidane and Blank and runs down the stairs. Blank draws a blank as to who it could be.

Zidane tells Blank that he needs to get up and go after her as she's Princess Garnet.

We then get introduced to the Team Rocket of this game, Zorn and Thorn. Zorn says something in a normal way, and then Thorn reverses the order of the words. They are both Jester type characters.

They go to warn the queen after some silly pointless dialogue. The Captain of the Knights of Pluto stops them from reaching the Queen, stating that Her Majesty is too busy to deal with their crap. Another soldier, Beatrix, asks if the situation is urgent. They explain that it is indeed an emergency. Beatrix agrees to help, and the two clowns show their thanks. The Captain does not like the fact that Beatrix is trying to one up him. Beatrix asks for the details from Thorn and Zorn. They explain that the Princess is attempting to escape and that she is in danger. We learn through Beatrix talking to the Queen that the princess left some time ago with the Royal Pendant. The queen doesn't seem too concerned about the well being of her daughter.

We learn that Beatrix is a general, and we name the Captain Steiner. The captain and general are tasked with finding the princess.

The perspective shifts to Steiner, and he begins to assemble the Knights of Pluto to help find the princess. Blutzen and Kohel appear naked after having their clothes and armor stolen by Zidane. They report for duty with their booty hanging out. Steiner seems upset that only two soldiers have reported. He ponders where the other six have gone. He tells the two soldiers that he has orders from the Queen.They go get armor and we are tasked with finding the other soldiers.

We find one of the Pluto Knights, Mullenkedheim, complaining about dinner not being ready yet in the dining hall. On the other side of the castle we find the Dishmeister musing over his fine dishes. We send two soldiers down to find the princess, and stumble upon another moogle.

We find Laudo down in the library. He wants to become a writer of fantasy novels. We can choose to let him leave, but he has to find the Princess first.

The crowd seems to love the play, and Steiner is reminded that he must hurry before the curtain falls. We find Haagen chilling by some water and contemplating life. Steiner tells him to get the heck back to work.

Weimar is making a plan with another soldier to escape to Treno. Steiner breaks up the conversation and orders them to go look for the princess. We go up a long and winding staircase. We found Breireicht complaining about being tired after going up all those stairs. Garnet informs Breireict that he is not there for exercise but to find the missing princess. Steiner continues going up the seemingly endless stairs. Feeling a bit fatigued, he reaches the top of the tower.

After walking off screen for a moment, the princess and Zidane appear. They are running around in circles in the clocktower across from Steiner's view.

We enter another cutscene with the princess jumping off the tower using a string of flags to propel down. Zidane follows after and they both end up landing on the stage. Steiner crashes into  the top of the stage area with a crash and splinters flying everywhere.

The scene changes to Zidane hanging out with the band. The princess lands on top of him, runs around, knocks over the band and runs out the door. Zidane chases after the princess. We run into Ruby and cause her to fall on her ass. Ruby demands that we hold on to our horses. She asks the princess what manner of cattle is she chasing and asks for an apology. Zidane enters the room and speaks with Ruby. Zidane asks to talk with her, and while Zidane is distracted the princess runs down the stairs.

The princess figures out that Zidane works on the theater ship. She confirms Zidane's suspicions that she is the princess. She asks Zidane a favor, and says that she wishes to be kidnapped right away.
Zidane agrees to help. Cinna barges in, startling the princess. We follow Cinna, and Steiner enters the scene looking for the princess. He was so close!

Cinna opens up an escape hatch so that Zidane and Garnet can get away. The three jump inside right as Steiner enters the room. A soldier pretends to be stuck so and Steiner leaves to find another way to get to them.

The scene changes to the engine room of the ship with Zidane and Garnet. They leave the engine room and run into Steiner. Steiner announces that he has arrived to save the princess, who is not wanting to be saved.

The Pluto Knight appears from the engine room, and tells the princess not to worry. It is revealed that the knight is not actually a knight but Blank. They fight Steiner. I manage to steal a Leather Hat. Steiner uses a special attack to knock out blank and destroys his armor. This allows the Oglops to go free, and the battle ends. Zidane and Garnet use the chaos to escape.

