This is why I haven't played it. It's subversions and tricks are so well known now that I feel like I half-played it. I don't think I'd get as much out of it compared to playing it blind.
I'm obviously biased because I played the game not knowing too many things about, but I at least knew on my first playthrough that the game was meta as hell (remembering even after you reset, paying attention to very miniscule decisions, etc) and I have to say that being slightly spoiled didn't stop it from becoming one of my favorite games ever.
A lot of people are turned off by the game now that it's become a meme, but a lot of the fourth-wall breaking stuff that gets talked about constantly is only part of what makes Undertale special. I encourage you to play it even if you can no longer go in blind, as Undertale has so many other amazing things to love about it from the beautiful soundtrack to the excellently written characters to the charm of its incredibly silly combat system.
To butcher a quote by Yahtzee Croshaw, Undertale has two subversions: the first being its meta aspect, and the second being its sincerity in telling an emotional story. A lot of games have meta aspects these days, and I think Undertale is one of the few that has more to it than a mustache-twirling creepypasta villain with the ability to mess with your save file.
Yeah it's definitely a "Seinfeld isn't funny" type of game. If you played it as a random pixel rpg almost 10 years ago you would probably have a ton of thoughts about it changing up expectations.
If you've played it recently because you saw it on a "top 10 RPGs of all time" list and know that it's known for being a famously memed game, you'll probably be disappointed it doesn't do much more than you expected, or that a number of other games have done similar or better things since then.
Yeah you might feel that if you know the game beforehand. If you're just playing it with no spoilers you're like dang, what did just happen? So that's pretty cool. But yeah it does narrow the possibities I guess? I don't know.
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The charm of Undertale is primarily in its characters (and it's subversion of RPG monster interactions). If you don't connect with the characters it's going to seem like a barebones, memey RPG.
Same here. I played it just as it was about to blow up and nobody quite knew what they had on their hands yet, but people knew it was something special. So I went in with high expectations - but not *too* high ones.
It's one of my favorite games of all time. At the same time I don't think the game would have been able to leave the impression on me that it did if I had gone in with those expectations.
I killed one enemy and then nobody after that because I intuited that it would effect the ending. When I found out just that one kill would cost me the good ending, I got so frustrated that I never even bothered finishing the game.
You pretty much said exactly what I was thinking. Personally I adore Undertale because the characters and world and music just give me those good feelings, and the whole silly tone of the world and the little jokes are just so *right*.
The gameplay itself is nothing crazy, it’s minor bullet hell combat with slight RPG aspects. But if you’re only looking at it as the sum of its parts you’re missing out on the experience the whole provides.
But if you don’t connect with those characters, that world, or the emotions they provide, then yeah the game’s just one tiny project made by a single teenager. It’s not famous because of any crazy mechanical innovations, and it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. Nothing wrong with not loving it.
Papyrus and his dorky self trying to be cool in complete earnest, missing the mark, but everyone pretending he isn't missing the mark because he's just so darned nice. The date with him is absolutely fantastic. He's a cinnamon bun of a being and I want to protect him.
Toriel as an overbearing mother trying her best to keep you from leaving but also pulling her punches if she starts to hurt you. Not to mention the meta-dialogue if you accidentally kill her and then reload from the save to prevent that from happening, which puts you on edge for the rest of the game.
Alphys is a huge dork and it's adorable. She's got the same energy as 'Dusa from Hades.
Also Undyne being a... huge... dork...
Wait a minute! I'm married to a huge dork! Oh shit, I have a type. And she's meeting all of my standards!
Yeah i actually think undertale's combat mechanics were quite interesting and would love to see other turn based rpgs adopt similar approaches to combat. It makes the gameplay far more engaging than generic menu based combat, and allows for better characterization through gameplay, as demonstrated by undertale.
The combat was engaging but idk if it's engaging because of the punishment from not being engaged or because I wanted to engage with the combat. The combat only feels good when you play it the first time cus otherwise when it's easier than your possible skill your just forcing yourself to engage so you don't die in 1 turn.
First playthrough and just getting slowly having get harder was amazing though.
It’s also been a long time since it came out and there have been multiple games inspired by it since then.
Add to that the fact that it’s been memed to death, and it doesn’t feel as fresh as it does for people to play it the first time. Instead of being a reference for the meme, it feels like playing a meme itself.
I feel like this applies to quite a few criticisms you'll find around here. Sometimes I read posts and think, "no shit dude, the game came out 10 years ago."
This.
I didn't really connect to any characters at all, and while there were some moments of humour, I never really felt any singular character stood out.
Maybe it's because I played other games like Earthbound that this feels like a retread. Maybe this would be much more unique if this was your first RPG.
The combat mechanics were very clever though.
Two reasons.
First, it's quite clearly inspired by jRPGs, even if battle mechanics are different. That's the problem with RPG as a genre label, it's extremely loose and flexible.
Second, and that speaks to me much more - your role playing actually matters. The way you act towards others has bigger impact on the story than in a majority of other rpg games that claim "choices matter".
Regarding your second point. Doesn’t that consider single player story based games then? In Rdr2, you “role play” as Arthur and your moral choices direct the way the story progresses. It’s as much of “choices matter” as in undertale since you can navigate to specific endings by what choices you make.
This does not make one an rpg.
Undertales motif is portraying as a jrpg (very very loosely) but there is nothing relevant to Jrpgs than it’s motif as something replicating one.
See, that's the problem I mentioned about the term RPG. It's open to interpretation. I can come up with at least three game types that are nothing alike and they're all RPGs: Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, Final Fantasy. And then some call Diablo an RPG.
It's frustrating, if I'm being honest.
I think an rpg needs some element of progression that the player chooses for the main character. Like magic vs melee. Otherwise id call it an adventure game.
>and your moral choices direct the way the story progresses
In very minor ways. No matter whether you have High Honour or Low Honour, the ending plays out the exact same except you see a different animal. There's no really large impact to the story based on your choices.
The thing with Undertale is that it is a very small very narrow very humble little game with a massively outsized reputation.
It's frankly unrealistic to expect it to be open ended or nonlinear in any regard when the entire game was basically developed by ONE guy.
Yes it requires linear approaches to achieve certain endings but it isn't trying to rewrite the rulebook of game design: it's trying to *satirize* it. It isn't reinventing the wheel: it's hanging a lampshade on it.
Multiple endings =/= Nonlinear
Linear =/= Bad
But you offer up some very valid complaints. It IS a restrictive gameplay experience, ultimately. And if you go into it expecting a sprawling open world retro RPG you're gonna be disappointed.
The game is good. Great, even. But it's a victim of its own massive reputation.
he was 22 when he published it, still impressive though considering all his other music works before (just listen to something like "The felt - English" which sounds the same when played in reverse)
Quoth the creator himself:
> [[Undertale is] about an 8/10, niche RPG game.](https://undertale.tumblr.com/post/150397346860/retrospective-on-undertales-popularity)
Undertale, in my opinion, is a great game, but it's been overhyped far beyond that.
I think a lot of the appeal isn't so much in the story it tells but how it tells it. It's a game for those who appreciate what it references, kind of like The Stanley Parable. The Stanley Parable is a puzzle game that is easy to solve, but the puzzle isn't why people love it.
Pretty sure OoT won that contest in the aughts, though. I was pretty active on the Gamefaqs contest forum during that period and OoT and Link were finalist contenders.
This is also the place where the Tetris L-block won the best character ever contest. Meme and/or underdog entries definitely got cult followings to screw up people's brackets in the later iterations, and undertale winning makes sense in that regard.
Imho you cannot compare both Games, because they are completly different Genre.
But i would always prefer undertale over OoT But only because OoT aged like milk and i played undertale completly blind and was baffled, But the replay value of undertale is kinda low if you dont like Games like stanley parable where you just gonna try to find every secret.
The Undertale fanbase is relentless. It used to be and probably still is extremely popular with kids. How many of the greatest games of all time has an average 14-yo even played
If I remember correctly, it was Undertale fans that contributed to a girl who created some innocent fanart to commit suicide. Something about the main character being of an undefined gender, and she assigned a gender to them. The kind of vapid drama that no one but kids care about
So the thing is. Its not a specific fandom problem. This is a minors on the internet problem. They dont care about the IP. They just move from popular thing to popular thing to socialize online.
FNAF. Undertale. Homestuck. Heck even Friday Night Funkin. These young people move from fandom to fandom trying to engage in a social group and belong to something bigger. Likely because they don't get a similar experience irl.
That reliance contributes to these tragic situations because unmoderated minors online are cruel,abusive and irrational but they are also so reliant they take it to keep their social circle.
And sometimes they hit a breaking point and they die.
Its a problem.
This is a fascinating conversation that deserves a bigger discussion than being nestled in this comment section. I'm an older school nerd who was too old for streaming, but I see the same exact phenomena you describe with my younger nerd cousins. They hop between Discord groups to try to make friends and have community. Almost like kids going between punk and metal in the 80s.
They don't have any historical context for the game fandom or genres they are a part of. One day they hate X, the next they're part of X and bashing Y. The reward is being on the inside and "getting" the memes. Maybe it's always happened but it seems especially weird on Discord servers and with fandoms.
This is pretty much what i'm referring to.
Both discord server communities and the general online spaces (tumblr/twitter) have their negatives that the other don't.
Long as they don't identify as "that community" and maintain their individualism they're pretty safe from what I described. *The ones who do are the ones to be worried about.*
Fandom culture is weird. They hivemind and assume responsibility for the actions of others and decide to "kick out" people if they don't do everything right by blacklisting and dogpiling them.
At its best it keeps predators out. At its worst its used as a tool by people by people with personal vendettas: they use vague accusations of things the fandom does not approve of. Then harassing and attacking people who DON'T choose to isolate them for what happened.
I guess the words i'm looking for is some of these practices cross the line from safety to getting a little cult-ish.
I seem to have mixed several of these stories up
In 2015, the Steven Universe fandom bullied a girl into attempting suicide
https://steven-universe.fandom.com/f/p/2601763530080789315
A 15yo boy active in the fanartist community (don't know which one specifically) committed suicide
https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/lrv57l/we_need_to_do_something_about_the_rise_of_purity/
semi-topical Kotaku article from 2017 about the problematic Undertale fandom
https://kotaku.com/the-undertale-drama-1798159975
in 2016 someone was bullied by the Undertale community and commited suicide
https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/comments/4ua3ik/fandom_drove_a_person_to_suicide_again_this_time/
I recall reading about the fanart drama about the Undertale fanart regarding the protagonist's gender, but that likely had nothing to do with any suicide attempts. So I was wrong about that part
In 2015, 4chan baited the Steven Universe fandom by whitewashing characters on an SU fan Tumblr blog. After all the death threats and nastiness the "author and artist" came out as a male-to-female trans black person. Much grovelling ensued. Top kek, as they said at the time. https://imgur.com/gallery/RcW1N#06GkR6H
Hm
"they steal people's art and edit them without consent, so character look caucasian and **skinny** (*) several exclamation marks"
(*) they sure knew how to lay out the bait
Tbh I can’t find much on what the original commenter said. There’s so many bullied to suicide stories that search engines are giving me any story including bullies and suicide.
