[solved] Please tell me theres a way to skip or disable cutscenes

[Halfshell]

Just played this for over 2 hours. More than 90% was cutscenes as compared to gameplay. I would like to get further into the game as I like the gameplay, but unless theres a way to skip the filler cutscenes I don't have the patience to get to the real game. The pacing is pretty bad.

Update: According to helpful replies the game picks up after the first couple of hours. Seems like this is designed closer to a true Jrpg rather than an Arpg. So the pacing and story are alot slower than one would expect from an action game.

[Halfshell]

But isn't the percentage of story to gameplay still way too high? If they keep this ratio of story to gameplay through the whole game, theres hardly any game left at all. At least in most JRPGs I've played the text goes by fairly quickly if you want it to, but this one makes you wait for animations. Thats the key issue here is that the animations take longer than reading through the text, so the animations just end up feeling like filler.

[rincewind]

You can't? I already finished the game... well. except the bonus dungeon, still working in that.
And honestly I didn't even notice.

[KEV1N]

Originally posted by Chaotic Fishercat:

Just played this for over 2 hours. More than 90% was cutscenes.

I think you're Exaggerating. I've spent more time killing things.

Originally posted by Chaotic Fishercat:

At least in most JRPGs I've played the text goes by fairly quickly if you want it to, but this one makes you wait for animations.

Mash buttons and the dialogue as well as the animations will move forward. Certain important cutscenes don't allow you to do this however. I've only come across two so far.

[Halfshell]

@KEv1N: 90% was cutscenes as compared to gameplay. This isn't factoring in things like looking at menus or running around. So far the gameplay portion has just been steamrolling enemies so at some point I started just running past enemies to try to get to the real game (as the exp and items suck so far), but my patience ran out around the 2 hour mark. If the gameplay picks up I wouldn't mind grinding to get there. What I'm afraid of is that most of the game is cutscene heavy with simple gameplay (as shown by the first 2 hours).

Even short cutscenes can be a minute and most cutscenes are often several minutes, then there are frequent portions where there are back to back cutscenes or needing to trigger events to progress the game. There was even a required "mission" that was just running back to the start of the game and back, it didn't even give exp or items at all as nothing in that area gives exp or items. So its little wonder that I've only played around 10-15 minutes of meaningful gameplay (which is mostly doing the second area and the boss). Even if I'm mis-remembering, the cutscene to gameplay ratio is at best 80% so far.

As for animations, even if talking animations can be skipped (not sure if they can) the walking animations or other such non-dailogue animations aren't skip-able during cutscenes and take longer than the dailogue portions, so even if I do mash through it most of the time taken is from these non skip-able portions.

[Retalle]

In terms of the main game, it does get a fair amount more difficult near the end of the game but if you're not enjoying the story, it's probably not worthwhile to get there. Although, I guess you could play just enough to unlock the arena challenges which you might find more enjoyable.

[Halfshell]

Thanks @CBanana. I probably will put this off for a while until I have more time to sink into it.

[Scyris]

Buys a rpg, then complains about cutscenes, what the hell is wrong with gamers today? If you get a rpg, expect alot of cutscenes and a slow beginning.

[Halfshell]

You aren't wrong @Scyris, but modern RPGs just seem to want to make the cutscenes longer and longer. I originally bought this along with one of the Ateliers. And I don't mind the amount of cutscenes there, even though its done in a similar style to this one. At least in the Ateliers the core gameplay is shown early on so you know what you're getting into. Simply put, the pacing in this is alot worse than other RPGs I've played.

Now what I do mind is getting less than 20 minutes of gameplay in 2 hours. Makes me question whether its worth continuing to invest time into the game as the game isn't showing much of what its going to be like later. Tbh I typically avoid modern RPGs for this reason, such as the FFs. I should have expected that it would be like this but I made the mistake of getting my hopes up since this was related to an Atelier game.

[Tregarde]

The beginning does take a bit of time doing all the introductions and giving you the background so you know what is going on and why you're there. But after you will spend much more time beating things up. You'll need to gather blood to level up Arnice, do day tasks to unlock skills, and some XP farming to level up servans.

Yeah, you're going to get a lot of cut scenes if all you do is rush from story mission to story mission. Take some time to do side quests and exploring, and you should get in plenty of action.

[Halfshell]

Thanks @Tregarde. Nice to know that it picks up after the introduction.

[Incrediblynormal]

This type of thing is a scam and they should have their game marked as 'auto refundable' if they do this, regardless of playtime. or 'play' time.

[Halfshell]

Steams shiestier now abt refunds than it used to be too, which is really gonna hurt sales bcuz I used to buy a bunch during the 2 big sales knowing I could always refund after trying. Now apparently after 2 weeks they're just gonna hard nope you

Like bruh

Edit: And just btw 1 of the games wouldn't even run but still was a nope