[Video Soundtrack] Iifa, the Ancient Tree of Life [FINAL FANTASY IX] 

Remember, it's Iifa, not Lifa.

When this song played at the end of disc 3 when the party was on board the Invincible with Vivi saying "It's Mist". Sheer goosebumps.

Another obscure, inscrutable and mysterious track from Nobuo Uematsu. Sounds like it does not belong to this world.

it sounds like from somewhere deep and dark in the abyss, just slowly drawing us in like a vortex even. music never leaves you feeling settled until its over

この不気味な感じが本当にたまらない。 ここのパートに入った瞬間の鳥肌は、やばかった。怪しさ満点の場所とマッチした曲だったなー

One of the most memorable tracks for me, you enter the tree and instantly got hit with unsettling, anxiety-inducing, bone-chilling music. U realize then nothing is 'Sanctuary'-ish about the Iifa tree

This song is way too ethereal and I’m here for it!

The amazing thing about the thus theme is the fact that the melody is the same as the intro of the final boss theme.

Originally it's called イーファの樹 (Īfa no ki). I think a better solution would be to translate this as "Ifa Tree", not "Iifa Tree", to avoid confusion.

So foreboding [yet mysterious and magical], for such an innocent sounding name...

This theme and FF4 Another Moon theme have same kinda tone, place that feels otherworldly. 😰

I just played this song in theatrhythm and had to come investigate. The fast runs at 1:23 are just amazing

ストローパーという触手生えてるデカい石モンスターいて、金の針で倒せるのは凄かったwストナでは倒せない泣

金の針とフェニックスの尾またはレイズやケアルのみで無双できるからめっちゃ好きなステージ ボスでさえも瞬殺できるのは面白すぎた

Kind of reminiscent of Another Moon, huh.

When the game kept mentioning 'the Sanctuary' I never expected it to be a horror feast infested with the undead

