This page details pre-release information and/or media for Final Fantasy VII.

To do:
Oh boy. There is a lot of pre-release footage, documents, and interviews that need to be archived here.

Start looking in the Japanese-only Disk 4 first.
Cross-reference the info to see if I screwed up a detail.
This archived website has many prerelease materials to sort through.
Another website here.
Check what game released on a Nintendo console after FF7 and link it with the last part of the last sentence.

Developmental Timeline

1994

April - Development begins for the SNES.

1995

December - Development resumes after Square hires 3D graphic design artists.

1996

January 2 - Development is shifted to the PlayStation.

1997

January 31 - Final Fantasy VII is released in Japan.
August 31 - Final Fantasy VII is released in North America.

1994

April

After Final Fantasy VI had finished development, Square had already begun work on VII for the SNES. However, a lot of the staff were occupied with Chrono Trigger, and it became significant enough to the point where development on the sequel game was halted.

1995

August

To do:

This video is good for finding out more info about the tech demo.

Originally, Square developed Final Fantasy VI: The Interactive CG Game as a tech demo to test out new hardware, and what they wanted to do for the series' jump to 3D.

An early version of the Bahamut (Mega Flare) summon is shown firing at a city.

(Source: Shmuplations, weeatvideogames (Video))

December

To do:
Add info about how development resumed this year.

Final Fantasy VII officially resumed development as Square recruited 3D graphic artists.

(Source: Archive.org)

1996

January

Wanting to keep their price low for Final Fantasy VII and needing to use more space for their games, Square knew that the Nintendo 64 wouldn't be fit for their standards. Although they initially considered switching to the Sega Saturn and PC, Square officially announced on the 2nd that they would be officially switching the development of their future games to the PlayStation instead. This would ultimately result in Nintendo shutting them out until the presidents of both companies had already left.

Footage

FF7 International JP CD 4 Bonus

Pre-rendered backgrounds that look very early and rough in comparison to what ended up in the released game.
Slightly different battle UI.
The models of the protagonists had changes made to them; the most notable one is probably Barret, who is very tall in this video.