The Art of Final Fantasy IX

I love this artbook... I mean LOVE. I'll admit that when I first saw it in my local EB store, I just passed it up for a certain RPG because I thought that it would be chockfull of ONLY Amano's art (no, I'm not a fan of his artwork), but a few weeks later, it started to grate on my mind. I REALLY wanted the book. The cover art was beautiful, that's obvious to see. Garnet looks incredibly GORGEOUS on the front cover. And the beauty of the book does NOT stop there... it continues to get better. Concept art, character art, worldmap art, etc etc. I regret not getting this sooner >^^< Ah well, I have it NOW, and that's all that matters. It does include some Amano art, but I personally think that his character designs for FFIX is the best out of all the other Final Fantasies. And yes, that is saying a lot considering I'm not a fan of his works to begin with. Anyway, digression aside, I'd recommend this artbook to a fan of beauty and of course, of Final Fantasy IX/Final Fantasy in general ^^;

The book definitely lives up to its title, and is a relatively inexpensive way to experience the wonder of Final Fantasy art design. Squaresoft, the video game company, has always delivered high quality games that are visually stunning, and anyone who is a fan of the Final Fantasy series will love this book. It offers a fun, behind-the-scenes peek at everything from character designs to vehicle concepts, and leaves the reader with some insight into the imaginative minds at Squaresoft. If there is any shortcoming, it would be the absence of some insightful narrative to accompany the images. Then again, this is the ART of Final Fantasy. A fine addition to anyone's "Art of..." library collection, and a useful reference for animators, illustrators, and designers.

Never have I had the pleasure of "reading" a video game book such as this before. Not only is this an exciting new look at SquareSoft's best game ever, Final Fantasy IX, but for any complex role-playing game this would be a great idea. With behind the scenes looks at how the main characters, non-playable characters, airships, world, weapons, items, monsters, and plenty of extras are drawn, in vivid detail, this is perhaps my favorite video game book ever! In short, this is an amazing book. I have found myself studying the detailed drawing of every single insignificant character in FFIX for long periods of time. If you have ever wondered anything about how a game is made, or have ever even played an RPG, you really need to get this book!

The Art of Final Fantasy IX is a great artbook worth getting--even for a person who doesn't even have the game could enjoy this and get to know the all of the character's personalities before even getting the game. Besides being an art book, it has lots of informaition about the game. In a few sections, it shows how they created the charactor. The art is beautiful and any Final Fantasy fan will truly admire this creative and well-put-together book. ---plus, its in English and has some Japanese writing.

I strolled into EB one day, and upon purchasing Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (great game, by the way), they had this book at the counter. I was really happy and a bit sad as well: my last few bucks just went into Persona 2: EP. But a couple days later, my dad had heard of the book through my constant ramblings and picked it up for me as a gift. Happy like a Moogle with a Kupo Nut, I was. Final Fantasy IX is my favorite game, I loved every second of it. Not since Secret of Mana for the SNES have I loved a game this much. There are drawings of the main characters; non-playable characters; monsters; villages, castles, and dungeons; items and equipment; CG scenes; sketches; air ships and worlds--all of which are rich in both beauty in detail. Final Fantasy IX fans will notice the transformation the characters went through the most when they get a glimpse at their earlier sketches. They early drawings were much more life-like and had a more traditional Japanese look to them (especially Steiner); just try to picture them without their super-deformed look and you'd, for the most part, get the picture (Quina, Vivi and Eiko being the major exceptions). Personally, I think they should have left Amarant with the beanie. Much better than the red weave they gave him in the end. Another bonus is the few drawings you get of parts in the game that were cut. None of what was cut was a serious loss (a house here, a house there), but it would have been nice to have had them in the game. Still, at least we got to see them. Not all the charcters made it into the game (where's Cactrot?!), but they managed to put a good number of them in here. And, well it might be really picky of me, I kinda think the selection for the cinemas could have been better (that scene were Kuja was bleeding would have been nice... heh, not to mention more pictures of Garnet), but what they did put in was good enough. There were a lot of drawings that caught my attention (Garnet on the cover came to mind on that thought), but my favorite was on page 66, there's a picture of a black mage standing at the graveyard in the Black Mage Village. Pretty sad, actually. Anyway, at 159 pages (that might seem like a so-so amount, but when you see how big the book is, you won't think so) of beautiful pictures, you'll definitely love this. Saying this is a must for Final Fantasy IX fans is a bit cliche (not to mention obvious), but it's true, and not only that, but this is a must for fans of just art in general. I love that I can open this book up and relive my favorite Final Fantasy IX moments any time--definitely don't pass this up.