"Useless" Gameplay section

[Siyano_v1legacy]

After starting Red Dead Redemption 2 this topic came to mind.
I think the worst with this problem was the start of Final Fantasy XIII
Why sometimes games give you the control of the character and interact with the game if it just to go from point A to B or pass a section with no "challenge"
I remember FF13 was 'Cutscene' gameplay section where you walk 30 second 'cutscene' for like half an hour.
In RDR 2 you get these too, near the beginning where you walk the mountain to John, is there a reason why this section is just not a cutscene instead of having interactive gameplay that serve no "use" or something?
Some part is basically cutscene but you have to press forward or gallop to move...!?

 

[meiam]

It keeps you in the mood, it's more the opposite, if you're cutscene can work just as well with the player in control why would you make it a cutscene?

Plus this way the game can introduce gameplay mid cutscene without the player being wise to it. So the game get you used to no gameplay sequence, so when one start you don't think much of it, but then gameplay can start right away in a way that would surprise your character, say you can ambush mid travel, and because you're in control it'll also surprise you.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

It keeps you in the mood? what mood exactly?

When you just look at a horse walking for like 5 minutes and nothing happend I dont see the point, no real gameplay other than leaving my finger on one button and wait, this is worst than a cutscene because nothing really happen outside the random chit chat, I would prefer 10 times a good cutscene than these dull section.
I want cutscene or gameplay not something barely in between that is bare.

I dont see how being in control of a sequence make you surprise more than a regular cutscene that surprise you with gameplay.
The gameplay sequenece that is basically cutscene with you pressing one button serve no purpose

It starting to make me lose patience and fun with RDR2, been 2 hours I havent felt like I did anything but watch cutscene and fake cutscene where I just press a button, dont think wrong I dont mind a good cutscene, but these are getting superfluous and annoyingly long

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

1) Cutscenes are more expensive to produce than simply using the game engine.
2) If the character is just walking down an empty corridor point A to point B you can at least have fun with the camera (and some developers still believe people need a moment to learn walking at the start). I remember that was how I entertained myself during some of the longer sea voyages of LoZ: The Wind Waker or when going up and down long ladders; simply spinning the camera around and around.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

1) ok humm? then just dont make the section at all, it will cost less, I mean, like I just did this section in RDR2 where you drive a caravan from point A to B, nothing to do for a whole 3 minutes, please tell me how usefull this was to make.
I dont see how something is expensive or not really matter, I dont think there a big difference here, cutscene a basically scipted in game stuff. I dont think you can really say "it more expansive".

2) You can have fun with the camera? huh? I'm not 3 years old, I don't have "fun" playing with the camera for more than half of a second, it pointless.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It starting to make me lose patience and fun with RDR2, been 2 hours I havent felt like I did anything but watch cutscene and fake cutscene where I just press a button, dont think wrong I dont mind a good cutscene, but these are getting superfluous and annoyingly long

That's because RDR2 has an extremely bad tutorial. Unlike most other open-world games that try to get you into the actual open world as fast as possible, RDR2 forces you to spend the first two and a half hours trudging through the snow. And after that it doesn't get much better. Red Dead Redemption 2 sucks is what I'm trying to say.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

A lot of games purposefully try to keep you away from the good stuff for some reason, games really need editors. Though, in my opinion, Rockstar games don't really have any good stuff, I couldn't even get through the 1st RDR as I found the shooting so boring (it was like playing Winback all over again).

 

[Saelune]

People complained about being unable to do anything in cutscenes and/or that it took you out of the moment/game.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Gameplay doesn't have to be challenging, it just has to give you interactivity. In a FF game, the parts where you just walk around and talk to people and then go into a new story point and watch the next cutscene are the core engagement of the game for a lot of people, since those give flavor to the world and enrich the story.


It's all about immersion into the game world. It's about thinking as though you're in the world and experiencing things that help you do that.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Gameplay doesn't have to be challenging, it just has to give you interactivity. In a FF game, the parts where you just walk around and talk to people and then go into a new story point and watch the next cutscene are the core engagement of the game for a lot of people, since those give flavor to the world and enrich the story.

