As many of you already know Final Fantasy VII started development on Super Famicom (SNES) in 1994 although it's unclear if Square ever went beyond the planning stage and started creating assets for Nintendo 16-bit system. In the recently released Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Memorial Ultimania there is the following early concept that shows a 2D isometric perspective village filled with FF VI based characters like Locke. That reignited my interest (this and Dream by Rare are my two favorite "unknown" SNES projects) and thus I thought to start the thread over here. Here what Kitase told to swedish magazine LEVEL about the development phases Final Fantasy 7 went through: Rumor from a 1995 GameFan issue:
And this Donkey Kong Country SGI Style graphics came to become "Treasure Hunter G" instead if i'm not correct
To be clear I haven't said that the image in the OP is a screenshot from a "phantom" SNES version. It shouldn't even be a real screenshot, just a concept. What I meant is that the concept is so wildly different from the final "3D" game (although "cinematic" is a better term) and more akin to a tile based SNES version that it's probably from a development phase before the third one cited by Kitase in the OP quote. Can someone with japanese skill translate the image's caption? I'm curious ! http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dkh3hNfODo8/UPq1N8eB33I/AAAAAAAACMY/K8AnZF8wIVQ/s1600/DSC09244.JPG
That's a pity. Considering Final Fantasy SGI demo was first shown at Siggraph '95 in August and it had FFVI characters as this one, it wouldn't surprise me if the concept was from first half '95.
The screenshot could be a prototype from the SuperCD or whatever the Sony/Philips/Nintendo frankenconsole was going to be.
