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There was a moment during the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct where I stopped everything I was doing, leaned in super hard, and pushed down on that volume button until my bones ached – and it was all because, for three whole, long seconds, I thought Final Fantasy 9's Princess Garnet/Dagger was on screen.
But it wasn't to be. What was actually on screen was Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster – coming to the Switch 2 as a launch game this summer – and one of its four central characters, Agnes, who shares a few features with Dagger: she has long brown hair, is from a Square Enix game, and, at least in the announcement trailer below, wears a bright dress similar to some of Dagger's fits.
I wasn't the only one who freaked out, though. I've seen tons of other people joke about how they were fooled by the trailer's opening shots, which show Agnes' back with Square Enix's logo printed in big letters on top.
And a new compilation proves I wasn't totally out of my mind. Anyone who has any love for the best Final Fantasy (yes, it is) or anyone who's heard of the long, long rumored remake also seems to have had the same idea.
Nintendo Direct 2025 - NOT Final Fantasy 9 Remake Compilation | Streamers/Youtubers REACTIONS!Made a little reaction compilation of the Direct. pic.twitter.com/J9QkrVrftSApril 4, 2025
If you're unfamiliar, mentions of a Final Fantasy 9 remake were found in a Nvidia leak from years ago, which happened to have held legitimate information about then-future games like Helldivers 2, PC ports for exclusives like God of War, and hard-to-guess remakes/remasters for games like Actraiser and Destroy All Humans 2.
Since then, speculation about a Final Fantasy 9 refresh of some kind has been nearly non-stop. Final Fantasy 14 had some unignorable references to the classic game that director Naoki Yoshida later said he was unsure about even including because of the fanbase's attachment to it.
More recently, Square Enix created a 25th anniversary website for Final Fantasy 9 in preparation for "various projects" around its milestone birthday, so a remake is looking more and more likely by the day.
