| Final Fantasy IX | |
|---|---|
 North American box art | |
| Developer(s) | Square |
| Publisher(s) |
|
| Director(s) | Hiroyuki Ito |
| Producer(s) | |
| Designer(s) |
|
| Programmer(s) | Hiroshi Kawai |
| Artist(s) |
|
| Writer(s) | Hironobu Sakaguchi |
| Composer(s) | Nobuo Uematsu |
| Series | Final Fantasy |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Final Fantasy IX[b] is a 2000 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. It is the ninth game in the main Final Fantasy series. The plot focuses on a war between nations in a medieval fantasy world called Gaia. Players follow a thief named Zidane Tribal who kidnaps princess Garnet Til Alexandros XVII as part of a ploy by the neighboring nation of Lindblum. He joins Garnet and a growing cast of characters on a quest to take down her mother, Queen Brahne of Alexandria, who started the war.
Game development occurred in parallel with Final Fantasy VIII. Envisioned by developers as a retrospective for the series, it departed from the futuristic settings of Final Fantasy VI, VII, and VIII by returning to the medieval style of the earlier games. Consequently, it draws heavy influence from the original Final Fantasy and features allusions to the rest of the series. The game introduced new features to the series despite this approach, such as "Active Time Event" cutscenes, "Mognet", and skill systems. Final Fantasy IX was the last game in the main series whose music was composed solely by Nobuo Uematsu.
Final Fantasy IX was released to critical acclaim and commercial success, selling more than 5.5 million copies on PlayStation by March 2016. It was re-released in 2010 as a PS1 Classic on the PlayStation Store—this version was compatible with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable; PlayStation Vita support arrived in 2012. In 2016 Square Enix released an enhanced port featuring minor gameplay and graphical enhancements, which would be released on several platforms. An animated series adaptation by Square Enix and Cyber Group Studios was announced in 2021.
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