Why am I only now seeing that this blog has been back for a while now? Awesome. reading through the last couple of entries, I once again realize how many things Final Fantasy VII (and by extension, all Final Fantasies IV - IX, really) does right that modern games, including (very prominently) SquareEnix own output completely lack due to their embarrassing attempt at recreating movielike continuity editing in cutscenes. Some of what made the PSX Final Fantasies so successful and popular, I dare to say, are the long long stretches of interactive exposition; the illusion of gameplay when, in fact, you mostly walk, talk, and participate in a very rigid procession of staged events. The fact that it is the player who is asked to walk Cloud towards Aerith, and to raise his sword against her, as you said, despite the reality that there is no real choice or gameplay here, does so much more - SO much more - to place them into the gameworld emotionally than fancy motioncaptured faces, high quality voice actors, shaders, or even the more or less profound choices found in, for example, Mass Effect. Especially in combination with NOT giving the player control over the camera (you mentioned this in the previous episode, I think?) and not having a HUD (ie keeping the extradiegetic elements to a minimum) this is a manner of interactive storytelling that I sorely miss. I like my Uncharted setpieces as much as the next dude, but damn... Playing a PSX Final Fantasy sometimes meant doing something other than walking, collecting and fighting for stretches of _hours_. More so than movies, it resembled some kind of interactive stage play or graphic novel, where the dialogue is set, but the developers put their work into transforming the stage directions into interactive game elements, spcing things up with tactical combat or microgames where it made sense. Sigh.
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