i dond mind as long as the cutscenes are interesting.

 Okay, now I see where the differences are coming from. For me, dialog screens alone doesn't make a cutscene. For me, that's considered talking, which is an old way of doing character development. I consider a cutscene as where you are pulled away, and can not control the pace. Hence why I consider the FF1 bridge to be one, but not, say, the Celes and Cid scene from FF6. The line gets drawn when I am not in control; lines of text don't bother me, but if you want to shift to a scene where you show them talking, you have forcefully changed my POV, and usually, it's either a skip or wait case. I have no control as a player, and that is a cutscene.

Maybe a better way of putting it would be, would I miss something if I have to go to the bathroom? If they're going to talk and ramble on, forcing me to stay, then it's a cutscene. If I can go and come back, staying on the same line, because I didn't tell it to move on, then it's not, at least in my eyes. I can make the characters talk at my pace, and that's what keeps me feeling connected to the game. Likewise, if I have to wait because the game wants to show something off (ala summons), then that counts as one.

So you're saying that talking but not playing doesn't make for a cutscene?

Does that mean that being able to pause in cutscenes in MGS4 means they aren't cutscenes?

No, none of this makes sense!

The opera scene was fuckin' awesome though! The whole game had an operatic feel to it so I really loved the opera-within-an-opera scene.

The 8 and 16-bit FFs had a feel to them like you were reading a play with the on-screen characters representing the stage direction parts. It was enough to convey the drama without doing all of the work for you.

 Ah, the fallacies of words alone. I've been trying to keep this simple without getting into a whole discertation on it, but that's looking hard.

Part of my thoughts come from being an old-fashioned DM, from pen & paper days. (In fact, I still am. One of my roommates and players also posts here.) Yes, talking alone does not make for a cutscene. It can lead to character development and plot, all while staying within character, reflected in the game engine. It's only natural to expect that player characters are going to talk to each other and NPCs; that's what the dialogue represents. By not having the view forced away, you can stay in character, keeping to the game. However, by changing to a radically different view (say, an FMV), you have pulled away from the character, an aside, if you will. Now you are out of character, which is what leads to a cutscene.

Also, pausing a cutscene does not negate the fact that it is a cutscene. By having sheer text, which, I used going to the bathroom as an example, you can have that be the only out of character moment. Breaking in an out of character event is fine, as long as you can come back in-character. Even if you could pause the cutscene, you still come back to out of character dialogue. Even if something relevant is said/done, the fact that you were pulled away from the engine (character) is what makes it a cutscene. At least in pen & paper, you can get it to end and back on topic whenever you choose to. But for a cutscene you must either let it go on, or forcefully end it.

And to Non Sequor, yes, the opera scene is awesome. But when you've played through it several times, it'd be nice to speed it up.

I think that you are being too reductive in terms of defining what a cutscene is. yes, in a P&P RPG things are different, because that's interactive - the distinction is drawn between JRPGs and WRPGs, where in the latter conversations often are interactive, and you can choose how your character responds.

The fact that you have to goad the game into continuing makes no difference. In P&P terms, it would be like you, the DM, giving your players a script that they have to read from. Yes, they are still technically interacting in a sense, but they are not in control of the situation and in no way are building their characters for themselves. JRPG cutscenes are like this - it builds characters, yes, but that doesn't make them interactive. They're still scripted, down to the smallest detail.

A cutscene need not be an FMV to be a cutscene. It is not a matter of perspective. It is being reminded that you are not shaping the story yoruself - you are not playing the game.

In that sense, the conversation between Edge and Rubicante is exactly the same in the SNES and DS versions of FFIV. The only difference is voice acting.

Cut Scenes have their place in games but anything longer than a minute without player control is venturing into dangerous territory.

That's an exaggeration.  Even shooters like Gears of War 2 and Killzone 2 have have cutscenes that can go on for 5 minutes at a time.

 I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on where a cutscene is defined. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like for you, it would be anything that stops the action. I'd like to think I'm wrong, but that's how I'm currently interpretting it.

For me, I define it as something that "cuts" away from the engine. I consider talking to be part of the basic story. And this story should happen in the engine, this is where the interaction also takes place. By cutting away from this engine, you have removed me from where I interact with the game. It becomes a "scene" that is "cut" out from the game, hence why I call those cutscenes.

 And he is correct in stating that it is dangerous. People allowed 1 minute, so they went for 3, then 5, now some are pushing more. They are removing interaction from the game, merging it ever so more with movies. And these "games" make for some very expensive movies...