After 3 Years, a Major Mod Update Makes Final Fantasy IX More Stunning Than Ever
The great Meguri Mod project received its first update in three years. The modification remasters Final Fantasy IX, introducing, among other things, high-resolution backgrounds and the option to play at up to 120 frames per second.
Final Fantasy IX was released near the end of the first PlayStation's era. The creators developed insanely detailed pre-rendered backgrounds for the game, which unfortunately lost a lot of details after converting them to the console's low resolution. What's worse, over the years since the game's premiere, Square Enix has "lost" many of the original location renders, as well as some of the source code. As a result, the PC port of the game released in 2016 is frightening due to its blurry backgrounds.
This issue was resolved by a group of fans who developed the Meguri Mod, which remastered all of the graphics, including high-resolution backgrounds using AI algorithms, and improved the 3D visuals. It seemed that the work on this mod had already been completed, but a few days ago the creators unexpectedly broke the three-year silence, releasing version 9.0.0 of the project.
Compared to previous editions, the new version of Meguri Mod reworked all the remastered backgrounds, ensuring even higher quality. The modification has also been integrated with the modding platform FFXI called Memoria. Thanks to this, the installation of the "fan remaster" is much simpler, as the program itself will download the necessary files and place them in the appropriate folders.
Above all, both projects are now collaborating seamlessly. Therefore, we can appreciate the remastered graphics of Meguri and improvements to Memoria, such as:
- option to play at 60, 90, or 120 frames per second;
- antialiasing
- new fonts;
- option to play in 16:10 and ultrawide resolutions.
Especially this last feature is interesting. Because the backgrounds are pre-rendered, it wasn't always possible to completely fill the screen with graphics, resulting in black bars sometimes being visible during gameplay in ultrawide resolution. However, this happens surprisingly rarely. This is because the backgrounds in FFIX were designed to scroll during exploration, so the creators had additional elements to fill the ultra-wide screens in many locations.
Another interesting option is the ability to enable alternative shaders, changing the style of three-dimensional game elements, for instance, to a more realistic or more cartoonish style (the "Toon" option). You can see what it looks like in practice in the image below.
There is also an option to replace the Tetra Master card game with the one from Final Fantasy VIII Triple Triad card game.
This may be the last major update to Meguri Mod, as visually, the authors have improved practically everything that could be improved. However, the modding scene of FFIX will continue to evolve through other components of the Memoria project.
Graphic comparison
Standard version of the game:
Photo source: Square Enix and Meguri Mod Team.
Version with Meguri Mod:
Photo source: Square Enix and Meguri Mod Team.
