A Defense of Full-Motion Video

by Thomas Lipschultz 

My one friend hated Final Fantasy VII. He said it was the worst FF game he's ever played, and he got bored with it very quickly and quit. I asked him, "Surely you thought the Nibelheim flashback scene was cool, didn't you?" His response was something like, "Was it an FMV sequence? If so, then I liked the ending to Super Mario Bros. better."

Now, I've heard other people trashing full-motion video in Playstation games before, but no one put it quite as drastically as he did. But the more I look around, the more FMV-trashing I see. People hate full-motion video, it seems. They think it takes up unnecessary CD space and thus causes the game to be "cut short." I couldn't disagree more.

I asked this friend of mine why he hated FMV so much, and he said, "I don't get it, why would you want to watch a movie in the middle of playing a game?" I thought about this. And I mean, I REALLY thought about this. The question was in my mind for days, and I started to doubt the value of FMV myself. Then I remembered one thing: Aeris's death scene.

That made me realize why people might want to watch a movie in the middle of playing a game.

Consider Aeris's death scene. It switched to FMV just in time to show you Sephiroth, swooping down from above in his flowing black cape, impale Aeris on his blade. Aeris's face showed no pain or suffering, and when the sword was withdrawn from her body, she started to fall. Suddenly, the Holy fell from her hair, and the camera shifted over to the falling materia. The light reflected and refracted off of it, and as soon as it touched the ground, the piano music from Aeris's theme began.

This is when lots of people started to cry.

Now, consider what this scene would look like if it WEREN'T done in FMV. Aeris would be standing there, in the middle of that circular platform in the ancient city. A blocky Sephiroth would come down from above. Aeris would be impaled on his blade, and you could JUST BARELY tell that her face didn't seem to change much. As the blade was withdrawn from her body, a tiny little green circle would fall from her hair and start bouncing along the ground. Now, remember, this is with NO FMV AT ALL, so the reflection/refraction effects wouldn't be possible (the ONLY way to make SO MUCH of the screen change like that is with FMV or with some REALLY tricky programming). The little green thing would start to bounce along the ground, and Aeris's theme would start playing when it first hit the ground.

Somehow, the scene would lose something this way.

In addition, think of Aeris's "funeral" scene. You're shown her body from below, in the water, and her hair spreads out as she sinks to the bottom. If THAT scene weren't FMV, it wouldn't be NEARLY as emotional. I mean, just think about it for a second: a small, blocky Aeris, sinking to the bottom of the sea, which would be moving at a given frame rate rather than in realistic fluidity. It just wouldn't work.

What I'm talking about, of course, is something that FFVII has that the other FFs are missing: heavy emotional imagery. Without full-motion video, FFVII wouldn't be able to have the amazingly detailed imagery it currently has. Not only would Aeris's scene suffer, but so would almost every other FMV sequence in the game. The bike scene succeeds in getting you ready for a "rush." Without FMV, you wouldn't feel your adrenaline pumping and probably wouldn't be ready for the bike chase. The WEAPON scenes in disc 2 succeed in showing you the massive size and power of the WEAPONs, making them seem as fearsome and as monstrously threatening as they would be in real life. And, of course, the Nibelheim flashback scene's FMV shows Sephiroth's descent into an evil madness as he walks into the flames of the burning city, and rather successfully makes his character seem more mysterious, threatening, and all-around maniacal.

And the ending...

The ending, which is mostly symbolic to begin with, would lose more than ANYTHING if it weren't FMV-based. Think about it: would the imagery of Midgar being destroyed be NEARLY as effective if you saw a picture of the town with some cheezy FFVI frame-based explosions, or some "newfangled" blocky polygonal-based explosions? Not even remotely. The flying debris, the twisters, the flames melting metal... all of it is needed for the imagery of Meteor's wrath. The image of the lifestream heading toward Meteor from all over the world succeeds in delivering the message that all humans from everywhere in the world are equally important in death as in life, and will accomplish more if they work TOGETHER. That would be nearly IMPOSSIBLE to do without FMV. And should part of the ending FMV be taken away so Yuffie and Vincent can be added to it? No, I don't think so... Yuffie and Vincent are both cool characters, but do they have any real purpose in the ending? Would their presence add to the symbolic effect of the ending in any way whatsoever? No, I don't think so... but would the lack of FMV hurt the purpose of the ending? You betcha!

So remember, next time you complain about full-motion video taking up much-needed space, just remember: without it, the game wouldn't have the amazing imagery that touched millions and made about half of them cry. Besides that, FFVII isn't one CD, it's three. If Square needed extra space, they'd have just added a fourth CD. And in my opinion, it'd be worth it.