We were still young when we worked on The Black Tower prototype and made several mistakes (it was 11 years ago!). Today we would make many things differently for such an ambitious project! More stylized characters, different story, etc. But we're still big fans of the look and art of FF7 to FF9 PS1 for various reasons, as much as other games with prerendered backgrounds like Chrono Cross, Syberia, Grim Fandango... I myself worked a lot on such commercial games with prerendered environments (ASA, Boïnihi), and still like a lot this technique.

What I like is that in these games we don't play in TPS camera, and we have a good view over the scenes, with quite static cameras, yet camera angles that can be different in each scene, which allows to tell the story in a more theatral way. Compared to TPS view, it makes it different to explore the environments to look for treasures and hidden items, as much as providing an overall view of the places visited by the heros. It can sometimes give the feeling that the world is small or more narrow, but that's also part of the charm. The addition of animated cutscenes (video) adds to the immersion and narration in a unique way. And that makes it globally feasable for a small indie team to create that kind of game, compared to modern RPGs such as FFVII Remake, Persona 5, or even games like Baldur's Gate III, that all look awesome but are out of reach for smaller creators...

Recently, @BeckoningCat introduced his new game Caesura (https://beckoningcat.itch.io/caesura-sparkles-of-lie) kind of mix of Zelda, FF, Ico, tower defense, etc. And I really like it! That motivated me a lot, even though it's not a pure RPG. I want to see the PS1 J-RPG genre come back to life on the indie scene! Not only 2d games, which are fine and sometimes stunning, but more for a niche audience.
I also tried to make my own adventure game with 2d backgrounds and 3d characters last year during a 1 month game jam, and I know that technically it's not that difficult to create these games in Unity engine, at least for the narrative part. You can check it here: https://gamejolt.com/games/TWIS1/905488

So globally we have the technique and many ideas and motivation, but we lack a team. I'm not saying we're starting to make a new game in the genre right now (not at all), but I wish we could do it in a few years! I'm currently busy trying to finish other games, but that leaves time for thinking and talking.... That means we are opened for discussion, and DMs are welcome ;)

What we would need the most for such a project:
- a character design (someone with good drawing skills, maybe in a japanese/manga style?)
- a battle programmer (someone who could work on the systems in Unity engine)

We can take care of the rest of the production, even if it would be very long and slow. Additional 3d modelers, character animators and other things like that would be more than welcome.
However we can't pay anyone, it would have to be a project made at home, with royalties split if the game becomes commercial. For this very reason we understand if nobody wants to join in.
However if you join, we need people who are passionaite by the FF PS1 style, and who can definitely find free time to get involved.

That's it, we're just throwing the idea, wanting to discuss and try to build something if a possibility occurs. If that doesn't work and nobody's interested, then fine :D It doesn't mean I won't try again myself to work on such a game on my own in the future

I'm a little crazy and ambitious when it comes to J-RPG as I grew up with them and love them, as much as the prerendered 3d thing. Passion is speaking!