Unskippable Cutscenes and Mandatory Tutorials.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

Who thought these were fun?

Who are the worst offenders?

[jon]

In Banjo Kazooie you can’t skip over Bottles the Mole teaching you all the moves. It won’t even let you do the moves until he teaches you them. And he’s in every level except the last few. It turned a classic game into a good game for me.

[VideoGameCritic]

The worst are the scenes where you're not sure if you can pause or not. Somebody's calling you from the other room, but you're afraid if you hit the button it'll skip the scene altogether.

[Retro STrife]

I'm big on seeing the whole story, so I always watch a cutscene even if it's absolutely terrible or if the game is some kiddie platformer or whatnot. That said, they should be skippable, especially on repeat viewings if you died before.

Also, even though it should be none of my business how other people play games, I'll admit that one of my pet peeves are people who habitually scene-skip in every game without even trying to see if the story is any good. Like come on man, do you really only care about blowing up the next wave of bad guys? You don't care at all about why you're doing it? Same with skipping dialogue in RPGs.

The worst are the scenes where you're not sure if you can pause or not. Somebody's calling you from the other room, but you're afraid if you hit the button it'll skip the scene altogether.

I'm with you on that. I often try to check this early in the game, so that I know for future reference if I can pause the scenes. But I'm always worried the first time. That said, what took them so long to make pausable scenes? This has been a problem since the late 90s, and it seems like only in the past 5 years has this become a universal feature.

[VideoGameCritic]

Retro -
I hear you about people skipping the cutscenes. When my friends are over, as soon as there is a hint of one these guys are tapping buttons like crazy. Of course that might be because we have limited time together.

[Voor]

My #1 pet peeve. Especially for a game you’d like to simply replay and don’t care to listen to a 10 minute backstory.

I think the first time I noticed this was Mario Sunshine, which starts with a nonskippable cutscene that was several minutes long. I was so frustrated. Mario isn’t known for its lore, nor needs to be.

And you’re right about the limited time thing. I’m sure the story is nice and all, but I don’t have 10 minutes to sit around watching instead of playing.

[ASalvaro]

Who thought these were fun?

Who are the worst offenders?

i HATE unskippable tutorials with a passion

[TheEagleXIII]

The worst are the scenes where you're not sure if you can pause or not. Somebody's calling you from the other room, but you're afraid if you hit the button it'll skip the scene altogether.

This. I coulda cried with joy the first time I encountered a cutscene I could pause. Can't remember what it was, but I'm sure it was on 360. On the flip-side I hate not being able to skip it either - but only if I'm having to rewatch one due to reloading after a death or something.

My candidate for worst unskippable tutorial - Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. It's a neat idea, a prologue of a young Lara on an adventure with her mentor, Von Croy. The first time is ok, it adds a tiny amount of backstory and includes an iconic moment where Lara discovers (read: loots a skeletal corpse for) her trademark backpack. But it is too long, too slow and cutscenes trigger every new action.

There's also frustrating moments like not being able to progress until Von Croy kills a warthog, which happens on three separate occasions. You have no weapons and can't help and all he has is a knife. The damn thing doesn't stop running, Von Croy ambles over to it slowly and frequently misses and it takes several attacks to kill. And all you can do is stand and watch and occasionally suffer a drive-by-warthog-ankle-nibbling that depletes a mosquito's wing of health each time.

[ASalvaro]

i bought a game for the PS2 once (forget which one it was) that had this insufferable unskippable tutorial that i ended up saying screw it and i never played it again..so i never ended up getting to the main game..lucky it was used and i didn't pay a lot for it

[nesfan]

My friend brought Jet Grind Radio over one day and we played it for a bit. It started with a tutorial and one part was teaching you how to skitch on the back of cars. You were supposed to wait for a car to grab onto but they were all too fast for me and I couldn't catch any. The tutorial wouldn't end until I accomplished this. I looked at my friend and said "Is it supposed to be this hard or am I just stupid?" He said "I swear, it's harder in the tutorial than it is in the main game."