Trivia / Final Fantasy IX

• Blooper: In the FMV where Eiko jumps from the Hilda Garde II to join in the summoning of Alexander, Garnet's eyes are coloured blue instead of brown.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
  • The official German PlayStation Magazine reported that the game was a continuation with a new character named Skylar Goodsworth. Turns out they were tricked by a fanfiction on what was then a rather obscure site, which not only lacked any form of professionalism, but came from a website hosted by Beepworld.
  • An early preview of Final Fantasy IX stated that it was to be a remake of the first game in the series. A writer clearly unfamiliar with Roman numerals claimed that Square had started development on "Final Fantasy 1 X".
  • The PSP/PS3 PlayStation Store description is "Defeat the evil Queen Brahne and save Alexandria kingdom as Zidane Tribal and friends explore the magical world of Gaia." While this is certainly an early incentive presented in the game, it is highly misleading as a description of the game as a whole.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the FF series, holds this entry dearest to his heart.
  • Legendary FF composer Nobuo Uematsu considers his work on FFIX to be his best.
• Defictionalization: Physical Tetra Master cards have been released, including cards with the characters on them.
• Genre-Killer: The decline of video game strategy guides is sometimes attributed to the official American guide for this game, published by BradyGames. Square Enix, wanting to promote their site, Playonline.com, forced BradyGames to gut the entire thing and redirect users to the site for more info. Considering the game came out in 2000, it was outright impossible for many to connect to the internet and for those who could find the site it wasn't much better. Many purchasers ended up finding sites like GameFAQs, and many buyers thought it was the general direction of strategy guides from that point forward. Nowadays, Strategy Guides are usually only found in stores dedicated to gaming, and even then, it's usually only in a small section of it.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has stated that this is his favorite in the series. Its sales were the worst of the PlayStation era, with Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII selling better^note Although this can be explained in part by the fact that IX was released very close to the launch of the PlayStation 2 and in other part by the Broken Base with regards to VIII. On the other hand, IX continues to sell worse in future re-releases compared to the other games around it whenever they get re-issued, so perhaps neither the PlayStation 2 nor VIII is to blame. . The fans on the other hand, are a different story, with Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy X being more often placed higher than this game (though it has its fans).
• Offer Void in Nebraska: The Android version is only available to devices that has official access to the Google Play Store. Have a Kindle, Nook, Replicant device, Cyanogenmod device, an Android-compatible Blackberry phone or any other android devices that can't access the Google Store? You can't have it.
• Orphaned Reference: Eyes are a recurring motif in Terra and Memoria, and they can also be seen on Hades's design. This is a remnant from when he was planned as the final boss.
• Referenced by...: A Black Waltz appears as the fifth opponent in Brawl Royale. An expy named replaces him in the Epic Battle Fantasy Collection version of the game.
• Urban Legend of Zelda:
  • It's funny. The game has so many crazy Urban Legend of Zelda/Epileptic Trees-sounding ideas (someone who made a Heroic Sacrifice can be revived, there's an Easter Egg by answering a But Thou Must! question in the negative 64 times before proceeding, getting the Infinity +1 Sword requires making it to the final area within 12 hours, which is nearly impossible without opening the console's lid during Cutscenes to skip them, etc.) that turn out to be true that it's hard not to think that Square did it on purpose. Well, that, or they were there to sell player's guides/Square's PlayOnline service.
  • That you can get an alternate ending by beating the entire game in twelve hours. It is true that you can get the Excalibur II by reaching the final dungeon in twelve hours, but this one stretched credibility. Supposedly, the alternate ending involved a twenty-five year old Eiko killing Garnet and trapping Zidane in a crystal.
  • That if you name Garnet "Pleb", Steiner will give Vivi the Octagon Rod, a late-game weapon, much earlier than usual. There's no way to get the Octagon Rod until Disc 3, and no way to get it after.
  • That having the Hammer in your inventory at the end makes the line "No cloud, no squall shall hinder us!" appear during the performance of "I Want to Be Your Canary" in the ending. The Hammer does add an Easter Egg to the ending, but it has nothing to do with that line (which is always there). It's also rumoured that having Beatrix's sword, Save the Queen, in your inventory has an effect on the ending. The Hammer is the only item that does.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Concept art shows two protagonists named Bahamut Dragoon and Liviathan ''[sic]'' Dragoon◊, and a bunch of characters using more traditional job classes from the earlier titles (some examples here◊ and here◊). The art style also resembled that of Final Fantasy Tactics.
  • The concept art for the "Rat Knight" ended up becoming Fratley and Freya, with genders changed and motivations split down the middle.
    • It's also kind of hard to not think of Amarant when looking at the Elementalist guy.
  • The entire game was originally planned as the first in a spinoff series made to appeal to old school fans. The game initially wasn't going to be released as 'Final Fantasy IX' — as developers feared the fact that it was so radically different from the previous two games would alienate gamers. Rumours circulated that it would be a side story outside the main series, before it was confirmed as Final Fantasy IX.
  • Garnet's design had to be changed extremely late in development, as producer Hironobu Sakaguchi felt she didn't look "charming enough" for a heroine. Potential re-designs included lighter hair or an outfit that resembled a dress.
  • Concept Art shows Queen Brahne having a couch-sized cat and Garland would have beared more of a resemblance towards the Garland from Final Fantasy.
  • Also, Thorn and Zorn were originally going to be just one character, an old man who was the court wizard.
  • Concept art shows that Hades was originally going to be the final boss in the game. Late in development Necron became the final boss, while Hades became an optional boss in Memoria. The architecture in some late game areas reflect this original plan as the designs match markings found on Hades.
  • There were apparently at one point three additional Moogles involved the Mognet sidequest: Mogpi, Mogrody, and Mogribs. Their names appear in the game files, but they do not appear anywhere in the actual game.
  • Dummied content shows three missing monster IDs around the Earth Guardian, suggesting that all four Chaos Guardians were to be fought originally. Event designer Kazuhiko Aoki confirms this, as he states that the three other Chaos Guardian fights had to be cut due to space limitations.
  • Cinna has both a victory pose◊ and a portrait◊ that exist in the game's files but never appear in the game. Whenever he's in the party, you can't access the menu screen to see the portrait (or save the game). And the battles he's in don't feature any victory poses from the characters.
  • There was originally another mini-game in Alexandria for the start of Disk 3 - where you gather balloons from the jump rope girls and try to get them to a boy within the time limit.
  • An early draft of the script would have the Royal Pendant being Leviathan's summon jewel, and Zidane would realise who Garnet was because he recognised the jewel as something only royalty wore. Blank would be too distracted looking at Garnet's chest.
  • Beatrix was not in the opening sequence and was added in later. Steiner was said to be commanding an army of Paladins.
  • There were several instances of cut dialogue still in the game's files, as demonstrated in this video. Also, the game's ending was rewritten 7 times, with text for one of them remaining in the game's files. It was a Downer Ending where the Iifa Tree could not be stopped and the Gaia's merger with Terra caused an apocalyptic event.

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