How do you feel about Quick Time Events (QTEs) in games?

[ThunderFlame]

For anyone who doesn’t know what a Quick Time Event is. It’s a gimmick in video games where the player must react to an event by pressing the button displayed on the screen.

For example, say you’re playing through Greenflower Zone Act 1 and there’s a sequence before the bridge where you have to press spindash to destroy the Crawla that is in front of it. By pressing the spindash button you’ll advance through the stage normally or engage in another quick time event.

Press the wrong button, and Sonic will be knocked back from the Crawla, lose his rings, and then spindash through it. This action corrects the human error and the game continues as if it never happened.

I personally don’t care too much for this gimmick and find it used more as a “filler” to make story modes in games feel more interactive and longer; however, since Quick Time Events really don’t possess much consequence upon failure to execute the correct button, they really just seem unnecessary to me.

I will say that I enjoyed the use of QTEs in Until Dawn, where failure to press the correct button could very well lead to the death of a protagonist in the game. Only problem I had with this game was the plot armor on two of the characters. Both of those protagonists could fail just about every QTE and still progress for the sake of the storyline, which brings it back to how the gimmick can be meaningless.

Overall I feel that if a video game is going to have QTEs in it, they should be few and far between and also be somewhat meaningful. When you introduce the gimmick make it matter is what I’m saying. I just can’t take it seriously when I see the character I’m controlling trip over every obstacle and yet still somehow manage to escape the danger.

So what are your thoughts on this specific gimmick? Like it? Dislike it? Agree or disagree?

Edit: I forgot to mention that Quick Time Events require you to press the button in a timeframe. Sometimes you have to react quick, while other times you are faced with other choices like choosing a path to take. If the timer runs out, it may randomly select a choice or count it as a failure to press the correct button.

 

[clairebun]

The only game that should be allowed to use QTEs is Paper Mario.

 

[toaster]

They need to be an integral part of gameplay and define, consistently, how the game is played. Introducing them mid-level Sonic Unleashed style is Very Bad, but if the entire level (or specific, repeatable, user-controlled action like attacking in various modern Mario RPGs) is a button mashing experience I can at least respect as a different style of game.

 

[Yoshirocks90]

If it were a requirement to progress, I feel it could be a good challenge in a game. But rather than main characters always making it, instead make you restart from a checkpoint (like falling in a death pit), and losing a life for failing.

 

[Steelie]

In my opinion, QTEs should be already an integral part of the gameplay while also conveying a cool cinematic experiance. I think the Force Unleashed did a great job when it came QTEs on its bosses, as you were quite ready for them and the punishment for failing them was only a sequence break.

On the other side, the worst possible offender of bad QTE is Resident Evil (or so I've heard, I haven't actually played them) where QTEs happen during random cutscenes where you tend to just put down the controller and then can't keep up. A cherry on top being that they're usually fatal.