Square Enix is selling a 1,000-piece, 20-by-29-inch Final Fantasy 9 puzzle called Denouement, which shows the game’s heroes gathered before the gigantic Iifa Tree. It’s priced at $39.99 in the US and £32.99 in the UK. Wherever you are, it’ll be a nice way to spend some time in Gaia, the planet where the game takes place.
Denouement and the other two puzzles in this series, Integrity and Reclusion, are part of the celebration of the 2000 PlayStation RPG’s 25th anniversary — which kicked off with an anniversary website in March 2025 and has stretched well past the game’s July birthday. Square Enix has gone all in on merch for the occasion, releasing a Timeless Tale vinyl, a picture book about Vivi, music boxes, plush toys, a Zidane action figure, and more.
Final Fantasy 9 follows Zidane, a thief who kidnaps Princess Garnet as part of a neighboring kingdom’s ploy, only for that simple gig to spiral into a war between nations and a plot to replace one planet’s souls with another’s. Denouement features Zidane, Garnet, and the rest of their party as they overlook the Iifa Tree, a giant tree planted long ago to block Gaia’s souls from returning to the planet’s crystal, where they’d normally be reborn. The tree casts those souls out through its roots as a mist, which the game’s main villain, Kuja, uses to create black mages. When the party follows Kuja to the tree late in the game, they battle their way through the tree’s guardian, a monster called Soulcage, then Kuja himself, and finally Necron, a being bent on erasing all life. Then the tree collapses, and the souls it trapped are finally free to go home. (Hence the puzzle’s name: a denouement is the part of a story where the threads resolve.)
The other two puzzles focus on Kuja and Vivi. Reclusion shows Kuja inside the tree next to his Silver Dragon: a villain created to help the tree swap Gaia’s souls faster. Integrity shows Vivi, the party’s black mage and one of Kuja’s early prototypes, looking up at Zidane in front of a large moon.
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Pre-orders are open on the UK site for Denouement’s November 2026 release, though Square Enix notes that dates and piece counts may change. (The US site’s Denouement page notes the puzzle is sold out, pending further updates from Square Enix.) If you’re not able to wait until November or don’t grab the Denouement puzzle in time, the US store sells Reclusion and Integrity at $39.99 each, along with a foil-stamped Denouement playmat for $39.99, a holofoil playmat from Ultra PRO for $36.99, and music boxes at $25.99 each. In the game, the Iifa Tree collapses. Now, it’s yours to put back together, one piece at a time.
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