FF7 - Is it just me...

[Final-Fan]

The fact that games are the only medium where the audience is in control of the characters and is indeed more than a simple audience is what differenciates games! Remember how I said games were a medium unto itself? There you go.

In theory, maybe. In reality, "interactive storytelling" where the player actually controls the events of the story is still a pipe dream. The furthest we've gotten is "choose your own adventure" type stories where different choices lead to different pre-scripted outcomes. And FFVII doesn't even do that (except in one very limited instance).

Where did I say the player had to control the story's events? The player controls the characters' reactions to the events. Did you regain all your party members in FFVI? Did you save or kill Cid? Did you take the sword of the magicite of Ragnarok? Did you wait for Shadow? Whose path did you choose after the separation of the party in the WoB? [et cetera]

There are tons of games with tons of story changing decisions ranging from minor to major.

In fairness to Borkachev, what you describe is exactly what he is calling the "choose your own adventure" stuff. At the same time, he freely admits that FFVII had almost none of it.