こいつ直接脳内に・・・！

2:17 [The creature rises back up again, towering over the four characters] "So, it wasn't Kuja." Okay this is something else that I want to bring up, as the Soul Cage here says, it knows Kuja and has seen him before. But how did Kuja even get into the Iifa Tree when there was a barrier around it before, that was placed on it by Carbuncle and Eiko only just now removed it? It is never specified when the barrier was put on the Iifa Tree, and the moogles in Madain Sari said they saw Kuja fly to the tree on a silver dragon recently. So how did he get through the barrier? Does being an "Angel of Death" super weapon make him strong enough to slip through the barrier? Even so, he had to have sensed that the barrier was made by an Eidolon and would have wanted to acquire it, and since he wasn't a summoner, he would have used the vague extraction magic to get it. Vivi "Huh, what's going on? I can hear a voice inside my head!" Wait, so the Soul Cage is using telepathy? Zidane "You just said Kuja! Where is he!?" "I do not know." Dagger "What are you doing here!?" Zidane "Are you the one who makes the Mist!?" "It is not produced. Mist is a by-product of the refining process. It is discharged through the roots." "By-product"? It's literally the souls of the inhabitants of Gaia that have been prevented from returning to Gaia's crystal, captured within the roots of the Iifa Tree and then expelled by the roots above ground as "Mist", the Ultimania clearly states this, as does the FF Wikia: "Mist is distributed through the Iifa Tree's roots and is, in fact, the Gaian souls being refused to return to the crystal and expelled to flow back into Gaia's atmosphere instead. These stagnant and tormented souls are reborn as monsters." This is what I have been building up to regarding the Black Mages and Vivi's conundrum being pretentious, The Black Mages are made from the Mist, which is actually the souls of deceased Gaia inhabitants, this means that the Black Mages are actually dead people resurrected (if only for a short while) into artificial doll bodies. Which would actually all be very interesting stuff, but unfortunately the game doesn't really take advantage of this and instead cheaply opts to rip-off "Blade Runner", which doesn't even fit. With Blade Runner it had androids that gained sentience, but here with IX, the Black Mages are literal "Ghosts inside the shells", which makes all their ramblings about death pretentious and melodramatic when they are technically already dead, they just couldn't return to the crystal and be properly reincarnated. Sure, Vivi and the other mages don't really know all this at this point, but they should have at least had some recollections or vague memories of when they were human (or any other anthropomorphic creatures like the rat people) which would continue grow and they would remember more who they were originally which would have been especially interesting with Vivi. Yet we get nonsense like how they "don't know what jokes or humans are". This was all really big wasted potential. Also how are the souls reborn as "monsters" exactly? Is this like the fiends from FFX, or do they possess flora and fauna and they mutate, like with the Evil Forest? The Evil Forest could have actually provided great foreshadowing for what the Mist really was by having the souls try to speak through the plant monsters. Vivi "Discharged?" Dagger "So it's sent to other continents through the roots, right?" You aren't going to ask about what the Soul Cage meant by "refining process"? You should be very curious about that part. Zidane "But why!? Why would you do that!?" "I contaminate the other continents with Mist to stimulate the fighting instinct." "This, in turn, leads to war among the leaders of nations, and then to the fall of civilization." "Kuja merely put the by-product to a different use." This goes back to what Steiner said after the Evil Forest about the Mist "causing abnormalities in the mind". But I have a question, how the heck do souls "stimulate fighting instinct"? Also the whole thing isn't really consistent considering that the party has regularly traveled through the Mist multiple times with no mental abnormalities or other issues. Sure, you can make the argument that Vivi isn't affected because he is a Mist soul in a doll body, and Zidane is immune because of what he actually is, but what are Garnet's, Freya's, Steiner's and Quina's excuses? Quina and Quale even live in the marsh within the Mist, heck, Burmecia and Gizamaluke's Grotto are also within the Mist, yet nobody there seems to be really violent and psychotic. Also the Soul Cage hasn't been expelling Mist at the cliff tops of the Mist Continent as I said before. Vivi "A different use!? What is Kuja trying to do!?" Again, you aren't even going to ask why it is doing this? "I cannot lie." That's a huge plot convenience, why would Garland design this thing to not be able to lie to intruders? Garland could program it to only be truthful with him and lie to anyone else so they don't find anything out, but stupidly, no. Actually, why would Garland even have this thing be able to talk at all, and have it show itself and make itself vulnerable to be destroyed?

The boss in this spot is hilariously weak to Life effects, despite residing in the "Tree of Life". Of course, you get more beating them normally. An excellent spot to get a lot of AP quick with uses of Soft too on some enemies.

あるボスはフェニ尾で倒せる🤣レイズだったか忘れたけど

ここ聖地のはずなのにBGM怖いしアンデッドばかりだしですごく苦手

0:00 [The group arrives at the Iifa Tree...well, near it, as it ominously looms in the distance. The words "Iifa, the Ancient Tree of Life" appear on the screen. Mist is floating everywhere, since ie emanates from the tree] Dagger "There's Mist here...!" Zidane "So this place really must be the source of the Mist." And nobody else had put this together, or at least suspected it? The moogles living in Madain Sari had to have visited the Iifa Tree at least a few times right? (You can even find a moogle or two here) The moogles never wrote letters back to the Mist Continent, where the Mist is obviously so prevalent, and told others like Cid about the Iifa Tree being the source of the Mist? Heck, what about the Summoners? They used to live on the Mist Continent in Alexandria five hundred years ago, then they moved to the Outer Continent where, according to the Ultimania, "the pulse of the planet runs its most focused" (It's FFVII Lifestream and consciousness of the planet stuff, which is all very interesting but IX never properly focuses and emphasizes on all this enough, even with the Black Mages and when Terra is thrown in) and have seen the Iifa Tree and been up close to it. In all that time, none of them put this together and some of them went back to the Mist Continent to tell everyone all this, since the Mist is clearly a hazard and they would want to get rid of it?

Dawntrail spoilers.

Awesome [Video Soundtrack] Iifa, the Ancient Tree of Life [FINAL FANTASY IX] Video.

Definitely my least favorite song in the game. I've never enjoyed it. It gets the vibe right, but I still don't like it as a song.