Animated Cutscenes in a Visual Novel?

[Rozume]

I know some Visual Novels have animated openings/endings, but what about cutscenes? Would they add to the story or, as commonly criticized, would they break the immersion?

[Haze]

I think cutscenes would be fine, as long as you integrate them correctly. There was this one DS game called Phantasy Star 0 which I liked to play(granted, I still play it every once in a while)that used visual novel elements when talking to other characters. Sometimes, these VN elements would be preceded by a short cutscene, such as a cutscene where a boss attacked everyone, and then a VN-type conversation where everyone realized they couldn't fight back, and the boss gloated about how little energy it took her to attack.

My point? Putting the cutscene in a good place and then cutting to the VN should be fine. The above example works because there is a good amount of talking after the cutscene; that is, there's enough VN after the cutscene. This cutscene was short, and it didn't take long to get back to the visual novel part of the game. I think that, since your game is a visual novel, you shouldn't have overly long cutscenes. Make them short, but important. People are playing for the visual novel, aren't they? Then that's what you should give them. Don't give them something that feels like a movie with a few dialogue choices here and there— a short-but-important cutscene every once in a while should be enough.

If you do want longer cutscenes though, don't make them too long and please pace them right.

[SundownKid]

IMO animated cutscenes are fine as long as they are high quality. If the animation or acting is meh, then it's probably a better idea to make a picture.

I'm never one of those people who gripe about over extended cutscenes, though. Unless we're talking about MGS4.

[Yomuchan]

It depends on how you pace your cutscenes, the artwork of the cutscene and how relevant they are to your story.

For example, imagine two characters watching a space rocket lift off.

The dialog goes like this.
[Conversation]
[Conversation]
[Conversation]
[Movie cut scene] [the standard shuttle launch clip included in the renpy sample game]
[Conversation]

That would kill immersion for two reasons.
1) Art shift. If you had an anime-ish look for your VN and suddenly switch to a 'realistic cutscene', it's jarring and pretty much breaks immersion.
2) The engines of a rocket and a space shuttle are set in a different configuration. It's kind of immersion-breaking to see one thing in the game, and another thing in a cutscene.

Remember; Keep to the same art-style, and you wont get immersion breaks so badly. And that's hard to do - so leave it be until you can manage to make one properly.

[noeinan]

I think cutscenes would be awesome, if RenPy supports it.

Off the top of my head, I feel Persona 4 did a great job at integrating cutscenes. Generally, the cutscenes were short and used for dramatic effect. There were also slightly longer scenes when a shadow appeared, that allowed the character in question to have a short monologue.

Things that made the cutscenes good:

1. Not too many of them, they weren't super long

2. The cutscenes pretty much involved one character-- no other characters talked.

This is important because when you're playing the MC, you don't want the MC to act in a way you wouldn't. (If you have some control over the MCs personality in game.) Also, you don't want to include a bunch of characters to the exclusion of the MC or it will feel like you're being left out, even though you're the main character.