You know, some characters can have a very simple character development that happens during the story and you see everything as the story goes on. Others...not so much. Today I just finished a 15 minute long cut-scene (which is admittedly split into two portions to allow for a break in between to save and leave and come back to it when they are ready) that dives into Shadow's backstory.

If you haven't played The Ender's Amethyst yet, Shadow is the thief who joins your adventure at the very beginning. Trying to stay away from Metal Gear Solid 4 type story segment lengths, I cut most of the story down to 15 minutes by just using dialog in some spots rather than having characters act it out on screen the whole time. To me, this allows the player to get right back in and into the action faster...and I have been at it for 6 hours for that 15 minutes of story.

...and this back-story is the catalyst to the softening of Mikael's "loner" attitude as well, which you will see slowly deteriorate over the course of the game. He isn't Cloud, guys...he's just a father trying to rescue his daughter and he's very upset lol.

At any rate, I've got some new screen shots captured that I will post here shortly after I crop them and then after the screenies have been posted, it's time to get back to work on the next segment of this game: the forest and the Crystal Tower.