Final Fantasy 9 (IX) is a RPG developed and published by Square for the PlayStation in 2000. During the development, the design for the characters was different from the one in the final version, as you can notice from the images in the gallery below. As we can read on Wikipedia, the game was developed in Hawaii as a compromise to developers living in the United States.
In the game’s conceptual stage, the developers made it clear that the title would not necessarily be Final Fantasy IX, as its break from the realism of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII may have alienated audiences. This led fans to speculate that it would be released as a “gaiden” to the main series. By late 1999, however, Square had confirmed that the game would indeed be published as Final Fantasy IX, and by early 2000, the game was nearly finished.
If you can write a description for the design differences in these concept arts, please leave a reply or send us a message! We would like to make this article more complete.
Thanks to D-Vide for some of the images below!
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