Can you play Final Fantasy IX on iPhone?

Yes. Add disc images of your own copy of Final Fantasy IX to Nagori, a PS1 emulator from the App Store, and it plays on iPhone and iPad with touch controls or a controller.

Is Final Fantasy IX free on iPhone?

Nagori doesn't include or sell games, so you need your own copy. The app itself lets you add your first game for free.

How do I add the four discs of Final Fantasy IX?

Name the files with their disc number, from (Disc 1) to (Disc 4), and select all four when you add them. Nagori shows them as one game with one memory card, and Change Disc in the pause menu puts in the next disc when the game asks for it.

Where can I save in Final Fantasy IX?

The game saves when you talk to a Moogle or on the world map. In Nagori you can also make a save state anywhere, and when you quit, the game resumes exactly where you left it.

Can I play Final Fantasy IX with a controller on iPhone?

Yes. Bluetooth controllers that iOS supports, including DualSense, DualShock 4 and Xbox controllers, work with Nagori, and the touch controls hide as soon as one connects.

How to Play Final Fantasy IX on iPhone

Square’s 2000 role-playing game goes back to the medieval fantasy of the series’ early games. Zidane Tribal, a thief with the Tantalus theater troupe, comes to Alexandria to kidnap Princess Garnet, and finds that she wants to leave the castle anyway. Your party learns abilities from the weapons and armor they wear. If you own the game, Nagori lets you play it on iPhone and iPad.

What you need

An iPhone or iPad with iOS 17.6 or later.
Nagori from the App Store. Your first game is free.
Disc images of all four discs of your copy of Final Fantasy IX: .chd, .cue + .bin, .pbp, .iso or .img, or .zip or .rar archives containing them.

No BIOS file is needed.

How to play Final Fantasy IX on iPhone

Install Nagori from the App Store.
Give each disc image its number, from Final Fantasy IX (Disc 1).chd to Final Fantasy IX (Disc 4).chd, and copy them to the Files app, in iCloud Drive or On My iPhone.
Open Nagori, tap + and select all four discs at once. For .cue images, select each .cue together with its .bin files, or add the archives they came in.
Find Final Fantasy IX on the PS1 shelf and press Play.

Changing discs

Because of the disc numbers in the file names, Nagori puts one Final Fantasy IX case on the shelf instead of four (Disk, CD or your own .m3u playlist work as well). All four discs share one memory card, so a save made on Disc 1 is still there on Disc 4.

When the story reaches the end of a disc, the game asks for the next one. Pause and choose Change Disc: the next disc goes in and the game carries on. The row tells you which disc is in, for example Disc 3 of 4.

Play always starts from Disc 1. If your save is from a later disc, the game asks for that disc when you load it, so choose Change Disc until it’s in. Continue returns to the disc you left off on.

Controls

Final Fantasy IX plays on the D-pad, face buttons and shoulder buttons, which the Standard touch layout covers. One button is easy to forget: Select. When the game offers an Active Time Event, a short scene of what other characters are doing at that moment, you press Select to watch it. On touch, Select is a small button, so pause, open Settings → Edit Layout and make it bigger or move it closer to your thumb.

With a controller, every button sits where it did on the PlayStation pad, and the left stick works as the D-pad too. Press the left stick to open the pause menu.

Saves: Moogles and the world map

On the console, Final Fantasy IX saves to the memory card when you talk to a Moogle in a town or dungeon, or anywhere on the world map. Nagori adds:

Quit any time. Leave the app between Moogles and Continue puts you back exactly where you were.
Save states. Pause and choose Save before a boss or a card game you don’t want to lose, and Load if it goes wrong. Nagori keeps your last four saves per game.
One tap back in. Put the Continue Playing widget on your Home Screen, and a tap takes you straight back into the game where you left it.

Learn abilities faster

An ability stays with a character for good only after they earn enough AP with the item equipped, so a lot of fights go into a full set. Nagori’s Fast Forward runs the game at twice its speed. Assign it to a spare controller button under Settings → Fast Forward, or open Edit Layout and add the ×2 button to My Layout on touch.

Best settings

Quality: High, the default, renders the characters and battles at twice the original resolution, while the pre-rendered backgrounds of towns and dungeons keep their original detail.
Quality: Low keeps everything at the original resolution, so the characters blend into the backgrounds as they did on the console.
Screen Effects → CRT Screen adds scanlines and suits the game’s storybook look.