Observations on Narrative

Over the weekend, I made some observations about narratives. I purchased two used PS2 games: Soul Reaver 2 and Xenosaga: Episode I. Both of these games were made in 2001. When beginning to play, both of them had extraordinarily long introductions, probably around 15 minutes each. Soul Reaver's introduction was painful to watch. Because it was a sequel, it focused on furthering the past story. So one of the reasons it was a bit hard to watch was because I don't remember the story from the first Soul Reaver (since I hadn't played it on my Dreamcast since I was in eighth grade). The narrative was mostly dialogue, set in a dark room between two characters.



On the other hand, Xenosaga was much more interesting to watch. This was the first one of the series, so it did explain itself fully. The setting was much brighter, and the opening sequence had a much more cinematic feel. There were multiple scenes, starting out with a "mystery" that some excavators discovered. After this scene, it jumped 400 (or was it 4000?) years into the future. Even though I believe this opening narrative was longer than Soul Reaver's, as a gamer, I was much more interested in Xenosaga. During Soul Reaver, I was mashing buttons trying to skip the narrative.



Another trend I am noticing is the length of opening narratives within video games. The earlier games had little to no opening sequences. In fact, much of the setup narrative for the game was found in the booklet that came along with it. This set the scene. But once you started the game, you instantly were able to play.
During the time that CG was introduced to game systems (Playstation, Playstation 2), the opening narrative became MUCH longer. It is as though you are about to watch a movie. But the recent trend for opening scenes seems to be a significant time-cut in the opening scene. Also, there is often interactivity mixed in with the narrative itself. This helps to keep the user interested in the game and the story.