Cutscenes are therefore employed so the player's character can suffer plot-enriching setbacks without requiring player failure. However, effective storytelling often calls for setbacks and precarious situations the savvy player would simply avoid or subvert. Games generally demand the player to overcome obstacles and enemies to triumph or they will lose. The rough justification for this comes from a conflict in the nature of gameplay and storytelling.
The best way to gauge how bad the effect of this trope is in a given game is to ponder the question: What would have happened if the player had control throughout the entire game? Because of this, many a player has likely fantasized about how they'd have handily won that Final Boss Preview if they'd been in charge during the encounter.
