Without a doubt, Square's crown jewel is Final Fantasy. Today, at the Square Millennium Event being held in Tokyo, Japan, Square officially revealed its plans for the series for well into the next year. Final Fantasy IX was officially announced for the current PlayStation and was given a projected summer 2000 release date. Meanwhile, Square also revealed that Final Fantasy X will be released on the PlayStation2 in early spring 2001 and Final Fantasy XI will be released on the PlayStation2 in the summer of 2001. All of these dates are for the Japanese versions of the games. Square-EA, which publishes Square's games outside of Japan, has made no official North American or European release dates just yet.

Square showcased each of the first two of the three Final Fantasy games on video, but asked that the on-site press not take any pictures of the game footage. However, plenty of information was revealed about each of the three hot titles.

The first game actually shown was Final Fantasy IX, which is almost ready for release this summer. The game had been delayed in some part due to business reasons (Square didn't want to compete with Enix's Dragon Quest VII release). One of the Square board members joked to the company president, telling him to hurry up and release Final Fantasy IX to please the shareholders.

The biggest surprise for me regarding Final Fantasy IX was the change in 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.

The CG movies shown were very well done, but that's something we've come to expect from Square. Overall, the game isn't a revolutionary leap over FFVII/VIII and Chrono Cross, but more of a minor increase. Unfortunately, no pictures or video were allowed to be taken, or given out, so only the lucky few (if you call 10,000 people a few) saw what it looked like. As a matter of fact, at a dinner following the event, I overheard some of the Japanese Square representatives lamenting how many flashes they saw going off during Final Fantasy scenes that if too many screens, etc. get published without permission, they may decide to withhold screens, info, etc. in the future.

Final Fantasy X was next to be shown and it looked great. There wasn't nearly as much footage shown from Final Fantasy X as was from Final Fantasy IX, but what was shown included some gameplay shots. If I had to compare it to a game that everybody has already seen, I would have to say it looked CLOSEST to From Software's Evergrace. The character was wandering around freely in a 3D world.

Like Final Fantasy IX, the characters in X have moved away from that "cyber-look." Final Fantasy X is scheduled for release in spring 2000, with a lot of principal production work already done. In the coming year, Square plans on finishing up the job and polishing up the title for its release.

A caption on the video said, "The journey home begins." FFX will also be the first Final Fantasy to take advantage of Square's online service, although it will only take advantage of the strategy guide/hint feature - it won't be playable online.

Square didn't stop there, after showing Final Fantasy X, the company announced Final Fantasy XI and revealed that it was a "complete online game." Given the subtitle "Online Another World," this game focuses on Play Online and uses its features to create an online Final Fantasy world. The game is said to be in the pre-production preparation stages and is due for release next summer (which is the same time the Final Fantasy movie is due out). There was no actual gameplay footage show, but they did show off some conceptual art and character design sketches (the game that the three people were shown playing in the video was an example of mainly how the service would work. It was not actually FFXI). It was mentioned that creating games online requires different production "rules" or methods of game development, and that it would initially take some time to work out.

With sales exceeding 25 million units worldwide, the Final Fantasy series is one of the most lucrative videogame licenses on the planet. Thus, Square's revelation today will surely go down as one of the biggest videogame-related stories in 2000. We'll have more information and real screenshots of these titles when they're made available.

Also there was another related article at "Gamespot News" that detailed the same event.

TOKYO - On Saturday, January 29th, Square Soft held a massive public gathering, called Square Millennium, as a showcase for existing titles (i.e. Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Dew Prism, Front Mission 3, Chocobo Stallion, Final Fantasy VIII, Parasite Eve II, etc.) and to announce future titles and projects, such as Final Fantasy IX for PlayStation, and its Play-Online Internet service. Oh, a new clip from the Final Fantasy movie was shown as well.

Amidst clouds of colored smoke, laser lights, a booming techno soundtrack and a huge projection-screen, the logos for three new Final Fantasy's were revealed. While Final Fantasy IX was expected, two others were not, namely Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XI, both for the PlayStation 2. Final Fantasy IX marks a return to the old-school FF's as Yoshitaka Amano has returned as character designer and conceptualist. This is evidenced by the designs and fantastical approach to the graphics, if you will. By that, we mean that the visuals pull back from the science-fiction motifs of recent times and steer closer to the sword and sorcery of the 16-bit Final Fantasy's. Final Fantasy X and XI, however, seem to have their character designs modeled by FF VII & VIII artist Tetsuya Nomura. We're not positive if he's responsible for FFX's designs, but the main character looks like his work, and the character sketches shown for XI are definitely his.

Final Fantasy X is significant since it is the first FF to be released for the PlayStation 2. While FFIX will be available in the summer of 2000, FFX should be ready by spring 2001. This will also be the first FF to be compatible with Square's Play-Online service. You'll be able to check your progress against an online strategy-engine, which will offer helpful suggestions if you have missed some important items for example. It was said during the presentation that Final Fantasy X will be "different from traditional play." If that wasn't enough to sate your appetite for all things FF, the perhaps the announcement that Final Fantasy XI would ship for PlayStation 2 in the summer of 2001, not long after the release of FFX, is sure to cause a commotion. In case you're wondering why exactly Square would release these two games so closely to each other, it's because Final Fantasy XI will be released as a "complete online game." What this means is that, like Ultima Online or Everquest, FF XI will act out its story entirely online. It's currently unknown if FFXI's game-world will be perpetual, meaning life in FFXI will go on even when you're not logged on, or if you can save and stop and have everything restart where it left off. What we do know is that the concept art that Square showed a whole pile of Final Fantasy characters in the midst of an epic battle, and every character had a different name on the top of their heads, indicating who's who and allowing you to keep track of your friends. From the logo Square displayed of FFXI, it said "Final Fantasy XI: Online Another World." While this is a far from confirmed final title, it completely aligns with Square's plan to offer a new level of interactivity to Japanese, and later, Western, gamers.

The first words out of Square VP, Hironobu Sakaguchi's, mouth were "Good afternoon. The year 2000 has started and this is a good opportunity to explain what direction we would like to take." What followed was a lengthy description of Square's Play-Online service which is being designed to offer features attractive to all manner of consumer, not just the gamer. These fetaures include music downloading, manga (comic-books) downloads, online gaming, chat messaging, sports info and Internet functions. While these features may be underwhelming to U.S. gamers who already have all of these features and more, it's important to remember that gaming in Japan is more solitary and less social than in the United States. PC gaming is not nearly as prevalent as it is in the States, where games like Quake III, Half-Life, Starcraft and Command & Conquer rule the bandwidth. What Square is offering is not only the ability to chat with friends, in real-time, while exploring FFXI's game-world, but to play the game, surf the net, read some comics and send e-mail. To achieve this, Square has partnered with various technology partners, such as NTT Communications Corporation, and set out to connect a generation of Japanese gamers via the PlayStation 2.

Again, it's unknown what impact this will have on the United States gaming community and how Square plans to implement this system here, since we're already familiar with what they're bringing to Japan. However, if their sheer effort is any indication, you can be sure, whether it be Sony or Square EA, an online presence will be formed to accommodate the introduction of Final Fantasy to the online world. We'll be here to report it when they do.