[2500] Verify LEVEL magazine interviews talking about Chrono Trigger

[ZeaLitY]

On NeoGAF, two threads were made about a Swedish gaming magazine that supposedly featured an interview with Kitase, who mentioned Chrono Trigger's early development. These issues were sometime around May 2006 and May 2008.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98617
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=302056

Kitase on FFVII's initial development: "Our first plans were interrupted, since we had to help out with Chrono Trigger, which had turned into a huge project. But as soon as we had done what we could with that game, we started over from the beginning with FFVII. And back then we were fully focused on the disk system that was gonna be released for the Nintendo 64 (the 64DD). We never actually received a working prototype, but we did everything according to the planned specifications."

Nomura on experimenting with the N64 analog stick: "We had an idea about how you would be able to look around in the dungeons with the help of it, but we never really got further than that."

Kitase: "We actually began work from the ground up on three separate occasions. First directly after FFVI, then again after Chrono Trigger, and finally when we decided that CD-ROM technology was going to be a necessity and that it would therefore be released on the PlayStation."

Nomura: "But some of the ideas we had been discussing from the beginning are actually still intact in the finished game. And other ones, like Edea, ended up in FFVIII."

Q: When you look at Midgar and how modern it feels compared to previous towns in FF, it feels completely logical that a present-day New York was the model image. And I assume that these ideas also formed the basis for Parasite Eve and perhaps even a time period in Chrono Trigger?

Kitase: Right, that’s how it was. Many of us who took part in these early planning sessions worked in parallel on Chrono Trigger, and Sakaguchi went on to make Parasite Eve right after FFVII together with Tetsuya Nomura among other people. So some of the ideas we had at this stage ended up in those games instead.

These interviews were posted without scans or any other modicum of authenticity, so we need to verify them for inclusion on Wikipedia's Chrono Trigger development section.

Also, need to find and translate LEVEL RETRO - SNES VOL.2.

[KebreI]

I am looking for some scans, but there was a FFVII interview judging from the cover of that issue:

[Carnivol]

Not sure if you've had any luck on finding out which issues those quotes were translated from, but I can at least vouch for LEVEL as being a very reliable magazine when it comes to what they put on print and things like this. As for the translations posted on GAF, I dunno, but seeing as the user hasn't been banned, I guess he didn't screw up when posting that. LEVEL's editor-in-chief is an absolutely awesome guy by the name of Tobias Bjarneby, by the way. Worst case scenario, you could probably give contacting him a shot (you have approximate dates based on those NeoGAF posts and stuff, so... it's a start.)

I currently don't have a subscription to LEVEL, so I don't really have a huge pile of their issues, but I'm currently buying all their "Retro" issues (#1 was for the NES, #2 was SNES vol. 1 '90~'93 and #3 should be out right about now, being SNES vol. 2, which I guess has a high probability of at least containing a mention of Chrono Trigger, if not even a good few dedicated pages to it, along with some other big names from the post-93 years of the SNES. I can probably see if I can drop by and give a heads up on that if it does.)

[ZeaLitY]

Thanks. Between that and Kebrel's image, it's seeming very likely.

[Carnivol]

'oy! Late reply (and slightly under the influence of alcohol). Anyway, I know this is late, but LEVEL RETRO - SNES VOL.2 contains a 10p article on Chrono Trigger (or, well, 9 pages, if you don't count the one that's just half-a-cloud-thingy).

If people are interested, I'd gladly translate the entire thing to English at the best of my Swedish->English capability (Note 'n' disclaimer; neither Swedish nor English is my native language)

[ZeaLitY]

Well, for this and the Nuumamonja thing, yeah, I'd say there's always interest. You won't see much vocal interest here, I guess, owing to the community's catatonia and the general decline of the franchise.