American Games Influenced Lost Planet Team

Largely thanks to Final Fantasy VII, we’ve become accustomed to a drastic difference between the visuals featured in cut scenes for story-heavy games, as they’re traditionally computer generated. As console visuals have advanced, however, we’ve seen a major shift towards story telling occurring via the in-game engine — a trend largely started by American developers, according to the Lost Planet development team at Capcom.”Games from overseas have a really nice presentation, so it’s a good reference for us. I think the way things are portrayed or shown on the screen is really great. A lot of times they do the cutscenes in the actual game, rather than “movie” sequences separate from the gameplay experience,” says Lost Planet Director Kenji Oguro. “These sorts of unique ways of integrating the gameplay and the storytelling are really amazing.”

Oguro cited Electronic Arts’ Lord of the Rings games’ use of actual movie footage to tie the story together as an effective technique he hadn’t seen out of Japan before.

But that doesn’t mean CG scenes have become extinct — Square Enix still leverages them heavily for their big budget RPG releases, something that cut scene director Yoshiyuki Tonoe doesn’t necessarily feel is the best choice. “The latest CG movies found in games are stunning and really help sell the game. But when I think about how they are used to tie the story to the gameplay, I wonder if they are effective at making the games any better.”

It’d probably be a lot cheaper, too. Will Square Enix change their tune with Final Fantasy XIII?