I been thinking all day more on this and want to expand on my thoughts last night
Hopefully tired 2000s game takes are less annoying than a democratic debate
Last night I was pontificating about how FFIX completely in the context of it as an artifact crated to epitomize a specific sort of story-game form before new technologies changed the form forever.
I want to try to illuminate what I'm thinking about when I say a kind of "form."
how FFIX* works completely in the context...
There's game genre's right? FPS, Fortnights, Platformers, etc. JRPGs and WRPGs as different approaches to a numbers heavy story-game evolved from tabletop role playing.
Form is kinda like how you shape the design to achieve the goals of the particular genre you’re working in
The UK's sprawling collectible focused platformers of the 8-bit era could be called a different form from the level-based platformers coming out of Japan, but they both try to achieve the same goal of jumping on platforms and navigating obstacles.
I don't know how far you can stretch the definition of "Form." It's still pretty wobbly in my brain. But I think I see JRPGs as a specific form of the story-telling game.
"Story-telling game" here I'm thinking of as a genre of games that make the telling of a plot an important goal of the creative endeavor. JRPGs, walking simulators, but graphic adventures and things like Myst too.
Alright, I hope that all makes a kind-of sense. Looking at JRPGs specifically: you have this genre growing from Dragon Quest (which grew from Wizardry and Ultima and other closer-to-tabletop articulations of the non-electronic RPGs).
Dragon Quest being the landmark title it is as it because it streamlined the RPGs experience, moving it away from byzantine rulesets and complicated interfaces, hiding all the math and dice and stuff behind the scenes.
And because of that streamlining it pushed the quest-narrative structure more to the forefront laying the groundwork for iterative works to push a narrative goal more forcefully
to put it more directly: because you had to go to Erdrick's grave in DQ to find his armor is why JRPGs are so story heavy.
Come in with Final Fantasy, even more story ambitious than DQ (which was pushing narrative in its own directions at the same time with DQIII)
and now you've got these two giant pillars of design sensibilities (working in the same form) responding to and reacting to each other, and a whole host of other teams responding to and iterating on DQ/FF and pushing into their own directions.
But all of them working in this same "form" that shares the same goals: math and numbers systems for simulational gameplay and also drive to present a compelling narative.
Math and numbers is the easy part. That's what computers do best. Interlocking systems to ultimately describe how hard one person hits another: simple. But how do you tell a story within the limited tools available in 8-bit times?
Simply plots with artificial dialog. More importantly: your characters can't act or emote. Dialog is it's on separate part of the screen entirely. Sprites are small constrained. Everything has to be implied. 
The crazy thing is that it still works. We as humans can navigate the abstractions enough to still experience a story in this form. Despite all its limitations it still is recognizable enough as "a performance" to us to react and feel from it.
That's super cool.
The most constraining limitation, far beyond memory constraints limiting how much you could animate a character or how big the script could be, is the locked camera angle.
An 8-bit JRPG can only present it's story from one angle: a medium high shot that frames all elements of a set in nondiscriminatory fashion.
What a bizarre way to present a story! As if the audience was looking down into a dollhouse and never being able to adjust their angle of view.
Tiny performers playing out epic journeys all viewed from the seat of God.
Tiny performers playing out epic journeys all viewed from the seat of God.
16-Bit RPGs, despite the increased technological advances and memory space, are all refinements of this same approach. Now characters can emote, from the thought balloons of FFIV to the animated snickers of Chrono Trigger, the performances are more expressive.
But the camera angle remains the same. Top-down, indiscriminate, impartial, sterile.
With the jump to 32-bit however, Squaresoft did something truly innovative
On the Playstation there's plenty of RPGs that are still iterations on that Dragon Quest top-down viewpoint storytelling presentation. Wild Arms, Tales of Destiny, Breath of Fire 3 all are working in that same tradition.
But then you got Square with Final Fantasy VII. It was this mega hit and the cutting edge of what games could be. It made the market for JRPGs in the west. It was seen as this amazing fresh thing.
