This game was plagued by internal conflict within the development team. Hiroki Kikuta wanted to take the RPG genre into a new direction while the others wanted to do something more close to what Squaresoft (now Square Enix) was doing at the time. Kikuta wanted the game to be action orientated, citing Resident Evil as inspiration.
Kikuta departed Sacnoth after the game was released and Sacnoth changed their name to Nautilus. This game is considered the source material for the series Shadow Hearts, as the games take place in the Koudelka universe.