Holy Cow, Enough With The Cut Scenes!

[Thagomizer]

Cut scenes are great for setting up story elements, but you shouldn't cut control away from the player any more than necessary. This game literally cuts away every 2-3 minutes, outside of the open free-explore areas. And even they cut away every 5 minutes or so.

There are SO SO SO many times when a character could have just said something to Raz while he kept playing, but instead, they chose to cut away to a dialog/exposition. This just kills the pace of the platforming, and turns the otherwise-brilliant game into a chore.

If the writing was better, then maybe it would have been okay, but almost none of the "jokes" land (for me), so ripping the control away 2 minutes after you just ripped the control away just feels frustrating.

[Gorlom[Swe]]

... Hyperbole is the flavour of the day?

[Jocke]

It wasn't such a big deal for me tbh. It only got annoying if i had to repeat a part which has cutscenes in it so i would have to watch/skip them again and again.. There maybe should be an option for skipping seen cutscenes but otherwise it was fine imo..

[GAMING_Alligator]

Agree, the game does have a lot of cut-scenes. Sometimes it's nearly like it's afraid of just letting you play by yourself for too long.

Luckily I find most of them quite watchable. I just dislike it when something happens in a cut-scene that could have happened as part of you playing, which has been the case more than once.

If they really bother you that much though, just hold down B to skip them. Problem solved.

[Froot Loop Lux]

I wouldn't consider talking to people a "chore" unless you have to work in customer service personally (joke)

But like how far exactly are you in the game because the whole first like 1-2 hours of the game is literally setting up the location and characters so there's gonna be a lot of exposition. Not any different from most of the popular games that are very story heavy honestly (im pretty sure like 90% of the first two hours of Dragon Quest XI is just cutscenes - which I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ loved this is just an example).

I mean in comparison to the original Psychonauts yeah there's a lot more storytelling especially at the beginning of the game but this game is also a lot more story reliant. It's not like other modern platformers that are just "here's a cutscene and bare bones dialogue now spend three hours jumping and collecting before you can move on to the next map" a la Mario Odyssey.

Personally? I loved it. I WANT games to give me story and personality. I WANT games to give me character dialogue and expressions and flavour. Especially in a series as vibrant as Psychonauts. BUT, I can (try to) understand if folks pick this up seeing it's a platformer and want to play it purely for the platforming and then wonder why there's so much emphasis on storytelling and cutscenes.

It's a shame it's not what you're looking for, OP. If you're playing it on gamepass and still have sub time I do suggest giving it another shot but this time going in knowing it's gonna be reliant on storytelling. Because the story it tells is well worth the experience in my opinion. But if it's not for you then it's not for you.

[SimonSays]

Originally posted by Jocke:

It wasn't such a big deal for me tbh. It only got annoying if i had to repeat a part which has cutscenes in it so i would have to watch/skip them again and again.. There maybe should be an option for skipping seen cutscenes but otherwise it was fine imo..

You can skip a cutscene if you hold down the B button I believe.

I loved the cutscenes personally - thought the direction throughout was great.

[Froot Loop Lux]

Originally posted by SimonSays:

Originally posted by Jocke:

It wasn't such a big deal for me tbh. It only got annoying if i had to repeat a part which has cutscenes in it so i would have to watch/skip them again and again.. There maybe should be an option for skipping seen cutscenes but otherwise it was fine imo..

You can skip a cutscene if you hold down the B button I believe.

I loved the cutscenes personally - thought the direction throughout was great.

The only cutscenes I think they could have removed would be whenever you've exhausted dialogue with someone it could have just had Raz say his parting dialogue and their reply without entering a cutscene. Even then, that's all skippable and just a very minor critique I have.

[Homeless.]

I'm okay with cutscenes, but have to agree here, kinda kills the flow. Plenty of times a cutscene consisted of Raz saying some one liner, couldn't he have said it while I was controlling him?

[Roadie]

This didn't bother me for most of the game, but for the last few levels (avoiding spoilers, but once you find out who the mole is) it feels like the game's getting interrupted for a cutscene every few minutes... and each cutscene is only maybe 30 seconds long, so why even have most of them?

[SimonSays]

Originally posted by Skeleton King Lux:

The only cutscenes I think they could have removed would be whenever you've exhausted dialogue with someone it could have just had Raz say his parting dialogue and their reply without entering a cutscene. Even then, that's all skippable and just a very minor critique I have.

I agree, I think it should have just prevented you from talking to those characters again once all dialog options were exhausted.

I will say this about the cutscenes - I loved pretty much every single one, other than a few jokes that didn't fully land for me I think that the studio made a game that is genuinely funny and well written outside of the medium.

I do think that for Psychonauts 3 - Tim Schafer should play Control, I think this series would benefit from more using the perspective of the player as the lens. I mean traditional cutscenes are still definitely a part of that game, but so much story telling is told in actual gameplay and it benefits huge from it.

I'd like to also see that type of gameplay latitude offered to the player in the next game, especially now that Raz is an Agent, of sorts.

