The graphics are the only great thing about WW. It is a Final Fantasy IX esque jump the shark entry whose main rise in becoming more popular on the internet has been its presentation and whimsical nature rather than anything of true substance.
ff9 had way more substance than the games immediately preceding and following, it had the full set of equipment you could mix and match instead of literally just weapon + accessory or worse
tons of passive and active abilities, and tying them directly to characters (rather than materia bundles you slot into generic people) meant making more tactical choices in how you comprise your party, and allowed the devs to design challenges within the storyline based on which characters they limited you to using
also let you have four party members instead of the three in 7, 8 and 10, which gives you a broader toolset to work with moment to moment
outside of the MMOs and ff12, it was the last ff game with substance to the tactics and mechanics
Hard disagree.
FFIX has insane load times and battle speed due to the four party set up. On original hardware is virtually unplayable. To make up for the fact they reduced the party to four to three members the other 3D FF games reduced the enemy count. FFIX despite having four character party didn't so the battles are actually *easier* overall than even VII and VIII which were already easy. Four character battles are not balanced in IX and just make the battles more sluggish.
The AP system is barebones and there's no choice in the gameplay. A franchise famed for customization in a game that claims to be return to its roots with almost zero choice. It's basically Final Fantasy IV with less interesting gameplay and dungeon design. At least IV has Tower of Zot. IX has nest ideas like the accessory/weapon system but it never reaches its true potential. Early on you can get a weapon/armor that's weaker while learning new abilities so you have to choose but this rarely ever happens and the process of acquiring abilities is fairly linear.
Story-wise the game trips over itself to reference the entire series without saying anything remotely new. It is saved by Vivi (and arguably Steiner). Zidane stands as one of the worst main characters in the franchise. A muppet with a consent and sexual harassment problem. Freya, Quina, Amarant, Eiko are wasted.
Every Final Fantasy stood on its own until FFIX. FFIX, a game obsessed with identity, questions the franchises identity and what Final Fantasy really means. The post-FFX FF identity crisis of "what does FF mean?" starts with IX. Fitting as it was a game not made by the main FF team. Each FF looked forward to the future with its own vision. By focusing on identity and pushing as much nostalgia as possible, FFIX is mired in the past and offers practically nothing new to the franchise. Despite the fact that FFIX tries to skirt along with FF tradition and references it eschews the greatest FF tradition of all: forward thinking, experimental design, customization. It takes a franchise renown for pushing boundaries of the genre (a character that tries to kill herself in FFVI? The World of Ruin in VI is a revelation. FFVII stars a group of literal terrorists and you're arguably just as bad as the bad guys, FFIV's ATB was revolutionary, FFV's job system was perfection - nothing is perfect in IX;etc.) and instead coasts in relative safety with endless tropes.
It's a good game in part of its charm and whimsy but by far and beyond FF's jump the shark moment, with Final Fantasy X being FF's true swan song.
By the same token, Wind Waker is similar. A jump the shark moment that is whimsical, looks great but has none of the depth, none of the substance of previous games. A game steeped its own bullshit. Good looking bullshit, but BS none the less.
Thankfully BOTW and Link Between World's are a thing.
