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I left Lindblum via the Dragon Gate. I was supposed to get through Girzamaluke’s Grotto next, in order to get to Burmecia, but the next area was quite open and allowed me to explore for a bit and do some side quests.

The first thing I did was to train for a bit, since I was quite under-leveled by now. The dragons in this area could have easily killed my party in the first few battles, but somehow, I managed to survive and after I got some experience, it all became much easier. I was training until about level 13 before I moved on.

Final Fantasy IX, Healing Fountain

This stream can heal you, so it’s a great place to train on the dragons outside.

After that, I finally went to the Chocobo Forest. Like in most games in the series, you get to ride these birds in Final Fantasy IX to. However, not many games  in the series make them as useful, apart from Final Fantasy VII, of course. In this one, you get to upgrade your chocobo to the point where it can actually fly.Next up, I went to the South Gate area. I’ve already seen this place through an ATE which involved the Tantalus gang, so I explored it for a bit and found Mocha coffee, which Cinna left here, I think. This is probably something that old man at the lighthouse would want.

In order to do this, I had to play a mini game in the forest which consists of digging for treasures. One of the treasures you can get is a Chocograph, which is a card that shows the location of more treasure on the world map. I’ve spent well over an hour digging here, until I was told there were no more cards to get.

Final Fantasy IX, Chocobo's Forest

You can start the huge Chocobo side quest as early as right now.

Next up, Qu’s Marsh.After that, I used my chocobo to explore the rest of the area and actually find two of the treasures. Although the other Chocograph treasures could also be reached with the regular chocobo, I couldn’t get to those locations from here, so I had to forget about those for now. Of course, there are other locations in the world where I can find more maps, so I’m nowhere near being done, but I’m getting there, and quite early in the game to.

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Since it was still night when I reloaded the game today, I decided to visit the prisoner at the hospital. Sadly, he didn’t get a chance to say much, what with us being attacked by a group of thugs. He did manage to say one name, though – Kalkstein. The alchemist is definitely hiding something.

The thugs worked for Ramsmeat, though, so he was higher on my priority. Sadly, he’s either a really good liar, or completely innocent, because he simply said the thugs were there to get his lackey free and he had no idea I was going to be there to. The story makes sense, so again, I have nothing on him.

The Witcher, Rich Guy

“Rich” guy promised me money he didn’t have for the wine he didn’t have. I kept the wine.

The problem was, when I got the wine back to him, he wouldn’t pay. I decided to keep the wine for myself in that case, so I’ll get some value out of it. The experience was worth it anyway. The other newcomer to the inn was a messenger I already heard rumors about. Apparently, he’s working for some unknown rich guy who has him paying 10 oren per Salamandra insignia I bring. I sold him all of mine first, before I got him drunk and made him tell me the name of the rich guy. Apparently, it’s a merchant who’s working at the docks. I waited for the night to pass and decided to get there in the morning.There were some new people at the inn, though, so I didn’t walk all the way there for nothing. A noble from the trade district was there, looking for someone to “recover” some good wine from an abandoned house nearby. The problem was, the house was infested with the undead, so this was actually the first time I almost died. Thank god for tactical combat and pausing.

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I’ve been following RaiderZ for a while now, because it kind of, sort of, seemed like something that might be fun, because it does things a little differently.

You see, the biggest thing that turns me away from World of Warcraft these days is that, no matter how much stuff they add in, at its core, the game remains “more of the same, every day”. You level, you get to the cap, you get gear, you go for dungeons, you get more gear, more dungeons get added, more gear, etc.

RaiderZ - Crafting

I got something like a cut scene when I crafted my first item.

Well, RaiderZ has been advertised by some as an action MMORPG with elements of the Monster Hunter series. The action part is what interests me the most. I’m tired of the old “select monster, then select skill” mechanic. I want combat to either have impact, where I swing the weapon, or I want it to be different in some other way. Maybe you make it turn based, or more tactical.Sure, the pet battles of Pandaria can distract you, they made the talents extremely interesting and all that, but the core still remains the same.

The Monster Hunter elements also seem attractive, but they aren’t that important to me. Of course, the idea of gathering parts of monsters to make equipment is great, but it also has to be done well in order to work.

