According to director Seiichi Ishii, the game was originally planned to feature a roster of characters from Chrono Trigger after he requested to work with that game's lead artist Akira Toriyama. Ishii wanted to work with him because around that time, Trunks from Toriyama's manga series "Dragon Ball Z" had recently been introduced, and he wanted a character like him in the game. As work on the game's prototype progressed, Toriyama was brought on and offered to design a full cast of new characters for the game instead of using Chrono Trigger characters.