I know that it is in the platformer space - but the combat was evolved significantly this time that I could see it becoming a key focus in the next game. Control is the blue print I'd be looking at to evolve the formula - light immersive sim elements mixed with platforming in the realm of dreamscapes and nightmares all while looking like a Tim Burton production, that is like my dream game.

I'd have Raz going to a single brain - someone with Multiple Personality disorder, he's a little older and his powers are stronger. The level could still be hub based, with Raz popping into the real world every once in a while but the brain could be huge, multi layered and stylistically shifting as each personality comes to the fore front. This brain would blend metroidvania and light immersive sim aspects (Control), with the platforming and light puzzling elements of the Psychonauts series.

Sorry for the tangent, lol

[Thagomizer]

Originally posted by Skeleton King Lux:

I wouldn't consider talking to people a "chore" unless you have to work in customer service personally (joke)

But like how far exactly are you in the game because the whole first like 1-2 hours of the game is literally setting up the location and characters so there's gonna be a lot of exposition. Not any different from most of the popular games that are very story heavy honestly (im pretty sure like 90% of the first two hours of Dragon Quest XI is just cutscenes - which I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ loved this is just an example).

I mean in comparison to the original Psychonauts yeah there's a lot more storytelling especially at the beginning of the game but this game is also a lot more story reliant. It's not like other modern platformers that are just "here's a cutscene and bare bones dialogue now spend three hours jumping and collecting before you can move on to the next map" a la Mario Odyssey.

Personally? I loved it. I WANT games to give me story and personality. I WANT games to give me character dialogue and expressions and flavour. Especially in a series as vibrant as Psychonauts. BUT, I can (try to) understand if folks pick this up seeing it's a platformer and want to play it purely for the platforming and then wonder why there's so much emphasis on storytelling and cutscenes.

It's a shame it's not what you're looking for, OP. If you're playing it on gamepass and still have sub time I do suggest giving it another shot but this time going in knowing it's gonna be reliant on storytelling. Because the story it tells is well worth the experience in my opinion. But if it's not for you then it's not for you.

Man, you really made up a lot of stuff in this post and then argued against it.

I have already finished the game. I didn't say anything about having an issue with the story. I played and enjoyed the original Psychonauts.

Maybe you should read this paragraph I wrote again:
"There are SO SO SO many times when a character could have just said something to Raz while he kept playing, but instead, they chose to cut away to a dialog/exposition. This just kills the pace of the platforming, and turns the otherwise-brilliant game into a chore."

I enjoyed the game, and I could tell that the devs had a ton of fun making it. I also enjoyed the story, just not some of the presentation.

My point was that the majority of the cutscenes are extraneous, and could have been lines during gameplay, or didn't need to be lines at all. Here's an example:
when you're adjusting the scenery in the Gulovia exhibit and you have to go through a dialog with Lily every time you want to move a scene, even though there's controls right in front of you. This could have just been controls instead. Talking to Lily here just adds unnecessary bloat
Or
when you're finding the seeds for Bob, every time the bird shows up, there is a cut away to dialog between the bird and Raz that could have just played while you were playing.

Those are a couple of examples, but that kind of thing happens CONSTANTLY throughout this game.

[WeissRook]

Originally posted by The Butcher Snail:

Originally posted by Skeleton King Lux:

I wouldn't consider talking to people a "chore" unless you have to work in customer service personally (joke)

But like how far exactly are you in the game because the whole first like 1-2 hours of the game is literally setting up the location and characters so there's gonna be a lot of exposition. Not any different from most of the popular games that are very story heavy honestly (im pretty sure like 90% of the first two hours of Dragon Quest XI is just cutscenes - which I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ loved this is just an example).

I mean in comparison to the original Psychonauts yeah there's a lot more storytelling especially at the beginning of the game but this game is also a lot more story reliant. It's not like other modern platformers that are just "here's a cutscene and bare bones dialogue now spend three hours jumping and collecting before you can move on to the next map" a la Mario Odyssey.

Personally? I loved it. I WANT games to give me story and personality. I WANT games to give me character dialogue and expressions and flavour. Especially in a series as vibrant as Psychonauts. BUT, I can (try to) understand if folks pick this up seeing it's a platformer and want to play it purely for the platforming and then wonder why there's so much emphasis on storytelling and cutscenes.

It's a shame it's not what you're looking for, OP. If you're playing it on gamepass and still have sub time I do suggest giving it another shot but this time going in knowing it's gonna be reliant on storytelling. Because the story it tells is well worth the experience in my opinion. But if it's not for you then it's not for you.

Man, you really made up a lot of stuff in this post and then argued against it.

I have already finished the game. I didn't say anything about having an issue with the story. I played and enjoyed the original Psychonauts.

Maybe you should read this paragraph I wrote again:
"There are SO SO SO many times when a character could have just said something to Raz while he kept playing, but instead, they chose to cut away to a dialog/exposition. This just kills the pace of the platforming, and turns the otherwise-brilliant game into a chore."

I enjoyed the game, and I could tell that the devs had a ton of fun making it. I also enjoyed the story, just not some of the presentation.

