darkSpyro

For the most part, no. I find 90% of then annoying. We all know Rufus takes the prize for most annoying, but c'mon, why couldn't we skip dialogue until it's almost over or not be able to skip it at all in Rufus' case? I also find Softpaw incredibly annoying, I liked him at first, but Kaos' Fortress is te only level I play for level grinding, so having to hear his annoying self every 5 seconds really has me annoyed. I now play that level with my headphones in, blasting music as loud as I can so I can't even hear a peep out of that rat. I know how a lot of people don't like the hippo characters either, but I love them, because they're hippos, my fav animal. But if they weren't hippos I'd hate them too. The only NPC's I like are as usual Kaos, G-shanks, Kaos' Mom, the hippo bros, The Cheiftess (idk y), and sometimes Tessa, she's much better than Cali. Sharpfin and Whiskers are cool too. I'd even give ms poppy a like because she's not Rufus. I never liked Flynn though, so THATS nothing new. And here's a message to acti, DONT BRING RUFUS BACK, LEAVE HIM IN SF FOREVER! Because if he's in the next game, I swear I'm not buying it unless we can skip every word he says. Nuff said.

A lot of the speaking int he game takes place while it is doing some background loading. Particularly during cinematics, when it delays how long until it allows you to skip. I think Rufus was a conscious decision because he pretty much tells you where to go next when a map/arrow/exclamation point system would have worked just fine. The main problem I've had with him is him repeating things when you load a save, probably to remind you what is next - and if you do something else that causes a save, he won't tell you again because you are "past" that part of the story.

I always liked the way Darksiders and Batman Arkham games handle this "reminder" problem. If you haven't played in a while, it is helpful, but if you recently played it is annoying. Both of those games do a "last time on the game" montage/summary while loading in that will tell you what you did previously and what is next.

I find the montage approach more agreeable with me, so when I get to the game...I can play!

The reason I have a problem is because when I play the game I play for a quarter of the day usually. And having to sit thru multiple long loading screens and Rufus reminding me about something I'm never going to do really grinds my gears. I wish acti could've done a better job with the things we can skip. They did great with the skipping in giants and spyro's adventure, so why not swap force? Was it the improved graphics? If Rufus was skippable I would enjoy the game more, same with the cutscenes and enemy intros.