Wed Feb 25 2026
Minor bugs have been fixed.
The original Final Fantasy is a piece of gaming history, and this mobile port brings that classic NES charm to a modern device quite well. It’s a straightforward adventure where you guide the four Warriors of Light to restore the crystals, but there's a certain purity in its simplicity that many modern RPGs lack.
The touch controls are functional, though they can feel a bit cramped on smaller screens. The upgraded graphics and remastered soundtrack breathe new life into the 8-bit world without losing its soul. It’s definitely a grindy game—you'll spend a lot of time fighting random encounters to level up—but for fans of the series or those looking to see where the legend began, it's an essential play.
Completely remodeled 2D pixel graphics
Rearranged soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu
Modernized UI and touch controls
Supplemental content like the bestiary and music player
Auto-battle and speed-up options
For beginners, a balanced party of Warrior, Monk, White Mage, and Black Mage is recommended. The Warrior provides high defense, while the Mages offer essential healing and elemental damage needed for the first major boss in the Chaos Temple.
Combat follows a traditional turn-based system where you input commands for your four party members. Strategically use physical attacks, black magic for damage, and white magic for healing to survive dungeon crawls.
The Pixel Remaster versions focus on the original NES experience and generally do not include the bonus dungeons added in the GBA or PSP versions.
The game now crashes when I select Continue from the main menu, AND when I try to Load my save data. (The save data was working, but now crashes the game, trying to load Slot 1:3) The controls are a bit wanting too… it is far too easy to accidentally select an opponents card to take at the end of a match when trying to view the cards to see which one you want. EDIT: After loading other save files (slot 1 file 02) and scrolling the list, I finally got slot 2 file 03 to load, then immediately saved to slot 1 file 04 to see if a backup helps when trying to load a save file later. Before finally loading, the game crashed several times (~5-6 times)
I’m very sad to give this a low star review. I love all the added quality of life improvements that have been added. The only reason it’s a 1 star is due to the lack of updating it gets and conspiracy from Square Enix. FF9 was my favorite title on the PS1 generation and I love it!! I have been waiting a while to grab it but since it has never gone on sale and I simply love the title I chose to pull the trigger and get it. - Little did I know Square was planning on launching all of their previous FF titles in special bundles. Can’t blame them for that but it brings me to my next point: it almost seems that now that those titles are being released by Square there are no intentions to keep this version updated. It is completely misleading to the consumer to still allow an app to be downloaded/purchased with no intention to maintain its relevance on a new system software. I just recently downloaded this and I can’t even play it now!! I just got to Lindbulm!! These sort of back door tricks should not be allowed on the Apple platform. The least they could do is reach out to the developer to have it updated; if not, remove it from the store. They effectively allow you to pay $20 for a game that can’t even be played on their new OS. Buyers beware. - If they update it or have plans to rectify the situation I will gladly remove my review as I hold the game in incredibly high regard, if not: you’re paying money for something you can’t even play.
UPDATE: No longer works with new version of iOS. Can’t help rating until its fixed. This game is just as good as I remember however the ease of use button mashing on the console does not translate well to the touch screen for people without bony fingers making it difficult to select players, attacks, talk options and so on. I'm fine with most of these as its something I can work around however there is one issue that is really stoping me from giving this amazing game 5 stars. There needs to be a way to set the auto attack command to something other than just the generic attack such as there is in the iOS version of FFIV. Having this option would make the endless battles we are in a lot less tedious giving the player more time to just have fun. Auto-attack makes battle nice unless one of your auto attackers is a Mage who hits for 20 points of damage and triggers a 200 point damage counter attack, if we could set his auto-command to say defend if we're trying to conserve MP or fire if we're trying to destroy an enemy that would be an outstanding improvement. Please add this option, I really love this game and this option would be the cherry on the cake.
I am a fan of FF 7, 8, 9 and 12, FF9 was my first of the series, i bought it when it first came out. i read the horrible reviews here, especially on IOS, i almost didn't buy it, but my console is broken and right now all i have is an IPAD AIR 4th generation , i'm currently running the latest version IOS 26.6.2 and i'm on what would be disk 3 and not only am i not having any issues, it seems to run smoother than the PS-1 version, the game is much faster with zero loading times, extremely smooth controls, and for absolute fun, i love the no encounters cheat, but it also has the 9,999 hit cheat , the permanent trance chest and speed up, and if you really want a boost, it has unlimited gill, and lvl 99 ( that can be used when your characters are lvl 1, plus the maxed out abilities cheat, overall, if i could give this game 10 stars, i would. this game is a masterpiece on ipad. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
On the app store, this app says next to compatibility; “works on this phone”. However, after paying $20 and attempting to download the app, it just says “the developer of this app needs to update it to work with this version of iOS”. If the app is not working, which after searching on Reddit, this has been the case for the past 2 months, why is the app still available for purchase? May this issue be brought to the developer’s attention by Apple themselves as well? Apple is putting the onus on the consumer to contact the developer, but us consumers are using Apple’s market place to access these apps. I, and many others of your customers have already contacted the developer, Square Enix, but Apple should provide some help here as well. Apple should not just be a wholly irresponsible mediary in this matter and should do some policing in the App Store, as Apple is making a hefty profit off of these purchases that customers aren’t able to use (as much of a 78% profit margin on the App Store).
I have not played FF9 in several years and I am very impressed with how well this iOS version performs. I played on an iPhone 7 and this game works surprisingly well on the mobile platform. The touch screen functionality is as good as you could hope for with the UI being slightly modified for the experience. The game didn’t crash a single time during my 48 hour play through so you can tell it was optimized very nicely. The game also has a handy auto save feature every time you enter a new room which is very convenient if you need to put your phone away on a whim. However I highly recommend to still do manual saves just in case you need them. What more is there to say? FF9 is such an amazing adventure and if you haven’t played it yet then go for it!
I don’t know if it’s just that I’m having an error on my iPhone 12 Pro Max with the latest iOS 14.6. But I have had a heckuva time getting it to work lately. Which is a crying shame because it is such a high replay of value like a lot of the final fantasy. Hopefully you’ll get sick soon. And sadly being at home stuck in a hospital with a free Wi-Fi or cellular data makes it hard to diagnose why it’s not working. Because I would really enjoy playing at this particular moment in my life when I’m paralyzed in a hospital bed waiting I get to the point that I could possibly walk again. But if it’s working for others I would highly recommend that the story is so engaging.
This game has good art, good music, a good story line, and overall good game play. It’s not hard once you figure things out. Learn abilities on your equipment to negate unnecessary difficulties with monsters and bosses. For example, if you know a boss will cast flare star, then you might want to equip the ability body temperature so you don’t over heat. Similarly if you know you’re about to fight a beast, equip beast killer to do more damage. The only complaint I have is flying the airship. The controls are kinda weird for that and I had to re adjust to go the direction I wanted to go. I feel this game like most other jRPG games use a lot of Shinto religious themes. Memories are connected, no one is separate from themselves but are connected to the whole. Good experience overall.








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