Game art

Over the years video games have improve and created a more dynamic way to tell stories within the same game. Trailers, intros, cutscenes and other cinematographic processes have been used to generate a deeper connection with the player. 

I still remember when some games will reward you with some pixel-still images back in my SNES days. Soon after pre-rendered scenes took over my attention and even now a days I still find them an impressive part of games even when it finishes and the real graphics come up again. 

My personal favourite for making me scream like a girl with trailers and cutscense will always be Square Enix (if it wasn't obvious). Their work with the in-game graphics is fantastic, but the quality, effort and detail put on cutscenes is just outstanding. As examples (plural as I couldn't make up my mind in just one) I have the opening of Kingdom Hearts 2 and Final Fantasy Dissidia.

Now this opening is not only beautiful but it also works as a summary of the previous 2 games (Kingdom Hearts and Chains of memories). The way they combined it and made look like a music video without loosing any important parts of the previous stories is remarkable, but at the same time I wouldn't consider it as an introduction for someone who didn't play the previous entries; it was simply a quick compilation that clearly only satisfied fans of the franchise (me). 

When I heard they where making a fighting game using all the main characters and villains from the Final Fantasy franchise I thought Dissidia was going to be just a way to abuse the huge fandom of the characters and sell something badly made. Sadly I wasn't THAT wrong. 

The video above is the intro for the first entry of this new franchise, Dissidia. Again, beautiful pre-render graphics that in my opinion look absolutely fantastic, specially when you think that it will be an entry for a portable console. There was no way the PSP could ever run any graphics like this ones, but my surprise was that the game actually look really pretty. Way too pretty if you ask me and it didn't took long for me to discover the reason. The game was just like the intro; just the bunch characters from all the games you loved fighting together but with just a really forced story behind it. The fighting system was a bit odd and it contained loads of slow motion attacks that where only useful to feast your eyes with the gorgeous characters. 

Sadly I bought the game and loved it at the end. 

As for in built cutscenes I think my personal favourite at the moment is anything related with Journey for PS3. I still think that ThatGameCompany made a great job with the feeling given by the game and it is reflected in every point of the game. I couldn't find a video with my favourite part of the game (sliding though sand with a sunset in the background) but here is the trailer of the game that gives a good idea of the game's concept. This is a concrete proof that realistic graphics or pre-rendered scenes are not needed to achieve a majestic cinematographic product, and even when the whole world around you is a dessert.