In any case, the game left closed beta, so I was able to download it and log in, albeit on US servers only. For now, I’m a bit underwhelmed. The game begins in a typical MMORPG manner. You get your first quest, which takes you to another set of quests consisting of killing a certain number of danger-free monsters and talking to a certain person. The next several quests are also similar, though they involve item crafting from monster parts.

The action controls aren’t really there. Yes, you use your left button to attack and do damage without really targeting, but it all looks like the game is just tricking you. It feels like it auto-targets for you and then, instead of auto-swinging, waits for you to click your mouse. The controls simply do not feel like true action controls. Don’t get me wrong, the attacking and dodging is a huge improvement compared to the classic system World of Warcraft uses, but it still isn’t it.

RaiderZ - Login Screen

At one point, I got disconnected from the server, but at least I was able to see the new gear on my login screen.

I might return to the game occasionally, but I don’t see myself playing it too much.Things got a bit better towards the end of my session. I got a quest to kill a boss type enemy and I have to say, that part was quite fun. I actually had to observe the boss, dodge attacks, retreat and advance when it was appropriate and take proper care of my health and stamina (which is used for dodging). That part really is fun and much better than the old raid battles I’m used to. I just wish the other parts were as good.

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The Hunting Festival is a monster slaying contest. Monsters are released into the city and everyone competes for kills. It sounds a bit dire, but this is Final Fantasy, so you never feel like you’re doing something bad. Zidane and Freya both joined the contest, while Zidane also registered Vivi into it.

For most of the hunt, I’ve been lagging behind, since I started out at the Theater district, where there’s very few monsters to fight. Once I cleared that and the Industrial district, I finally got to the Business District where most of the monsters were.

Final Fantasy IX, Mu

The Mu creatures are cute, but they gave me points.

At this point, I got seriously ahead, but eventually ended up fighting an extra strong monster with Freya. If you’re fast enough, you can kill this one to, but I wasn’t, so the time was up before the battle was  over. Still, I won and got my reward, which was money for Zidane. I should have probably let Freya win, in which case I would have gotten an accessory.

During the award ceremony, a Burmecian soldier entered the room wounded, saying Alexandria has attacked Burmecia with an army of black mages. Everyone agrees Zidane, Freya, Steiner and Vivi should get there as soon as possible, while Dagger needs to stay behind just to be safe.

Of course, Dagger didn’t agree to that, so she drugged everyone except Steiner and decided the two of them should go to Alexandria to talk to her mother. They left and eventually, the other woke up. Our next stop is still Burmecia, but we’re going there without Steiner.

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Luckily, the game autosaves, so the last crash didn’t take me back to far. I reloaded at the point where I just entered the local hospital. It’s a good thing I did, because I forgot to write about that.

As I previously said, Kalkstein wants me to find the entrance to the tower in the swamp. By reading a book I got from Vivaldi, I discovered I need ten magical stones to enter it, called sephirots. I already got a few by various means, but there was one here that made me really proud to figure it out.

The Witcher, Novice Nun

The novice nun was extremely helpful.

Other than that, I tried to visit a wounded criminal being guarded at the hospital, but the guards wouldn’t let me talk to him. I managed to pay one off, so he told me to come back at night. Then I, again, tried to visit Kalkstein and this time avoided crashing. Kalkstein explained himself, so he wasn’t a suspect again, for now.There was a statue of a goddess at the hospital. The nun praying there helped me with a hint for one of the stones. Apparently, the stone required a sacrifice to the goddess, in the form of “nature’s harvest”. I didn’t even consider to actually try and make a sacrifice at the statue, but after a few minutes, it came to me. I could actually click at the statue and use an item on it. The nun told me “nature’s harvest” would be some sort of fruit or vegetable, so I used some blueberries and the sephiroth appeared in my inventory.

Next up, I explored the local slums, where I got a few more quests and talked to Ramsmeat, whose lackey is the criminal at the hospital. As you might guess, Ramsmeat is no man of the law either. Raymond linked him to the Salamandra as well, so I questioned him, but he wasn’t cooperative and I didn’t really have anything concrete on him.

The Witcher, Lady of the Night

The Salamandra, constantly harassing hard working citizens.

