Final Fantasy 9 done.
It was alright but the writing remained subpar overal. Entire plotlines and personal dramas never get resolved, or hastily so and forgotten forever. CD4 in particular is hot garbage, it's time to conclude the story, not to throw random new ideas and characters that make no sense and received about the same amount of care and depth as half the main cast got... that is to say, next to none.
For example, the stupid slapstick knight was the first character to really bother me but after watching the intro video, I somehow trusted Japanese writers (lel) to do the obvious and have him grow by finding his balls instead of forever being someone else's footstool, ideally culminating in CD4 with him being either independent of the princess or even confrontational. There are even dioalogues somewhere in the midgame that seems to hint at it being considered at some point ("have you ever lived for yourself instead of taking orders?"), but of course it never goes past that, he remains an unfunny submissive dumbfuck until the very end.
I don't want to lambaste it too badly because it was still a reasonably fun experience, with many beautiful locations and a good sense of adventure... but it's still a jRPG, with all the vapid dialogues, empty characters and wasted plot that comes with it. Yet another "classic" romanticized just because people who should otherwise know better played it back when they had a full head of hair.