In the same style you could get inspiration from shenmue's cutscenes (Dreamcast) aka "Quick Time Event" and God of war's (PS2)

I loved that aspect of RE4. The first time it happened, my friend and I both flipped out, and I got so excited swimming back to the boat during the lake boss fight I actually pulled my controller cord out of the gamecube and got eaten.

It's a high-adrenaline game mechanic, usually easy enough to get if you focus, but always requiring focus. Too many long story-driven games (*cough* Final Fantasy) have slow, boring gameplay interspersed with slow, boring cutscenes. RE4 had methodical gameplay, but if you fouled up you didn't just have your HP go down, you actually got yourself into crappier and crappier situations. The pacing of the fights was such that you'd be reloading and thinking, "Oh, damn, that guy's going to stab me with a pitchfirk if I don't... BLAM! Whew."

The cutscenes were a good extension of that gameplay philosophy, since you really had to pay attention, and since the flashing button-presses were integrated into combat for the melee and escape maneuvers, as well as simple interactions, it didnt' seem gaudy.

And yes, you could skip the cutscenes, it would just skip you to the next time you have to hit buttons. I've been through that game a dozen times, and the cutscenes are not annoying on replays.

i liked the cut scenes in re4.
Overall i liked re4 however i thought it was more of an arcade game. The way enemies dropped items was reaaaally bad. It wasnt scary at all because you were contantly stocked with ammo. I didnt feel like i was pushed to make my shots count. Some of the best bits in the RE series had you low on ammo. Ammo management was one of my favourite parts of RE.

In all honesty I really dug it but it could be improved upon.

I'm sure there were some players that would like to be able to toggle a setting that makes the cut scenes non lethal, so maybe have a difficulty setting be associated with what effect is applie to the PC.

Ex.
The knife fight. On easy it could have no in game effect if you messed up, only different cut scenes based on performance.
On medium difficulty maybe the player looses a set number of health per failed attempt.
Hard would result in the lethality that we were forced to endure on the real game.

People love choices...Or at least the illusion of choice.

Quote:

Original post by Riviera Kid It wasnt scary at all because you were contantly stocked with ammo.

That's just because you knew how to play video games, and smashed every crate and barrel and looked in every desk drawer for 9mm cartridges. I made a play-through without any side-trips and leaving most of the scenery unpillaged and had a really great, tough time of it. I had maxed out guns, but I left the handcannon and Chicago Typewriter at home for it. Tense stuff.