Final Fantasy 9 - VOICE MOD | Full Game Walkthrough | No Commentary
47For the last game of 2023 that I archive on the channel I have something truly special and personal. Not only do we have the very first Final Fantasy game I ever played, but now also with an incredible voice over mod that gives EVERY character in the game an audible voice.
Final Fantasy 9 means the world to me as I experienced it for the very first time when I was only 9 years old when it was released. I had played plenty of videogames before that, but never had I experienced a game where the story was so important and where there were hints of romance and drama. The CG cutscenes were also stunning for that time and I immediately fell in love with the lovely cast of characters and the beautiful and colorful world it introduced me to. I have played every Final Fantasy game afterward, but FF9 will always be my first and favorite.
Now a few months back I remember seeing footage of a mod for World of Warcraft where all the dialogue of characters had audible voice acting thanks to an AI mod. When I heard about that I immediately saw the potential of AI mods doing this for old classic games as well and of course I immediately thought about Final Fantasy 9 and how awesome it would be to experience that story again with voiced characters.
And thus I was all the more surprised to find out that an actual mod like that was already out, but it was not done by AI, but real voice actors!!!
I'm not kidding when I say that this project, which is called Echo-S9, is one of the most ambitious and passionate projects I have ever seen. It truly brought me joy to see how far the team went in order to bring all the Final Fantasy characters to life like never before.
Not only is every character voiced (even all the small side characters) but they added voice lines within the CG cutscenes too and even during the battles! It is absolutely incredible and I had a smile from ear to ear to relive my youth through this with this voice cast. Hearing all my favorite characters like Zidane, Garnet and Vivi talk was amazing and they fit so well within the world. And again all these performances were not done by AI, but actual people with voice acting experience and I cannot thank each one of them enough for what they did.
Even smaller side characters like Cinna and Blank have great performances, but the one performance that absolutely stole the show HAS to be Steiner. A character that as a kid I actually did not like too much, because I saw him as just a grumpy old man who looks funny. But now as I am older I can actually recognize he is one of the most interesting and deep characters in the game as his sense of duty and righteousness conflict with the happiness and wellbeing of the princess and therefore his calling.
The voice actor for Steiner did an AMAZING job and though he never sounded like that in my head when I was younger, this voiced version is way better. It might sound strange but many times it reminded me of Totalbiscuit who I used to love watching back in the day. Every time there was a scene with Steiner it had me glued to the screen.
I know it seems like I am rambling a lot, but it does not happen every day that one of your childhood favorite games gets such a lovely treatment by a group of passionate community members. In the distant future we will probably have lots of mods like this for older games due to AI, but the fact that these are all human performances makes it all the more special.
To everyone who worked on this project: THANK YOU from a devoted Final Fantasy 9 fan.
If you want to experience Final Fantasy 9 with voiced characters yourself, you can download it here!
https://www.tsunamods.com/echo-s-9/
The voice mod currently is being offered as a demo and also ends with a credit screen once its done. Therefore I will make this a separate video as the full voiced game and in the near future I will make a video where I archive the entire game of Final Fantasy 9 where the first 3 hours will be voiced and then the rest will be the original silent version.
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