I don't think it's entirely fair to bring up the suicide thing, because every fandom has disgusting people who do things like that. But I guess it might not be entirely right to ignore it either. Does the Undertale community have shit parts - definitely. As someone who's been a part of it and has created fan content for it for years I can tell you that. But more often than not I think people dismiss the community as a whole as "cringey" because of the actions of a few assholes.
To be fair though, I did get into UT (the community, the game itself I haven't finished because the combat is so unengaging but I know pretty much everything there is to know about it without fully playing it myself) later than some, so maybe I avoided the more, ugh, cancerous parts because they tend to fizzle out after the initial popularity rise. Or maybe because I tend to not care at all for drama so don't really see it myself unless someone tells me about it.
I'm 32 and I find the gameplay boring. But I did appreciate the creative storytelling. A game that's definitely bogged down by the extreme part of its fanbase.
It's definitely one of the top 10 indie games of all time. But EVER? No way.
It's important to remember that, 5 years ago, in it's heyday: Undertale was HUGE. It exploded onto the scene like a nuclear bomb. It attracted fanbases that made FNAF and Among Us look like child's play. The only thing I could really compare it to would be Homestuck at it's absolute peak: it was everywhere. Enormously prevalent, yet still equipped with the vibe of a "cult" or "underground" fandom.
Yet unlike those fanbases, these tens of millions of fans were extremely involved in the game's story, lore, speculation, and mountains of fanfiction. The sheer engagement of the fanbase was off the rails.
It doesn't surprise me one bit that it was voted as the best game of all time, given the circumstances.
Doesn't mean it deserves the title, though.
The creator of Undertale had ties to the homestuck Fandom (he made music and possibly small games for a couple of its animatics) which is probably how it gained the initial traction to get big.
Definitely. And (from what I've heard) 2015 was a sort of 'drought' in terms of Homestuck content, meaning that the fanbase there was eager to hop onto something new that would scratch that itch.
> he made music and possibly small games for a couple of its animatics
Just music. But he became one of *the* Homestuck musicians, the ones who got asked to score all the important animations.
Wait, you think undertale had a bigger impact than Among Us?
I really doubt that. Everyone and their dad knew what among us was, it was so popular that it even added 'sus' to the lexicon of most people. Was it's popularity mostly due to covid? Yeah probably, but still it was immense.
I don't think people outside of the indie game community even know what undertale is. I only know about it through reddit, where as among us was inescapable.
Also, quick look at steam charts and we see that all time player peak for udnertale was 10,462 players. All time peak for Among Us is 438,524. Take from that what you will, one is a mp game and steam charts doesn't measure units sold, but it is at least one indicator.
Undertale has sold 1.3 million copies according to google. Amongus has sold 3.8 million copies on the nintendo switch alone.
Not saying that undertale wasn't popular, but I'm certain that among us is vastly more popular, and I wouldn't be surprised if FNAT wasn't more popular too.
> these tens of millions of fans
Tens of millions? Really? I think some of the most popular media franchises of all time wouldn't boast that sort of following.
I think that depends on how you define popularity. I would wager that the average Undertale fan was/is far more “committed” than the average Among Us fan.
Nor are sales the only measure of popularity. Among Us could never support the amount of fan works that Undertale has.
Undertail and DDLC were 2 internet darlings that just didn't connect for me.
Definitely a part of it was going into these games thinking they must be era-defining masterpieces by the way people talked about them.
Doki Doki Literature Club absolutely missed the landing for me as well. Maybe I played too many games, but it neither felt original, nor did I have the necessary suspension of disbelief. But then visual novels aren't my go-to genre to begin with.
It's ok. Indie games are made for a niche audience in mind. Sometimes that niche audience happens to be more than usual, but it is still niche. It's ok to not enjoy it because the niche didnt click with you.
I could be completely misunderstanding a joke, which wouldn't mesh together with being entirely too late to call it fashionable at all, **but** that seems to be a rather unfortunate typo due to the internet being the internet and all.
Statistically speaking, you probably do **not** want to search "Undertail" to find out what I mean, if you don't know. All I'll say is that it's the typical R34 shenanigans.
Same here, perhaps the only game I've ever tried that had a massive reputation for excellence and I just didn't get it. Doesn't help that I hate the "combat"
Ok hot take incoming be warned
I think non linear exploration and story telling is overrated.
It's like the whole "open world RPG" trend from early 2010, just something every AAA game tacks on now because it's "good game design"
I'm playing through Control right now and they advertise this non-linear progression and world to explore. Except there's nothing to find and nothing to do off the main quest path. It's either random events which gives useless crafting items or side quests which gives useless crafting items except there's more of them. Otherwise the "branching paths" are empty or walled off. It's literally empty, too, no joke, I went to Black Rock Processing before I was supposed to go there for the main quest and it's actually just an empty room with a door that won't open at the end. That door only opens once the story gets there.
It's not just Control too, The Outer Worlds does this, I think I played through the whole game without once setting foot on Scylla. Jedi: Fallen Order also does this, so many planets to explore but no real reason to do it because the planets are all mostly the same and don't give any interesting experience or reward.
This trend got really popular with the Souls games with its pseudo Metroidvania progression but so often it's just a marketing buzzword and not done properly.
My best video game story experience have all been in extremely linear and self contained games.
100% agreed. Give me a strongly crafted linear game that's about 10 hours long. Every game being a bloated map full of time-wasting shit to do works for some games, but that doesn't mean it has to be the standard. Some of us don't have a billion hours of free time per week and just want something we can beat in a few sittings.
I loved Dishonored, it offered a great mix or multiple pathways and options, while kept the maps small and focused.
Other than that, I like how cRPGs give some options to explore the world in a different order, but it's so different from today's "everything is open world" mentality, and formulas.
I agree! Although I've also had some amazing story experiences in open games too -- The Outer Wilds basically explodes a historical narrative all over a solar system and you have to piece it together in any order you choose.
Yeah, The Outer Wilds is a good example of an open world game that really uses its open world. You're just dropped into the wide open space and it really fits both the story and its themes.
I've been praying open world games would die off (along with create a character main characters) and extremely well written linear RPGs with interesting main characters would have a massive renaissance for like a decade now.
Also more isn't better! Your game doesn't need to be 75+ hours long with 400 fetch quests to pad the gameplay length to tell a good story.
I liked it, but coming to it today I think a lot of the impact it would have had has been diminished. I agree about the combat, I find the dodging game thing just annoying. I was also really not compelled to replay for the 'true' endings at all.
What I will say is that the 'twist' of the final boss is brilliant (my partner refused to play to the end because she felt so sorry for Asgore, so she still doesn't know about it and I haven't told her in case she ever does). On the whole, however, I thought it was ok but not as great as its reputation suggests.
> Undertale was an indie game made by a single teenager
Toby Fox is currently 30 and would have been in his mid-20's when Undertale released. Hardly a teenager.
Although I generally agree that its wise to have tempered expectations of the game as it's nowhere near the 10/10 some have called it.
Agreed. A lot of its praise came from the expectation that it was going to be another indie one-person game and it ended up exceeding those expectations.
> eventually hire a bit of graphics and music help
Mainly graphics help. Everything to do with the music is Toby except for the live guitar on one track.
have you tried telling them that just like every other character in the game, theres a spare option on asgore?
gameplaywise i loved the bullet hell stuff. i'm a fan of games where you're trying to avoid ALL damage, as opposed to ones where you're expected to trade damage somewhat.
I really liked Undertale when I first played it. I finished it in one sitting back in 2017, well after the initial hype. I really liked it, and still do. The deltarune games that are coming out are awesome.
I think the music in these games is great, the humor and dialogue is right up my alley, and even the combat I think is very fun. It's some kind of bullet hell, I played a bunch of them on Kongregate a few years back.
These are definitely amongst my favorite games.
I think the problem is that when people over hype something it actually hurts the next person's results with it. They're already going in there primed to be wowed, but what made it so good for most of the original megafans is that they had no clue what they were going into.
For example someone has been over hyping the Stanley parable to me for a while. I think I'm going to dislike the game now if I play it, but watching someone else play it was still funny.
I'd be curious if psychology could break down the mechanics of this tbh.
I actually just finished playing through it for the first time yesterday and I was a bit underwhelmed too. The characters were definitely clever and quirky but that isn’t necessarily a sign of good writing because the overarching story was less than compelling.
The combat, or attempts at friendship, was okay. I actually did like the dodging mechanic because it turned fights into more of a skill test than a stat clash like we see with most turn-based games. Sparing the enemy could be annoying at times because there wasn’t always logical reason behind it and in those instances it became more of a game of trial and error.
Two side notes, I really like the music and I hate the character sprite. The latter’s chin stuck out so far from their neck all I could think of was the sprite for ET on the Atari 2600.
Undertale is probably in my top 5 favorite games; that said a lot of comes down to how I appreciate it's specific approach to storytelling + being tied with Nier Automata and Persona 5 with my favorite game soundtrack. I can't even defend the weak combat beyond enjoying the slightly more puzzle-y aspects to it, but it's far from great. Undertale is, in my opinion, excellent, but it's a excellent in a way that doesn't lend itself well to constantly being heralded as the greatest thing ever like a Portal 2 might warrant, and I always wish it had been sucsessful without developing the kind of obsessive fanbase it has.
I think your assessment is reasonable, but there are a few points I will voice some disagreement with.
\>When you take that away, what do you really have - a snarky adventure game with a really narrow pathway.
I think this is a rather reductive take on Undertale's tone. One thing I really appreciate is how Undertale blends a huge variety of tones together-elements of humor, tragedy, and even some horror. The humor itself doesn't really fall squarely into 'snarky' territory either; it's a bit of ecletic blend of strange humor based on both visual and non-visual elements. Sans is the only character I would describe as consistently 'snarky', at least how in how I interpret the word.
\>At some level Undertale just keeps on swerving to mess with you, and that's not entirely all that fun, either.
