Simplicity is a word you have seen thrown around when people write about Final Fantasy IX. They say that it is the game that brings the series “back to the basics,” that it is a celebration of the past.  We have to wonder if this game was a success or not, as explained in this Final Fantasy IX Review. These statements aren’t incorrect, but they undermine the quality and charm of the game. Released in 2000, the game is in so many ways a reaction to the two games that came before it, but it bests its two immediate predecessors with a coherency neither of those game achieved. Final Fantasy VII was too busy successfully launching the series into the 3D era to mind that the game veered wildly from serious melodrama to a wacky slapstick section where the main character cross-dresses as a female escort as if that was totally normal,...