Does Yoshi P Hate FF9?

[Grimr]

The Western province in Shadowbringers (Kholusia) and it's city Eulmore gave me quite strong FFIX vibes. Hobgoblins, a colourful banner strewn castle, the music. And then at the gate town we see (spoiler about SHB gate town quest)

female versions of Zorn and Thorn appear, the red and blue jesters who compliment eachothers sentences with rhymes

. But also the viper class though I'm not that far in, I think is a joinable twinblade that Zidane uses. There's gear that looks like Vivi. Some minions. There's a few little things that come to mind, others might know more. I think I read somewhere Yoshida wants to respect FFIX though rather than take too much from it.

This game does have a tonne of nods to other games, including outside of the FF franchise. The flying whale, floating islands and sky pirates in the Sea of Clouds is a big love letter to Skies of Arcadia (legendary RPG from the Dreamcast)

Skies of Arcadia get ported to the GC. Which means it might get ported to the switch2. There are other references if you go the extra mile. The viper class first dual wielding reminds me of ethel from xenoblade Chronicles 3 then when they are combined it reminds me of commander Ashera also from xenoblade chronicles 3. yes the the lower half of Yak'tel reminds people of satori swamp from xenoblade chronicles 1 at night but the swamp looks better. The next two are more of a easter egg and probably not direct references. Those lovely towers in aumorot are just a step away from looking like Markers from Dead Space and finally the bold decision to hold a funeral in front of the "Government Sector". Who knows what is beyond those massive doors.....

[KrhisTia]

To be quite honest, there's a LOT of six and nine dotted through the WHOLE of the game - and while sometimes it's a LITTLE STRETCH to pinpoint things about 9...

You have to recall that ALL GAMES in general reference each other.

YoshiP doesn't hate 9.

YoshiP just likes to string us along LOVINGLY and let us think things until we solve the puzzle.

[Cilia]

A couple I forgot to mention:

The first boss of the Underkeep is a Gargant, a species of giant insect used as transport at various points in IX. This one specifically looks like the "wild" type found in Fossil Roo as opposed to the more tame specimen encountered earlier in Gargan Roo.

While the Bloodstones that power up the Valia Pira in IX aren't here for understandable reasons, they're still referenced in how the spheres that launch its cross attacks are blood red. (There is one small design change to the Valia Pira itself - it's missing the Terran crest.)

While out spending time with Sphene, she buys and indulges in a Dali coffee. Dali is the first village you visit after the opening events in Alexandria during IX, and is linked to the (infamous) coffee sidequest in that game. (The old man Morrid who wants three kinds of coffee mans the nearby Observatory Mountain, and one of the coffees - Burman - is found in Dali itself, though you have to take an unintuitive detour before Kuja's attack on Alexandria early in Disc 3, while you're supposed to be winning the Tetra Master tournament, to get it.)

[Cleretic]

(There is one small design change to the Valia Pira itself - it's missing the Terran crest.)

I'm not sure I'd call that a 'small' change since the crest is kinda the whole design for Valia Pira. But that's also itself kinda the sign of how they worked in the FFIX references: if it were a shallow 'look, it's a thing you know' reference they probably would've kept the Terran emblem, especially because out of context it just looks like a cool abstract design with some wings; you could've thrown it into Heavensward as a Church thing or Shadowbringers as something related to the Sin Eaters and it would've scanned fine without needing any extra thought to comprehend it.

But instead, because Dawntrail deploys it as a tool of Alexandria, it's got the FFXIV Alexandria emblem. Which is itself a IX reference, that emblem is sort of a redraw of IX Alexandria's to be a bit more in-keeping with the world Dawntrail puts it in. But it's all made more narratively complicated, and in turn more narratively in-place, by giving Alexandria the boss that's just a weaponized emblem. It's maybe one of the most shallow IX references in all of Dawntrail, because you can quite easily just read it as 'look it's Valia Pira', but even just redrawing the emblem of Valia Pira gives it a lot more weight and meaning than reusing it as-is.