The characters of the PlayStation role-playing game Final Fantasy IX. Filling four CD-ROMs, Final Fantasy IX featured a cast containing a variety of major and minor characters. Players could control a maximum of four characters for combat at once, with eight main playable characters in the party and a few other, temporary characters. Concept and creation The main characters were based on the character class archetypes from previous Final Fantasy games (for instance, Zidane is based on the Thief class while Steiner was based on the Fighter class.) The Final Fantasy series has used the same menu operated battle system in most of the games with a few minor adjustments. Each character in Final Fantasy IX has his/her own unique ability; these include summoning, black magic, white magic, blue magic and techniques such as "Jump". The characters were designed after the creation of Final Fantasy IXs plot, unlike its predecessors, Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII, which had its protagonists created before the story. Both Zidane and Vivi's size and age were less than that of the characters from the above-mentioned other titles. Zidane was one of the original three characters revealed, along with Vivi and Steiner. Original concepts and designs were created by Yoshitaka Amano. The in-game version of each character was completed by Toshiyuki Itahana, Shunkou Murase and Shin Nagasawa. Main playable characters Zidane Tribal is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy IX. Zidane, along with other characters, was designed after the creation of Final Fantasy IXs plot, unlike its predecessors, Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII, which had its protagonists created before the story. Both Zidane and Vivi's size and age were less than that of the characters from the above-mentioned other titles. He was one of the original three characters revealed, along with Vivi and Steiner. He was conceived and written by Hironobu Sakaguchi, while his appearance was designed by Yoshitaka Amano and re-interpreted by Toshiyuki Itahana. His womanizing aspect was designed by Hiroyuki Ito. Sakaguchi described him as a person who "likes girls and doesn't care for much", lacking any real objective and being carefree, but a key character nonetheless. Zidane has shoulder-length blonde hair, blue eyes, and a prehensile monkey-like tail, as witnessed in game when Zidane hangs from his tail to evade Steiner. He can either use two daggers or a single swallow-blade as weapons. In trance form, Zidane's hair becomes