The power of the PlayStation 2’s processor at the time of its launch must have made development of Final Fantasy IX difficult, given the interest it might have generated in the military.
Final Fantasy IX is 25 years since it hit the market in 2000, and to celebrate, the specialist magazine Famitsu closed out the year 2025 with an interview with the game’s designer, Kazuhiko Aoki, which allowed us to delve into its development.
Aoki, who had already worked on the Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon series, joined the Final Fantasy IX team at a stage when game producer Hironobu Sakaguchi had already written the main story.
His job as event development lead was to develop other storylines with the map team, while the combat team worked on their own because they “already knew how the story was going to play out.” He also gave the characters surnames, although the names were invented by Sakaguchi.
Back then, the event team consisted of eight members, each assigned a map (eg Alexandria, Trena) to create a story based on information such as characters and their allies.
This game was developed between Japan and Hawaii (USA), something unusual 25 years ago, but it allowed us to learn an anecdote related to the development of Final Fantasy IX.
As Aoki shared, he worked in a studio located in Hawaii. Although Final Fantasy IX was released for the first PlayStation, to test whether the game would run on the new hardware – also released in 200 – he requested a test computer from Japan.
“However, at the time the PS2 processor was so powerful that there was a possibility that it could be used for military use, so exports were limited. It took a while to arrive at headquarters. It was a difficult situation,” he said.
The manager also noted that the game was planned for four discs from the beginning, which led to the need to adjust and even eliminate content that took up a lot, such as cinematic scenes and music.
