The gameplay features the Active Time Battle pseudo-turn-based menu command system from previous games and gives players control of up to eight characters in a party of four. He teams up with her and a team of allies to stop Queen Brahne and her ally Kuja from waging war with an army of black mages. Taking place on planet Gaia, the story follows a thief named Zidane Tribal, a member of a thief troupe who is tasked to kidnap the princess of Alexandria, Garnet Til Alexandros XVII. The title is a return to the series's roots, with gameplay features and references to the past games featuring throughout, as well as a medieval fantasy setting and cartoonish art style as a break from the sci-fi slant style of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII.
It was directed by Hiroyuki Ito and co-produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Shinji Hashimoto, with Nobuo Uematsu providing the musical score. It was released in July 2000 for the PlayStation, later re-released in 2016 for iOS, Android, and Microsoft Windows via Steam re-released in 2017 for PlayStation 4 and repackaged in 2019 for Windows 10, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. PlayStation, PlayStation Network, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows (via Steam & Microsoft Store), Xbox One, Android, iOSįinal Fantasy IX is the ninth main installment in the Final Fantasy series, developed and published by Squaresoft.
