Final Fantasy 9 on the PS4 has the same music bug as the ports of FF7 and FFX-2HD

Square Enix released the classic RPG Final Fantasy IX on the PS4 yesterday, and for the most part this is a pretty decent port of the PC version. The port also introduced an unwanted feature, and this is one that’s been particularly annoying in other recent PS4 ports of Final Fantasy games. The game’s musical tracks will restart following each and every battle encounter. It may seem minor, and petty, but the issue has riled a few fans of the game, and quite rightly.

A NeoGAF user, AuthenticM, has created a thread where they’ve discussed their annoyance at the bug. If you’ve played the Final Fantasy series before, the orchestral score is an integral part of the series, so it’d be quite annoying to have to listen to the same track restarting time and time again following each of the game’s regular battle encounters. 

It’s clear that something has gone wrong when the PC versions had been ported to the PS4, and the same issue has now cropped up with three games when it hadn’t existed before. This bug wasn’t apparent in the original versions of each of the games — I tested the PC versions of FFIX and FFVII myself to try and replicate the issue, and couldn’t.  

The recent release of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age doesn’t have this bug, but then again that’s a remastered port of the PS2 version, and not a port of a PC version of the game.

AuthenticM said that, ‘All three of these games on PS4 have the issue of musical tracks restarting after every battle encounter. Meaning the player would not get to experience many great and magical musical tracks, as he or she would be bugged out of listening more than their first ten or fifteen seconds at most.’ It’s hard not to agree with them, especially when grinding away at an RPG can be a tedious endeavour at the best of times. But to be subjected to the same music over and over? Well, that’s torture.

Square Enix had previously released a patch for Final Fantasy X-2 HD which resolved the restarting music issue, but so far no fix has been released for the PS4 port of Final Fantasy VII, and it’s had the issue since release. Hopefully it’ll pull its finger out and sort out Final Fantasy IX sooner, seeing as it only came out yesterday.