What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Kazhar]

It's been a long time since I played through FFIX. All I really remember about it is I don't like Zidane (In fact, I'd say I border on hating him). Vivi, Garnet, Amarant, and Steiner are my favorite characters. At least from the main party. Blank, Beatrix, Dr. Tott, and Cid from the side bar.

Iirc, my favorite thing about IX's story is the whole Terra consuming other planets and the history behind it inside of that one dungeon with the talking faces and the airship/drone boss. I'd say IX has a lot of good setup, great music, great characters, but I always sorta felt like its follow through was lacking. And I absolutely hate its rendition of the ATB system. Sooo... god awfully... slowwwww.

A lot of its best parts do happen in the first half. The highly memorable Black Waltzes, particularly #1 and #3. Bahamut vs. Alexander. Iirc, Disc 2 ends with Garnet cutting her hair right? God, it's been so long.

It ends with the death of the first major antagonist.
I disagree with Ryu's comment that characters become irrelevant with Disc 2, Disc 2 still have a really strong character writing and some of the best scenes of the secondary cast, it's still very much part of the "good first half" of FFIX.
Disc 3 is where the story gets a bit weaker despite a memorable start with Alexander vs Bahamut.

Also yes, despite its faults FFIX is still my favorite out of the entire series. I get why people dislike the second half and the gameplay but it never really bothered me that much. The game has my favorite main cast, one of my favorite villain of the series, a really strong start and my favorite soundtrack of the bunch. (even though I'm a big apologist for FFXIII-2's soundtrack. I know people hate it but I never understood why, it's really good and it's one of the first who dared to explore new sounds and music genre for the series)