Final Fantasy IX: Official Strategy Guide (Strategies & Secrets)

PlayOnline was a service created by Square to give hints to players. It was designed originally for Final Fantasy X, but was first used for IX. Unfortunately, this means that the strategy guides frequently refer the reader to PlayOnline using keywords. While this was merely annoying at the time, PlayOnline as it once was ceased to exist long ago. This renders the Brady guide more or less useless because of its particularly frequent use of the service. The Piggyback version features fewer "keywords", and some of the information referred to in PlayOnline keyword boxes is covered elsewhere in the book. This strategy guide covers everything it should: sidequests, items, and all, but some of the sidequest rewards can only be viewed on PlayOnline. The PlayOnline boxes are still distracting, but all of the bases are covered, and the guide is actually useful.

This book by Piggyback is worlds beyond the BradyGames book, but still relies too much on the "Play Online" crap. If I wanted to go online I wouldn't have bought the book.