Final Fantasy IX - Disable Random Encounters

Final Fantasy IX's Steam page went live today, and apparently players will have the option to disable random encounters. As for a release date, Square Enix simply says "Early 2016".

Credits to Couch for tonight's news.

The PC version of Final Fantasy IX, announced last week in Japan, will be out this month according to Steam. And, critically, it’ll let you turn off random encounters.

Says the Steam page, which just went live today:

Additional Features

• Achievements
• Seven game boosters including high speed and no encounter modes.
• Autosave
• High-definition movies and character models.

This is wonderful. FFIX is without a question one of the best Final Fantasys Square ever put out, but it’s always been marred a bit by the super-high random encounter rate. And anyone who’s played FFVII on PS4 knows just how valuable these “game boosters” can be.

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More information.

More information.

This is something I wish every JRPG should offer as an option. I have played over thousands of JRPGs over the last thirty years, and despise random encounters.

The characters will not be leveled up enough for boss fights.

Random encounters are much better than what you have in JRPGs today, which is a mini-game of dodging enemies and trying to bump into them from behind. Random encounters keep the tension of having to fight enemies when you get critically low on resources and venture in a dangerous area.

Cool. I wasn't going to play it on PC, but now...

Too bad they said nothing about XP scaling, which means you still have to engage in random encounters often enough, for your own sake. But it's better than having them forced on you without choice.

I haven't played FF9 (probably the only one I haven't) but often there are more systems in play than just levelling. Sure, you need XP to level and battle bosses, but often magic power and other stats are tied to usage, battles and/or drops from combat. So, potentially, disabling random encounters could leave you with insufficient development all round. Take FFX (10) for example - spheres drop as spoils from battle and are essential for levelling up via the "Sphere grid". Without enough spheres, you can't progress, stunting your stats/abilities/hp etc.

Where I suspect it could be useful is for post-game content once you've levelled up effectively during the main game and are revisiting earlier areas. It can be annoying to suffer random "low level" encounters whilst you're going back to find optional secrets.

FF9's boosters announcement is very telling. When skipping content and fast-forwarding are selling points, that just goes to show how badly designed many JRPGs were back in the day.

I know some will dislike hearing this, but slow walking and constant encounters makes for very tedious gameplay. Hence, a lot of us hope the FF7 remake goes with a fast, action-oriented system.

Anyway, I won't be replaying FF9. It wasn't very good to begin with IMO. Generic cast, generic story, crazy final chapter. Maybe it is more for kids, but does anyone have any memorable moments from this game? I could be wrong, but I remember nothing interesting. At least it had a few brilliant music tracks.

Brumbek said:

Anyway, I won't be replaying FF9. It wasn't very good to begin with IMO. Generic cast, generic story, crazy final chapter. Maybe it is more for kids, but does anyone have any memorable moments from this game? I could be wrong, but I remember nothing interesting. At least it had a few brilliant music tracks.

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That might be the first time I've seen you say something negative about a JRPG.

I agree with your opinion though. I didn't like FF9 much either. Most of the characters were either too silly or too weird for my taste. I was especially disappointed because it had been talked about as being a return to the style of the older FF games (pre- FF 7&8), but I didn't get that feel at all from it.

Brumbek said:

FF9's boosters announcement is very telling. When skipping content and fast-forwarding are selling points, that just goes to show how badly designed many JRPGs were back in the day.

I know some will dislike hearing this, but slow walking and constant encounters makes for very tedious gameplay. Hence, a lot of us hope the FF7 remake goes with a fast, action-oriented system.

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Well said Brumbek.

As most older JRPG games used minutes, or how many steps you took on map to force random encounters. The newer JRPGs started to use enemies on the screen.

You could finally fight when you wanted, or just run past them to ignore them.

Couchpotato said:

You could finally fight when you wanted, or just run past them to ignore them.

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This should be a thing in all games. Forcing fighting when players don't want to is simply bad design, IMO. Take even Dragon's Dogma, my precious. It's a third-person action RPG, but it also lets you run past most enemies when just exploring. There's a freedom in letting the player fight or not that so many old and new (FF13!) JRPGs got very wrong.

JDR13 said:

That might be the first time I've seen you say something negative about a JRPG.

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Oh, don't worry. I'm very critical of many, many games including RPGs. I just generally don't dwell on bad games. Not good for the soul. I'm working hard to appreciate the good in all games and celebrating the awesome ones (DOGMA DOGMA DOGMA).

Speaking of taking the good, FF9's World Exploration Theme is SO INSANELY GOOD. It's pretty much the best thing about FF9.