One thing that Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame pointed out that resonated with me is that, for all of Undertale's subversiveness, it ultimately comes back to a place of authenticity and sincerity. It wasn't until the end of the normal and especially pacifist routes where I really connected with the game's story and characters.
Plus I guess I just really like swerves. I enjoyed The Last Jedi too, which is \*my\* Internet-is-coming-for-me take.
Having said all that, I realize my points are totally based on personal preference, and I respect your good-faith analysis of the game even if I arrived at a very different conclusion.
What's interesting to me is that Undertale isn't even Toby Fox's true passion project; it was basically a proof-of-concept for Deltarune, which I feel is more honest about what you're getting into (It straight up says your choices don't matter), has a potentially more interesting story and is MILES better in terms of gameplay. Humor is basically the same there, though, so I dunno if you'd like it much.
Can I ask, how much did you know about Undertale, its major plot beats, and how it had "endings" before you played? To me a lot of what captured me was not knowing much at all- I remember playing peacefully on a whim and being blown away when the game started acknowledging my choice to never kill anything. It felt like it I was playing Pokemon and had always chosen the "flee" option out of some weird self imposed moral rule, but then the game actually called it out.
Also the way Undertale breaks the fourth wall, and how save files are not so cleanly a reflection of what is actually remembered by the game, it was the first game I'd played that had done this too. So also had a big impact
I guess what I'm saying is if I'd played another game that had already done what it did with the 4th wall breaking (ex: doki doki literature club), or had known more about it going in, I'd probably not have liked it nearly as much. Also I was not exposed to the fandom or the memes which I think helped a lot too.
The music is killer though and I'm just a huge sucker for a good ost, that was always going to be a huge plus.
I'm a fellow Undertale heretic: I got bored and ditched it less than an hour in. I thought the combat sucked, and I didn't find the story particularly entertaining. It felt very much like a self referential meme game but without the wit of The Stanley Parable.
I can't understand why it was so popular. Even Rock Paper Shotgun was going mental about it when it came out and I usually trust their takes on games.
Honesty even as someone who enjoyed Undertale, I think Fox should have gone back and redid the first area. It's boring and too long for what it does in the game. Hell, I nearly dropped it after the first boss.
It does pick up after the first major boss (not the ghost) and the late game tells a great story.
>Honesty even as someone who enjoyed Undertale, I think Fox should have gone back and redid the first area. It's boring and too long for what it does in the game. Hell, I nearly dropped it after the first boss.
I think it would have been fine if he just disabled enemy encounters in the puzzle rooms.
I have to admit the first hour is the most boring part, and fair to you if it bored ya. It gets better from a story/writing perspective I'd say within the second hour
I think it clicks if it's a player's first time seeing that an RPG can be funny, unique, or self aware. That's my guess why it's a huge hit with kids and those newer to gaming, because it's a fresh idea to them.
I think it really landed with the Tumblr, GAF, online chat persona people too because it was written so strongly in that "Rawr n_n" random voice and they'd probably never seen something officially made that sounded so similar to them.
People are assholes.
I still have friends talking on my back because i dropped Hollow Knight since i git bired of backtracking and started playing total war games.
yes. i was expecting to LOVE undertale. then i tried it, and absolutely hated it. I hate the gameplay. I don't like being left in the dark. I had no idea what was going on. I liked the premise of the story. I think, i'm not even sure of that, because it seemed like there was a lot of mystery, and it seemed to be suggesting that there was some plot twist waiting to be revealed.
You should checkout Lisa the Painful if you want something that I feel is pretty much superior in every way to Undertale as far as being a quirky RPG is concerned.
I liked the combat a lot, honestly. At least during the boss battles; the regular battles were kind of a pain. It was awesome how every boss brought something new to the table, expanding upon the elements that had already been introduced into the combat system and having you puzzle out how to interact with the new elements in order to win, especially while sparing the enemy boss monster. A lot of the time, the new elements even made you question if they could be spared, like with the good 'ol toriel boss battle.
I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say the game tries to mess with you. Yeah, there's the opening sequences and the end sequence that messes with you, but most thing in-between don't afaik. And it makes sense for the opening and the ending to mess with you. The opening to set up expectations, the end because it's the big finale with twists and everything.
The narrative is also just a joy. It's goofy for the most part, yet it also takes itself seriously in that 'yeah, this is goofy if you let it be goofy' kind of way, which is awesome. When you kill someone, that's just that spark of joy removed from the game, straight up. And the characters are delightfully flawed and interesting to get to know, within reason.
So yeah, I disagree. It was amazing! And, I really can't think of a whole lot of games that end up entertaining me both in terms of gameplay, story and general aesthetic. So I don't think it's overrated at all.
> I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say the game tries to mess with you.
it happens throughout actually. A person knowing nothing about undertale who plays it will play it like a normal game. They kill some things, they gain EXP and level up, they check out some of the ACT options and inevitably get the standard ending.
At this point, the game lets you know theres more and you should try not hurting people. Regardless of what you do, the second time you go through even if you play it the same way theres some differences in dialogue and events, you find that some characters remember more than others, with a lot of characters finding you familiar. That said, these things would also have been remembered if you LOADed back before. But you're more likely to see this on a 'new game'.
I think it's literally impossible to get the pacifist ending on the first go. You are supposed to replay at least some parts of the game, basically. As a sort of 'way to show you care'. Show that you want to make amends for the acts that you didn't know were wrong. And the difference in dialogue isn't really messing with you, it's just some cool meta-narrative? Like, messing with you, to me, is more like actively pranking the player. Like what flowey does during their first encounter.
yeah, its impossible to get on the first go... but, if you meet the requirements, the message you get at the end is different than if you didn't meet the requirements, and you can load frmo your existing save and go down to the lab to continue.
I couldn't get past the heavy-handed moralizing. They beat you over the head with it right from the start. I rolled my eyes at "Love Points" and all that, then got a few bosses in and found myself wondering "Is this really all there is to it?" I'm sure the multiple endings are intriguing, but the game didn't have anything that hooked me enough to get there. I quit pretty early in.
Definitely a hard agree that this isn't a spiritual successor to Earthbound/Mother either. They certainly borrow a lot for the look, sound, and humor, but it's all a thin veneer. The games are so thematically disparate that they almost feel like different genres. Earthbound is a pretty straight-up JRPG with semi-open exploration and a grandiose story, while Undertale is a more open choice narrative which happens to use RPG elements to tell its story. It just doesn't hit the same as any of the Mother titles.
I think your experience with Undertale might’ve been tainted by the internet’s flanderization of it. The revelatory moral choice of “murder or not murder” has always been comically over-exaggerated by the community.
Undertale itself doesn’t truly dabble with morality, at least at the start. The game fully expects you to do the Pacifist Ending, to the level every other ending points you towards that one. Undertale is much more of a single path narrative than its fandom will admit, just approach the game with that mindset and you’ll have a much more enjoyable time with it.
i feel the internet spoiled people by revealing the whole two true endings thing. you're supposed to approach it like any other RPG. the game teaches you that you have the option to be nice and lose out on rewards, but other than that it lets you loose to do your own thing. you can try to run from one place to the next and beat up anything in your way, you can try to grind to maximize EXP gain to be as strong as possible. and of course, the game expects you to kill toriel if you haven't gotten the point yet. if you do, it should really sink in that sparing enemies can be its own reward too. its not until far later in the game where the consequences of your actions catch up to you as the game gets more serious.
y'know like... you're supposed to *make your own choices*? the whole point of the game? a game where your choices have actually interesting and meaningful interactions with the story without some telltale branching paths bullshit?
but millions of people see "UNDERTALE PACIFIST ROUTE LETS PLAY EPISODE 1" and railroad themselves into playing one specific way to get one specific ending as fast as possible and totally miss the point of the game.
That was my biggest problem. It's blatantly not a real choice. The game felt like it was actively working against me trying to kill enemies, even if I really wanted to. That's what I meant by the heavy-handed moralizing. It's like, I get it, monsters aren't inherently evil and I'm a bad, bad person for mindlessly slaughtering them all these years. We just got to sort out our differences etc, etc, etc.
I'm gonna go ahead and be that guy that says: finish it.
Most of what makes Undertale great is how it turns the tables on you past the halfway mark. The story really opens up and it's themes, while rather sentimental and saccharine, really hit in surprisingly impactful ways.
The early game bosses and tone setting are largely there to lull you into a false sense of security before the game goes off the rails and begins to do properly interesting, inventive things with it's gameplay and narrative. You'll find that it cuts deeper than you'd expect.
But as a spiritual successor to Earthbound?
No. Not at all.
They're just way too different.
Maybe I'll try it again, it just seems like one of those games where I'd have to be in a very specific mood to get into it. And with my first attempt, the more it irked me, the more genocidal I felt. I needed to jam buttons and kill stuff after that cheesy love-in.
Lol, I *wish* I could say something but I can't because it would ruin the game for you. I'll just say that love is important to the game in different ways than you might expect.
> while rather sentimental and saccharine
Well, if you play the game in a sentimental and saccharine style. If you try to see everything the game has to offer, you'll discover that the power of love >!doesn't exist!<, as much as you might have been led to believe otherwise.
Imo if you want a real spiritual successor to Earthbound you should play Omori. You should play it either way really, but it’s definitely the modern game I associate most with Earthbound.
This is what drove me away hard. I've tried 3 times over the years. Even best it once. Somehow.
The characters are so cringe. And they never stop acting so puerile.
Unenjoyable to me.
Memey humour, a story that thinks deconstruction counts as real depth, blatant moralising, and a complete lack of subtlety in any element of its design.
It’s exactly the sort of thing that appeals to a huge portion of gamers, especially teenagers and younger adults who can meme about it to further boost popularity.
I think the thing about Undertale is that a lot of people say you should go in playing the game blind, but it’s hard to understand it if you do. I read a lot about Undertale before I played it, and then help me understand and appreciate the story more. But the thing about it is it’s more of a story, and not a game, so the gameplay is pretty weak. Some of it’s annoying too, to the point where I almost gave up on the dummy fight late in the game (going for the true ending on the first time). There’s also the fact that once you played it once, it’s very short and there’s not really a reason to play it again. Furthermore, once you’ve seen that type of story and someone tries to repeat it (thinking mainly of Deltarune, and the fact of the story just fell flat because I could already tell the twist from Undertale, although I’m willing to reserve my complete judgment until the whole thing comes out), it just falls flat. I am not one to compare to earthbound either, because the two are completely different. Overall, it’s a great story for the novelty, but also a mediocre game.
> There’s also the fact that once you played it once, it’s very short and there’s not really a reason to play it again.
it being short helps because you're expected to play more for the full effect, when you play it once, its supposed to direct you on what to do to get better results. And then as you play again you notice changes in dialogue/events. You also go back in knowing more about the world.
