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Exposition Break: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|"And that, as they say, is that."|'''Maechen, master of the [[Rambling Old Man Monologue]]''', ''[[Final Fantasy X]]''}}
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They often have valuable game or plot information, so it's best not to skip the Exposition Break during the first playthrough if you want to beat the game. That said, [[Shall I Repeat That?|many games will ask if you'd like to hear it again]] just to be sure you ''truly'' understood all of it, sometimes [[Stop Helping Me!|too much]].
There is often nothing ''visually'' interesting happening during a Exposition Break. In fact, most of them consist only of text or (in more modern games with voice acting) dialogue. If the period is too long, the player will be itching to get control back or else tune it out, valuable info be darned.
They can be especially annoying if they can never be skipped or if an important part of the gameplay is inextricably tied to one that is somewhat less than entertaining. This kind sometimes overlap with [[Forced Tutorial]].
Exposition Breaks often precede a [[Climax Boss]]. This is fine for purposes of drama but annoying from a gaming standpoint, since losing means you have to sit through it all over again.
See also [[Exposition]] and [[Intro Dump]].
{{examples}}
* [[Assassin's Creed]] is particularly bad with this. Even though you can move around (and occasionally change the camera position), the cutscenes are very long-winded and don't add much to the plot.
* Played for laughs in ''[[The Bard's Tale]]''; at one point, enduring an NPC's extremely long-winded, rambling story gets you a reward, though you're given the option to shut him up.
* Used to great and disturbing effect in ''[[
** There are also plenty of cases where you are trapped in a tiny featureless room with an indestructible window while something happens on the other side.
* ''[[Chrono Cross]]'' had a particularly infuriating one; before you fight [[That One Boss|Miguel]], you have to sit through a 5+ minute long [[Contemplate Our Navels|navel-gazing]] monologue about how he got here, what his past is, and how he's connected to Serge. It's interesting the first time you read it, but scrolling through it gets old fast. Thankfully, if you know that you can run from boss fights, you can run away, go save, and never read it again.
* The [[Sarcasm Mode|scary]] [[Pipe Shooter]] ''[[Clive Barker's Jericho]]'' hits mandatory 10 minute speedbumps in gameplay for [[Info Dump|Infodumps]].
* ''[[Custom Robo]],'' for the Gamecube, had an incredibly long cutscene toward the end. So long, in fact, that it actually had multiple save points in it. Oh, and that game had no voice acting, so it was all in text...
* In ''[[Doom]] 3'', among its many [[What Were You Thinking?|"What were they thinking?"]] moments id Software inexplicably chose to use cutscenes, which yank the control/camera away from the player in a FPS.
* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' has a 10-minute narration sequence recounting the love life of Frederick Chopin that consists entirely of words on the screen sloooooowly appearing while you see background pictures of...well, honestly, they're pictures of things that have NOTHING to do with Frederick Chopin or his girlfriend.
** You can skip these cutscenes and read them in the menu at your own pace though.
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* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask]]'', you earn a mask by staying awake during an old lady's long, rambling speech (but dozing off is also a fast way to skip all the way to the Third Day without spamming the Song of Double Time)
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'', there're a couple of these, but there's generally something interesting going on while it happens. In one case, it was a ''huge'' mindfuck.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' is a bad offender, with the final boss preceded by an hours worth of cutscenes, half of which takes place in the codec talking-heads screen. And by the end of it, [[Mind Screw|you]] ''[[Mind Screw|still]]'' [[Mind Screw|won't know what's going on]], even if you don't [[Bladder of Steel|skip out on any of it]].
* The ''[[Monkey Island]]'' series spiced these up by continuing to update the context-sensitive [[Action Bar]] during the sequence, often displaying silly possible actions.
** The first game was the undisputed champion of this - the scene where Guybrush steals the Idol Of Many Hands went haywire.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Exposition]]
▲[[Category:Examples Need Sorting]]
[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Exposition Break]]
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