Over the holidays Square Enix sneakily released a new video on their Japanese YouTube channel for Final Fantasy IX. Normally this wouldn’t be a massive big deal except for the fact that this trailer is actually for the mobile and PC version of Final Fantasy IX. That’s right, Zidane and friends will be arriving onto smartphones soon.
UPDATE: Tuesday, February 9th – 8:27 PM, PST: Fans that have been eagerly awaiting the release of Final Fantasy IX, your wait is over. The game is now available to download in the Google Play Store. The game is $16.99 to download. There are no in-app purchases in the game. However, before everyone gets too excited, it appears that currently, the game is not compatible with the Nvidia Shield Tablet. This may change in the near future, but currently you won’t be able to play it. If anyone else’s Shield is showing compatibility, please let us know in the comments below. The link to download the game can be found at the end of this article.
Square Enix has also published a micro-site confirming that Final Fantasy IX will be landing on Android and iOS soon. While this micro-site is on the Japan Square Enix site, usually indicating a Japan-only release, it should be no surprise if/when this arrives in the Western market as well.
For those of you not familiar with this game, Final Fantasy IX follows the story of a war between nations. You will be following a young thief named Zidane Tribal, who joins with others to defeat Queen Brahne of Alexandria, the one responsible for starting the war. The storyline changes, however, when the characters realize that Brahne is working with an even more threatening person called Kuja.
original version
It should be a safe bet that while Square Enix ports over the controls of the console version to mobile devices, that the game’s ATB system should remain in tact. Well hopefully that is the case. There will be some new features making an appearance in this version of the game, such as an auto-save feature, and the ability to speed everything up including the possible bypassing of cutscenes. The graphics will also be upgraded as well.
If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy, then this is some pretty great news. The only real questions now are where and when will this game arrive. We can’t see this particular release being Japan-only, although we do guess that it will be released there first. As for when, all we know right now is ‘soon’.
Official Website: Final Fantasy IX Micro-site
