In an interview from Ascii publishing, Vice President of Square co. and Director of the Final Fantasy series Nobuhiko Sakaguchi, mentioned a few notes on the upcoming Final Fantasy series.




Final Fantasy IX

Final Fantasy IX is almost completed. The theme of FF9 is to "return to the old days" of Final Fantasy, since it is the last digit before entering the ten digits in the series. Thus so, FF9 will feature symbolic characters/mascots from the past, such as the Crystal and the Black Magician.




Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X is almost complete as well, with its senario already being complete. However, screen shots dipicting the scenario were not shown at the Square Millenium festival since the "Play Online" was the main goal of attention.

In addition to giving game hints, Final Fantasy X's online services is also planned to allow players to chat with each other and sell items (via a bulletin board system).

Sakaguchi mentions that the inspiration came from playing Everquest at Square's Hawaii branch. Sakaguchi also notes that during his play in the main game, he could not check its BBS simultaneously, and business mail also were being unanswered since there was no notification system. Sakaguchi plans to improve on this for the system in FFX.



Final Fantasy XI

Final Fantasy XI will not be playable as a Stand-alone. That is, the game cannot be played without Net connection.

Final Fantasy XI will be released simultaneously in the US and Japan, as well as PC and Console platform. As the save data will be stored on one of Square's server, players can continue their game from anywhere outside as well as home, without the need to bring around their machine.