When Bub and I started Final Fantasy IX together, one thing became clear — Bub was, again, as they say, “down for the life” of Vivi Orniter, and one thing was clear: we were keeping Vivi in our party for as long as the game let us. That wasn’t a problem though, because as the game’s black mage, it was actually to our advantage to level him up and ensure that he learned the most powerful black magic spells as we came across equipment that he could put on that would teach them to him. So I didn’t have a problem keeping in my party as often as humanly possible. (For the record, my favorite character in the game is Dagger/Garnet.)

Through equipping my Bub for the final fight, Necron became… let’s just say that he became bearable. I’m aware that for most, Necron is an extremely difficult final boss fight. But with my Bub equipped, he became bearable enough to defeat. One thing that Bub did make clear though was that he did not like Kuja, and the longer that Kuja remained on the screen, the more annoyed Bub got. Toward the end of the game, when you see Kuja more, and you actually have to fight Kuja before advancing to the part of the game before the final boss, Bub got so annoyed with Kuja’s continual existence on the screen that he left the room and, as I’ve said to friends of mine that I game with, “left me to my own devices”. I managed to get through fighting Kuja and, as I’ve also said, “cleared Kuja from the screen” so that Bub could come back and resume gaming with me. Strangely enough, Bub was just fine with Kefka but could not stand Kuja. Maybe one day I’ll find out why…

He did like the game enough to where when he could hear music from the game playing, as long as he wasn’t distracted by something else, he came in my room. That amused me a lot, I’m not even going to lie.

Thanks to equipping my Bub, though, I did get to see the credits in this game roll without having to look them up on YouTube. I did like the part where we actually defeated the final boss of this game, just like with VIII…