Let's Talk About Cutscene Incompetence | Semi-Ramblomatic

Ah the classic “cutscene knife” of Yakuza fame… get sliced up all you like in game, dodge, block, absolutely stomp whoever you’re fighting into the ground but Kiryu will still dutifully turn his back and get near fatally stabbed in the cutscene for the 50th time and have to be bailed out by a sacrifice. It’s weirdly in character but at a certain point it’s very frustrating.

The first Ghost game had a similar issue on one cutscene. He decides to lob out some poison without any prompting thus revealing he's stopped following the bushido code. Up until that point it was only rumours - most of anyone who could attest to your crimes were already in the afterlife.

No, I think the conclusion should have been: The Nine Souls example works because it doesn't take away or change the player's gameplay result. It just gives it character flavor which in turn is unlocked by a gameplay success. The Ghost of You-Know-What and FarCry examples don't work because they take away the relevance of the gameplay and its results. Yahtzee's first proposed modification of the GoY scene works because the gameplay result (assassination by button prompt) is locked in and enforced, rewarded by a new narrative (the ensuing counter-revenge story). That's one important reason why the supposed-to-lose thing is so hard to pull off in a satisfying way: You're trying to narratively reward gameplay failure; and this doesn't get fixed if you just switch it to turning gameplay success into narrative failure. Only way I can think of which might work here is having the narrative consequence of failure be dependent on failure alone, but other reward dependent on how long you didn't fail. Think the RE4 village fight as a supposed-to-lose-fight triggering the next scene (say: the first encounter with - ((Leon)) edit: Luis - while hostage in a shack) but the longer you withstand and the more villagers you kill until then ... - actually, RE4 has hardly any fitting mechanic but let's just say: the more badass cutscenes with Leon you unlock and can go back to in your video browser or something. (And if you make it until after the last scene, a Mercenaries character is unlocked and the village chief only then takes you out in gameplay anyway.)

I had a similar experience in Lord of the Rings Online last night. I've just come off nearly one-shotting the guy I came to kill, and while he's whimpering in a heap (one of those "you can't kill him yet, so he becomes untargetable and stops fighting" deals) one of his rivals strolls in to kill him. I look at the rival, who has a smaller health bar than the guy I just took down, and his two goons who are barely landscape-level enemies and think, right another short fight coming. But no, I have no choice but to do what he says or he'll kill my NPC helper, and I go along with it even though he's INFAMOUS for killing people who surrendered. Like, it's a whole arc, over a thousand years of sworn vengeance (by the family of a guy who he kills on entry to prove he can one-shot NPCs), he can't be trusted and will kill the hostage as soon as you do what he wants. I don't care if my character did spend the entire Second Age in a coma, she's not THAT naive.

My favourite example of cutscene overcompetence would probably be RE4. In previous RE games, we’d get a cutscene, there’s a monster, and we’d see our protagonist looking shocked and backing away from it. Pretty standard. In 4, a monster shows up and Leon cartwheels out of the way , then as often as not makes a snarky on liner. It not only felt discordant because Leon can’t break out the gymnastics outside of cutscenes or quick time events, but also made any given enemy, in a HORROR game no less, feel weak and incompetent.

A Semi-Ramblomatic on Thanksgiving day? You spoil us Yahtzee.

I worry that the game industry following the advice "Do less shit writing" will not focus on making better and more compelling narratives and characters. Instead, I fear that the executives will just fire the people doing the writing and have AI churn out more slop.