Final Fantasy IX originally had a different final boss

"Who would have thought that we’d still be finding out new things about Final Fantasy IX, 13 years after its release?

Final Fantasy IX must be the Final Fantasy that keeps on delivering. A few months back, the ninth entry in the series received attention for an undiscovered sidequest. Now there’s been another discovery made, though this one contains some spoilers regarding the game’s final boss.

Adventurous completionists will recall being able to fight a hidden boss named Hades, who in typical Square Enix fashion was incredibly hard to beat. Hades has actually popped up several times throughout the series as a summon tied to darkness and status-effect magic, most notably in Final Fantasy VII.

According to newly released concept art from Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimania, a book that examines series backstory and production lore, it turns out that Hades was originally considered as the game’s ultimate foe." - Maxwell Coviello

[Relientk77]

Final Fantasy IX is still my favorite Final Fantasy game

[Trago1337]

I agree. It had my favorite cast, and protagonist. They were all likable.

Can't say the same thing about recent FF games...

[ShinMaster]

The best FF of the PS1 era.

[abzdine]

FF7 and FF8 were amazing titles but not in the same traditional FF "style".
Lots of FF fans applauded the "back to the original style" with FFIX. it was amazing looking and providing a very nice depth in gameplay and story. I prefered the limit system in FF7 and 8 to the trance in FFIX, but that's only a detail.

[Magicite]

Yes, mine too!
I really hope they will remake it/make HD.

[Jubez187]

Yea this game really had such great charm. The characters honestly felt as lively as The Last of Us, only they had 0 voice acting and not the greatest graphics by today's standards. I would have liked the game to be a little more challenging though, Zidane with the bladestaff and Magic Sword from Steiner was too strong (but amazing nonetheless).

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

It should had. I mean come on Necron came out of no where.

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

Yeah Final Fantasies like to do that. In FF4 I was ready to fight Golbez the entire time. Who would have thought Zemus would have been controlling Golbez who controlled Kain. Crazy stuff.

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

partly with Ultimecia til third disc on FFVIII

[desertpunk86]

what was it a japanese developer struggling to make an original game so he gets angry and makes an octopus as the final boss o how original.

[Chaos_Raiden]

Interesting. Thanks for the share.

[Pozzle]

Huh. That's actually a pretty cool idea. I wonder how Hades would have been implemented into the story. And would he have had more of a build-up than Necron did?

[Agent_hitman]

Grand Cross!

Summon: Fenrir, Ark

[Setzer007]

Kuja will always be boss.

[TheTwelve]

Hades would have been a better final boss than whatever that was in FF9.