Final Fantasy IX

Leveling Up

I Know What I Want

(If this is your first time here, read on…)

About: How Leveling Works

Like FF8, FF9 actually rewards you for keeping your levels initially low - at least for certain party members. Normally your characters will only have their stats increase when they level up. However, having certain gear equipped when your character levels up will add boosts to your stats. For example, if your character has a Robe of LordsEquipmentArmor for: Eiko, Vivi, Quina and Dagger equipped, the character will get an extra .3 increase to several stats. If you are looking to maximize your power late in the game, you’ll want to prevent your most powerful characters from leveling up until you have all the equipment needed to maximize this effect.

But Practically Speaking…

To be clear, the actual in-game consequences aren’t nearly as different as they were in FF8. But if you want to maximize the effectiveness of certain characters, you can try not to have Zidane, Quina, Eiko, or Freya level up until Disc 4. The easiest way to do this is to get a Robe of LordsEquipmentArmor for: Eiko, Vivi, Quina and Dagger by playing Chocobo Hot/Cold on Disc 1 and giving that to Vivi, essentially making him invulnerable early on. If you get more than one, give it to Dagger.

That’s too complicated

Yeah - I get it. If the payoff isn’t amazing, I can understand not wanting to put the effort in. That’s why this guide lets you jump directly to a character. When one of your characters is about to level up, you can look to see what equipment they should be wearing when that happens, making them more likely to increase their stats the way you want. If you don’t have any equipment on the list, just focus on learning the abilities your current equipment provides.

Optional: Eiko/Marcus Bug

If you're playing the game on a PS1 emulator, there is a place on Disc 2 where you play as Marcus and Steiner. If you let Steiner get killed off, you can have Marcus level grind the enemies here with a Blood Sword. As you level him up, all stat increases he gets will be transferred to Eiko when she joins your party. This bug is fixed in later remastered versions.

If that sounds really boring, there is a Raspberry Pi helper script for the grind on the automation page.

Recommended Attributes by Character

Here are the recommended attributes to focus on for each character, when to really max out their levels, and why it matters.

Highlighted gear is the optimal level-up setup for that character once those items are available.