Do you enjoy cutscenes?

[TwitchyColt]

It varies highly for me, mostly on length. I think there should be a good balance between cutscene length and providing me with backstory, and allowing me to beat things in the face with my +10 sword of disintegration. Xenosaga did not know how to do this, and was one of the reasons I abandoned the series early on into the second one. A skip cutscene function is nice, but I've only used it if I had to redo a boss, like Final Fantasy X- you know, that boss, on the mountain.

 

[The Madman]

I don't like it when they're just an excuse for the developers to show off some fancy CGI fight scenes. That's stupid. For an intro that's alright, but mid game? Hell no.

I do however enjoy them when they're done in such as way as to advance the story through dialogue or other means which would be fairly boring to play, but with the subtle touches of a well directed cutscene, can be made interesting.

A prime example of a good cutscene in my opinion:


Nothing much happens, mostly dialogue, but it's entertaining to watch and provides multiple subtle clues and foreshadowing which one might otherwise miss. Plus it's got a unique style and setting that make it memorable.

 

[CmdrGoob]

I almost never like them more than just playing the game, they should be used sparingly on stuff that's necessary to advance the plot or set the tone that can't be done in game.

DMC4 is a bad offender at this. As I sat through the endless cinematics I realized I was having way more fun playing the game and I was just getting comparatively bored waiting for the game to start let me playing again. I would have had more fun without them. They're bloated and ultimately tedious. They should have cut out easily 75% of the cutscenes in that fucking game and spent that budget on making levels, and it would be much better...

Speaking of bad offenders, MGS4. Jesus christ that game is ruinously bloated with crappy cinematics.

 

[Sigel]

Depends. If they are well timed, progress the story but are not over done, and well animated/voiced, I usually enjoy them.

 

[arsenicCatnip]

MGS is an exception, it may be cheesy but the banter is engaging, it is dynamically presented and the voice actors deliver with aplomb.

Seconded. I can watch the cutscenes in every MGS game over and over, no matter how many times I've played through the games.

Usually, though, if it's my second playthrough of a game, I'll skip cutscenes.

What maddens me is when a game requires you to sit through a crappy scene if you want completion points. Like FFX-2. Bloody Maechen and his never ending GABBLE.

 

[Yureina]

Some. Depends on the game. World in Conflict had some of the best in-game cutscenes i've ever seen in a game, as did Mafia: City of Lost Heaven. For other games like the Final Fantasies or other RPG's, they were not quite as good. Maybe that's just my bias though, because you don't exactly expect to see such awesome cutscenes in Strategy games like WiC as you would expect in RPG's.

I like them, mostly. I guess.

 

[Doctor VonSexMachine]

As long as you can skip them, sure. If there are long, boring cut scenes before a boss battle that you cannot skip, then I get angry. I'm looking at you, Paper Mario.

 

[Horben]

I loved them back in the PSX era. Lately though... not so much.

 

[AllLagNoFrag]

I watch 95% of the the cutscenes showed for the first time.

In some games. FFX for example.

Yeppers, some amazing cutscenes in there
I remembered how epic the Sin cutscenes were (destroying Kilika and final boss etc)
then only to get let down by how easy the fights were...

 

[Zyxzy]

Yes. It's why I like Xenosaga.

 

[Yennick]

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