Are new games less immersive...

because with voice acting you aren't repeatedly pressing the enter button during cut-scenes. Back in the day I was repeatedly pressing 'X' idly during any time text was on the screen to keep the dialog moving as quickly as possible. Nowadays I sit there like a zombie staring at the screen while my hands fidget uncomfortably beside the controller. (Or occasionally hit a button out of habit and accidentally skip a cut scene.)

Not entirely serious about the ruining of immersion, but anyone else have thoughts on this?

I feel like the less responsible players get to be for what happens on screen makes a game less immersive, always. Having fully-voiced and directed cutscenes triggering all the time really makes me feel like I'm not actually in the game world. For example, if I can't talk to a NPC of my own accord I don't really feel like I'm interacting with it. Sure, my in-game self is talking to the character, but that little button press that triggers NPC interaction is important in a game where I'll be interacting with NPCs pretty frequently. Otherwise you get these half-and-half games, like modern JRPGs, where the game takes over and starts being a movie once all the obligatory game parts have been completed.

It probably sounds trivial (like you already said), but to me, flicking through text boxes is still superior to cutscenes. The thing that originally drew me to RPGs as a kid was that they were little games that told their stories completely through gameplay. Everything got expressed using the same gameplay angle - exploration was as important as combat which was also as important has chatting up NPCs in towns, etc. I started falling off of the genre around the time cutscenes with full voices came into the picture, breaking the gamey-ness of the games (or, as some people call it, that old school RPG "charm").

Another problem that kind of makes me zombify is when games lack a sense of place. If I can give FFXIII one more flogging - I hate that NPCs just kind of shout stuff at you as you walk by. SE did this to make the game brisk (also because there's nothing to actually figure out, thus nobody has anything of use to say). But it just kinda makes an empty gameworld feel that much more empty. XIII is a game where you'll be running through a "forest" but the trees don't really get in your way as they would in a real forest. There's a path leading through the forest with trees wallpapered on the side but unless the forest has enough obstruction (trees dotted across the map as minor obstacles, for instance) it might as well be an empty, featureless hallway. Contrast this with something like Shadow of the Colossus, which has forests so filled with stuff that the player will never not feel a sense of place.

Definitely agreeing with you guys here, I really feel like the implementation of voice acting was somewhat of a step down for games. Unless you do a really great job of casting like Final Fantasy XII, you're never going to be able to beat the way the voice sounds inside the player's head while reading it. Not to mention I like to read a couple outstanding lines over and over again if it's really well written, and a lot of games with voice acting, you can't go back to view the scene again unless you have another file (which is something I did for FFXII).

I also agree that text keeps the story inside the gameplay, by having you move to NPCs and press a button to initiate and progress the dialogue. It absolutely is a part of that RPG charm.

It's kind of hard to define what exactly what immersion means at any given time for games, keeping story and dialogue in the "game" is part of it, but I also feel like a big short coming of FFXIII was keeping me obsessed with the game system, all the progression and customization and trying to figure out every nook and cranny of those features. I wanta serious gameplay designer who pushes him/herself to the limit trying to think out a game system with a lot of ingenuity. I'd love to see Ito brought onto the next main FF for this, every FF he's directed has been exceptional on this part.

I actually don't agree with the idea that voice acting breaks immersion (still hate that term) and here's why: games like Half-Life, Portal, and others do a fine job of keeping you immersed while including voice acting. In fact, games like Portal would not be as good as they are without the stellar voice acting.

The real problem as I see it isn't the inclusion of voice acting at all, but rather and increase in the amount of time players spend not doing a damn thing and having no impact on how their game plays out. A decrease in player agency if you will.

The biggest difference I notice in RPG's these days compared to growing up, especially comparing titles like FFXIII to something like IV or VI, is that there are a lot more cutscenes and dialogue sections, and those cutscenes are also longer. The latter is in part because of voice acting since most of us can read faster than people can talk. But it's also in large part that developers don't have any technical constraints forcing them to economize on dialogue. So when you stop to talk to an NPC (assuming they let you at all) they can throw more dialogue at you before they let you get back to the game. And when they interrupt you with a major story beat, they take all control away while being able to make you sit through 5, 10, or even more minutes of exposition while they beat you over the head with what's happening, why it's happening, and why you should give a rats ass, when all you want to do is get back to the game.