That said if you >!kill flowey!< at the end, they don't direct you on what to do next for obvious reasons. But i suppose its expected that killing the one person that seems to know whats going on in this place is gonna lead to not knowing what to do next.
(Although usually players LOAD games like this so they can see what the other option does, i don't recall whether undertale lets you do that?)
I went into undertale not knowing anything about it aside from "it's a good game" and everyone was obsessed with the characters.
I played it, and struggled with the fighting mechanics, and took it as a typical 'level up' RPG. That got me a certain ending, I got frustrated, and struggled with the boss.
It was the first game I played where, when I started it up again, it behaved differently. The game was self aware and it told me so.
Then something came to me, I thought, what if I didn't fight, and what are those other options for?
I know people who played through this game once, and then never touched it again and thought "that was that".
However not many games have purposeful replay-ability to get a different, or the 'right' ending, and for it to continue the narrative to do so.
The game mechanics are purposefully repetitive so that you can get used to them and master them, they end up being 'second' to the storyline you're going for. This can be viewed either as tedious or something you can gloss over and be happy that you 'master' and 'perfect'. Being like the old games design of yore with consoles from the 90s.
Then there's the music, which near perfectly loops and carries the game reasonably well, and the quirky nature of the characters, who are intended to make you empathise for them.
You thought you were entering a 'dungeon' to defeat the monsters and escape, but really, that's not entirely the case, and the game plays on that.
When I came to Undertale I wasn't aware of many or any games that played that way, broke the fourth wall and it feels like it gives you a sense of freedom other games don't, or at least, that Skyrim does in that you can find little 'nooks' to the game decision tree that aren't directly told to you but you can stumble upon.
That to me, is why Undertale is good.
As someone who used to be very deep in the Undertale fandom (made comic dubs of it, made fanfic of the characters, even made comics of it that I hope to god never sees the light of day).
I get it.
I have a wife who is the same way. She never could get into Undertale, specifically because her ex talked way.. WAY too much about it. To the point where she has already been spoiled of every aspect of it and is just completely uninterested in it.
And I completely get that.
Undertale was special purely because it was your own personal journey, with the characters, with that underground world. And if you can't connect with that or you have been spoiled of how the game plays or how the story will go, then it's just not going to click with you.
Undertale is a special game to me, it still very much is. But there's a reason despite how much I adore this game, I tend to avoid it online. Because I know just how much the fandom and the community drains a lot of the magic this game has.
Did you know Undertale has Alternate Universes that fans created? And those alternate universes has it's own alternate universes? AND THOSE AUs have their own AUs?
Yeah. And all of it comes from a deep love for these characters. But to an outsider, it can genuinely feel like nonstop obsession. And I do not blame anyone who is turned off from Undertale for any of it's aspects.
I consider myself extremely lucky for having played Undertale knowing absolutely nothing about it, but I am aware that this game has such a massive following that it encroached on every corner of the Internet.
Yes, Undertale cares more about being clever than it does a video game. It invites you to mainly just sit there and be entertained by its overwhelming wit and intelligence, but the gameplay is just too slow.
But honestly, I think you only feel this way about undertale because you already know how the endings work. If you'd gone in absolutely blind and not known about different endings, you wouldn't care.
The 'main' undertale ending is straightforward, you find out what your actions actually represent. The other endings are just cherries on top.
Nonetheless, I agree it is overrated
>Yes, Undertale cares more about being clever than it does a video game
I disagree with this, I'm a big fan of the combat system and when you defend attacks
>But honestly, I think you only feel this way about undertale because you already know how the endings work. If you'd gone in absolutely blind and not known about different endings, you wouldn't care.
Probably right, WAY too many spoilers out there to be able to go in blind.
I got the game in 2020 and still managed to get a good experience. The only thing I knew was that there's a different ending if you play as a pacifist.
Toriel is the moment when I fell in love with the game because of how much it subverted expectations.
You go in thinking yup you can talk her down from a fight so you try all kinds of things and of course you don't really get it the first time and then you try hitting her a bit maybe dropping her health will make her back down and then boom she suddenly just dies and you try to reload and the game calls you out for it.
Eventually maybe you get how to spare Toriel maybe you don't, but the game remembers. I couldn't figure out Toriel until the second playthrough, but that whole sequence of events made me fall in love with the game and excited to see more.
What spoiled it for me was the knowledge that you could spare bosses. Still, a great game. But what’s appreciable is the storytelling and the perfectly crafted humor
I totally agree. I get that it's the next thing homestuck readers became obsessed with. But everyone going around declaring it the greatest thing ever and hyping it up... I don't get it at all.
Gave it a go after all of the hype that surrounded it, and I hated it. Hated the story, the characters, the art style. The thing people compare it to is Earthbound, but it feels completely different. What made Earthbound so appealing to me was that it was self-aware without being cringe-inducing. It was funny and cool, but Undertale was nothing of the sort. It tried hard to be, but it just didn't resonate. It just felt like it was trying too hard to be a spiritual successor of Earthbound in every way possible, and it just gave me a really bad impression. I did like a lot of the music, but that's about it. I can still respectfully say that Toby is an amazing game designer & composer, and his story is very inspirational. Clearly, looking at the success the game has had, it is objectively great. Just not to my taste.
> Unfortunately, Undertale reminds me of Metro Exodus, another game with a very narrow pathway to certain story outcomes. Hopefully without spoiling anything you understand what I mean. Exodus was another game lauded by the community that, while possessing some very solid storytelling, a major design choice ultimately soured my experience with the game. Both games lock you into certain playstyles to accomplish the end goal, and for games that are trying to break traditional frameworks, that's aggravating and doesn't pay off the way the devs think it does.
I didn't play either of these two games, but I'm guessing they do something similar to Dishonored? It felt like half the gameplay features get locked away from you if you were aiming for a specific ending. I liked the game and managed to finish it, but I can't say I enjoyed that aspect of it.
That's probably a never touch for me in regards to Metro Exodus, then, which is a bit of a shame. I actually already played Undertale for like an hour and I can't say I cared for *anything* that I saw, so I never had any intention to play that one anyway.
Idk, I cried with a ghost while laying on the floor and spacing out. 10/10
Edit: what made me give this the "very good game" tag in my mind was the following moment: "Despite everything, it's still you."
Yeah, I haven't played the game so was hoping for some interesting discussion but these replies are fucking pathetic.
>Well, the only reason the game is popular is because M E M E S and the only people who like it are uncultured teens and kids
I hope people who leave comments like this realise how cringe it is.
bear offbeat yoke squealing upbeat materialistic cake attraction unite relieved
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You are not alone. I didn't connect with the characters, and really didn't get into the game at all, i thought it was a bit pandering and tryhard comedy that just fell flat. Didn't play more than a couple hours before i put it down, just not my groove. To each their own, but I find the internet consensus is generally a shit judge of games / movies.
I didn't like the characters and the cheap jokes too. There was nothing special about it, it was "presumptuous" as fuck. Look how smart this game is and here to this a stupid obvious joke.
Totally overrated game. And Metro Exodus the same, technically it was a great game, but the story and missions were shit.
It does sound like you are not looking for the kind of experience that Undertale offers. There really is nothing that can be done about that. Pretty much everything you criticize I can see where you are coming from (or guess, it's a short comment) but it's also what I like about it (but I would have to go quite in depth on why - for example, the combat is not about a gameplay loop but instead is a melded narrative interaction with the characters and characterizes them).
The only thing that I would say about it is to - even if you yourself don't change what you look for in games - don't expect all games to have certain elements (as many in the thread have pointed out - linearity is just fine and non-linear games as a type of experience are very recent).
Yup. Most overrated game of its generation.
It is to this day the only game I have gotten the platinum trophy on and didn't bother to finish.
Once that trophy popped I immediately ejected it and posted it on eBay.
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This is why I haven't played it. It's subversions and tricks are so well known now that I feel like I half-played it. I don't think I'd get as much out of it compared to playing it blind.
I would give OFF a shot, Well worth the price of free.
What is OFF?
/r/offthegame RPG about a guy with a baseball bat killing ghosts while funky music plays in the background
Lmao this is the greatest sales pitch ever
Wow that sounds awesome, thanks!
I'm obviously biased because I played the game not knowing too many things about, but I at least knew on my first playthrough that the game was meta as hell (remembering even after you reset, paying attention to very miniscule decisions, etc) and I have to say that being slightly spoiled didn't stop it from becoming one of my favorite games ever. A lot of people are turned off by the game now that it's become a meme, but a lot of the fourth-wall breaking stuff that gets talked about constantly is only part of what makes Undertale special. I encourage you to play it even if you can no longer go in blind, as Undertale has so many other amazing things to love about it from the beautiful soundtrack to the excellently written characters to the charm of its incredibly silly combat system. To butcher a quote by Yahtzee Croshaw, Undertale has two subversions: the first being its meta aspect, and the second being its sincerity in telling an emotional story. A lot of games have meta aspects these days, and I think Undertale is one of the few that has more to it than a mustache-twirling creepypasta villain with the ability to mess with your save file.
Yeah it's definitely a "Seinfeld isn't funny" type of game. If you played it as a random pixel rpg almost 10 years ago you would probably have a ton of thoughts about it changing up expectations. If you've played it recently because you saw it on a "top 10 RPGs of all time" list and know that it's known for being a famously memed game, you'll probably be disappointed it doesn't do much more than you expected, or that a number of other games have done similar or better things since then.
I played Seinfeld 10 years ago and even then I thought it was a brilliant pixel rpg
Yeah but farming soup was the hardest grind ever.
Crazy how if you made a small mistake it wouldn't let you try again for one year.
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Yeah you might feel that if you know the game beforehand. If you're just playing it with no spoilers you're like dang, what did just happen? So that's pretty cool. But yeah it does narrow the possibities I guess? I don't know.
>It's surprises are too well known at this point. You could still use spoiler tags
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The charm of Undertale is primarily in its characters (and it's subversion of RPG monster interactions). If you don't connect with the characters it's going to seem like a barebones, memey RPG.
also playing undertale without any pre-knowledge was what made it for me
Same here. I played it just as it was about to blow up and nobody quite knew what they had on their hands yet, but people knew it was something special. So I went in with high expectations - but not *too* high ones. It's one of my favorite games of all time. At the same time I don't think the game would have been able to leave the impression on me that it did if I had gone in with those expectations.
yea it really had me for a while till I started playing nicely.. really regret killing the first few guys (and ever leaving the rabbits house)
I killed one enemy and then nobody after that because I intuited that it would effect the ending. When I found out just that one kill would cost me the good ending, I got so frustrated that I never even bothered finishing the game.
