Final Fantasy IX should work with the latest GloriousEggroll proton builds and should properly boot the game with controller support if you are using Steam's internal controller drivers.
-
FINAL FANTASY IX COMMON DIR- The directory to your FINAL FANTASY IX installation. Steam installs game assets into a "steamapp/common" directory, which is generally located in~/.steam/steam/SteamApps/commonwith a default steam library configuration. -
Memoria Mod Manager- The framework for all FFIX modding on PC -- used to add additional content or game logic to the game. It can be configured using a configuration file found in theFINAL FANTASY IX COMMON DIRnamedMemoria.ini.
Moguri Mod is an HD visual update for all prerendered backgrounds, textures and other compressed assets. You can read more about the mod on their website. There are some additional things to note about Moguri Mod though -- it generally comes with a preexisting installation of the Memoria mod manager. Because of this, it can be a good introduction to basic FFIX modding, but also leads to some circumstances where compatibility betwen it and other mods are not guaranteed due to moguri having an out of date memoria mod install.
Moguri Mod installation was tricky on my linux system, but installing it will be a good gateway into the installation of other mods that don't use a dedicated windows installers.
Steps
- Install a system level version of wine or wine-staging. Both worked for me, so use whatever is easiest for you.
- Create a dummy wineprefix. Easiest way to do this for the uninitiated is to run via command line
WINEPREFIX=~/.pfx/moguri winecfg, which will initialize a wineprefix for you. - Download the Moguri Mod installer from their website.
- Run the Moguri Mod installer. IMPORTANT: When trying to install Moguri Mod through the command line using
wine, the installation can sometimes fail. What seemed to work consistently for me was runningWINEPREFIX=~/.pfx/moguri wineconsoleand running the installer through the 'windows' command line. It seems that moguri mod temporarily closes its installer which can fail to reopen when running through wine without wineconsole running. - After installation, the executable will extract its data, but often the files would be in the wrong place. Make sure that
Memoria.iniexists in the same folder as theFINAL FANTASY IX.exefile in yourFINAL FANTASY IX COMMON DIRdirectory. Additionally, some of Moguri Mods assets (backgrounds, songs, etc) will erroneously install in your wineprefix'sdrive_cunder a MoguriMod folder (something like~/.pfx/moguri/drive_c/Program\ Files/Moguri\ Mod/[assets here]). Those files will need to be manually moved into theFINAL FANTASY IX COMMON DIRdirectory to complete the installation. - Boot FFIX and make sure to start playing the game for about 10 minutes to verify that new backgrounds are properly installed. Currupt installations will result in scrambled background tiles, so they will be noticeable within the first few minutes of game-time.
- Once you've verified that the mod has installed properly, I would recommend removing your moguri mod wine prefix folder created earlier in this walkthrough. If you've been following this guide verbatim, you should remove the folder
~/.pfx/moguri.
Bugs (Moguri):
- The last cutscene was broken in my installation of moguri mod and would result in a crash. This was solved by moving
[FINAL FANTASY IX COMMON DIR]/MoguriFiles/StreamingAssets/ma/mbg116.bytesto the root of the FFIX folder and renaming it to mbg116.bytes.bak. This reverts the last cutscene content to use the non-moguri mod assets, which resolved the crash. FWIW, this is also an issue on some Windows installs as well. Of course, this also means that the first few minutes of the last cutscene will not properly use the upgraded background assets.
Alternate fantasy is simple to install once Moguri Mod (or, if you choose, Memoria Mod Manager) is installed. Simply extract the assets into the FINAL FANTASY IX COMMON DIR folder and make sure to add the folder name to the active mods configuration line -- found near the end of the Memoria.ini configuration file.
Generally speaking, AF seems to have more bugs and undefined behavior when running through Moguri Mod compared to standard Memoria Mod Manager installs. This likely has to do with incompatible Memoria versions -- something that hopefully gets resolved in the future.
SPOILERS:
-
Beatrix doesn't show up as a playable character in the install I tried. Within the Alternate Fantasy mod, she should show up as a playable character after obtaining the Hilda Garde 3 (what would have been the end of Disc 3 on the PSX version.)
-
Necron (lass boss fight) is glitched in the version of AF I tested. I'm unsure if this is unique to this linux install or not, but the boss is significantly more difficult due to ATB timing being extremely tight which results in him taking a few turns in a row. It's not unbeatable with a little bit of grinding, but certainly buggy compared to the vanilla install.
- Ragtime Mouse puzzles would show multiple questions, sometimes with neither of them being the actual question asked. I haven't tested this on windows.
- Some bosses seem to call out abilities and use a completely different one. This might be a pointer error, and could perhaps be unique to the linux installation. I haven't verified this yet.
Final Fantasy IX on the PC is slowly becoming what I would call the definitive version of FFIX, especially with the above mods installed. Moguri obviously adds a level of polish to the background assets that are missing from the PC version, while Alternate Fantasy provides a rebalance that adds some more difficulty and minor additional content that fits within the vision of the original game.