The games that I find the most immersive are generally the ones that avoid this (they have to be good too, but all things being equal...). Cutscenes, if they are present at all need to be quick, and they need to stay interesting. Games like Half-Life and Portal don't break immersion as much because even when people are talking to you you are free to move around and explore. Your progress is slowed, but control is never taken away. Games like Uncharted 2 which do interrupt with cutscenes on occasion, again, keep them to the minimum required to say what they need to to move the story along, and don't interrupt unless they have to. Do I need a cutscene to tell me to follow some blood trail in a dark cavern or does a few lines of dialogue while I'm moving my character around suffice? And perhaps even more importantly, games like Uncharted 2 manage to get away with cutscenes because they're efficient in getting the story across, and they tend to wrap it up in snappy dialogue that is entertaining in it's own right. They get in and out as quickly and efficiently as possible, while still making sure things are entertaining and get you back to playing the game.

And one last thing since I'm talking about Uncharted. One of the big differences between Uncharted and a series like FF, especially these days is that the cool stuff almost never happens in a cutscene. Running from one rooftop to another, fighting enemies along the way while a helicopter fires at you from above? Not a cutscene. Fighting off enemies before jumping out the window of a collapsing building and into a neighboring building? Not done in a cutscene.

I could go on and talk about how important proper pacing is as well, but then I'd be here all day. My general point is that if you want immersion, the player should be in control as much as possible. If a game is going to do anything that takes control away from the player then it better do it quickly at the very least, but try to be interesting as well, without featuring things that are cooler than anything in the gameplay. If a company makes a cutscene where the players character/s are being more badass than they ever are while the player controls them then there's a good chance they just failed their audience.

Looking beyond the cutscenes though, there needs to be some depth to the game so the player can explore the gameplay. Whether that's in the form of customization, interesting worlds to explore, skills for the player to master, it doesn't really matter. But there needs to be enough their to keep the player interested and engrossed for the length of the game, and preferably more. This is probably the biggest area where recent FF games not named FFXII have failed compared to some predecessors, though FFXIII was by far the worst in every way I can imagine.

Great post Vivi. I agree with you on Uncharted 2, which I think is the perfect little game for what it's trying to be. It's just one of the most brisk, well paced games I've played in a long time.

You're also right about the game saying what it needs to say and be done with it. It's not enough that FFXIII has enough dialogue to satisfy an RPG fan (if you're just judging my the pure mass of talking in the game), it has to be good dialogue and not just repeating their single concern over and over again (Snow, oh god). Semi-related to this is that when advertising the new Skyrim game, Bethesda were boasting that they have like 600,000 or something lines of spoken dialogue in the game. That's... quite a feat, I guess, but have you ever had to endure the dialogue and voice acting in a modern Bethesda game? Humour has never fallen flatter for me, even in the most anime of anime JRPG cutscenes. Nothing is ever scary or ominous either because it's all so wordy and clumsily-written, too. Bottom-line: stuff has to be well written in order to justify itself. That's probably obvious but I'm convinced that for a lot of people making games it really isn't.

EDIT: Actually I'd disagree that XIII is the worst FF at keeping the player actually engrossed in the game, as far as interrupting with cutscenes goes. It's only the second worst. X is the bottom of the barrel just because it's all so awkward and flat-out tiresome to play. Play the Mi'ihen Highroad bit again. That place stops you like 5 or 6 times just to give you little bits of exposition, have you yak with chocobo knights or little girls, or whatever. This is right after the laughing scene, too. It's a shame for me because I really like the actual environment in that level, as far as mood and view of the landscape goes.

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Originally Posted by Flying Arrow

Semi-related to this is that when advertising the new Skyrim game, Bethesda were boasting that they have like 600,000 or something lines of spoken dialogue in the game. That's... quite a feat, I guess, but have you ever had to endure the dialogue and voice acting in a modern Bethesda game?