It's all about immersion into the game world. It's about thinking as though you're in the world and experiencing things that help you do that.

I'm pretty sure the TC is complaining about gameplay where your input literally doesn't matter at all. I haven't played FFXIII but I heard it has "no townz" so I doubt the walking down hallways sections have opportunities to talk to NPCs and such.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

People complained about being unable to do anything in cutscenes and/or that it took you out of the moment/game.

Well, I guess that the same people that complain there is not enough image and visual in a novel?
It a cutscene it not designer to be interactive, that what the gameplay is for.
This kind of interactive cutscene is bare and boring, doesnt serve any kind of purpose.

Gameplay doesn't have to be challenging.
Well, there is difference between being say in a Safe point (like a village or something) than having actual gameplay that do nothing, you just press forward and a button, its useless, I dont want to say it, but if you want that, go play Journey or something.
Now I just stopped the game, because I could not bare with this gameplay, 3 hours in and I barely did anything!! funny how adding more gameplay to cutscene made the game with less ACTUAL gameplay

 

[Squilookle]

This is like the game version of kids demanding shows grab them in the first 3 seconds or else- all because they grew up with Youtube

 

[EvilRoy]

I seem to remember metal gear solid had this problem at times in one or two of its iterations. Basically the writer doesn't know how to get out the basics of the story so they just barf exposition as much and as often as possible. The cynical part of me wonders if they don't like the idea of the player starting the cutscene and leaving to do something else so they add this stuff in to force you to stick around and halfass pay attention. Honestly though I really blame an unwillingness or inability to weave the parts of gameplay people like with the necessary story related stuff. So we get a weird slow cowboy movie that nobody really asked for instead of hearing the exposition naturally as you do what you wanna do and go where yo wanna go.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Gameplay doesn't have to be challenging, it just has to give you interactivity. In a FF game, the parts where you just walk around and talk to people and then go into a new story point and watch the next cutscene are the core engagement of the game for a lot of people, since those give flavor to the world and enrich the story.

It's all about immersion into the game world. It's about thinking as though you're in the world and experiencing things that help you do that.

I'm pretty sure the TC is complaining about gameplay where your input literally doesn't matter at all. I haven't played FFXIII but I heard it has "no townz" so I doubt the walking down hallways sections have opportunities to talk to NPCs and such.

FFXIII is a narrative-driven game that moves through a lot of places and doesn't stay at any one place for long with a lot of main-plot-related events happening so it's not that there's no NPCs, far from that, in fact every single NPC is fully voiced. It just doesn't have a traditional Jrpg zone structure where each core area has a new town you go to with an item shop a weapon shop a magic shop and sidequests.

If you consider what you have to do to move the story along in a standard Jrpg and ignore all the side-stuff, you can easily surmise that as "walking down one corridor to watch the next cutscene". What XIII does is highly refine that corridor and pack it full of flavor and events rather than give you a half-assed illusion of choice or exploration when the game really isn't about that. It's a better experience to cut down on walking around from place to place aimlessly and it fits the type of game they were going with XIII, where even HP recovered automatically after fights to cut down on menu micromanagement and recovering MP and using potions or phoenix downs to heal/revive characters and so on.


As someone who loves traditional Jrpgs (Dragon Quest XI was my game of the year last year) I just needed to know what they were going for when entering the game. If you go in expecting dragon quest sure you'll be let down but if you go in expecting a highly narrative-driven character based story then there's no game out there with as much story-relevant content.

You see, a lot of other Jrpgs split their playtime between sidequests and the main plot, giving you a ton of optional stuff to do which accounts for a lot of the playtime. XIII on the other hand is something like 90% main-story content. That's a really hard to do thing on a 50-70 hour game with FF-tier setpieces and is worth trading off towns and exploration for such a treat. It just doesn't make you satisfied when you get the game and expect to get a dragon quest-like experience.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I missed Chazo day again this year, it was last week. Grrrr.

