THIS INFO HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM THE "IGN WEBSITE"
The game's main character appears to be Jitan Triball, who is the young 16-year-old thief, but players will take control over numerous other characters in the game's 40 plus hours of promised gameplay. One example is near the beginning of the game where the player will take control of a solider who is chasing a young boy for about five minutes. Afterwards, the player takes control of the fleeing boy for a period of time.
THE GAME'S STORY BEGINS WITH Steiner protecting the princess and Bibi searching for himself. Bibi, who is the young Black Wizard, appears to be one of the central focal points of the game and a lot of the game's story revolves are him.
Change Of The Overall Look
The biggest surprise regarding Final Fantasy IX has been with the change of the overall look of the game. While FFVII and VIII had a distinct, futuristic cyber-look to them, Final Fantasy IX, with Yoshitaka Amano returning, has more of a fantasy, swords and sorcery-type look to it. In terms of design, the game looks a lot like Chrono Cross with the pre-rendered backgrounds super-deformed character styles.
Characters
So far, not much is known about the game's characters, but Square has released some new information on three of them. First, there's Edward Steiner, who is 33 years old, a Knight of the Royal Family, and a loyal servant of the princess. Then there's Jitan Triball, who is a 16 year old boy that just happens to be a thief that has a strong love for girls. And, finally, there's Vivi Ornitia, a nine-year-old black wizard.
A lot has been made about this switch in character designs, with most people either loving or hating the idea, but the bottom line is that the most important aspect of the game will be its storyline. While not much is known about the story at this time, the chances are that it'll be of epic proportions and will likely capture the hearts and minds of everyone who plays it.
Battle System
Based on what was shown at Square Millenium Event and on what whe we've been able to gather since then, the game will once again have an active battle system (ABS) like the previous games in the series.
One thing that we've been able to find out is that the game will use a type of "job" or "class" system. So, characters will have a class such as thief, knight, magician, and so on. Although, characters can have their traits customized within the course of the game.
What's The Active Battle System ?
For those new to the series, the active battle system gives a pseudo realtime feel to the battles because both the characters and enemy monsters have a different amount of time needed to be ready for attack. Basically, when the bar fills up, that character is ready to attack and depending on the attributes of the character, magical items he or she may be wearing, or spells that have been cast, the bar will fill up at varying speeds.
What Else Do We Know ?
Floating Building - there's a floating building that you'll see in some of the screens -- this building is a theater house that can be seen from the castle, where travelling performers and circuses come to give performances for the palace. At the game's onset, this theater is being controlled by a group of thieves.
More Info About The Characters ! - there will be eight total characters that will be able to join your party (not all can fight at one time). And since the game will have more of a fantasy setting, the characters will include more non-human character types -- making it more like Final Fantasy VI, than VII or VIII. For instance, the game has a rat-like character and a "monster-type" character in the game.
Also, since Amano is back for the character designs, expect to see a lot of things like princesses, castles, and dragons making a return. Expect a more mystical and fantastical world.
GF Spells
Square Japan had heard a lot of complaints from Japanese gamers about the length of the spells. We told them that we agreed with the complaint about the length of the spells, so hopefully Square has taken our advice and the advice of the gamers and don't include overly long and drawn out spells in FFIX. (The first couple of times they're great, but after a couple of hours...)
<REMEMBER THAT THIS INFO HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM THE IGN WEBSITE>