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The thought of playing through another Bethesda game with 600,000 lines of dialogue is kind of frightening. In part because it's probably all voiced by the same half dozen actors, and you'll probably still see them monkey lines in a completely different voice/accent into character where it doesn't fit rather than re-record it. :D

Actually, in their case, boasting about 600,000 lines might be a good thing if it means recording similar lines multiple ways so there's a lot less instances of characters voices completely changing when you select a new conversation topic. Not that it will make the actual conversations any more dynamic and interesting.

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EDIT: Actually I'd disagree that XIII is the worst FF at keeping the player actually engrossed in the game, as far as interrupting with cutscenes goes.

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Yeah, I actually meant overall in terms of cutscene length and interruption, dialogue, and game depth. Stuff like battle systems, environments to explore, people to interact with, etc. FFX certainly went too far with the cutscenes and interrupting the player, but it at least had areas you could revisit, NPC's to chat with, and at least some nooks and crannies to explore. The sphere grid including more options for customization and and at least some choice of what to do towards the late game was also marginally more interesting than the crystarium, and the lack of an auto-battle feature is a point in it's favour as well. I'm not saying FFX is as deep as it could have been in gameplay terms, and certainly not as deep as it should have been, but overall there's a lot more for the player to actually do and control, and choose how to proceed with than FFXIII, and I found that kept me far more engrossed, even if I don't think it compares to earlier games in the series.

But I don't think Half-Life and Portal are really that great of games. I'm a bit unorthodox in that my true respect for Half-Life is for what it and its mod progeny have done for online shooters, for a lot of different reasons. I respect the "real time, all the time" movement they created, it's had a lot of benefits in gaming, but I don't think it's as important as it's made out to be. I've tried playing through Half-Life many times as well as the Gearbox expansions and I just couldn't be asked to care about the story or characters, and the gameplay just isn't there to me. As far as portal, I respect it for the brilliant package of game design it is, but I do think it's a little overrated. Again, I appreciate the minimalistic approach it took, how so much of the story is told through what are essentially cave paintings. But I really couldn't care less about the story or characters. Speaking of caves, Johnson is absolutely hilarious in Portal 2, but that's mostly because I like the actor a lot; he could read a phone book and it'd probably be entertaining, I don't think Valve should get too much credit on that one. I don't know why I'm bashing their games right now, but I think it's because I don't think player agency is really that important. Xenogears had very little during its dialogue, which could go on for long stretches at a time, but you absolutely lose yourself in the nuances and intrigue of that world and HAVE to know what's going to happen next. And it's a far more memorable and meaningful experience to me than say, Half-Life or Portal 2.

And as another aside I do think there are constraints on dialogue for developers today. Ken Rolston specifically said this, that voice acting was the single worst thing to happen to WRPGs because it now dramatically limited their dialogue options going forward, and this is coming from the guy who was the lead designer on Oblivion. Voice acting is incredibly expensive and time consuming for developers, and for multiplatform titles, it's nearly impossible to put it at a really high quality sound file if you want to fit it onto Xbox 360 9GB DVDs. I'm not flaming, even Final Fantasy XII had to suffer a bit because of the bizarre compression filters put on the character voices because there's simply too much dialogue. It's just sad to me to think that a developer would be ostracized for releasing a retail game for HD consoles without voice acting. The expectations of current gen games have really hurt game design IMO.

The point about Uncharted 2 where all the really fun action-packed stuff happens outside of cutscenes is a good one. Too much important stuff happens in modern FF cutscenes that requires no input from the player. FFXIII-2 will attempt to fix this by allowing player dialogue choices similar to games like Mass Effect.

Final Fantasy XI had no voice acting and it was quite an immersive game. So I'm with you guys on this one. However, I do think voice acting has a place in RPGs. Square just needs to get away from the 'walk here, have a cutscene, walk there, have a cutscene, fight a boss, have a cutscene' formula.

It's really easy for SE to take specific criticisms like 'the maps are too linear' and adjust for that, but I think issues like these that go towards more general concepts like immersion are the forefront of the problems veteran FF fans have with these modern games, and these are much more difficult problems to address, especially if the developers just don't 'get it'. In fact, this is what I anticipate FFXIII-2 will exactly be--a response to specific criticisms that doesn't address the more general pressing issue of tone and overall playability.

