Quote Originally Posted by Bolivar View Post
Final Fantasy VI didn't have Full Motion Video.
So what? It did what it could with Mode 7 graphics and also happened to have in engine cut scenes. Functionally they serve the same purpose.

I said JRPGs do some things I haven't seen WRPGs do. Wolf claimed I said these things don't exist in other genres. You said I should defend that position.
No I didn't.

Assuming your opponent has made an argument they have not is a really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking.. If people calling you out for logical fallacies is something that insults you then perhaps you should stop making them?
It insults me when you try to brush off my point as being a really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking. when I did no such thing. I was simply stating that it is perfectly valid, and certainly within the purview of this thread topic, to discuss things JRPG's specialize in which are fairly unique to them. I think we could easily come up with a longer list than set pieces which were never really unique to them at all anyway, and I think it's worth while as well, particularly when recent WRPG's have been relying on creating more set piece moments. I mean, sure, historically that is something JRPG's do more than WRPG's, but why stop there? Why not try to find some more, and perhaps drill down a bit further into how they go about creating these set piece moments and if there's anything unique about their approach. That was all. Anything you inferred beyond that came from your head, not mine.

I simply hold that it's a game that advanced the cinematic qualities of the medium. I don't think that's ever been a controversial statement.
I actually don't see it. It had cut scenes sure. A decent number of them, and they tried to transition

It also introduced the seamless transition between FMV and gameplay. I'm open to considering any precursors you can find.
If you're going to limit yourself solely to the seamless transition from FMV and gameplay I think this misses the point that FMV's are functionally no different than things games were doing for years anyway. They just looked prettier in FFVII. But if you're going to ignore all cutscenes and simply focus on FMV's, then sure, it's hard to think of many examples, largely because I didn't get a Playstation until after FFVII came out.

But okay, so let's just say I concede the point that FFVII introduced the seamless transition between FMV and gameplay. So what? You've yet to actually explain how this moved gaming forward as a medium, or how FFVII in particular influenced it. Okay, so it made things more "cinematic," but you're not even explaining why you think it matters. You're simply stating it happened, and it proliferated, but not why that's good. And honestly, I've got to say that I think the release of MGS less than a year later did far more to sell cinematic games. FFVII was eye-catching sure, but there wasn't much substance behind those FMV's, whereas MGS told a compelling story filled with plenty of mystery and intriguing characters, with top notch voice acting, and well directed in engine cut scenes that transitioned well into gameplay.

Also, the beauty of calling something inevitable is that it has already happened. The foolishness of assuming all things happen on a predetermined timeline has been demonstrated in more authoritative places. Even if something was inevitable, it does not take away from the first person to actually have the ingenuity to do it.
Again, see above. FMV's weren't new. A seamless transition between gameplay and FMV was, but not by much. Many other companies were doing variations of the same thing within such a close time period that it's hard to say that they were actually influenced by FFVII unless they were somehow built from the ground up in under a year. And I'm not trying to take away from what FFVII did, I'm simply saying that it was doing something that many were doing at the exact same time, and which was itself merely a more advanced version of things games had been doing for years before it anyway.

My point being, you seem to be hung up on the technology used to implement the cutscene and transition, rather than the actual substance of it and how it plays out in gameplay terms.

Anyway, it's late and I'm tired so perhaps I'm doing a poor job of getting my point across. Simply put, I don't think you've made an effective argument for why the seamless transition from FMV to gameplay is important, nor how it's substantively different from the in engine cutscenes games had been doing for decades with seamless transitions.