According to a 1997 The PlayStation magazine interview with the game's director Makoto Ikehara & programmer Tatsuya Kitabayashi, they were asked how the game's development began. Ikehara stated that their developments "always sort of start the same way, with just a title." After which they just make whatever they want, and force it to all fit together after the fact. Ikehara also stated that when changing series to the PlayStation, the team considered calling the third game just "Breath of Fire" without the "III", but they ultimately decided not to as they wanted to bring about a conclusion to the work they had done up to then.

Kitabayashi added that after Breath of Fire II had finished, the team, now more confident, wanted to carry over that momentum from the previous game and begin working on Breath of Fire III straightaway.

Ikehara was also asked if there were things that they could not achieve in II that they wanted to do in III, to which he responded: