A strange way to show a flashback (VII and VIII)

It may just be the way the games shown, or how the translation has gone, but the way the flashbacks for the Promise in VII (the one one shown in Seventh Heaven) and (SPOILER)The Orphanage Scene in VIII is strange - it seams like the characters are actually showing eachother the flash back.


In FFVII, Cloud and Tifa are suddenly in Nibelheim, and Tifa says "Look at the well!" and then the actuall flashback begins, a similar thing happens in VIII, when the characters say things like "What about this?" "Yeah, this is right!" Like they're all WATCHING the flashback rather than actualy REMEMBERING it. If that makes sense...

I think it is a rather interesting way of delivering flashbacks and one working quite well in those games.

It's pretty unusual. Still, I think it works quite well and spares the player from having to see a character describe the scene they're about to see for themselves anyway. ("Remember that night by the well, when [so and so happened]?")

I think it is one of those story telling mediums that works well in video games, but not nearly as well in other media. This is the kind of thing I like about video games. With the new trend to essentially splicing in little cinematic movie cut-scenes into games I feel that they are focusing on trying to tell stories like movies, and less on how they can use the medium they have to their advantage. (By and large)

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

I think it is one of those story telling mediums that works well in video games, but not nearly as well in other media. This is the kind of thing I like about video games. With the new trend to essentially splicing in little cinematic movie cut-scenes into games I feel that they are focusing on trying to tell stories like movies, and less on how they can use the medium they have to their advantage. (By and large)

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Wow insight ftw. Reminds me of how Sakaguchi stated he wanted to make games that surpass films, and FFVII was the culmination of that desire and ongoing effort.

It seems like a technique they probably picked up from plays, or maybe it's something that's been used in Japanese cinema. Yoshinori Kitase, the director of FFVII, was a film student and it shows. The use of camera angles, incredible FMV's, and above all the way the story is presented are probably all insights he drew from film school.

But then again, this seems like a technique from theatre moreso than film, so I'm guessing he studied that as well.