Do you hate cutscenes in videogames?

[Artificer]

Do you hate cutscenes in video games?​

If Not:

• What is the best thing about them for you?

If Yes:

• In which cases do you hate them the most?
• What was your worst experience with a cutscene in a video game?

Thanks for your time.​

I like cutscenes a lot because they give the background story for the game, and for those made in RPG Maker it is like reading a book sometimes (I love books).

By the way, there must be free cookies somewhere in the universe.

 

[BlackRoseMii]

I prefer to have cutscenes, especially in story driven games. IF they are well made.
They have to be placed right. If it's a scene where the characters are talking about some kind of legend or longer story, give them a few images to look at, rather than having the characters just talk. If there is a fight scene though, avoid using a cutscene. Make it an actual ingame fight. Of course, if in that fight something happens that can't be shown during the fight (like a fatal wound or a transformation) it's best to show a cutscene.
Besides that, you'd have to define what kind of cutscene you want. Is it the "default" kind of cutscene, that is actually just a basic event (talk, move, animation, etc) or is a couple of pictures? Or even full animation? Deciding on the kind of cutscene is important. The more detail, the more important a scene is.
I think it's best to see a few cutscenes from your favorite games and learn from them. Be sure to place detailed cutscenes right and don't make them longer than necessary.

 

[Rhino]

Nah, I'm down for them! If not, how are you gonna get your story across? If it's between a dialogue of characters, or a scrolling wall of text, I MUCH prefer dialogue. You can make them walk around, express emotion, show pictures and whatever, there's loads of ways to make it dynamic!

I'd say the problem is when cutscenes are too long. If I'm playing and rpg, I expect to be playing it. I enjoy the cutscenes when they come, as long as there's padding between it. If you're just trying to add more info to build a world rather than continue a plot, I'd say have it as optional scenes. Ones where you interact with an object, or collect items which you can open in the inventory read them at your leisure. That way, the player gets to pick how much they want to engage with the world. If I love the game, I want to find EVERYTHING, but other days I'm just like eh, I want to get on with things instead.

If your game feels like a book, I think you might be doing it wrong. The only genre that should really be happening in is a Visual Novel. They've got minimal gameplay, and the whole thing is about the story. When I head into a VN, I know it'll be a lot of reading, and it can be really great, especially if the art is nice. If your cutscenes are taking over 50% of the game, I think you might want to consider rebranding it. People who are expecting to read a lot, will enjoy it. People who want to fight monsters and explore maps, are gonna be counting the clock until they can move again.

A bad experience I had was with Okami. When you first start the game, you're hit with this onslaught of beautiful graphics and Japanese folklore... but it goes on, and on, and on... And I couldn't really take hold of what the story was even telling me anymore. I saved straight after you're first allowed to move around, and found that it was something like 20 minutes into the game!! First impressions are really important, but there wasn't even a glimpse of gameplay until you'd sat through that. Now, if they'd done it a little later on, say after the first village, I think I would have enjoyed it much more. Rather than being random information overload, it'd be an explanation to things that had been previously experienced.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I generally agree with this Extra Credit's video. As far as RM games go, I really dislike it when cutscenes are just a couple of sprites standing there spewing dialogue. Show me stuff! It's a multimedia platform. If the cutscenes are expressive I'm generally pretty cool with it.

 

[Milennin]

Good cutscenes:
-Keep the story going.
-Has stuff happening.
-Interesting or funny dialogue.
-Just the right length, and placed in between gameplay sections.

Bad cutscenes:
-Feeling pointless.
-Has nothing happening, just watching sprites stand still on the screen.
-Dialogue is boring, dry, dragged out, not going anywhere.
-Going on for way too long, and badly paced with gameplay sections.

Also, avoid long cutscenes before boss fights, unless there's a save point in between or the cutscene is skippable. I know that should be an obvious one, but some people still forget to do it.

 

[Caitlin]

Cutscenes are really good with some exceptions to the rule. I thought I'd mention the exceptions to the rule. Some of them will never happen in an rpg maker game.

1. The cutscene before a big bad boss, where as you die you have to rewatch the entire cutscene again. (no skip feature is offered)
2. Cutscenes that are not created with ingame graphics
3. Cutscenes with QTE moments in them

I do like Cutscenes as they were called and some people still call them that, because they are good story moments for character development for characters.

 

[bgillisp]

Usually I like cutscenes, but there are two exceptions:

1: A cutscene before a boss battle (or other big battle) with no way to save after the scene. This is even worse if after the battle there is another cutscene then another fight. Let me save my game please! Or at the minimum, retry the battle without rewatching that entire scene again and again.

2: A cutscene when I just want to save and quit. The Altelier games are huge offenders of this. The only save point is in your workshop, but it is easy to be forced into 3 - 5 cutscenes when you try to go to the workshop to save that I often find myself going "Just SHUT UP already" when playing those games.

And to think, #2 could be fixed easily just by having you have to interact with those people to see the scene first. But nope, it's forced on you just because you went there.

 

[Artificer]

This is very informative! It is nice seeing lots of points of view.
@Rhino I had heard a lot of people saying the same over Okami. I never had found one that liked the intro cutscene.
@bgillisp Oh, time being wasted is painful, it is so true.

