Though I enjoyed this survival horror game all around, and though I thought Pyramid Head was a delightful monster, there is one very specific memory I have from this game that I learned from.
Sadly, I also find it rather embarrassing, and it definitely ages me.
It was when I first played it, probably at my then annual D&D and Survival Horror Game night with my old high school cronies, and I hadn't played very many Playstation 2 games up to that point. The opening cutscene brings you in on the main character and ends with him staring into a mirror. When I first played this, I sat patiently, waiting for the cutscene to continue. My friend who brought the game had to prompt me that this was gameplay, and I was shocked and somewhat delighted when I moved my character around in what (at the time) I felt was cutscene caliber visuals.
Of course, looking back on it now, the graphics aren't so impressive. But this stands out to me as the exact moment in my life when I felt the shift of visual fidelity in games, and subsequently the role of cutscenes. Before, cutscenes were rewards. They were breaks after long spans of gameplay that you worked for, and relaxed and enjoyed watching the characters rendered like you pictured them in your mind as you played the low-poly versions. Now since the visual quality is more homogeneous between gameplay and cutscenes, they don't really fulfill that anymore.
Will I ever again experience that startled moment when the game surprises me with visual fidelity? Who can say!
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