Final Fantasy VII - Development

Development

Planning sessions for Final Fantasy VII began in 1994 after the release of Final Fantasy VI. At the time, the game was intended to be another 2D project for the Super Nintendo. Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi originally planned for the story to take place in New York in the year 1999, and as such, the original script of Final Fantasy VII, which was written by Sakaguchi, was completely different from the finished product. Tetsuya Nomura recalled how Sakaguchi "wanted to do something like a detective story." The first part of the story involved a "hot blooded" character named "Detective Joe" who was in pursuit of the main characters, after they had blown up the city of Midgar, which had already been developed for the story. The final scenario was written by Kazushige Nojima and Yoshinori Kitase, based on the story by Sakaguchi and Nomura. Masato Kato was brought into the project later and wrote three scenes for the game.

However, several of the staff members were working in parallel on Chrono Trigger, and development for Final Fantasy VII was interrupted when the other project became significant enough to require the help of Kitase and other designers. Some of the ideas originally considered for Final Fantasy VII ultimately ended up in Chrono Trigger instead. Other ideas, such as the New York setting and the sorceress character Edea, were kept unused until the later projects Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy VIII respectively.

Development resumed in late 1995, and required the efforts of approximately 120 artists and programmers, using PowerAnimator and Softimage 3D software. It was the most expensive video game of its time, with a budget of around US$45 million, equivalent to $64 million in 2012. Kitase was concerned the franchise might be left behind if it did not catch up to the 3D graphics being used in other games, and production began after the completion of a short, experimental tech demo called Final Fantasy SGI for Silicon Graphics' Onyx workstations. The demo featured polygon-based 3D renderings of characters from Final Fantasy VI in a real time battle. This experiment led the development team to integrate these design mechanics into Final Fantasy VII. However, as a result of the high quantity of memory storage required to implement the motion data, only the CD-ROM format would suit the project's needs. Nintendo, for whom Square had developed previous titles in the Final Fantasy series, had decided to continue to use cartridges for its upcoming Nintendo 64 console. This eventually led to a dispute that resulted in Square ending its relationship with Nintendo. Instead, they announced on January 12, 1996 that they would be developing Final Fantasy VII for Sony's PlayStation platform.

For the first time since working on Final Fantasy on the Famicom, Sakaguchi made the gameplay systems a priority over the story, as the team's main concern during the development of the game was how to implement the 3D. The transition from 2D graphics to 3D environments overlaid on pre-rendered backgrounds was accompanied by a focus on a more realistic presentation. While the extra storage capacity and computer graphics gave the team the means to implement more than 40 minutes of full motion video (FMV) movies, this innovation brought with it the added difficulty of ensuring that the inferiority of the in-game graphics in comparison to the FMV sequences was not too obvious. Kitase has described the process of making the in-game environments as detailed as possible to be "a daunting task." The series' long-time character designer, Yoshitaka Amano, was opening art workshops and exhibitions in France and New York, which limited his involvement in the game. As a result, Tetsuya Nomura was appointed as the project's character designer, while Amano aided in the design of the game's world map.

Several of Nomura's designs changed during development from their initial conceptions. For example, Cloud's original design of slicked-back black hair with no spikes was intended to serve as a contrast to Sephiroth's long, flowing silver hair. Nomura feared, however, that such masculinity could prove unpopular with fans, and therefore he changed Cloud's design to feature a shock of spiky, bright blond hair. Vincent changed from researcher to detective to chemist, and finally to the figure of a former Turk with a tragic past. Nomura has indicated that Cid Highwind's fighting style resembles that of a Dragoon Knight, a character class which was chosen because his last name is the same as that of two previous Dragoon Knights featured in the Final Fantasy series, Ricard Highwind of Final Fantasy II and Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV.

The music for Final Fantasy VII was composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Instead of recorded music and sound effects for the game, Uematsu opted for MIDIs, using the PlayStation's internal sound chip. Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the series to include a track with digitized vocals; specifically in "One-Winged Angel", which has been described as Uematsu's "most recognizable contribution" to the music of the Final Fantasy series. Uematsu has said the soundtrack has a feel of "realism", which prevented him from using "exorbitant, crazy music."

In early August 1996, a demonstration disc called "Square's Preview Extra" was released in Japan as a bonus pack-in with the PlayStation game Tobal No. 1. The disc contained the earliest playable demo of Final Fantasy VII and previews of other upcoming games such as Bushido Blade and SaGa Frontier. The demo allowed players to play through the first part of Midgar. However, there were some noticeable differences from the final version, namely that Aerith was featured in the initial party and the ability to use Summons had not yet been implemented.