Replaying all of the Final Fantasy games that I have so far this year got me thinking back on my history with the series. As such I thought back through my prior playthroughs and decided to try to track them. Here's what I can remember.

Final Fantasy: I've finished it around a half a dozen times, once on the PlayStation and the rest split between the GBA and PSP releases.

Final Fantasy II: I beat the PlayStation version once, though I cheated on it. I also beat the GBA and PSP versions once a piece.

Final Fantasy III: I have only finished the DS release a single time.

Final Fantasy IV: I've beaten this more than any other game, likely around twenty times. Most of those were on the SNES when I was younger though I've also finished it on PS1, PSP, GBA, and the DS.

Final Fantasy V: I've finished this completely once on the GBA, though I played a lot of the PS1 port.

Final Fantasy VI: This one is up there with FFIV, though I played through it on SNES slightly less. So that's about ten times across the SNES, PS1, and GBA versions.

Final Fantasy VII: I finished this twice on PS1 natively and one more time via the PSN release on the PSP.

Final Fantasy VIII: I beat this once on the PSP via PSN, though I did make it pretty far on the original PS1 release.

Final Fantasy IX: I finished this on PS1 and on PSP through PSN.

Final Fantasy X: This game I've finished twice on PS2.

Final Fantasy XI: I finished the main story through the Shadow Lord and Rank 10 quests along with most of the expansions. I'm part way through Seekers of Adoulin and Rhapsodies of Vana'diel.

Final Fantasy XII: I've completed this once on PS2.

Final Fantasy XIII: I've finished this once on PS3.

Final Fantasy XIV: I finished all of the Realm Reborn main story content and the 3.0 Heavensward story content.

Final Fantasy XV: I've beaten this one time on PS4.

If you want to catch up on my prior pieces, here's a link to last week's Issue 10.

Final Fantasy IX (PSP, PS1 Classic)

The start of Disc 2 is pretty mild with Dagger and Steiner arriving at the halfway point on the way back to Alexandria. Once again, despite having played this twice before and remembering the overall plot, I've forgotten most of the small details. I didn't remember Marcus joining the pair here and staying with them for a decent amount of time. Since new party members, even just guests, are one of my favorite things this was a treat.

After the reunion with Marcus, it wasn't any time before we got in our first fight together, a boss battle at that. The Black Waltz was pretty manageable even though I hadn't leveled Dagger and Steiner much at all. With Marcus helping out things were pretty easy. The bad part happened in the open area that I headed out to next, as I got overconfident.  Leveling everyone up was going well, but then I stumbled across a pack of mandragoras that killed me before I knew what had happened. I'd not saved for a bit, so there went that time down the drain. I hadn't lost much story progress, but it was still annoying to have lost all those levels, so that's where I ended for the week. The plan is to grind some more next week and make some real progress.