As was the case with the inn in the Outskirts, there was another fight club here. I beat the few of the toughest fighters there and that was it. I decided to go help the girls at the local brothel next. It seems they have problems with Salamandra thugs harassing them during the nights.

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The Regency of Lindblum is a huge city if plenty of places to explore, items to collect and features to discover.

First of all, the story was advanced, quite a bit. Cid, the regent of Lindblum is apparently Garnet’s uncle. He already knew there was something going on in Alexandria, so he was actually the one that hired Tantalus to kidnap Garnet. He has a problem, though. Someone turned him into an oglop, which is some Final Fantasy insect or some other type of vermin. He can still talk, walk and do all of that, but his mind is a bit weaker because of it and they have been keeping it a secret from the public.

Final Fantasy IX, Lindblum, Grand Castle

The titles are really effective. It adds a lot to the atmosphere.

I’ve spent most of the time in Lindblum exploring with Zidane, meeting new characters, discovering areas such as the Tantalus hideout in the Theater district and stocking up on items and equipment. In the upper part of the business district, I visited the weapon shop and, more importantly, the synthesis shop.Anyway, Garnet stays in the castle, while the rest of the group is left to explore. At a bar in the business district, I’ve met a future party member, a dragon knight of Burmecia named Freya. From what I can remember, she’s another hard hitter like Steiner, but she doesn’t have as much health. She makes up for it with Dragon magic, though, which has a lot of useful spells.

Synthesis is a special feature of Final Fantasy IX. It allows you to combine multiple pieces of equipment or items to create a completely new item. Thanks to the nice sum of gil I’ve accumulated since leaving Alexandria, I managed to get some very nice weapons and armors for most of my group. By far the strongest thing I god was The Ogre, which is a double bladed dagger for Zidane.

Final Fantasy IX, Zidane and Garnet

Zidane and Dagger shared a nice moment here.

Speaking of daggers, I forgot to mention that before they entered Dali, Garnet decided to rename herself to Dagger as part of her cover. I should probably start calling her that from now on. Anyway, after a lot of exploring, I went to meet Dagger at the castle, before I entered a contest called the Hunting Festival


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Most of my time in this session has been spent walking around the temple district of Vizima and talking to people, trying to track down anyone involved with the Salamandra. This is something a lot of modern RPGs are badly missing. I managed to actually get two levels of experience just by talking to people and solving quests that way.

The Witcher, Raymond

Raymond has a personal issue with the Salamandra.

I ended up talking to most people outside of the slums and getting plenty of quests I’ll be able to do later. Pretty soon, the day was over, which meant I could spend most of the night killing stray dogs. It’s not something I’d do in real life, but hey, there was a quest for it and Geralt really doesn’t seem the type who would take pity on a dog. It’s role playing, after all, which means I’m supposed to play a role that isn’t me.I went to a local private detective who pointed me in the direction of several notable people in the district. Most of them had minor dealings with the Salamandra, but nothing that would actually indicate they worked with the organization.
Once the day finally came back, I got some information which indicated Kalkstein might be involved with the Salamandra, so I decided to go talk to him. On the way there, I stopped by the merchants to sell excess loot and then the game crashed on me.
It seems the Enhanced Edition isn’t completely patched yet.

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When everyone got to the ship and Steiner decided to get to the upper deck, it was immediately clear he didn’t trick anyone. Both Garnet and Zidane figured he was lying and the ship was actually heading to Alexandria. Of course, Zidane was planning to turn the ship around.

He went to the upper deck to do just that, but soon after, the third and final Waltz attacked. All of the manufactured dark mages decided to go and fight it for some reason, but it destroyed them easily. Garnet had to sit this fight out, because someone needed to pilot, so instead, I used Vivi to heal with potions. He was getting hit hard by the Waltz every time I tried to cast a spell with him, so it was probably for the best. As usual, Zidane did the stealing and Steiner did the damage. The Waltz was down soon, but not dead yet.

Final Fantasy IX, Black Waltz Charging Up

Just beautiful!

In any case, we finally got to Lindblum. The story will get a lot more complicated now, and I’ll finally get access to a cool new feature – item synthesis.The scene shifted to a small ship following the group, piloted by Zorn and Thorn, the queen’s fools. Waltz scares them off and takes their ship, starting a pursuit. Both ships race for the southern Lindblum airship gate, but only the party’s ship manages to get through before it closes. We got away, but the gate got severely damaged in the process.

