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• Fade in.
• Sound of birds twittering, no music.
• Extreme long, high shot of Squall and Quistis at the foot of some stairs. They proceed down a covered walk towards the camera. A man passes them going towards the stairs. Two schoolgirls pass them going the same way, tittering when they pass Squall.
• At this point the player gets his first shot at controlling Squall. However, Squall cannot walk back towards the stairs. He can only be moved forward with some minimal sideways movement. If the player tries to move him back, he merely stands with his back to the viewer.
• Quistis keeps pace with Squall.
• It is hard to imagine a player who at this point would do exactly what the narrative of the game suggests, namely stride forth sullenly at Quistis's side as she peppers him with questions. A new player could well be expected to hit left or right, even by accident, while the game expects him to press the down arrow. If the player does move Squall sideways as well as forward, the visual result is a bizarre, jerky little dance. In a movie this gesture might be incomprehensible to the viewer. It might also add a peculiar commentary to the exposition of Squall and Quistis's budding relationship, which it does in the game as well. Tension between the rigid narrative of a Final Fantasy game and the player's commands invariably does this: while engaging the player with appealing characters and exciting action scenes, the game also alienates the viewer, who is made aware of the unreality of the situation by accidental visual gibberish which does not jive with the conventions of screen actions he is accustomed to. (The abundance of this visual nonsense in early games is a wellspring which feeds the fantastic flowering of video game humor online.)