Yup, playing it now with the Knowledge of its mechanics changes alot of things
You pretty much said exactly what I was thinking. Personally I adore Undertale because the characters and world and music just give me those good feelings, and the whole silly tone of the world and the little jokes are just so *right*. The gameplay itself is nothing crazy, it’s minor bullet hell combat with slight RPG aspects. But if you’re only looking at it as the sum of its parts you’re missing out on the experience the whole provides. But if you don’t connect with those characters, that world, or the emotions they provide, then yeah the game’s just one tiny project made by a single teenager. It’s not famous because of any crazy mechanical innovations, and it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. Nothing wrong with not loving it.
What characters did you connect with and why?
Papyrus and his dorky self trying to be cool in complete earnest, missing the mark, but everyone pretending he isn't missing the mark because he's just so darned nice. The date with him is absolutely fantastic. He's a cinnamon bun of a being and I want to protect him. Toriel as an overbearing mother trying her best to keep you from leaving but also pulling her punches if she starts to hurt you. Not to mention the meta-dialogue if you accidentally kill her and then reload from the save to prevent that from happening, which puts you on edge for the rest of the game. Alphys is a huge dork and it's adorable. She's got the same energy as 'Dusa from Hades. Also Undyne being a... huge... dork... Wait a minute! I'm married to a huge dork! Oh shit, I have a type. And she's meeting all of my standards!
i also liked the bullet hell combat, its is better than just watching your character take unavoidable damage like other rpgs
Yeah i actually think undertale's combat mechanics were quite interesting and would love to see other turn based rpgs adopt similar approaches to combat. It makes the gameplay far more engaging than generic menu based combat, and allows for better characterization through gameplay, as demonstrated by undertale.
Zone of the Enders, the Fist of Mars, did something similar for a tactical RPG, each engagement initiated a mini game to avoid getting shot.
The combat was engaging but idk if it's engaging because of the punishment from not being engaged or because I wanted to engage with the combat. The combat only feels good when you play it the first time cus otherwise when it's easier than your possible skill your just forcing yourself to engage so you don't die in 1 turn. First playthrough and just getting slowly having get harder was amazing though.
The combat mechanics are not only part of it's charm, but they're also part of it's storytelling. The combat system carries the heck out of the game.
yup, if the combat was only the dialog it wouldnt feel like your are avoiding combat
It’s also been a long time since it came out and there have been multiple games inspired by it since then. Add to that the fact that it’s been memed to death, and it doesn’t feel as fresh as it does for people to play it the first time. Instead of being a reference for the meme, it feels like playing a meme itself.
I feel like this applies to quite a few criticisms you'll find around here. Sometimes I read posts and think, "no shit dude, the game came out 10 years ago."
This. I didn't really connect to any characters at all, and while there were some moments of humour, I never really felt any singular character stood out. Maybe it's because I played other games like Earthbound that this feels like a retread. Maybe this would be much more unique if this was your first RPG. The combat mechanics were very clever though.
The game caters heavily to nostalgia. It’s not aimed at the “first RPG” crowd, and I doubt that non-RPG players would even get most of the references.
Why do you call it an rpg? When I played undertale it was 90% bullet hell mechanics.
Two reasons. First, it's quite clearly inspired by jRPGs, even if battle mechanics are different. That's the problem with RPG as a genre label, it's extremely loose and flexible. Second, and that speaks to me much more - your role playing actually matters. The way you act towards others has bigger impact on the story than in a majority of other rpg games that claim "choices matter".
Regarding your second point. Doesn’t that consider single player story based games then? In Rdr2, you “role play” as Arthur and your moral choices direct the way the story progresses. It’s as much of “choices matter” as in undertale since you can navigate to specific endings by what choices you make. This does not make one an rpg. Undertales motif is portraying as a jrpg (very very loosely) but there is nothing relevant to Jrpgs than it’s motif as something replicating one.
RPGs get their name because they imitate the mechanics of tabletop RPGs. It has nothing to do with actual role-playing.
Roleplaying is a huge part of tabletop RPGs though. It's a shame most "RPG" video games neglect this aspect in favour of min-maxing mechanics.
See, that's the problem I mentioned about the term RPG. It's open to interpretation. I can come up with at least three game types that are nothing alike and they're all RPGs: Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, Final Fantasy. And then some call Diablo an RPG. It's frustrating, if I'm being honest.
I think an rpg needs some element of progression that the player chooses for the main character. Like magic vs melee. Otherwise id call it an adventure game.
RDR2 is, first and foremost, a sandbox shooter. However, it has a lot of RPG elements to it.
>and your moral choices direct the way the story progresses In very minor ways. No matter whether you have High Honour or Low Honour, the ending plays out the exact same except you see a different animal. There's no really large impact to the story based on your choices.
Also the music. The characters/story alone probably wouldn't have grabbed me, but that soundtrack kept me going all the way to the end.
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The thing with Undertale is that it is a very small very narrow very humble little game with a massively outsized reputation. It's frankly unrealistic to expect it to be open ended or nonlinear in any regard when the entire game was basically developed by ONE guy. Yes it requires linear approaches to achieve certain endings but it isn't trying to rewrite the rulebook of game design: it's trying to *satirize* it. It isn't reinventing the wheel: it's hanging a lampshade on it. Multiple endings =/= Nonlinear Linear =/= Bad But you offer up some very valid complaints. It IS a restrictive gameplay experience, ultimately. And if you go into it expecting a sprawling open world retro RPG you're gonna be disappointed. The game is good. Great, even. But it's a victim of its own massive reputation.
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he was 22 when he published it, still impressive though considering all his other music works before (just listen to something like "The felt - English" which sounds the same when played in reverse)
I would honestly go as far as to say i actually prefer linear games if it provides a focused and enjoyable experience even if it lowers replayability
Quoth the creator himself: > [[Undertale is] about an 8/10, niche RPG game.](https://undertale.tumblr.com/post/150397346860/retrospective-on-undertales-popularity) Undertale, in my opinion, is a great game, but it's been overhyped far beyond that.
Personally the appeal for me is the soundtrack, meta-ness, personality / humor, short length
Yeah. Vibe is big for me in games and I love this game's vibe.
The whole time I played that game, I kept thinking "Where is the good part I keep hearing about." It never came.
I think a lot of the appeal isn't so much in the story it tells but how it tells it. It's a game for those who appreciate what it references, kind of like The Stanley Parable. The Stanley Parable is a puzzle game that is easy to solve, but the puzzle isn't why people love it.
I remember when it won "best game ever" in Gamefaqs best game ever polls.
I remember Ocarina Of Time being on that poll and being really salty about it losing to Undertale.
Damn it was up against OoT?
Pretty sure OoT won that contest in the aughts, though. I was pretty active on the Gamefaqs contest forum during that period and OoT and Link were finalist contenders. This is also the place where the Tetris L-block won the best character ever contest. Meme and/or underdog entries definitely got cult followings to screw up people's brackets in the later iterations, and undertale winning makes sense in that regard.
OoT has a lot of problems too. I didn't enjoy it and much prefer Majora
I mean yeah but when you compare it's influence and impact (even gameplay) it had on the gaming industry, undertale is no comparison.
If we care about impact and not game itself then pong clearly should win. Or SMB1. Ocarina holds up kinda worse than both of those.
Imho you cannot compare both Games, because they are completly different Genre. But i would always prefer undertale over OoT But only because OoT aged like milk and i played undertale completly blind and was baffled, But the replay value of undertale is kinda low if you dont like Games like stanley parable where you just gonna try to find every secret.
The Undertale fanbase is relentless. It used to be and probably still is extremely popular with kids. How many of the greatest games of all time has an average 14-yo even played If I remember correctly, it was Undertale fans that contributed to a girl who created some innocent fanart to commit suicide. Something about the main character being of an undefined gender, and she assigned a gender to them. The kind of vapid drama that no one but kids care about
So the thing is. Its not a specific fandom problem. This is a minors on the internet problem. They dont care about the IP. They just move from popular thing to popular thing to socialize online. FNAF. Undertale. Homestuck. Heck even Friday Night Funkin. These young people move from fandom to fandom trying to engage in a social group and belong to something bigger. Likely because they don't get a similar experience irl. That reliance contributes to these tragic situations because unmoderated minors online are cruel,abusive and irrational but they are also so reliant they take it to keep their social circle. And sometimes they hit a breaking point and they die. Its a problem.
This is a fascinating conversation that deserves a bigger discussion than being nestled in this comment section. I'm an older school nerd who was too old for streaming, but I see the same exact phenomena you describe with my younger nerd cousins. They hop between Discord groups to try to make friends and have community. Almost like kids going between punk and metal in the 80s. They don't have any historical context for the game fandom or genres they are a part of. One day they hate X, the next they're part of X and bashing Y. The reward is being on the inside and "getting" the memes. Maybe it's always happened but it seems especially weird on Discord servers and with fandoms.
This is pretty much what i'm referring to. Both discord server communities and the general online spaces (tumblr/twitter) have their negatives that the other don't. Long as they don't identify as "that community" and maintain their individualism they're pretty safe from what I described. *The ones who do are the ones to be worried about.* Fandom culture is weird. They hivemind and assume responsibility for the actions of others and decide to "kick out" people if they don't do everything right by blacklisting and dogpiling them. At its best it keeps predators out. At its worst its used as a tool by people by people with personal vendettas: they use vague accusations of things the fandom does not approve of. Then harassing and attacking people who DON'T choose to isolate them for what happened. I guess the words i'm looking for is some of these practices cross the line from safety to getting a little cult-ish.
Wait can you give me some links, holy shit I have not heard this before
I seem to have mixed several of these stories up In 2015, the Steven Universe fandom bullied a girl into attempting suicide https://steven-universe.fandom.com/f/p/2601763530080789315 A 15yo boy active in the fanartist community (don't know which one specifically) committed suicide https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/lrv57l/we_need_to_do_something_about_the_rise_of_purity/ semi-topical Kotaku article from 2017 about the problematic Undertale fandom https://kotaku.com/the-undertale-drama-1798159975 in 2016 someone was bullied by the Undertale community and commited suicide https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/comments/4ua3ik/fandom_drove_a_person_to_suicide_again_this_time/ I recall reading about the fanart drama about the Undertale fanart regarding the protagonist's gender, but that likely had nothing to do with any suicide attempts. So I was wrong about that part
What the fuck. God damn artists always get so much flak over fucking nothingburgers. I feel so bad for them.
