January 9, 2017 - Yoshinori Kitase, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Polygon FF7 Interview
General Information[edit]
Polygon ran a massive interview feature over Final Fantasy VII featuring most of the original development team. It's simply amazing how they got all these guys together in one room. Read it here. Chrono Trigger was mentioned as follows:
Yoshinori Kitase - Director, Square Japan
But at that time Chrono Trigger’s development was in dire straits, so all the team members switched over to help with Chrono Trigger … and that’s as far as it went.
Hironobu Sakaguchi - Producer and executive vice president, Square Japan; Chairman and chief executive officer, Square USA
Ah, yes, that’s right. I remember now. It was when we consolidated everyone on Chrono Trigger. That’s right. Before we made Chrono Trigger, we had talked about making FF7, but then we moved everyone over to the Chrono Trigger team. I do recall now; I did write a scenario for FF7, a different story (than the one we eventually used). I don’t remember it being in New York though. You know, I think the New York idea might be from Parasite Eve. And Joe, that’s actually the original name I had for the protagonist from Lost Odyssey. I don’t know, maybe all this information is getting mixed up somewhere.
From: Interviews