From: ZFS | #120
it's probably too late to try to get people to pay attention to good news, but here's something notable that came from this interview!
"In FF Versus XIII, we've gotten rid of [in-game] cutscenes that the player can't control," he stated. "There will either be pre-rendered movies or realtime event scenes that the player can control. These scenes are part of a new gameplay feature which, as far as I know, hasn't been done anywhere else. It's something that allows for very natural changes in the game experience, a form of expression you don't really see in games. It's not something you can explain quickly since the experience can change with each situation, but you could say it leads to the sort of storytelling you see more in FPSes than in console RPGs."
What inspired this switch away from the non-interactive cutscenes that are part and parcel of JRPGs? Perhaps the fact that not even Nomura has the patience to sit through many of them. "I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but I wind up skipping most cutscenes I run into because I want to get back into the game," he told Famitsu. "I don't think I'm the only gamer like that, and so I wanted storytelling that takes pains not to stop the gameplay. That way, gamers like that can still get into the event scenes in natural fashion. It's also a development time-saver. In the past, we'd make separate high-poly models for the cutscenes, but technology is now to the point where the only difference between the 'high-poly' and 'low-poly' models in FF Versus XIII is in the hair."
http://www.1up.com/news/final-fantasy-xiii-chugging
This is great news, now they just have to start moving away from pre-rendered cutscenes and start focusing on the really important things. Here's hoping the cutscene interaction is more than just QTEs.
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My fingers -- ALIVE! And threatening me with -- DEATH!