Gaming has a bunch of fun "what if?" questions, from the SNES PlayStation to every canned Guillermo del Toro project, but this Final Fantasy VII one is super fun. It's not new by any means, but it's a fun story to share regardless. I didn't even know about it until I read it in the Third Editions Kingdom Hearts book, and I have read a lot of the Final Fantasy wiki, let me tell you.
So, after development of Final Fantasy VI wrapped, the team immediately pivoted to work on the follow-up. Producer Sakaguchi wanted it to focus on the theme of "life", which carried through till the end, but the initial plan was for it to come out on the SNES and be set in New York City. While the concept image below was presumably made before they even got that far, it shows what it could have looked like, in terms of graphical polish. This was Squaresoft after years of working with the hardware, after all.
(Un)fortunately in late 1994, presumably very shortly after FFVII's production even started, most of the team had to break from the project to focus their efforts entirely on a little game called Chrono Trigger. That included Yoshinori Kitase, who was eventually credited as a CT Director, and Tetsuya Nomura, who worked as a Field Graphic Designer mere months before he shot to fame.
As a result, FFVII development didn't really resume until late 1995, with the game now being set for release on the next generation of consoles with a focus on 3D graphics. In time, elements like the New York City setting were scrapped, though the core theme of life and the central characters of Cloud and an eco-terrorist organization remained.
A few years later, New York was finally used as the setting for Parasite Eve, and one of the early Tetsuya Nomura character designs, a sorceress witch, was eventually repurposed for Final Fantasy VIII's Edea.
And that isn't even going into how Xenogears was basically another Final Fantasy VII concept repurposed. Coincidentally that game was originally codenamed Chrono Trigger 2, though that connection didn't last long at all by the sound of things.
So yeah, it's fun to imagine what could have been. How would a New York City-based Final Fantasy look on the SNES? How was a witch going to factor into things? After 9/11, would a game about terrorists running about New York City have been pulled from store shelves entirely? Would it have been the ground-breaking JRPG that'd usher in a wave of Japanese games into western markets, like the real FFVII? Or would fate have led to the Final Fantasy VII we all know and love, regardless?
As we all wait on the Final Fantasy VII Remake, it's fun to think back on how it probably wouldn't even exist if not for Chrono Trigger's ambition.
So, after development of Final Fantasy VI wrapped, the team immediately pivoted to work on the follow-up. Producer Sakaguchi wanted it to focus on the theme of "life", which carried through till the end, but the initial plan was for it to come out on the SNES and be set in New York City. While the concept image below was presumably made before they even got that far, it shows what it could have looked like, in terms of graphical polish. This was Squaresoft after years of working with the hardware, after all.
(Un)fortunately in late 1994, presumably very shortly after FFVII's production even started, most of the team had to break from the project to focus their efforts entirely on a little game called Chrono Trigger. That included Yoshinori Kitase, who was eventually credited as a CT Director, and Tetsuya Nomura, who worked as a Field Graphic Designer mere months before he shot to fame.
As a result, FFVII development didn't really resume until late 1995, with the game now being set for release on the next generation of consoles with a focus on 3D graphics. In time, elements like the New York City setting were scrapped, though the core theme of life and the central characters of Cloud and an eco-terrorist organization remained.
A few years later, New York was finally used as the setting for Parasite Eve, and one of the early Tetsuya Nomura character designs, a sorceress witch, was eventually repurposed for Final Fantasy VIII's Edea.
And that isn't even going into how Xenogears was basically another Final Fantasy VII concept repurposed. Coincidentally that game was originally codenamed Chrono Trigger 2, though that connection didn't last long at all by the sound of things.
So yeah, it's fun to imagine what could have been. How would a New York City-based Final Fantasy look on the SNES? How was a witch going to factor into things? After 9/11, would a game about terrorists running about New York City have been pulled from store shelves entirely? Would it have been the ground-breaking JRPG that'd usher in a wave of Japanese games into western markets, like the real FFVII? Or would fate have led to the Final Fantasy VII we all know and love, regardless?
As we all wait on the Final Fantasy VII Remake, it's fun to think back on how it probably wouldn't even exist if not for Chrono Trigger's ambition.
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