Final Fantasy IX Alternate Fantasy is a mod of the eponymous ninth game of the nerve-twistingly popular Final Fantasy series, made by Tirlititi.
It is a mod aiming to increase the difficulty and, above all, to give a new experience of FF9 for those who already know the game well. A few of them are about the scenario: Some dialogs that were suppressed during the game's development are put back, four new optional superbosses have been added, and a fan-favorite character can now be permanently recruited. However, most of the modifications are gameplay-related. The battle system has been reworked, always with the aim of having more balanced mechanics and open to diverse strategies.
Find more information about the mod, its changes, its updates, and download links on its topic on the Qhimm.com forums
or its Steam Community page. As of Version 6.0, Alternate Fantasy must be installed using Memoria's Mod Manager.
Important note: only tropes that differ from the original game are listed below. Since most of the entries will discuss the changes made by this mod, beware of spoilers.
The Final Fantasy IX Alternate Fantasy Mod provides examples of:
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Beatrix can be recruited, but only after the party gets the airship - in the middle of Disk 3.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Some of the modifications to the gameplay are meant to remove mechanics that were controversial in the vanilla game.
- For instance, the mod makes stealing easier. With Bandit enabled, stealing all the 4 items of an enemy cannot take more than 10 attempts. When Master Thief is also enabled, only 1 unsuccessful steal can be done between each successful steal (so all the items are stolen after 7 attempts maximum), and the rarest items have the priority.
- There is a second way to get Excalibur II, one that doesn't require doing the (in)famous speed-run: Getting all the collectable treasures of the game (there are 4 little mistakes allowed) to obtain the highest treasure rank.
- Scan cannot miss anymore.
- Ascended Extra: Beatrix can be permanently recruited after getting the airship. If done, cutscenes are changed from this point onward to include Beatrix in them. She's therefore turned into a full-fledged party member, with passive abilities and a Trance like the other main characters.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The fight against Black Waltz N°1 and his summon Sealion has been tweaked. Now, the best way to defeat Black Waltz is actually to use Sealion against him. After it receives enough damage, Sealion will use its Tsunami attack, which will heal it, but will also kill Black Waltz since the attack hits everyone.
- Promoted to Playable: Technically "Promoted to Optional Party Member", so it's a Downplayed Trope. Beatrix goes from a Guest-Star Party Member who's only available during two short plot-related events to a full-fledged party member who can be permanently recruited after the team gets the airship.
- Useless Useful Spell: The mod aims to avert this trope by making more bosses vulnerable to status effects, and all bosses vulnerable to Gravity damage. (Though the strength of status effects and Gravity damage is lowered compared to with random encounters, to avoid making them broken. For instance: For Poison, the damage per tick on bosses is 1/64 of Max HP instead of 1/16; for Doom, a boss doesn't die at the end of the countdown but loses 1/5 of its Max HP instead; and Gravity damage's power is divided by 4 against bosses.)
- Wolfpack Boss: Two of the optional superbosses added to the Mod are this: There is one fight against the three Black Waltzes at the same time, and one fight against the four Guardians of Terra at the same time.
