Cut scenes are important to me. I try to embrace the gaming experience as much as possible when I am in the moment, so I virtually always pay close attention to the cut scenes and how the story progresses through them, assuming they do at all. There has only been a few cases where I found the cut scenes to be ridiculously long or near pointless and thus skipped over them, if the option was available to me. Games like Half-Life 2 are done nicely, where the story unfolds as you are playing.
Some games have cut scenes that happen to be the best part of the game. Star Fox Assault is an easy target when it comes to this. The game itself was fairly boring, but I kept up with the adventure because I was into the cut scenes and wanted to see the anthropomorphic characters. Now that I look back on that game, the cut scenes were definitely my favorite part. And in Tales of Symphonia, some of the cut scenes were incredibly long, many may complain that they were too long, but they were terrific and the story was an essential aspect of the game, mostly told through the cut scenes. Still some don't enjoy them.
Thoughts?
As a big fan of RPGs and Metal Gear games, cutscenes are not only something I like, but look forward to. I love how much emotion can be put in shorter FMVs like in Final Fantasy, or substantially longer scenes in Metal Gear. I probably like cutscenes in Metal Gear much more because of the action-oriented stuff. It's real neat to see all that motion capture. :)
Cut-scenes are awesome. The plot develops, and you get a chance to crack your knuckles.
Well for me i'm big fan of the cut scenes in games
First thing I thought of when I was this thread title was "...p[COLOR=lightgreen]i[/COLOR]ss me off".
Usually I don't have a problem with them, often they serve as a breather and confirmation that I'm doing that I'm doing the right thing, which is very important in a game.
I especially loved the cutscenes in Resident Evil 4, because they made them part of the game and actually fun to watch.
Some games, though. Ohhh, some games go f[COLOR=lightgreen]u[/COLOR]cking overboard. I won't say which, but they're ALWAYS Japanese, it's like half the developers have some kind of obsession with ruining our fun and forcing us to sit through 2 hours of talking before we can carry on. Not just at the beginning and end of a level/chapter/quest, either, but sometimes completely randomly in the middle of a stage for no reason whatsoever!
If I wanted to watch cutscenes for half the game I'd watch a movie instead, the movie would actually have a decent plot/script/cast and wouldn't take even half as long!
The worst thing is just how completely unneccessary most of them are. When I played Final Fantasy VIII I couldn't believejust how completely inane half the cutscenes were. Why on earth would anyone fully render some expensive FMV just to show some ditsy idiot trip over a rock? That game alone has convinced me that Square can't actually make full games, and just prefer to fill out half games with pointless bullshit.
On the same note, that was a character entry FMV. Just so you know.
They should serve only to illustrate plot points that cant be covered by gameplay. And if there is more, or even close to the same amount of cutscenes as gameplay, its a sign that what ever it was should have been a movie.
For me, the two biggest offenders are XenoSaga and Metal Gear. I liked them both, but holy hell, LET ME PLAY THE GAME. If I wanted to listen to some retarded bull**** about child sholdiers, I'd listen to all the people on campus whining about africa. And Xenosaga just took it to a whole new level. For about every half hour of gameplay, if felt as if there was 45 mnutes of movie.
I loved Half Life 2. It allowed the player to continue interacting with the game during the "cutscenes". TO me, that was rad.
By far the worst offender in the "too many frickin' cut-scenes in Japanese games" category was Xenosaga, I say. I swear there was one part around the beginning of the game where you exit one cut-scene and walk down a straight hall with absolutely no options on where to go and then enter another cut-scene.
In any case, they can add or detract from the gameplay experience depending on how they're done, as has been said. Load times are a factor, as well. If I have to wait thirty seconds for the cut-scene to load, and then another thirty for the game to load back up, that interrupts the flow of the game big time for me.
Consider Xenogears. The cutscenes depict things like [spoiler]Fei witnessing his mother's death, Solaris falling, Deus terraforming the planet[/spoiler] - Pretty essential plot elements that'd just look dire if they were explained with text (which the game already has a lot of) or rendered on-the-fly (considering Xenogears had fugly graphics a lot of the time...)
However, after playing a bit of FFX, I can't help but wonder quite why the FMVs present were actually FMVs - The graphics were pretty decent, and the cutscenes didn't explain much at all.
They can either be a terrible hassle or something I look forward to. It's usually thr latter, but there's quite a few games that feature the former. If the dialogue is at least decent, and it serves a purpose other than looking cool, chances are I'll enjoy them. But mainly I want to see it drive the plot, introduce new elements and characters, and just basically expand on why you're even playing the game. And in that sense, it can turn a pretty bad game into something that you care to play through. Of course, a game isn't good just by story alone, but it does certainly add something to it, and usually the best way to deliever that story is through cinematics/cut-scenes.
I believe Cut-scenes help the movie flow more greatly. But if a game that is based off of a stupid story or whatever then I don't even bother. With crime games so to say, they are just easily predictable and is not even worth the watch. But for a game such as Metal Gear then I have to watch the cut scene. If I don't watch the cut-scene I might not know what to do.
But if its a horrible game I don't even bother watching the cut scenes.
