New scroll effect..?

It is actually the same scrolling effect as the intro cutscene and the Mana Tree scene (when the camera tilts slightly up to reveal the tree).

The effect is difficult to set up during the main game. The camera always follows your character. But you can make them invisible (and careless about collisions). So during the intro cutscene, there is an invisible Randi walking through the Mana Fortress and the Pure Land.
If you want to show your party members and have a scrolling effect, you have to add NPC versions of your characters while your true characters are invisible and scrolling the screen (that's what happens during the Mana Tree scene). But this also limits greatly the number of other NPCs you can add to the scene.

In my cutscene, I use the screen transition to make the party invisible and scroll to the NPCs for the scenes. At the end, I fade the screen to black to make them reappear and they use the same entry door to warp back to the entrance of the cave.

I'm amazed that an invisible hero is how they did the intro cutscenes - that's fascinating! Pretty clever too. Thanks for filling me in on the Mana Tree Scene as well. I would never have guessed it was used there.

So, in your cutscene with Sheex and the two guards, there's actually 6 characters on screen..? (or.. in memory?)

You touched on NPC limits - is there a hard limit in the game engine?
I'm trying to think of the most populated area with characters. Perhaps.. when you meet Geshtar at the Water Temple..? Though I guess some town areas can have a lot of NPC's as well.

Is the limit based on the amount of characters currently displayed on-screen, or the amount of characters on a particular 'map'..? .. I know these questions are off-topic a bit, but it's fascinating learning about the game from you.

Posted by: @lastsidewalk

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there's actually 6 characters on screen..? (or.. in memory?)

Yes, your characters are still there on screen, just not visible.

Posted by: @lastsidewalk

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You touched on NPC limits - is there a hard limit in the game engine?

Big subject. There are two factors for NPC limit, the palette management and the maximum limit of NPC on screen for the game to keep running (kind of) smoothly.

• On maps without weapons (cities and such): You can have up to 10 (or 12?) characters on the map at the same time. But you can only choose 4 palettes for those characters. Most common villagers can have the same palette, but important characters have their own. So you won't be able to have a lot of important characters at the same time with the correct colors. This applies to Geshtar in Water Palace, you have Luka, Geshtar, a lot of soldiers with the same palette (and later Jema).
• On maps with weapons: weapons take one palette slot, you only have 3 NPC palette slots available. In this case the NPC (both enemies and people) limit is 3 and the game will be able to load any palette color depending on which NPC is on screen at anytime. Also NPCs will spawn and despawn to never exceed 3 (whereas in cities all NPCs are always loaded).

So you have to choose carefully what kind of map you use for a cutscene. If you want a lot of identical characters -> no weapons, if you want enemies and/or a few important characters -> weapon map.

Thanks Tomm,
That is astounding. Thanks for breaking that down for me in such detail.
Makes perfect sense, now that you've explained it.

.. The maps where all 4 of the emperor's generals appear onscreen - are all non-weapon maps.
Likewise, thinking about the map after the sandship, when the crew are stuck in the desert waiting to be rescued. You've got Morie, Meria, Sergo - and then a bunch of soldiers (that all share the same palette).. so that's 4 unique character palettes on a non-weapon map.

Interesting how the developers worked within those limitations,
It's never really apparent until you dig deep.
It's fascinating, thank you.

Yes it's exactly this! You couldn't add Thanatos with the generals and the Emperor, otherwise 2 characters would have to share a color palette.

And also having Neko in the first map of the haunted forest limits maximum enemies on screen to 2. In the lofty mountain Neko doesn't have the priority so he can easily despawn and you can have 3 enemies at the same time. Crystal orbs are also NPCs so their maps are often small with few enemies.