i understand what you mean. ill minimize the polys where i can. timu commented on a thread before. 12 sides around is what he said then. for caits weapons. ill optimize where i can but that may just be the feet and the limbs.
Just remember, 12 sides is not likely to look any different from 6 sides at the resolution the frogs limbs will be displayed at. Especially since the only shading of the model will be done via your texture.
This is an image of two cylinders displayed with the battle engine's shading. Can you tell the difference? One has 8 sides and the other has 36. And this is displayed at a much higher resolution than those legs will be seen at. The majority of your detail should come from your texture, as that's what the battle engine is designed to display the most detail with.
The feet are looking fine if I'm honest, I wouldn't really change those too much.
- Wouldn't it be good practice to make a very high-poly model, and then make downgrades from it which would in turn be incorporated in the game?
Not unless you're going to be using it in another situation where you'll be zooming in very close and rotating around an individual limb. 'Downgrading' isn't as simple as you may think.
It's like building a huge rocket for the sole purpose of heating some milk in your kitchen occasionally. Or something.
- I also wonder if the aforementioned suggestion would be best in our situation, given that our project has no "release date".
Considering the production of FF7 was completed in 1996, the battle engine isn't likely to suddenly spontaneously change. The only other factor to really consider is typical screen resolution, which I don't think is likely to completely skyrocket anytime soon. Besides, 1080p HD is by far enough for this kind of project. Hell, updating the graphics to look nice at 640*480 would be a vast improvement.
Regarding the mouth thing, the point of this project is to build something around the original source using artistic license and original artwork to fill in details that aren't clear. As long as you're keeping roughly true to the original model, it's basically up to the artist.