I totally agree with that prediction about FFXIII-2, especially after this:

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

FFXIII-2 will attempt to fix this by allowing player dialogue choices similar to games like Mass Effect.

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Damn. Outside of FFVII, I can't remember a single Final Fantasy having story-impacting dialogue choices, and even in that game, it was all to build-up to just one scene. It was cool in the first trailer when they showed Lightning in a suit of armor, but everything has been downhill after that for me, especially with them now imitating WRPGs as if that's the only reason they're not as critically acclaimed as they were in the PlayStation One era.

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Originally Posted by Bolivar

I totally agree with that prediction about FFXIII-2, especially after this:

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

FFXIII-2 will attempt to fix this by allowing player dialogue choices similar to games like Mass Effect.

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Damn. Outside of FFVII, I can't remember a single Final Fantasy having story-impacting dialogue choices, and even in that game, it was all to build-up to just one scene. It was cool in the first trailer when they showed Lightning in a suit of armor, but everything has been downhill after that for me, especially with them now imitating WRPGs as if that's the only reason they're not as critically acclaimed as they were in the PlayStation One era.

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FFXIII-2 imitating WRPGs? How ?

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Originally Posted by ShinGundam

FFXIII-2 imitating WRPGs? How ?

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If they are adding Mass Effect style dialogue trees then how would they not be imitating WRPG's?

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Originally Posted by Vivi22

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Originally Posted by ShinGundam

FFXIII-2 imitating WRPGs? How ?

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If they are adding Mass Effect style dialogue trees then how would they not be imitating WRPG's?

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That is like saying FFXIII-2 is an action game because it feature QTEs.

Not really. It's more like saying FFXIII-2 will be imitating WRPG's by implementing one of their defining features. Assuming their dialogue options are anything like games like Mass Effect. Not that it is a WRPG because of said feature.

Just as implementing QTE's would be imitating (which is key here, we're not saying it's becoming) action titles.

In this area the game is imitating a WRPG, not the game is a WRPG.

You know what's weird? Even with the contradicting opinions, I agree almost completely with every post so far.
Games nowadays feel too much like they're trying to be movies. I've been playing the leaked version of Skyrim for eight days now, and it's really annoying. I mean, it's a great game, but it just can't hold my attention for some reason. I replayed Shinobi III on my Genesis yesterday to remember what a real game feels like. I'm inviting some friends over to my place tomorrow to play some Mario Kart 64 and take turns beating the First four Contra games, then start hating each other after dying a few thousand times on Battletoads. Maybe River City Ransom followed by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Or some shoot em' ups. Don't know yet. But we're going to spend the day playing games that were amazing for their time, instead of "amazing" games that should be much better for their time.

I'm really split here... Basically because I'm in Cloud Strife777's predicament where I'm actually in agreement with a lot of the opinion stated so far.

No, I don't feel Voice work has added to gaming in an overwhelming meaningful way and its definetly not made RPGs better. I can agree that games need to get back into the "gaming part" but I also agree with Bolivar that a great story can trump having to sit through long dialogue segments or cutscenes, they're just obnoxious when the story is bad. I agree with Flying Arrow that one of the most irritating things about FFX is how much the plot interrupts the game for useless plot flub, Mi'hen Highroad and Mt. Gagazet being especially obnoxious, but this goes back to what Bolivar mentioned because Xenosaga pulls the same trout, and I never noticed because I was enraptured by the plot. I can agree with Vivi22 that voice work is not all bad and I feel it has made some games better and can be practical, but I also agree that some examples made in this thread are not what I would call crowning achievements. I mean seriously, no MGS1? Anyone? Its like the only PS1 game with good voice acting and dialogue and it's dialogue is bat-trout crazy to boot.

I'll discuss more later, when I've collected my thoughts.

WK is right. We failed to mention some of the older games where the voice acting certainly enhanced the experience a great deal, like MGS1 and the X-Men arcade game.

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Originally Posted by Cloud Strife777

Games nowadays feel too much like they're trying to be movies. I've been playing the leaked version of Skyrim for eight days now, and it's really annoying. I mean, it's a great game, but it just can't hold my attention for some reason.