My point was that the majority of the cutscenes are extraneous, and could have been lines during gameplay, or didn't need to be lines at all. Here's an example:
when you're adjusting the scenery in the Gulovia exhibit and you have to go through a dialog with Lily every time you want to move a scene, even though there's controls right in front of you. This could have just been controls instead. Talking to Lily here just adds unnecessary bloat
Or
when you're finding the seeds for Bob, every time the bird shows up, there is a cut away to dialog between the bird and Raz that could have just played while you were playing.

Those are a couple of examples, but that kind of thing happens CONSTANTLY throughout this game.

I can think of a couple reasons why there could be cutscene dialogue in what you blacked out. The first is that they move accessible rooms based on one option and platforms on another. As for the second blacked out point, they also move an asset (the moth) every time that scene plays, usually out of the area or stopped at a place a bit ahead of you where you trigger another scene.

[Froot Loop Lux]

Originally posted by The Butcher Snail:

Man, you really made up a lot of stuff in this post and then argued against it.

I have already finished the game. I didn't say anything about having an issue with the story. I played and enjoyed the original Psychonauts.

Maybe you should read this paragraph I wrote again:
"There are SO SO SO many times when a character could have just said something to Raz while he kept playing, but instead, they chose to cut away to a dialog/exposition. This just kills the pace of the platforming, and turns the otherwise-brilliant game into a chore."

I enjoyed the game, and I could tell that the devs had a ton of fun making it. I also enjoyed the story, just not some of the presentation.

My point was that the majority of the cutscenes are extraneous, and could have been lines during gameplay, or didn't need to be lines at all. Here's an example:
when you're adjusting the scenery in the Gulovia exhibit and you have to go through a dialog with Lily every time you want to move a scene, even though there's controls right in front of you. This could have just been controls instead. Talking to Lily here just adds unnecessary bloat
Or
when you're finding the seeds for Bob, every time the bird shows up, there is a cut away to dialog between the bird and Raz that could have just played while you were playing.

Those are a couple of examples, but that kind of thing happens CONSTANTLY throughout this game.

Oh I completely misinterpreted your post didn't I? ♥♥♥♥ me, I'm sorry. I really did just end up going on a long ass rant when that wasn't even what you meant. I had assumed you were complaining about the story cutscenes. I'm a fool in man's shoes.

Honestly I agree with you on the first example as that small puzzle was a lot longer than it should have. I am curious why they forced dialogue and a cinematic camera instead of just letting you hit buttons.

As to the section with the seeds and the moth, they might have had those cutscene moments to set up the fact that the moth was symbolic of alcoholism, but that's not to say they couldn't have done them more efficiently.

Again sorry for going off like a moron with zero reading comprehension.

[Thagomizer]

Originally posted by WeissRook:

I can think of a couple reasons why there could be cutscene dialogue in what you blacked out. The first is that they move accessible rooms based on one option and platforms on another. As for the second blacked out point, they also move an asset (the moth) every time that scene plays, usually out of the area or stopped at a place a bit ahead of you where you trigger another scene.

Sorry, moth! You're right, I don't know why I said bird.

But yeah, okay, I see your point, that there might have been technical considerations on those two examples. But those were just two of the more annoying ones that stuck in my head. There were tons and tons of those little 30 second cut away dialogues that just didn't need to pull control away from the player. That's what I was really getting at, the way they chose to rip away control every couple minutes absolutely destroyed the pace of the game for me.

[Thagomizer]

Originally posted by Skeleton King Lux:

Oh I completely misinterpreted your post didn't I? ♥♥♥♥ me, I'm sorry. I really did just end up going on a long ass rant when that wasn't even what you meant. :lunar2020sweatrat: I had assumed you were complaining about the story cutscenes. I'm a fool in man's shoes.

Honestly I agree with you on the first example as that small puzzle was a lot longer than it should have. I am curious why they forced dialogue and a cinematic camera instead of just letting you hit buttons.

As to the section with the seeds and the moth, they might have had those cutscene moments to set up the fact that the moth was symbolic of alcoholism, but that's not to say they couldn't have done them more efficiently.

Again sorry for going off like a moron with zero reading comprehension.

Don't worry about it, man! Everyone makes mistakes, that's why they put erasers on pencils.

[Gorlom[Swe]]

Originally posted by The Butcher Snail:

Originally posted by Skeleton King Lux:

Oh I completely misinterpreted your post didn't I? ♥♥♥♥ me, I'm sorry. I really did just end up going on a long ass rant when that wasn't even what you meant. :lunar2020sweatrat: I had assumed you were complaining about the story cutscenes. I'm a fool in man's shoes.

Honestly I agree with you on the first example as that small puzzle was a lot longer than it should have. I am curious why they forced dialogue and a cinematic camera instead of just letting you hit buttons.

As to the section with the seeds and the moth, they might have had those cutscene moments to set up the fact that the moth was symbolic of alcoholism, but that's not to say they couldn't have done them more efficiently.

Again sorry for going off like a moron with zero reading comprehension.

Don't worry about it, man! Everyone makes mistakes, that's why they put erasers on pencils.
:beatmeat::ss13ok:

I read that as "they put pencils on erasers" and found that to be a better idiom :)