What? I refuse to believe a game director for one of the cornerstone RPG franchises, from a studio with excellent writing, especially character writing imo, would somehow have an epiphany playing FF VII? Especially if they played it 202X seeing how basically every story driven game post FF VII has taken inspiration from it or a game inspired by it (etc.).
EDIT: Oh I'm a silly goose, BG 2 not BG 3... Still BG 1 companions are imo more iconic than BG 2, but they did up the seriousness and reduced the stereotyping with 2 so they did improve, even if they didn't have that magical X factor that 1 did.