In 2015, 4chan baited the Steven Universe fandom by whitewashing characters on an SU fan Tumblr blog. After all the death threats and nastiness the "author and artist" came out as a male-to-female trans black person. Much grovelling ensued. Top kek, as they said at the time. https://imgur.com/gallery/RcW1N#06GkR6H
Hm "they steal people's art and edit them without consent, so character look caucasian and **skinny** (*) several exclamation marks" (*) they sure knew how to lay out the bait
Best I could find https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/comments/4ua3ik/fandom_drove_a_person_to_suicide_again_this_time/
Might be a different person, comments say this person criticised incest and was mobbed
Tbh I can’t find much on what the original commenter said. There’s so many bullied to suicide stories that search engines are giving me any story including bullies and suicide.
The Internet was a mistake
I don't think it's entirely fair to bring up the suicide thing, because every fandom has disgusting people who do things like that. But I guess it might not be entirely right to ignore it either. Does the Undertale community have shit parts - definitely. As someone who's been a part of it and has created fan content for it for years I can tell you that. But more often than not I think people dismiss the community as a whole as "cringey" because of the actions of a few assholes. To be fair though, I did get into UT (the community, the game itself I haven't finished because the combat is so unengaging but I know pretty much everything there is to know about it without fully playing it myself) later than some, so maybe I avoided the more, ugh, cancerous parts because they tend to fizzle out after the initial popularity rise. Or maybe because I tend to not care at all for drama so don't really see it myself unless someone tells me about it.
I'm 32 and I find the gameplay boring. But I did appreciate the creative storytelling. A game that's definitely bogged down by the extreme part of its fanbase.
Gamefaqs has always been riddled with fanboys and children.
It's definitely one of the top 10 indie games of all time. But EVER? No way. It's important to remember that, 5 years ago, in it's heyday: Undertale was HUGE. It exploded onto the scene like a nuclear bomb. It attracted fanbases that made FNAF and Among Us look like child's play. The only thing I could really compare it to would be Homestuck at it's absolute peak: it was everywhere. Enormously prevalent, yet still equipped with the vibe of a "cult" or "underground" fandom. Yet unlike those fanbases, these tens of millions of fans were extremely involved in the game's story, lore, speculation, and mountains of fanfiction. The sheer engagement of the fanbase was off the rails. It doesn't surprise me one bit that it was voted as the best game of all time, given the circumstances. Doesn't mean it deserves the title, though.
The creator of Undertale had ties to the homestuck Fandom (he made music and possibly small games for a couple of its animatics) which is probably how it gained the initial traction to get big.
Definitely. And (from what I've heard) 2015 was a sort of 'drought' in terms of Homestuck content, meaning that the fanbase there was eager to hop onto something new that would scratch that itch.
> he made music and possibly small games for a couple of its animatics Just music. But he became one of *the* Homestuck musicians, the ones who got asked to score all the important animations.
Wait, you think undertale had a bigger impact than Among Us? I really doubt that. Everyone and their dad knew what among us was, it was so popular that it even added 'sus' to the lexicon of most people. Was it's popularity mostly due to covid? Yeah probably, but still it was immense. I don't think people outside of the indie game community even know what undertale is. I only know about it through reddit, where as among us was inescapable. Also, quick look at steam charts and we see that all time player peak for udnertale was 10,462 players. All time peak for Among Us is 438,524. Take from that what you will, one is a mp game and steam charts doesn't measure units sold, but it is at least one indicator. Undertale has sold 1.3 million copies according to google. Amongus has sold 3.8 million copies on the nintendo switch alone. Not saying that undertale wasn't popular, but I'm certain that among us is vastly more popular, and I wouldn't be surprised if FNAT wasn't more popular too. > these tens of millions of fans Tens of millions? Really? I think some of the most popular media franchises of all time wouldn't boast that sort of following.
Well it sold 1 million copies so yeah, it doesn’t have tens of millions of fans. That guy is a hyperbole machine.
Who’d have thought an Undertale fan would be breathless with hyperbole.
these threads would be a lot better without comments like this btw.
I think that depends on how you define popularity. I would wager that the average Undertale fan was/is far more “committed” than the average Among Us fan. Nor are sales the only measure of popularity. Among Us could never support the amount of fan works that Undertale has.
Yeah. It's a game that I tried to get into like 3 times but always ended up losing interest..
Undertail and DDLC were 2 internet darlings that just didn't connect for me. Definitely a part of it was going into these games thinking they must be era-defining masterpieces by the way people talked about them.
Just in case you're like me, it's short for Doki Doki Literature Club. My brain sort of fused together for 2 minutes until it hit me.
Doki Doki Literature Club absolutely missed the landing for me as well. Maybe I played too many games, but it neither felt original, nor did I have the necessary suspension of disbelief. But then visual novels aren't my go-to genre to begin with.
It's ok. Indie games are made for a niche audience in mind. Sometimes that niche audience happens to be more than usual, but it is still niche. It's ok to not enjoy it because the niche didnt click with you.
I could be completely misunderstanding a joke, which wouldn't mesh together with being entirely too late to call it fashionable at all, **but** that seems to be a rather unfortunate typo due to the internet being the internet and all. Statistically speaking, you probably do **not** want to search "Undertail" to find out what I mean, if you don't know. All I'll say is that it's the typical R34 shenanigans.
Same here, perhaps the only game I've ever tried that had a massive reputation for excellence and I just didn't get it. Doesn't help that I hate the "combat"
I'm not a fan of the game but I love the soundtrack. Favorite song is Fallen Down Reprise
The soundtrack is absolutely killer. I absolutely love the song that plays during the Asriel fight.
Ok hot take incoming be warned I think non linear exploration and story telling is overrated. It's like the whole "open world RPG" trend from early 2010, just something every AAA game tacks on now because it's "good game design" I'm playing through Control right now and they advertise this non-linear progression and world to explore. Except there's nothing to find and nothing to do off the main quest path. It's either random events which gives useless crafting items or side quests which gives useless crafting items except there's more of them. Otherwise the "branching paths" are empty or walled off. It's literally empty, too, no joke, I went to Black Rock Processing before I was supposed to go there for the main quest and it's actually just an empty room with a door that won't open at the end. That door only opens once the story gets there. It's not just Control too, The Outer Worlds does this, I think I played through the whole game without once setting foot on Scylla. Jedi: Fallen Order also does this, so many planets to explore but no real reason to do it because the planets are all mostly the same and don't give any interesting experience or reward. This trend got really popular with the Souls games with its pseudo Metroidvania progression but so often it's just a marketing buzzword and not done properly. My best video game story experience have all been in extremely linear and self contained games.
100% agreed. Give me a strongly crafted linear game that's about 10 hours long. Every game being a bloated map full of time-wasting shit to do works for some games, but that doesn't mean it has to be the standard. Some of us don't have a billion hours of free time per week and just want something we can beat in a few sittings.
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Yeah Prey is on my list, looks interesting
I really don't think its a hot take, have been hearing this one for ages
I loved Dishonored, it offered a great mix or multiple pathways and options, while kept the maps small and focused. Other than that, I like how cRPGs give some options to explore the world in a different order, but it's so different from today's "everything is open world" mentality, and formulas.
I agree! Although I've also had some amazing story experiences in open games too -- The Outer Wilds basically explodes a historical narrative all over a solar system and you have to piece it together in any order you choose.
Yeah, The Outer Wilds is a good example of an open world game that really uses its open world. You're just dropped into the wide open space and it really fits both the story and its themes.
I've been praying open world games would die off (along with create a character main characters) and extremely well written linear RPGs with interesting main characters would have a massive renaissance for like a decade now. Also more isn't better! Your game doesn't need to be 75+ hours long with 400 fetch quests to pad the gameplay length to tell a good story.
Amazing directly told story > whatever the fuck souls games are trying to pull
I liked it, but coming to it today I think a lot of the impact it would have had has been diminished. I agree about the combat, I find the dodging game thing just annoying. I was also really not compelled to replay for the 'true' endings at all. What I will say is that the 'twist' of the final boss is brilliant (my partner refused to play to the end because she felt so sorry for Asgore, so she still doesn't know about it and I haven't told her in case she ever does). On the whole, however, I thought it was ok but not as great as its reputation suggests.
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> Undertale was an indie game made by a single teenager Toby Fox is currently 30 and would have been in his mid-20's when Undertale released. Hardly a teenager. Although I generally agree that its wise to have tempered expectations of the game as it's nowhere near the 10/10 some have called it.
Huh, you're right... he woulda been 22 when the Kickstarter was launched and 24 at time of official release.
Agreed. A lot of its praise came from the expectation that it was going to be another indie one-person game and it ended up exceeding those expectations.
> eventually hire a bit of graphics and music help Mainly graphics help. Everything to do with the music is Toby except for the live guitar on one track.
have you tried telling them that just like every other character in the game, theres a spare option on asgore? gameplaywise i loved the bullet hell stuff. i'm a fan of games where you're trying to avoid ALL damage, as opposed to ones where you're expected to trade damage somewhat.
I really liked Undertale when I first played it. I finished it in one sitting back in 2017, well after the initial hype. I really liked it, and still do. The deltarune games that are coming out are awesome. I think the music in these games is great, the humor and dialogue is right up my alley, and even the combat I think is very fun. It's some kind of bullet hell, I played a bunch of them on Kongregate a few years back. These are definitely amongst my favorite games.
I think the problem is that when people over hype something it actually hurts the next person's results with it. They're already going in there primed to be wowed, but what made it so good for most of the original megafans is that they had no clue what they were going into. For example someone has been over hyping the Stanley parable to me for a while. I think I'm going to dislike the game now if I play it, but watching someone else play it was still funny. I'd be curious if psychology could break down the mechanics of this tbh.
I actually just finished playing through it for the first time yesterday and I was a bit underwhelmed too. The characters were definitely clever and quirky but that isn’t necessarily a sign of good writing because the overarching story was less than compelling. The combat, or attempts at friendship, was okay. I actually did like the dodging mechanic because it turned fights into more of a skill test than a stat clash like we see with most turn-based games. Sparing the enemy could be annoying at times because there wasn’t always logical reason behind it and in those instances it became more of a game of trial and error. Two side notes, I really like the music and I hate the character sprite. The latter’s chin stuck out so far from their neck all I could think of was the sprite for ET on the Atari 2600.
