The ending boss of Final Fantasy 9 was a huge letdown, but that could be attributed to it being a last-minute change, as concept art for the game suggests a summon monster from Final Fantasy 7 was almost the original final battle of the game. Hades, the monster in question, debuted as a summon in Final Fantasy 7 and was retrofitted into the Game Boy Advance version of Final Fantasy 5.

The Hades Materia can be found in Final Fantasy 7‘s Sunken Gelinka plane, hidden at the very depths of the ocean. The player cannot access this location until they have unlocked the submarine. Once inside, the player can find all kinds of useful items protected by powerful enemies. If the player uses the Hades summon in battle, it conjures a hooded figure who casts a spell through a magic cauldron. Hades has a chance of inflicting a number of status effects on the enemy. This same version of Hades would appear in the Japan-exclusive Before Crisis. Hades then appeared in Final Fantasy 9 as a secret boss, but it had no role in the story.

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It appears the developers of Final Fantasy 9 had a bigger role in mind for Hades, but it was changed at some point in development. Final Fantasy Ultimania Archive Volume 2, a behind-the-scenes book, contains concept art and design documents for the three mainline Final Fantasy games on the original PlayStation. The Final Fantasy 9 section includes a picture of the final boss arena with Hades inside it. The actual final boss of Final Fantasy 9 was a lame villain named Necron, who showed up out of nowhere and only existed to fight the party.

Other Possible Replacements For FF9’s Necron Final Boss

Hades wasn’t the only apparent candidate for an alternate Final Fantasy 9 ending boss. Final Fantasy Ultimania Archive Volume 2 also includes a drawing of an unused version of the Grim Reaper (seen above), which it says was originally planned to be the final boss. It’s possible the game’s themes surrounding death and the acceptance of mortality would have resulted in an actual fight with the Grim Reaper, and the devs tossed it out for being too on the nose. A version of the Grim Reaper does appear whenever someone casts a death-related spell, but it has no role in the story.

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The entire ending sequence of Final Fantasy 9 is messy, thanks to Necron showing up out of nowhere. It’s unclear why the developers didn’t just stick with Kuja until the end, as he’s one of the best Final Fantasy villains in the series. A final battle where Kuja pulls a one-winged angel like Sephiroth would have been fine. Instead, the developers felt the need to shoehorn in a brand-new villain at the last minute, leading to a disappointing encounter with Necron. Hades wouldn’t have been a much better choice, though, unless the developers had invested time in entwining him with the rest of the plot. If nothing else, Hades at least had a cool secret boss battle, which likely got a pop out of Final Fantasy 7 fans.

Source: Final Fantasy Ultimania Archive Volume 2

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Scott Baird
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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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