Anyway to skip the opening segment?

[Theodis]

I bought this game earlier today, spent half an hour playing during my lunch break. Unfortunately I couldn't make it to a save point in that time so I had to just kill the game and get back to work. So I just started over and played through that segment again, got to the boss on the bridge and ended up losing, only to be dropped at the start again.

Is there anyway to at least skip the top down shooter segment? How far in is the first save? Would I be missing much if I just found a save file at the first save point?

[TheSeek]

You can't skip it, and it's an important part of the story without which a lot of the plot wouldn't make sense, so yes you'd be missing a lot, even on the gameplay aspect this is where most basics are taught(in a "learn how to do it" way rather than telling you what to do).
That said, learn to use evade, it can be spammed indefinetely at no cost, and the time window is extremely forgiving.
As for how far is the first save...the bridge part you died at is near the end of the prologue, then you'll be able to save right after the cutscenes that follow.

[CZI]

I think it was about 10min extra from boss on the bridge.
I'd suggest to have 2h block time for extra margin.
(1h would be probably way enough though)