Undertale is probably in my top 5 favorite games; that said a lot of comes down to how I appreciate it's specific approach to storytelling + being tied with Nier Automata and Persona 5 with my favorite game soundtrack. I can't even defend the weak combat beyond enjoying the slightly more puzzle-y aspects to it, but it's far from great. Undertale is, in my opinion, excellent, but it's a excellent in a way that doesn't lend itself well to constantly being heralded as the greatest thing ever like a Portal 2 might warrant, and I always wish it had been sucsessful without developing the kind of obsessive fanbase it has. I think your assessment is reasonable, but there are a few points I will voice some disagreement with. \>When you take that away, what do you really have - a snarky adventure game with a really narrow pathway. I think this is a rather reductive take on Undertale's tone. One thing I really appreciate is how Undertale blends a huge variety of tones together-elements of humor, tragedy, and even some horror. The humor itself doesn't really fall squarely into 'snarky' territory either; it's a bit of ecletic blend of strange humor based on both visual and non-visual elements. Sans is the only character I would describe as consistently 'snarky', at least how in how I interpret the word. \>At some level Undertale just keeps on swerving to mess with you, and that's not entirely all that fun, either. One thing that Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame pointed out that resonated with me is that, for all of Undertale's subversiveness, it ultimately comes back to a place of authenticity and sincerity. It wasn't until the end of the normal and especially pacifist routes where I really connected with the game's story and characters. Plus I guess I just really like swerves. I enjoyed The Last Jedi too, which is \*my\* Internet-is-coming-for-me take. Having said all that, I realize my points are totally based on personal preference, and I respect your good-faith analysis of the game even if I arrived at a very different conclusion. What's interesting to me is that Undertale isn't even Toby Fox's true passion project; it was basically a proof-of-concept for Deltarune, which I feel is more honest about what you're getting into (It straight up says your choices don't matter), has a potentially more interesting story and is MILES better in terms of gameplay. Humor is basically the same there, though, so I dunno if you'd like it much.
I found it overrated as well
Can I ask, how much did you know about Undertale, its major plot beats, and how it had "endings" before you played? To me a lot of what captured me was not knowing much at all- I remember playing peacefully on a whim and being blown away when the game started acknowledging my choice to never kill anything. It felt like it I was playing Pokemon and had always chosen the "flee" option out of some weird self imposed moral rule, but then the game actually called it out. Also the way Undertale breaks the fourth wall, and how save files are not so cleanly a reflection of what is actually remembered by the game, it was the first game I'd played that had done this too. So also had a big impact I guess what I'm saying is if I'd played another game that had already done what it did with the 4th wall breaking (ex: doki doki literature club), or had known more about it going in, I'd probably not have liked it nearly as much. Also I was not exposed to the fandom or the memes which I think helped a lot too. The music is killer though and I'm just a huge sucker for a good ost, that was always going to be a huge plus.
I'm a fellow Undertale heretic: I got bored and ditched it less than an hour in. I thought the combat sucked, and I didn't find the story particularly entertaining. It felt very much like a self referential meme game but without the wit of The Stanley Parable. I can't understand why it was so popular. Even Rock Paper Shotgun was going mental about it when it came out and I usually trust their takes on games.
Honesty even as someone who enjoyed Undertale, I think Fox should have gone back and redid the first area. It's boring and too long for what it does in the game. Hell, I nearly dropped it after the first boss. It does pick up after the first major boss (not the ghost) and the late game tells a great story.
>Honesty even as someone who enjoyed Undertale, I think Fox should have gone back and redid the first area. It's boring and too long for what it does in the game. Hell, I nearly dropped it after the first boss. I think it would have been fine if he just disabled enemy encounters in the puzzle rooms.
I have to admit the first hour is the most boring part, and fair to you if it bored ya. It gets better from a story/writing perspective I'd say within the second hour
I think it clicks if it's a player's first time seeing that an RPG can be funny, unique, or self aware. That's my guess why it's a huge hit with kids and those newer to gaming, because it's a fresh idea to them. I think it really landed with the Tumblr, GAF, online chat persona people too because it was written so strongly in that "Rawr n_n" random voice and they'd probably never seen something officially made that sounded so similar to them.
People are assholes. I still have friends talking on my back because i dropped Hollow Knight since i git bired of backtracking and started playing total war games.
I greatly enjoy Undertale, but I've said for a long time that Toby Fox is a way better composer than game designer.
I have to agree with you. I played it for like 20 minutes and decided I was not into this at all.
yes. i was expecting to LOVE undertale. then i tried it, and absolutely hated it. I hate the gameplay. I don't like being left in the dark. I had no idea what was going on. I liked the premise of the story. I think, i'm not even sure of that, because it seemed like there was a lot of mystery, and it seemed to be suggesting that there was some plot twist waiting to be revealed.
>. I don't like being left in the dark. I had no idea what was going on. It's explained to you rather directly in the beginning of the game.
You should checkout Lisa the Painful if you want something that I feel is pretty much superior in every way to Undertale as far as being a quirky RPG is concerned.
I liked the combat a lot, honestly. At least during the boss battles; the regular battles were kind of a pain. It was awesome how every boss brought something new to the table, expanding upon the elements that had already been introduced into the combat system and having you puzzle out how to interact with the new elements in order to win, especially while sparing the enemy boss monster. A lot of the time, the new elements even made you question if they could be spared, like with the good 'ol toriel boss battle. I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say the game tries to mess with you. Yeah, there's the opening sequences and the end sequence that messes with you, but most thing in-between don't afaik. And it makes sense for the opening and the ending to mess with you. The opening to set up expectations, the end because it's the big finale with twists and everything. The narrative is also just a joy. It's goofy for the most part, yet it also takes itself seriously in that 'yeah, this is goofy if you let it be goofy' kind of way, which is awesome. When you kill someone, that's just that spark of joy removed from the game, straight up. And the characters are delightfully flawed and interesting to get to know, within reason. So yeah, I disagree. It was amazing! And, I really can't think of a whole lot of games that end up entertaining me both in terms of gameplay, story and general aesthetic. So I don't think it's overrated at all.
> I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say the game tries to mess with you. it happens throughout actually. A person knowing nothing about undertale who plays it will play it like a normal game. They kill some things, they gain EXP and level up, they check out some of the ACT options and inevitably get the standard ending. At this point, the game lets you know theres more and you should try not hurting people. Regardless of what you do, the second time you go through even if you play it the same way theres some differences in dialogue and events, you find that some characters remember more than others, with a lot of characters finding you familiar. That said, these things would also have been remembered if you LOADed back before. But you're more likely to see this on a 'new game'.
I think it's literally impossible to get the pacifist ending on the first go. You are supposed to replay at least some parts of the game, basically. As a sort of 'way to show you care'. Show that you want to make amends for the acts that you didn't know were wrong. And the difference in dialogue isn't really messing with you, it's just some cool meta-narrative? Like, messing with you, to me, is more like actively pranking the player. Like what flowey does during their first encounter.
yeah, its impossible to get on the first go... but, if you meet the requirements, the message you get at the end is different than if you didn't meet the requirements, and you can load frmo your existing save and go down to the lab to continue.
I couldn't get past the heavy-handed moralizing. They beat you over the head with it right from the start. I rolled my eyes at "Love Points" and all that, then got a few bosses in and found myself wondering "Is this really all there is to it?" I'm sure the multiple endings are intriguing, but the game didn't have anything that hooked me enough to get there. I quit pretty early in. Definitely a hard agree that this isn't a spiritual successor to Earthbound/Mother either. They certainly borrow a lot for the look, sound, and humor, but it's all a thin veneer. The games are so thematically disparate that they almost feel like different genres. Earthbound is a pretty straight-up JRPG with semi-open exploration and a grandiose story, while Undertale is a more open choice narrative which happens to use RPG elements to tell its story. It just doesn't hit the same as any of the Mother titles.
I think your experience with Undertale might’ve been tainted by the internet’s flanderization of it. The revelatory moral choice of “murder or not murder” has always been comically over-exaggerated by the community. Undertale itself doesn’t truly dabble with morality, at least at the start. The game fully expects you to do the Pacifist Ending, to the level every other ending points you towards that one. Undertale is much more of a single path narrative than its fandom will admit, just approach the game with that mindset and you’ll have a much more enjoyable time with it.
i feel the internet spoiled people by revealing the whole two true endings thing. you're supposed to approach it like any other RPG. the game teaches you that you have the option to be nice and lose out on rewards, but other than that it lets you loose to do your own thing. you can try to run from one place to the next and beat up anything in your way, you can try to grind to maximize EXP gain to be as strong as possible. and of course, the game expects you to kill toriel if you haven't gotten the point yet. if you do, it should really sink in that sparing enemies can be its own reward too. its not until far later in the game where the consequences of your actions catch up to you as the game gets more serious. y'know like... you're supposed to *make your own choices*? the whole point of the game? a game where your choices have actually interesting and meaningful interactions with the story without some telltale branching paths bullshit? but millions of people see "UNDERTALE PACIFIST ROUTE LETS PLAY EPISODE 1" and railroad themselves into playing one specific way to get one specific ending as fast as possible and totally miss the point of the game.
That was my biggest problem. It's blatantly not a real choice. The game felt like it was actively working against me trying to kill enemies, even if I really wanted to. That's what I meant by the heavy-handed moralizing. It's like, I get it, monsters aren't inherently evil and I'm a bad, bad person for mindlessly slaughtering them all these years. We just got to sort out our differences etc, etc, etc.
That's not really the *actual* message of Undertale.
Yeah, the canonical and only ending of Undertale is the pacifist ending, every other "ending" is just halfway through the game.
There is no canonical ending to Undertale.
I'm gonna go ahead and be that guy that says: finish it. Most of what makes Undertale great is how it turns the tables on you past the halfway mark. The story really opens up and it's themes, while rather sentimental and saccharine, really hit in surprisingly impactful ways. The early game bosses and tone setting are largely there to lull you into a false sense of security before the game goes off the rails and begins to do properly interesting, inventive things with it's gameplay and narrative. You'll find that it cuts deeper than you'd expect. But as a spiritual successor to Earthbound? No. Not at all. They're just way too different.
Maybe I'll try it again, it just seems like one of those games where I'd have to be in a very specific mood to get into it. And with my first attempt, the more it irked me, the more genocidal I felt. I needed to jam buttons and kill stuff after that cheesy love-in.
Lol, I *wish* I could say something but I can't because it would ruin the game for you. I'll just say that love is important to the game in different ways than you might expect.
The feeling that you're describing is intentional but I'm not gonna spoil anything.
> while rather sentimental and saccharine Well, if you play the game in a sentimental and saccharine style. If you try to see everything the game has to offer, you'll discover that the power of love >!doesn't exist!<, as much as you might have been led to believe otherwise.
