Can the Mephisto cutscenes be shortened or skipped in repeat runs?

The biggest thing is that the fight already seems to have been trimmed in parts, so the complaint is less about one huge cutscene and more about every little pause adding up. If you are doing repeated runs, even a few seconds here and there starts to feel annoying fast.

If the goal is faster farming, the best outcome would be a cleaner phase handoff with no forced camera business and no long reset animation. Shortening the transition is probably more realistic than expecting every scene to become fully skippable.

From a design point of view, some of those scenes are probably there to hide loading, boss phase changes, or scripted mechanics. So the more realistic fix is to reduce the time spent on them, not necessarily remove them completely.

That said, if a fight is meant to be repeated, the flow should stay tight. A quick transition is fine. Long intro, long outro, and another pause before phase three just makes the encounter feel clunky.

I would not expect a full skip option for every story-heavy piece, but for endgame farming there is a strong case for letting players bypass anything nonessential. If the mechanics are already understood, the scenes stop being atmospheric and start being dead time.

When people say they spend more time watching than fighting, that is usually a sign the encounter loop needs a cleanup pass. Even a few removed transitions would make a big difference.

The useful takeaway is that recent changes already point in the right direction. If you are comparing old and new runs, the fight is clearly less dragged out than before, but there is still room to tighten it further.

So yes, the complaint makes sense, but the fix probably looks like more trimming and less waiting, not a dramatic overhaul. For repeat content, less interruption is always going to feel better than a fancy transition.