At the time and still to this day the CGI cutscenes and move to polygons are seen as the cause for its next-gen qualtiy and cinematic approach to story.
but the truly innovative thing, the thing that changed what this story-telling genre could be, was a simple trick.
Instead of presenting their story from a distance from a single viewpoint by building environments out of tiles or simple polygons they constructed detailed 3-D environments on powerful computers far stronger than what the Playstation could ever dream to produce.
Then they took pictures of those renders.
This let them create something far more artistic, detailed, and impressive than what the Playstation could do in realtime.
Throw in some looping quicktime movies for animated elements and some effect works and these photographs make a convincing environment.
Throw in some looping quicktime movies for animated elements and some effect works and these photographs make a convincing environment.
Not only was this a gigantic "wow" factor but it gave the artists a tool they didn't have before. Something that would make their storytelling presentation truly cinematic: camera angles.
Now the artists at Squaresoft could use all the tools of cinematography to present their story.
Tight close shots
Tight close shots
or wide long shots to capture dramatic vistas
Classic high shots to give a clear view of an enviroment
or artfully crafted mise en scène for emotional framing of dramatic moments.
Camera angles to create emotional force. A solemn moment of freedom and wistfully longing
or a remembrance of a summer night and youthful naivety
Or the shocking realization of an opponent's strength.
This is the real cinematic invention of FFVII. The ability to change the camera angle and frame scenes to emphasize emotional and aesthetic aspect of the story.
In other words, the tools used to present a story in the JRPG form leapfrogged by an unprecedented degree.
A desperate failing for a name for this sub-form would be something like "cinematic story-games." Someone come up with something witty.
Misen-en-scenanias
This sub-form only really existed on the Playsation, that platform being the intersection of expansive yet limited tech that necessitated the innovation that lead to the sub-form's creation.
By the time FFX came around on the PS2 the ability to craft realtime 3D environments and present the story with acted speech changed the genre into a new sub-form again.
And even on the playstation the high cost of producing this cinemation sub-form meant that only very successful development teams (or crazy independent projects) could afford to create all the fancy pre-rendered photographs needed.
Off the top of my head you have:
FF VII, VIII, IX, Chrono Cross, Parasite Eve, Legend of Dragoon, Koudelka, Shadow Madness, Jade Cocoon, the three Resident Evils, and... any others? Is that it?
FF VII, VIII, IX, Chrono Cross, Parasite Eve, Legend of Dragoon, Koudelka, Shadow Madness, Jade Cocoon, the three Resident Evils, and... any others? Is that it?
Despite this sub-forms greatly increased tool set, there are still significant constraints: no acted dialog, character models are still limited in their expressiveness, and the most important one: you can't move the camera. You can change the angle but every shot is static.
This means that the camera angles are even MORE important than in film. Each one will not only be a long shot but it will also be the staging for all the action within that shot.
Occasionally you'll get something dynamic like this cut to reverse angle outside the second reactor bombing mission near the start of VII.
But moments like these are rare. For the most part all the action in a scene happens in a way that's closer to live performance: actors upon a stage.
No matter how artistically framed a shot is, that shot is going to be the set for the scene.
Think how much more powerful the comedy of this scene could have been if they took some more dramatic shots to cut close into, but instead the whole thing plays from a high medium.
Think how much more powerful the comedy of this scene could have been if they took some more dramatic shots to cut close into, but instead the whole thing plays from a high medium.
So this sub-form, despite its expressiveness compared to older JRPGs, is still very limited in how it can present a narrative. Only a handful of games were made in this form and it was only relevant for about 5 years.
It's this weird film-theater-game thing that's ultimately very singular in its existence.
But it's because of its uniqueness and fleeting relevance that makes its special. There's really nothing like these Playstation cinematic story-games. And unlike 8 and 16-bit RPGs, we haven't seen their like often sense.
Even as Final Fantasy games were able to craft stunning 3D environments, the player-controlled camera makes them more like simulations to exist in than a cinematic story-game. FFXII and FFXIII are LESS cinematic than the Playstation trilogy.
And this is the context I've been looking at FFIX at. As seen as the culmination of the cinematic story-game sub-form it comes into focus as the masterwork it is.
...Galerians
