Details on Square's next three Final Fantasy games, which were unveiled at Square Millennium

Without a doubt, Square's crown jewel is the Final Fantasy series. Today, at the Square Millennium Event being held in Tokyo, Japan, Square officially revealed their plans for the series for well into next year. Final Fantasy IX was officially announced for the current PlayStation and was given a summer 2000 projected release date. Meanwhile, Square also revealed that Final Fantasy X will be released on PlayStation2 in early spring 2001 and Final Fantasy XI will be released on PlayStation2 in the summer of 2001.

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

Final Fantasy IX
The first game actually shown was Final Fantasy IX, which is almost ready for release this summer. The game had been delayed, partly because Square didn't want to compete with Enix's Dragon Quest VII release.

The biggest surprise 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 Amana 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 pre-rendered backgrounds and 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 videos were allowed, nor were they 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, some of the Japanese Square representatives were lamenting how many flashes they saw going off during Final Fantasy scenes and that if too many screenshots get published without permission, they may decide to withhold screens and information in the future.

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Courtesy of IGN.com