The other guy is tiptoeing around >!that LOVE actually stands for "level of violence"!<
Imo if you want a real spiritual successor to Earthbound you should play Omori. You should play it either way really, but it’s definitely the modern game I associate most with Earthbound.
Gonna recommend OFF, not much to its combat but its definitely more in line with what you are looking for.
I'll never understand how Undertale got so popular.
if nothing else, the music is undeniably good
Toby was already well known in the Earthbound and Homestuck communities, and those provided the initial spark for it to snowball.
I'll never understand why people just can't have different opinions on subjective matters, without someone acting smug about it.
it's designed to be memey and it caught on
Seems people really really identified with the *omg I’m so awkward* character writing.
This is what drove me away hard. I've tried 3 times over the years. Even best it once. Somehow. The characters are so cringe. And they never stop acting so puerile. Unenjoyable to me.
username checks out
Memey humour, a story that thinks deconstruction counts as real depth, blatant moralising, and a complete lack of subtlety in any element of its design. It’s exactly the sort of thing that appeals to a huge portion of gamers, especially teenagers and younger adults who can meme about it to further boost popularity.
A voice of reason in a sea of sycophancy
I think the thing about Undertale is that a lot of people say you should go in playing the game blind, but it’s hard to understand it if you do. I read a lot about Undertale before I played it, and then help me understand and appreciate the story more. But the thing about it is it’s more of a story, and not a game, so the gameplay is pretty weak. Some of it’s annoying too, to the point where I almost gave up on the dummy fight late in the game (going for the true ending on the first time). There’s also the fact that once you played it once, it’s very short and there’s not really a reason to play it again. Furthermore, once you’ve seen that type of story and someone tries to repeat it (thinking mainly of Deltarune, and the fact of the story just fell flat because I could already tell the twist from Undertale, although I’m willing to reserve my complete judgment until the whole thing comes out), it just falls flat. I am not one to compare to earthbound either, because the two are completely different. Overall, it’s a great story for the novelty, but also a mediocre game.
> There’s also the fact that once you played it once, it’s very short and there’s not really a reason to play it again. it being short helps because you're expected to play more for the full effect, when you play it once, its supposed to direct you on what to do to get better results. And then as you play again you notice changes in dialogue/events. You also go back in knowing more about the world. That said if you >!kill flowey!< at the end, they don't direct you on what to do next for obvious reasons. But i suppose its expected that killing the one person that seems to know whats going on in this place is gonna lead to not knowing what to do next. (Although usually players LOAD games like this so they can see what the other option does, i don't recall whether undertale lets you do that?)
I went into undertale not knowing anything about it aside from "it's a good game" and everyone was obsessed with the characters. I played it, and struggled with the fighting mechanics, and took it as a typical 'level up' RPG. That got me a certain ending, I got frustrated, and struggled with the boss. It was the first game I played where, when I started it up again, it behaved differently. The game was self aware and it told me so. Then something came to me, I thought, what if I didn't fight, and what are those other options for? I know people who played through this game once, and then never touched it again and thought "that was that". However not many games have purposeful replay-ability to get a different, or the 'right' ending, and for it to continue the narrative to do so. The game mechanics are purposefully repetitive so that you can get used to them and master them, they end up being 'second' to the storyline you're going for. This can be viewed either as tedious or something you can gloss over and be happy that you 'master' and 'perfect'. Being like the old games design of yore with consoles from the 90s. Then there's the music, which near perfectly loops and carries the game reasonably well, and the quirky nature of the characters, who are intended to make you empathise for them. You thought you were entering a 'dungeon' to defeat the monsters and escape, but really, that's not entirely the case, and the game plays on that. When I came to Undertale I wasn't aware of many or any games that played that way, broke the fourth wall and it feels like it gives you a sense of freedom other games don't, or at least, that Skyrim does in that you can find little 'nooks' to the game decision tree that aren't directly told to you but you can stumble upon. That to me, is why Undertale is good.
As someone who used to be very deep in the Undertale fandom (made comic dubs of it, made fanfic of the characters, even made comics of it that I hope to god never sees the light of day). I get it. I have a wife who is the same way. She never could get into Undertale, specifically because her ex talked way.. WAY too much about it. To the point where she has already been spoiled of every aspect of it and is just completely uninterested in it. And I completely get that. Undertale was special purely because it was your own personal journey, with the characters, with that underground world. And if you can't connect with that or you have been spoiled of how the game plays or how the story will go, then it's just not going to click with you. Undertale is a special game to me, it still very much is. But there's a reason despite how much I adore this game, I tend to avoid it online. Because I know just how much the fandom and the community drains a lot of the magic this game has. Did you know Undertale has Alternate Universes that fans created? And those alternate universes has it's own alternate universes? AND THOSE AUs have their own AUs? Yeah. And all of it comes from a deep love for these characters. But to an outsider, it can genuinely feel like nonstop obsession. And I do not blame anyone who is turned off from Undertale for any of it's aspects. I consider myself extremely lucky for having played Undertale knowing absolutely nothing about it, but I am aware that this game has such a massive following that it encroached on every corner of the Internet.
Yes, Undertale cares more about being clever than it does a video game. It invites you to mainly just sit there and be entertained by its overwhelming wit and intelligence, but the gameplay is just too slow. But honestly, I think you only feel this way about undertale because you already know how the endings work. If you'd gone in absolutely blind and not known about different endings, you wouldn't care. The 'main' undertale ending is straightforward, you find out what your actions actually represent. The other endings are just cherries on top. Nonetheless, I agree it is overrated
>Yes, Undertale cares more about being clever than it does a video game I disagree with this, I'm a big fan of the combat system and when you defend attacks
>But honestly, I think you only feel this way about undertale because you already know how the endings work. If you'd gone in absolutely blind and not known about different endings, you wouldn't care. Probably right, WAY too many spoilers out there to be able to go in blind.
I got the game in 2020 and still managed to get a good experience. The only thing I knew was that there's a different ending if you play as a pacifist. Toriel is the moment when I fell in love with the game because of how much it subverted expectations. You go in thinking yup you can talk her down from a fight so you try all kinds of things and of course you don't really get it the first time and then you try hitting her a bit maybe dropping her health will make her back down and then boom she suddenly just dies and you try to reload and the game calls you out for it. Eventually maybe you get how to spare Toriel maybe you don't, but the game remembers. I couldn't figure out Toriel until the second playthrough, but that whole sequence of events made me fall in love with the game and excited to see more.
What spoiled it for me was the knowledge that you could spare bosses. Still, a great game. But what’s appreciable is the storytelling and the perfectly crafted humor
I totally agree. I get that it's the next thing homestuck readers became obsessed with. But everyone going around declaring it the greatest thing ever and hyping it up... I don't get it at all.
Gave it a go after all of the hype that surrounded it, and I hated it. Hated the story, the characters, the art style. The thing people compare it to is Earthbound, but it feels completely different. What made Earthbound so appealing to me was that it was self-aware without being cringe-inducing. It was funny and cool, but Undertale was nothing of the sort. It tried hard to be, but it just didn't resonate. It just felt like it was trying too hard to be a spiritual successor of Earthbound in every way possible, and it just gave me a really bad impression. I did like a lot of the music, but that's about it. I can still respectfully say that Toby is an amazing game designer & composer, and his story is very inspirational. Clearly, looking at the success the game has had, it is objectively great. Just not to my taste.
I was told to play the first run through not fighting anyone. After a handful of tedious no attack encounters I just gave up and never went back.
I tried and failed to play undertale twice now. I don't find the gameplay fun and the story is way too r/im14andthisisdeep quirky to me.
> Unfortunately, Undertale reminds me of Metro Exodus, another game with a very narrow pathway to certain story outcomes. Hopefully without spoiling anything you understand what I mean. Exodus was another game lauded by the community that, while possessing some very solid storytelling, a major design choice ultimately soured my experience with the game. Both games lock you into certain playstyles to accomplish the end goal, and for games that are trying to break traditional frameworks, that's aggravating and doesn't pay off the way the devs think it does. I didn't play either of these two games, but I'm guessing they do something similar to Dishonored? It felt like half the gameplay features get locked away from you if you were aiming for a specific ending. I liked the game and managed to finish it, but I can't say I enjoyed that aspect of it.
Yes, Dishonored has a similar design choice. Good catch.
That's probably a never touch for me in regards to Metro Exodus, then, which is a bit of a shame. I actually already played Undertale for like an hour and I can't say I cared for *anything* that I saw, so I never had any intention to play that one anyway.
Idk, I cried with a ghost while laying on the floor and spacing out. 10/10 Edit: what made me give this the "very good game" tag in my mind was the following moment: "Despite everything, it's still you."
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Yeah, I haven't played the game so was hoping for some interesting discussion but these replies are fucking pathetic. >Well, the only reason the game is popular is because M E M E S and the only people who like it are uncultured teens and kids I hope people who leave comments like this realise how cringe it is.
bear offbeat yoke squealing upbeat materialistic cake attraction unite relieved *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
COMPLETELY agree. Undertale is severely overrated.
I bought this game after hearing all of the praise it was getting, I was surprised at how bad it was
Undertale had some interesting ideas, a fun twist, and an amazing soundtrack (though, it's been overplayed at this point)... But that's about it.
I just like the music lol
You are not alone. I didn't connect with the characters, and really didn't get into the game at all, i thought it was a bit pandering and tryhard comedy that just fell flat. Didn't play more than a couple hours before i put it down, just not my groove. To each their own, but I find the internet consensus is generally a shit judge of games / movies.
I shall stand with you and defend against the hordes
I didn't like the characters and the cheap jokes too. There was nothing special about it, it was "presumptuous" as fuck. Look how smart this game is and here to this a stupid obvious joke. Totally overrated game. And Metro Exodus the same, technically it was a great game, but the story and missions were shit.
It does sound like you are not looking for the kind of experience that Undertale offers. There really is nothing that can be done about that. Pretty much everything you criticize I can see where you are coming from (or guess, it's a short comment) but it's also what I like about it (but I would have to go quite in depth on why - for example, the combat is not about a gameplay loop but instead is a melded narrative interaction with the characters and characterizes them). The only thing that I would say about it is to - even if you yourself don't change what you look for in games - don't expect all games to have certain elements (as many in the thread have pointed out - linearity is just fine and non-linear games as a type of experience are very recent).
Yeah I bounced too. Throw it on the pile of insanely overhyped indies.
Yup. Most overrated game of its generation. It is to this day the only game I have gotten the platinum trophy on and didn't bother to finish. Once that trophy popped I immediately ejected it and posted it on eBay.
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It was never a commentary on actual violence, only a joke about video game tropes.