Is it possible to have pre-title screen openings, a la the ones that open most anime games, like the Tales series?

5321221
It is possible. But it is incredibly hard.

You need a script to be able to run a event before the title screen. And you have to be really good at coding such a event to make it look good. An event coded with no input from the player, other than possible the ability to skip over the event (making it un-skippable will anger your players).

5321365 Are there any existing plugins for that kind of thing? My RPG Maker talent is character sprite art, not coding.

5321381
When it comes to RPG Maker MV plugins, there are two major source of them: yanfly and himeworks. There are plenty of other plugin makers out there, but these two are popular enough to have a majority of needed plugins.

Himeworks has a Pre-Title-Event plugin. A plugin where you choose which map is load before the game even start. This can be used to show off a splashscreen before the title. Or it can be used to have a little intro before the title. But you'd have to set it up with your own programing using the RPG Maker engine.

5321973 You make it sound difficult, but the page makes it sound so easy. Of course, now I have to actually make my opening scene. Question: is there any animation software I can download for free?

5322073
Again, it depends on what you want to do for an opening.

If you wanted to make a splash page, then it is really easy. Run an event and it is done.

If you want to make a opening like the SNES titles, bit harder with some programing.

You want to run a whole video that runs... you'll be in a world of hurt, as RPG Maker is quite buggy with its video player. Plus, it doesn't allow commands while the video plays, so it will always be unskippable. If you plan to have this game run on PC or Mac, the video will need to be in WebM(.webm) only. MP4 will only work if you plan to make the game run on android, and even then it will not run during testing.

5322086 That's a shame, especially since the whole point was for my Tales series homage to have an anime opening like those games.

5322092
You could always try and make the video and hope the patch for it comes soon.

Or you can find away around it. In RPG Maker VX Ace, some people used the battle animations as a means to use quick motions. Really useful if they wanted something to repeat itself (such as setting up a background of a sunset with the animation of someone riding a horse as the credits role). It is very limiting compared to having a whole video, but it has worked for others before.

As for free animation software, you can try one of these. I have no idea how good they are, but they are open source and most likely your best shot.

5323598 Thanks! I'll make sure to make that opening video at some point. (And probably post it on YouTube...and then put it in the written version of the story in question.)