The scene changes back to the play, which is approaching its climax.

Part 3 The Kidnapping Continues

We left off with the conclusion of the Princess Kidnapping plan, and at the ending of the play.

Zidane and Garnet end up in a room directly under the stage. Cinna tells them to get on platform #2, where they will be brought up onto the stage. Hopefully Garnet has some acting skills! Steiner also joins as a guest star. The princess seems to be a great actor, and has studied drama. Steiner on the other hand is looking around perplexed. Steiner is brought into the play as Prince Schneider. Steiner seems nervous in his new role.

The princess proves her acting chops by delivering a dramatic performance as a dying Princess Cornelia. The Queen is shown to be really enjoying the performance. She is so swept up by emotions that she doesn't realize that the princess is on the stage performing.

The scene changes focus to Vivi and Puck. Soldier begin to chase them, and Puck abandons Vivi. Vivi joins the finale and comes up on the stage trying to escape the soldiers. He accidentally sets Garnet's hood on fire, and she is revealed to be the princess on stage for all to see. Garnet asks Steiner not to follow her anymore for his safety, but Steiner is too stubborn to listen.

Zidane suggests that they ditch Sir Rustalot, and advises them to make like a tree and leave. Before they leave, they go over to check on the young black mage and make sure that he's okay. We fight Steiner one more time since he's really persistent like that. I use Garnet to cure, and the rest to deliver damage. I take out the two soldiers first. Weimar runs away for a date, and the battle ends.

Cinna and Baku are preparing to leave in the Captain's room. Then we get a cutscene of the theater ship taking off. The Queen orders harpoons to be fired onto the ship to prevent it from escaping, which damages the integrity of it.Zidane keeps Garnet safe. A big cannon is fired, and a bomb enemy emerges.

The bomb grows larger and larger behind Steiner, as we try to fight him out of the way. We warn him to look behind him. The bomb enemy grows one more time and explodes, ending the battle sequence. Smoke and fire fill the air, but the ship is still able to make an escape. It's in very poor condition and falls apart over the city. The Queen appears infuriated. The ship begins to crash outside of the city. A huge fireball appears above a dark forest as it crashes.

We return to the Queen, who appears impressed that the Princess appears not to be so helpless. Her servants Thorn and Zorn appear, and she orders them to prepare an experiment that they've been working on. It appears to be combat ready. She orders them to send the experiment to bring the princess back alive.

We change focus to Zidane, who is in the middle of a dark forest. We see the wreckage of the theater ship in a clearing in the woods. The scene changes focus to Baku, asking Cinna if he is alright. Apparently no one has made it out of this forest alive. Seems really promising!

The first order of business is to salvage any goods, make sure everyone is safe, and put out any fires.

Apparently Zidane was thrown off in the impact.

We are then introduced to the ATE system, which allows you to view optional cutscenes and events which can be important to the game.

We can see Vivi and Garnet running from some kind of horrible thing deeper in the woods.

A black shadow appears above Garnet, and the scene changes back to Zidane.

That's it for now, I have a feeling that things are about to get interesting!

Part 4 The Dark and Spooky Woods

We return to the game with Zidane standing next to a Moogle, preparing to find Vivi and Princess Garnet.

Blank is searching inside of the ship for them, but according to the Active Time Event we saw, they're somewhere else in the forest.

We find Vivi laying on the ground, telling us that the Princess is in trouble.

Zidane notices some kind of strange creature, and wonders what the hell it is. The princess is trapped on the head of some kind of horrible plant creature. Steiner tries to demand that the princess be freed from the monster immediately.

We end up fighting the creature. At the start of the battle, we get introduced into the Trance mechanic which is similar to limit breaks in Final Fantasy 7. After getting some damage in, the plant monster escapes into the woods, leaving Steiner in a panic. Zidane tells the others that the princess is not finished yet, and that it was likely bringing it to a boss creature. Another plant creature drops down and captures Vivi in the same way the other one captured the princess. After exchanging a few blows, the beast is defeated and Vivi is free. I ended up stealing a broadsword from the monster.

