Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy IX Official Strategy Guide

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I will get the seller reveiw out of the way so i can dish on this horrible guide. The guide shipped fairly quick and was in the condition listed. Now for the guide itself. Do not, i reapeat, do not waste your money on this guide unless you are some guide book collector and have to get it for your collection. If your can read the cover from the pics of the guide, it says "Enhanced by PlayOnline". What this really means is that the publisher has just sold you a glorified instruction manual and if you want to know all the secrets and info on this game you must use the stupid online part of the guide. I am serious, you could read the manual that comes with the game and get as much use as this guide. This was obviously some marketing ploy to get gamers to use the publishers website to drum up hits. All the good stuff that the guide should have is on the website. The best part is that the site no longer exists, so you have basically bought a paper weight and will have to go online anyway to get all the info. Save your money and go look at one of the hundred or so faq's for this game. This guide is just a waste of space. Shame on you Bradygames!

I typically find that the main, minimal portions of a Final Fantasy game are easy to solve and work through, and that the difficulty lies in seeking out every hidden treasure in the little nooks and crannies of the worlds. This book provides help *only* with the core quest, and all optional portions are instead relegated to boxes telling you which portion of the subscription-based website contains the answer. I expected this to be a disastrous approach, and that appears to be the case, as BradyGames no longer uses that practice. In short, they were directing their readers to the web, where you could pay to get the same information GameFAQs offers for free. Those of us who like the paper books because our computers and game systems are in different rooms will find this virtually useless. Those who have computers handy will find this to be a far more expensive version of GameFAQs, assuming that the subscription-based website is even still in operation these days.

An excellent game for a poor guide of information. Almost all the secrets to be discovered we must be online. The only good thing of this guide were the illustrations of the characters.

I bought this book when I bought FFIX, back when it first came out. This book had only very basic information in it. If I needed any in depth information, I was directed to go online, and I believe that the website doesn't even exist any longer. I paid good money for a book that had almost no useful information in it. I expressed my unhappiness with the book to SquareSoft and BradyGames, and was told that customers complained that many strategy guides contained spoilers, and that the book would guide me through the essential game. However, I know that it's possible to put the basic walkthrough in the first section of a book, and then a more detailed walkthrough with spoilers in the second section, because the Return to Zork strategy guide did just that.

Don't buy this book. It's useless. Go to gamefaqs.com instead, and get your information there for free.