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This is a peculiar opinion. Are you saying that Skyrim is annoying because it's trying to be a movie? In my experience, The Elder Scrolls games are one of the few major series left that hasn't jumped ship to cinematic mimicry. They're like the last bastion of WRPG games providing a genuinely deep gameplay experience (and a lot of its hardcore fans will even say the series has been dumbed down more and more per entry). Maybe you're just burnt out on modern games at the moment and you're just craving some simpler classics.

I agree that voice acting was integral to games like MGS1. But when you're trying to make a point about dialogue and cutscenes saying what needs to be said and then getting out of the way, MGS isn't usually the best example. Even MGS1 has a lot of exposition by the standards of most games, though I don't think it crossed the line into being too much since most of it was very interesting.

I think a lot of it would be helped if the writers/developers just had a stronger hand in the process to yell "no!" and hit them with a rolled up newspaper when they started drifting from exposition the player needed to exposition that indulges their need to add to the game.

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Originally Posted by Vivi22

I agree that voice acting was integral to games like MGS1. But when you're trying to make a point about dialogue and cutscenes saying what needs to be said and then getting out of the way, MGS isn't usually the best example. Even MGS1 has a lot of exposition by the standards of most games, though I don't think it crossed the line into being too much since most of it was very interesting.

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My point is that VA in MGS1 made the story more immersive because of its quality, I didn't mean to imply it makes the gameplay better because it doesn't. The problem is that very few games use dialogue to help the gameplay. I would argue your Uncharted example of following the blood trail itself is probably more of a "Gee, really game? Like I wasn't going to notice that?" than actually being helpful. Its definetly more appreciative than having a cutscene but depending how obvious it is, I still don't appreciate the game using it to give me hints.

^ That's definitely where Uncharted comes up a bit short. When it comes to the puzzles, it makes God of War look like Professor Layton, despite following that template so closely (God of War that is, not professor Layton). But it's also because the little comments here and there make it more obvious than it already is. But I do feel like the banter between the characters and random expressions is a part of what makes the storytelling so great and the game well paced.

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Originally Posted by Cloud Strife777

You know what's weird? Even with the contradicting opinions, I agree almost completely with every post so far.

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You're right. That is weird. You're actually kind of bugging me out right now. Especially with how much sense the rest of your post makes. I think we need to transfer you to EoFF's sick bay before I start losing it myself.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

MGS1 and the X-Men arcade game.

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Nostalgic nerdgasm.

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Originally Posted by Flying Arrow

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Originally Posted by Cloud Strife777

Games nowadays feel too much like they're trying to be movies. I've been playing the leaked version of Skyrim for eight days now, and it's really annoying. I mean, it's a great game, but it just can't hold my attention for some reason.

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This is a peculiar opinion. Are you saying that Skyrim is annoying because it's trying to be a movie? In my experience, The Elder Scrolls games are one of the few major series left that hasn't jumped ship to cinematic mimicry. They're like the last bastion of WRPG games providing a genuinely deep gameplay experience (and a lot of its hardcore fans will even say the series has been dumbed down more and more per entry). Maybe you're just burnt out on modern games at the moment and you're just craving some simpler classics.

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You may be right. I just played through Contra Hard Corps. Skyrim feels more re-approachable.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

I think a lot of it would be helped if the writers/developers just had a stronger hand in the process to yell "no!" and hit them with a rolled up newspaper when they started drifting from exposition the player needed to exposition that indulges their need to add to the game.

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Lulz at the mental image.

Sometimes voice acting works, when the story is cool enough - like in Xenosaga. Sometimes it's pretty good, and you probably wouldn't be able to come up with a better line-up for the characters yourself - as in FFXII, even though I hated Vaan's voice with a passion. Very rarely, it's awesome regardless of the story, and the story is pretty bad-ass too - as in MGS1. But for me, it's mostly just annoying and ridiculous, and I would prefer to just mash x or a until I get to the parts that are important. Skyrim works well in that aspect, as the in-game conversations are just like Fallout; you can go to the next piece of the conversation before someone is done talking, and there are few actual cut-scenes. But for some reason, it just bugs the hell out of me otherwise. Maybe I'm just impatient when it comes to people talking because I know I can read faster than they can speak.