Anyway, there's large periods of the XDAS games (and some in the 1213 series) where you are just walking around in empty spaces, and this helps the experience.

Not so much due to the walking, but because you've been through those space before, and they weren't empty, and they shouldn't be empty now, and you're going to reach a space that isn't empty due to a monster being there. Boo!

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I do find them unnecessary, my biggest complaint is that these 'interactive cutscenes' are usually unable to be skipped.

 

[meiam]

It's a better experience to cut down on walking around from place to place aimlessly and it fits the type of game they were going with XIII

Okay that made me chuckle, FF13 is literally a game about walking around from place to place aimlessly, so much so that one of the in game description of a chapter literally reference the fact that the character are just walking around with no goal. Spoony did a full review of the game and mention that very point, you can read the in game description in this video here (about 30 sec after the start point) https://youtu.be/5ys9YNgBE28?t=4343

 

[Dalisclock]

It's a better experience to cut down on walking around from place to place aimlessly and it fits the type of game they were going with XIII

Okay that made me chuckle, FF13 is literally a game about walking around from place to place aimlessly, so much so that one of the in game description of a chapter literally reference the fact that the character are just walking around with no goal. Spoony did a full review of the game and mention that very point, you can read the in game description in this video here (about 30 sec after the start point) https://youtu.be/5ys9YNgBE28?t=4343

Technically they're not walking around Aimlessly, they're walking through a very pretty tunnel because they were told to by destiny or some such. Until they reach Gran Pulse, then the game opens up for a bit before going back to the tunnel.

At one point they're told killing Orphan will end the world, and then they spend the rest of the game trying to kill Orphan, they do and would have ended the world if not for what is essentially a Deus Ex Machina.

Maybe it's to emphasize that none of these characters control their own destinies but it still doesn't feel engaging.

Ironically this is still better then the sequel, where the villain's motivations make no sense at all and he could have accomplished them literally at any time(and the game railroads this no matter what).

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I think an egregious example is Half-Life 2's. Sometimes you just end up locked in a room where they give you freedom to look around and move but it causes you to miss important things like what the expressions are on the character's faces. You can miss important stuff because of stuff like this.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

It's a better experience to cut down on walking around from place to place aimlessly and it fits the type of game they were going with XIII

Okay that made me chuckle, FF13 is literally a game about walking around from place to place aimlessly, so much so that one of the in game description of a chapter literally reference the fact that the character are just walking around with no goal. Spoony did a full review of the game and mention that very point, you can read the in game description in this video here (about 30 sec after the start point) https://youtu.be/5ys9YNgBE28?t=4343

It's not aimless in any sense, nothing is for the first 50 hours or so, it's all part of a narrative. You just have to follow along with the plot to grasp that much. In fact, everything in XIII is main-plot-related until you reach some of the endgame stuff with those hunt missions.


I explained this already, you can sum up the main quest of any Jrpg if done to the exclusion of every sidequest and other time-wasting act like buying new items or pausing to heal or recover MP and so on as "walking down a single line" but because of story reasons it's not aimless.

What XIII does is trade off the side stuff for a greater focus on the main quest and filling it up with cool events and a ton of content.

How much you enjoy the game, hence, will entirely depend on if you actually liked the story and were gripped and wanted to find out what happens next. I was so I didn't even see the corridor cause what was happening around me was so awesome. As someone who beat the game in about 5 days and even read the prequel novels as the game was nearing its Japanese release date, I enjoyed the story (believe it made me tear up a couple times, even), so I loved it. I'm sure if the story wasn't your cup of tea you'd not care and it'd feel aimless even, but it wouldn't actually be aimless.

Oh it's also worth noting that I played it in JP, if you played it with the English dub I can see disliking it. Nothing can beat Maaya Sakamoto Lightning and Shigeru Chiba Sazh. At least they let you use the JP voices in the third game so I didn't need to import that one like the other two haha.