>>2745183No, you're missing the point.
In other games, you never feel like there's something important missing before it's revealed. You never feel like the story is just pointless, at least not in a game with such a restrictive and heavily-plotted story as Final Fantasy IX. (Baldur's Gate, for example, has a slow-burn story but slow-burn gameplay to go along with it, where you have total freedom to explore the world and do side quests and so on as you uncover the story one piece at a time).
>You start off embroiled with small time regional powersThe difference is that these conflicts will typically be self-contained and make sense without a need for additional explanation, and will usually involve some kind of character development for the protagonist.
>>2745260>It's a bit complex in IX because there's many 'guilty' parties.Again, I'm not talking about it in terms of lore autism, I'm talking about narrative function. I'm talking about the audience/player understanding the goals and motivations of the characters behind the central conflicts in the story well enough to be invested in the outcomes, even if there are twists that will change perspective eventually.
Contrast with Final Fantasy VII. The game starts out with intense conflict between Avalanche (Barrett) and Shinra (Pres. Shinra). These characters have clear, well-established goals and motivations and the conflict between the two drives the plot, until the big twist where "Sephiroth" wakes up and goes on a murder spree in Shinra HQ, Cloud tells his Kalm/PTSD version of the Nibelheim flashback, setting the stage for the next act where you begin piecing together the truth about Sephiroth, Jenova, and Cloud's past bit by bit.
