| Khuutra said: I am rested and fed (leftover turkey drumsticks), so I will address this now. The hting abotu Phoenix Wright's storytelling and the way that it differs from the standard mode... well, that depends on how you look at cutscenes. One school of looking at cutscenes is what I think of as the Miyamoto School of In-Game Video: it actually has less to do with conveying narrative than it does establishing the challenge you are about to face, or breaking the pace after the completion of a challenge. In Super Mario Bros., the short ditty that plays upon completing a course (you know the one ) acts as a signal that you can breathe and take a short mental break, taking comfort in the fact that the game is taking control from you - which means, of course, that you're safe. The 3-D Marios do much the same thing every time one obtains a star or a ky or a Grand Star or whatever, but htey also add the other element of introducing new challenges through cutscenes: instead of indicating that you are safe, cutscenes like the ones preceding a fight with Bowser indicate mounting danger and challenge. Afterward of course you will get the "Reward" cutscene, but that initial indication of peril is still there. Miyamoto cutscenes are solely about enhancing or alleviating the experience of gameplay. Then you take something like .... I suppose I will call Zelda's Aonuma cutscenes, because if it were up to Miyamoto they would still be essentially like the Mario games. Aonuma cutscenes are essentially the industry standard in that serve as a break from action and as a vehicle for storytelling in cases where dialogue may not be able to convey enough on its own. There's not a lot else to explain here. Then there are the Kojima School of Cutscenes, which are not exclusive to that director but are exemplified in him. Kojima cutscenes are very nearly the entire point of his game, approaching the logical edge of how far a game can go before it ceases to be a game, held down only by the anchor of the core mechanics that link these monolithic scenes together. Instead of serving as a break from the action, cutscenes are their own source of drama, beause the beginning of a cutscene is not an indication of the safety of Snake, even though it is an indication of safety for the player - which runs in contrast to the cutscenes in Mario, where Mario and the player's safety go hand in hand. The thing that all of these have in common is that cutscenes serve as bookends (of varying sizes, to be sure) for core gameplay that stands apart from them. They are ways to take a break. In gaming, this is almost universal. Not so in Phoenix Wright. There is no clear delineation between "cutscenes" and "gameplay" in Phoenix Wright, outside of the ending cinematics that serve as the ending of each game instead of each chapter. Phoenix Wright abandons the difference between gameplay and cutscene altogether, taking the medium to a logical extreme that Kojima undoubtedly kicks the shit out of himself for not doing before these guys. Heavy Rain shares in this idea, too: it's a guided narrative where the only actions you can take serve to move the plot forward, where the gameplay is just a mechanic that serves to navigate farther into a cutscene. In essence, Phoenix Wright as a series is one enormous cutscene, where the majority of the interactivity consists of scrolling through dialogue trees not unlike in conversation in a JRPG. The other part - and to me, the best part - of Phoenix Wright's gameplay (storytelling? they are blurred, is what I am saying) comes in the face-offs in court or outside of court, where one has to navigate and guide a scene, but even then one has to follow a very strict path in order to progress. Outside of figuring out where to press the enemy or present evidence, you actually play the game very little. Before I continue, does all of this sound reasonable? Keep in mind, several adventure games - like Sam and Max - adapt the same kind of gameplay/storytelling hybrid tht Phoenix Wright does, but I agree that it's hard to think of one that carries it out to the same degree. |
Oh yes, it all sounds reasonable. Of course, you have yet to explain how it is you disagree with me. I can see what you are on about, how storytelling differs in type between different types of genres and directors. How what a cutscene is supposed to achieve can differ as well. I can also sense that there is more coming. I'll read it if you write it, and we'll continue the discussion from there.
This is invisible text!
