RPG openings: when the game begins before you play
Some games had already begun telling their story before the title screen even appeared.
A piece of music, a few animated shots, characters barely introduced, and sometimes an atmosphere that remains inseparable from the game years later. From the 1990s onward, some RPG openings became more than simple introductory cinematics: drawing directly from Japanese animation, they developed into fully staged sequences in their own right.
In this series, I look at these openings through their animation, music, pacing and direction, but also through what they have left behind in our memories as players.
The aim is not to rank the best RPG openings in video game history, but to revisit, one by one, those that still have something to say.
Openings analysed
Wild Arms — PlayStation, 1996
A few whistled notes, a solitary character, and direction that chooses suggestion over explanation. The opening of Wild Arms shows how just a few minutes can be enough to establish the entire identity of a game.
Wild Arms Alter Code: F — PlayStation 2, 2003
Seven years later, the remake tries to recapture that emotion with a new introduction. The music and familiar references remain, but their relationship with the images has changed. It raises a simple question: what can really be recreated when revisiting a memory?
Tales of Destiny — PlayStation, 1997
With an opening animated by Production I.G. and the song Yume de Aru Yō ni, Tales of Destiny was already blurring the line between JRPG and anime. The game begins before the player has truly touched the controller.
A few minutes, sometimes a lifetime of memories
An opening usually lasts only a few minutes. Yet it can become one of the most enduring images we retain from a game.
This series sets out to document that memory.
New openings will gradually be added to this collection of analyses.