The beast sends out some poison while it was dying and it causes Vivi and Steiner to become ill. Zidane brings them to the Theater Ship to get treatment. Blank tells Vivi that some of the monsters in the forest create offspring by planting seeds inside of other animals. Kinda creepy.

Vivi is given some kind of gross tasting medicine to remove the seeds.

Steiner is being stubborn as always and is wanting to go after the princess even though he still has seeds that need to be removed. Steiner is told that the boss will think of something to save the princess and is shoved into a room to get some rest.

Steiner refuses to take the medicine because he's concerned that it may be poison. He ends up drinking it anyways because he's having trouble breathing.

Baku tells Zidane to quit his ambitions of trying to save the princess because the monsters crawling out of the mist are too dangerous. He argues that his men should come before the princess, and it's too unsafe to leave with his ship and his men in the condition that they are. He orders Zidane not to step one foot outside the ship. Zidane calls him a coward for not wanting to try and save the Princess.

I found some Bronze Gloves in a treasure chest in the room with Baku.

We have two active time events, Time to Escape and Girl Who Was Left Behind.

Time to Escape changes the view to the room where Steiner is. He is planning a way in which he can escape. He considers ramming into the wall as an option. He tries claiming that there is a fire.

He then goes to look a doll, which he refers to as an ugly doll. He notices that it has the name and age of the princess. He corrects the age and states that she is 16 and not 15.

My Little Baby is an event showing Cinna looking for something. He was looking for the Garnet doll that is in the room with Steiner. He believes that the fire may have consumed it.

Girl Who Was Left Behind turns the perspective over to that of Ruby, the woman who the princess ran into while she was trying to escape. She wonders where everyone went.

I rest at the save spot and call it a break for now.

Hopefully this weekend I can get some more play time in.

Part 5 Plant Brains and Petrified Forests

We search the ship for treasure and end up finding Vivi depressed as he feels that he failed to protect the princess. We make a promise to see about getting her back.

After fighting Baku (and dying once), we are permitted to leave and attempt to rescue the princess. We convince Steiner to help out, and gather Vivi as well.
The ability system in this game is pretty fun, you can earn AP after each battle which levels up abilities that are attached to each piece of equipment. Once you gather enough AP, you can permanently keep your abilities.

We set some abilities and prepare for our first non-scripted combat encounters. We fight a few hordes of Goblins, and talk to Monty the moogle. We deliver a letter and save our game.

After proceeding a bit further up the path, we encounter a giant plant creature. We enter combat, and Vivi gets knocked out fairly quickly. Blank joins in to help out. We spend some time reviving our party members and healing while also delivering some damage and stealing some items.

We end up saving the princess, but after that the floor collapses near where the party is standing and stange bug creatures appear. We are being chased by them. We have to fight one group in order to escape, but still more are chasing us. Blank attempts to give us some time to escape. The whole Forest and Blank begins to turn to stone.

The party escapes, and give the princess time to rest.

After this, we are able to traverse the overworld. We level up for a bit and save / quit at the North Gate.

Part 6 Mindless leveling and the Ice Cave

Spent some time grinding away and trying to learn some new abilities.
Vivi learned Blizzard and Thunder.
We ventured into the Ice Cave and was annihilated by a Sea Lion and a black mage looking creature called a Black Waltz.
Tried the fight again and didn't die because I actually paid attention instead of being distracted.
Left the Ice Cave and leveled up a bit more.

Found what appears to be an airship landing spot, and challenged an old man to a game of Tetra Master.
Ran into a special Mu creature that wanted some Ore. Not really sure what the outcome of that was but maybe it will pay off later.
I ran into one of those quiz random encounters too but failed it because I forgot the name of the person who wrote "I Want To Be Your Canary".

Explored the town, which apparently is somewhere that Zidane has visited before.
The Innkeeper in town was a little weird but let us stay at the inn for free, so can't really complain.

I saw some active time events of Vivi exploring the town and noticing more people acting weird, and one showing Garnet (now going by the alias of Dagger) learning how to fit in by being scared of bugs.