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The village of Dali was another beautifully designed area. The area seemed like something straight out of a fairy tale, but as it soon turned out, it had a dark secret.

Final Fantasy IX, Village of Dali Intro

I love these intros.

I got back to the village and payed the innkeeper. Everyone decided to go for a walk, which meant I had plenty of ATE’s to watch. Garnet was trying hard to act like a commoner so no one would recognize her, Steiner did his own thing, trying to find a way to get Garnet back to Alexandria and Vivi was simply admiring the sights.The group decided to stay at the local inn, so that’s what we did. Before I did it, though, I decided to leave the village and get to the lighthouse nearby, where I remembered from my last play through I could get some items and hints of a side quest. There was an old man there who collected rare coffee beans, so he offered me a miniature of the Tantalus ship in exchange for some beans. I didn’t have any yet, but I made not of this so I could return later. As I said, there were some items, but nothing really important.

Throughout these events, it was becoming obvious the villagers had some sort of issue with Vivi, and eventually, he gets abducted. I went to look for him with Zidane and Garnet and soon found a latter leading into the underground.

Bellow the village was a large factory, creating something out of the mist, or possibly using just using mist to power the machines which were creating something – I didn’t really understand this part completely. I found Vivi locked in a box and decided to keep exploring to figure out what was going on. Eventually, the horrible secret was revealed. The villagers were creating black mages which looked very much like Vivi. This is why they abducted him – they thought he was one of them. Even worse, they were being produced for Alexandria.

Final Fantasy IX, Village of Dali Factory

Seeing this made Vivi very upset.

The fight wasn’t to hard, thanks to Garnet not being targeted at all the entire time. Zidane just kept stealing, while Steiner and Vivi did the damage.In the meantime, Steiner got to the lighthouse by himself, to ask the man there when the next ship to Alexandria will be arriving. It just so happened that one ship just landed (we’re talking airships here) to pick up the latest merchandise. Everyone regrouped at the landing site and decided to get on it after Steiner told them the ship was going to Lindblum. Before we could get on, though, we had to fight another Black Waltz, Nr. 2 this time.

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After a short rest, I got to the overworld map for the first time. There wasn’t much I could do, though, other than going to my next destination. My final goal was Lindblum, but in order to get there, I had to ascend the mountains somehow. Luckily, Blank pointed me at the direction of the Ice Cavern.

Final Fantasy IX, Ice Cavern

I’m still amazed at how beautiful this game is, even today.

On the bright side, I managed to do plenty of training in this area. I also managed to get all of the items here, I think, mostly thanks to Vivi’s Fire magic, which allowed me to melt some of the ice walls and get to the chests behind them.The Ice Cavern is an area which reminded me of one gripe I always had with this game. It doesn’t always happen, but some of the areas in Final Fantasy IX have annoyingly frequent random encounters. Nothing annoys me more than making a wrong turn after a battle, moving two steps back and then entering another random battle before I could advance further on my path at all.

Eventually, I got to the top of the cavern where everyone faints due to the cold. Somehow, Zidane manages to wake up and follows the sound of chimes into the next room. This is where I had to fight another boss, or two of them, to be more precise.

Final Fantasy IX, Black Waltz & Sealion

Two against one, but I was just about to trance, so it wasn’t hard.

The cold winds the Waltz was creating stopped, so everyone woke up and we could finally leave the cavern. Next up was the village of Dali.The boss was Black Waltz Nr. 1 and there isn’t much I get to find out about him before he attacks. The peculiar thing is, apart from having wings, he looked a lot like Vivi. In any case, he summoned a monster named Sea Lion (which does not look very much like a regular sea lion) and I was forced to fight both of them.  The first few turns, I just kept stealing until I got all of the items from both of them. Luckily, I had plenty of potions to heal through the damage, so that wasn’t a problem. Just about when I stole the last item, Zidane went into a trance, so I used his Tidal Flame to kill both of the enemies at the same time in a couple of hits.

By the way, I’m not sure if I already said this, but I decided to play this Final Fantasy without prior research or online guides. Of course, I used guides on my first play through, so I have memories of some of the secret stuff in the game, but most of it is to hazy to be very useful.