 

[CleanWater]

It really depends... When the story is engaging, cutscenes are welcome. But when the plot is deadly boring... I will not play the game, because...

RPGs are more about storytelling than anything. You need to see the cutscenes, talk with people in villages to get the backstory of the game and hints of your next steps, hints about secrets, etc.

I noticed that a lot of persons dislike cutscenes because they want to see ACTION!!! Which is something that's completely out of the RPG scope*. The majority of this kind are persons who aren't used to RPGs.

If the player don't like to read books, comics, mangas, etc, RPG is not for him/her in first place. So from this kind of person, disregard any criticism about your cutscenes completely...

*An exception to this rule is when the game have really, really, REALLY longs never ending cutscenes, but if you don't overdo it, you will be fine.

 

[robhr]

I remember back in the day when the cut scenes were where they whipped out the excellent graphics, I loved them. Now it depends on how good the story is, but usually I still enjoy them. But, yeah, it's annoying when there's a boss battle after the cut scene and you end up dying and watching it over and over again.

 

[evmaster]

Probably a noobish question, but what is a QTE???

I thought we were talking about video cutscenes here but I see we are talking sprite cutscenes. If done well I am for them but as others have pinpointed out....don't make long conversations before a boss. T_T

 

[Nekonron]

QTE is Quick Time Events, basically a scene where you have to react by pressing a button at the right moment or making a quick decision that affects what happens next or you just fail and start over.

Personally I enjoy a good cutscene. It's good to have a mix of short and long ones but it's important to break the cutscenes up if it's too long. FFXIV sometimes does this by exiting the cutscene and requiring you to do some small action to continue the next section. This method helps for those who need to save (for other games, not FFXIV) and leave. The game also warns players when a long cutscene without break is coming so you can decide whether you want to watch it now or later.

My biggest problem with cutscenes is when I need to do something else and the cutscene is still going on, and worse, no way to pause it. I believe older Final Fantasy titles and even Metal Gear series does this and pressing the start/pause button would just skip the whole thing completely instead of pausing it.

 

[CleanWater]

@evmaster As long it is a "scene" that "cut" the gameplay, it's a cutscene. Cutscenes can be either with sprites, videos, image slides, etc.

 

[Rutlawski]

I do enjoy story in my games, the most RPGs of course so... Yeah.

But what's most important is how the cutscene is handled. I generally treat a cutscene as an animation or group of animations concerning action, conversation or just some event.
That being said one of the worst examples I encountered are Sonic Adventure cutscenes:
-long and quite awkward ( by today standards )
-long pauses between dialogue
-very static
-completly unskipable
-reapeted 2-4 times for other characters

One of the best examples I can think is Final F. VI. It's clear the devs want to convey as much emotion and ferlings as possible using as less words as they can, otherwise combining music, action and limited but beatifull animation.

As for simple games like platformers I prefer cutscenes which generally don't use words but tell a Quick story via gameplay or characters interactions aka classic Sonic, Rayman or Metroid.

 

[kaukusaki]

I don't mind short cutscenes or QTEs but I hate long cutscenes where you can't skip or they're just voices over still pics (glares at Bayonetta). I like interactive cutscenes. If I wanted a movie I'd buy one

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

I would say that cutscenes are one of those things that are often poorly executed, that are truly annoying.

Elder Scrolls games hardly use them at all, save for intros & endings, & I don't think they are the worse for it. The same with Fallout games. I don't much care for static pictures conversations, QTEs, or other things that remove you from the game engine.

I much prefer cutscenes that are either fully theatrical like Final Fantasy, or simply operate within the normal engine like KOTOR. & regardless of which you use they should be skippable.

 

[LordLorna]

Like others have said, if they're poorly done, they can be tedious to move through. However, cutscenes that have interesting points to them, whether it be story, animations, or art, can be my favorite parts of games. There are definitely games where I just end up button mashing through, though.

 

[jweav8705]

My 2 cents don't matter but whatever.
I hate them. Plain and simple.
Other peoples' RM games/indie games/oldschool games cut scenes have too much reading. Trying to convey a serious story through the text is boring and try hard. Waiting for a character to walk up to you from off screen and talk to you in an RM game is the worst...and then having to watch them walk away...there's a ton lf RM games I've put down cause the intro would NOT. END.

AAA titles or anything out of a well funded or major studio takes too long to sit through. It's pretty, and sounds good...but I want to PLAY your game.

I'm waiting for the day that cut scenes are eliminated and become comparable to "parallel processes" that I can do whatever I want while the boring story plays out.

 

[Celianna]

Trying to convey a serious story through the text is boring and try hard.

Clearly you've never heard of books ... or in case of games; text adventures and visual novels.

You're definitely in the minority when it comes to hating cutscenes. Cutscenes are necessary if you have a story to tell.

 

[jweav8705]

Clearly you've never heard of books ... or in case of games; text adventures and visual novels.

You're definitely in the minority when it comes to hating cutscenes. Cutscenes are necessary if you have a story to tell.

The problem is sitting there and waiting. I just hate the waiting. If I wanted to do nothing, I'd watch a movie. I don't know...I guess I feel they're not engaging, because I'm doing nothing.