I love most cut-scenes. There will always be bad ones, like there are bad books and bad movies. Usually this is not the case for me, it's fun to watch a wonderful story unfold before my very eyes. :D
Of course, I do sometimes get annoyed if I die or something and I have to watch it over and over again because they will not let you skip it. >_<
I tend to like most of them. Half-Life 2's were great. Tales of Symphonia's could've been better done, I thought. I would've liked more anime scenes, and would've loved an option to turn the text off so that the characters actually talked in real time.
For about any other game, it depends if I'm playing it to really get immersed in it, or playing it to blow stuff up.
Most of the time I enjoy them, but there are some that are COMPLETELY annoying. I don't remember that well (Being that it was 3-4 years ago), but didn't they have a scene where Tidus and Yuna make-out for about 5 minutes in FFX? If I wanted to watch that, I'd use google for what it's good for, p0rn!
cutscenes can be pretty cool. especially after beating a boss (you get to see them beg for life). My favourite cutscenes are when they have action commands in them, like in RE4.
i think all cutscenes are good as long as they bring out the story line more, the best ones by far are the MGS series and Resident Evil 4, RE4 just because they had live action cutscenes and you always had to keep your hands on the contoler
I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle when it comes to cut scenes. Too many and I find myself not paying as much attention to them as I would if there weren't as much. But if there aren't enough, well...I just like to see them :)
So of the games I have played I would say my favorite were in FFX.
[quote=Fate][COLOR=skyblue]On the same note, that was a character entry FMV. Just so you know.[/COLOR]
Bull, I met her in the school. When you see her there it's for like the 3rd time.
[quote=Lord of Spam]They should serve only to illustrate plot points that cant be covered by gameplay.
Absolutely one-hundred percent agree with you there. I cannot count the number of times I've screamed at codec calls in MGS, but have been forced to listen through them just for one tiny tidbit or information I need to continue. Good games give you clues through gameplay, not by making the game half book or movie.
I don't mind cutscenes as long as they're not too long. When I rented The Twin Snakes I actually dozed off during a cutscene. Next thing I know, my cousin pushed me and said 'Dude, wake up, you're getting shot!'
Similar thing happened to me when I first tried to play MGS 2. It was like 2 in the morning, and I ended up falling asleep during a cutscene. I woke up the next day to find myself standing on top of the place where there is seagull poop. I had no idea what was going on, so I ended up having to restart and actually watch all the BS again.
I fell asleep at the scene with the DARPA Chief, I think. Too much talking; I couldn't take it. Though I started to pay more attention to cutscenes after Ninja's hallway massacre.
Oh yeah, the DARPA scene wasn't all the riveting. Though he got a heart attack so it all evens out. But that was one of the few "boring" scenes, the rest were always pretty exciting and/or interesting.
Not to mention that cutscene wasn't that long. He wasn't explaining the game, he was explaining the reason you were there. ***, does any of this matter to you people?
I'm with Zeta. Most of the dialogue-heavy cutscenes didn't pull me in as much as they ought to - I haven't played the game in years, though. Is the DARPA chief the fat guy tied to a C4-laden pillar, or the black guy who was being impersonated by a FOXHOUND member?
... I suppose that sums up how greatly the game left an impression on me, though.
The DARPA chief was the black guy (Donald Anderson?). Kenneth Baker, the other one, I believe was an arms manufacturer.
You ought to play it again, if you've grown up since when you first played. It's a bit more intelligent than other games.
That is a fair point. I was about twelve/thirteen when I bought it, and although I've always considered myself fairly bright, I guess most of the conspiracies and such would have went over my head.
:cool:
Went over mine, too. I didn't play it until about two years ago.
[quote=Fate][COLOR=skyblue]does any of this matter to you people?[/COLOR]
If it's not fun then it doesn't matter, no.
Cutscenes are nice if you can actually watch and hear what they are saying. Having to press A for 5 straight minutes to continue dialogue text is really annoying... except if you're playing Superstar Saga.
I dont like it when games go heavy on the cut-scenes. Sure there nice but I bought/Rented a game not a movie. I like to know whats going on but I dont like life storys or when they spell out the plot for you.
I really liked it in Re4 how they had Cut Scenes that you were appart of. Made you get in to the mood of the story line and was fun. I also liked how they didnt tell you EVERY THING and you could figure things out by yourself.
Some bad examples of bad cut scenes are like ones in Custom Robo GCN were they literally told you the whole plot in two sittings. They literally stood in a circle and talked about plot , so much that it took three out saves to get through.
Now with the next gen coming out even more butiful cut scenes can be made. But with that power comes the temtation of abuse.
Personally, I like knowing what the hell I'm doing. The complexity is enticing. :)
Agreed. Though it wasn't even that complex...
I like cutscenes that explain or elaborate on the story in a way that is entertaining. Metal Gear Solid does this really well. Another kind of scene that MGS does is the "purely badass" scene. I'm totally for those, too. I think in FFX a large amount of the FMVs were just attempts at being badass. The first video is awesome, and the one with the chocobo knights charging Sin is really cool, too... But the others were just dull.
It sucks, because I knew what I was getting into with Xenosaga, but it's still really hard for me to get anywhere in that game. I almost dread it.