Honest Thoughts About Undertale

[mrs thickness]

it's pretty great, and as people have already said the combat is really creative and distinct, though i can see why people would be turned off by the humor and certain character designs and choices in the writing. i was blessed enough to play the game before it blew up; if i hadn't, i would probably have never given it a chance because of the homestuck association and rancid fanbase. it's always fun to watch a video from late 2015 and hear someone sucking off undertale not knowing what it would become

deltarune is some steven universe shit and i hate every character. can't get into it

 

[Timaeus Testified]

I think it came out at just the right time in my life, going into it with zero expectations, that it blew me away. The soundtrack is god-tier; it reminds me of classic RPG soundtracks from the SNES era but without being constrained by the technical limitations of that era. The writing is also equally as strong; the fact that there's hidden little bits of dialogue that comment on almost every action you can take, or every slightly different ending you can receive, actually makes the game feel alive and reactive to player choice, rather then just being a checklist that you're working your way through. I think the crappy art helps set expectations low, whether that was intentional or not I'm not sure.

Of course, once the secret's out about what this game is and what it's about, it's impossible to have that kind of experience again. As a general rule of thumb I never allow things like a game's fanbase to color my opinion of a game. Toby Fox has publicly stated that he's going to keep making games; he's not going to go chasing the same level of runaway success that Undertale got, and I admire that. I was afraid that after the success of his big debut game he'd never want to try making another game, or that his later work would always be overshadowed by Undertale, but I'm glad that's not the case.

I'll probably always remember Undertale fondly, though I'd probably never want to discuss it openly with some of its more rabid fans. It's the same way I feel about Omori; it's a good game, but I wouldn't elaborate too much further than that. I'd just tell people to go play it for themselves. Which might not help it get new fans, but as far as I'm concerned that's part of being "indie".

 

[Shroom King]

I bought it just to spite the autists at gamefaqs who were assblasted that it was winning the Best Game Ever contest instead of Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy 7.

It is a pretty good game, so I guess I didn't waste my money.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I really don’t see where the people saying the story was “preachy” are coming from. My first playthrough was a neutral route; I didn’t kill any major characters, but I killed a decent amount of normal monsters (I also did the “accidentally kill Toriel then reset” thing) and the only dialogue that even resembled preachiness was from Flowey, an antagonist who tries to make you second guess yourself regardless of what you do. Then at the end of the run, Flowey says something along the lines of “you made it out, but this isn’t really a satisfying ending… I wonder what would happen if you didn’t kill anything?”

Aside from that, the only times anyone tries to tell you “you shouldn’t have done that” are when you either kill a major character who wasn’t trying to kill you (Papyrus), or you’re in a genocide run. Given that you’re never allowed to spare anything or run away from a single fight, some early enemies are immediately spare-able, and the first area in particular requires you to walk in place for several minutes at a time for each of the last few encounters, entering and completing a genocide run is something you’d have to go far out of your way to do. And if you ever abort the run partway through and go back to neutral, everyone more or less forgets you were in genocide in the first place.

My guess is the people complaining about it being too preachy are either so thin-skinned that they can’t stand the idea of a game not patting them on the back for everything they do, or they only watched someone else do the Sans fight (the only fight that’s after the point of no return in genocide) and thought “the mean skeleton man hurt my feelings i cant play this game”.
Look, if the game really didn’t want you to do a genocide run, it probably wouldn’t be there in the first place.

The preachiness problem comes from the fact that the game tries to impose morality on the player himself for actually seeing the content of a game they paid for. That is preachy as a video games can get. I am not a bad person for "killing" a bunch of 1's and 0's because the game creator made a special ending and fights for doing the genocide run. Likewise the game manipulates you into doing the pacifist route by basically giving you a far less interesting and fulfilling ending. If the game hadn't broken the fourth wall for an infantile message it wouldn't have so many people calling it preachy.

 

[Two Dollars]

The preachiness problem comes from the fact that the game tries to impose morality on the player himself for actually seeing the content of a game they paid for. That is preachy as a video games can get. I am not a bad person for "killing" a bunch of 1's and 0's because the game creator made a special ending and fights for doing the genocide run. Likewise the game manipulates you into doing the pacifist route by basically giving you a far less interesting and fulfilling ending. If the game hadn't broken the fourth wall for an infantile message it wouldn't have so many people calling it preachy.

Of course the characters in a game world are going to react to the player doing bad things; that’s how an evil route in any game works. And how is it manipulation that the most fulfilling ending requires you to play the game in a way that promotes interacting with characters and moving the story along to build toward that ending instead of it being given to you for no reason? No idea where you’re getting the “infantile fourth wall message”, either. Do you mean when the game’s villain taunts you for helping them succeed? Or when the last non-villain you fight plays the sympathy card to trick you into an insta-kill after you’ve already passed the point of no return?

Again, you’re making up some kind of scenario where a dev made an entire alternate route for their game with unique fights and story elements, then didn’t want anyone to actually play that route.

 

[Colon capital V]

People mention the music but that is one element I can't for the life of me remember.

Really? Damn you're lucky then. Shit like Megalovania gets passed around the internet pretty frequently so if that hasn't been bashed into your head yet then congrats

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I think it is overhyped trash that actively harms it's supposed "Themes" by making every enemy attack you mercilessly as you try to Pheonix Write your way through their fucking personal issues and god help you if you actually defend yourself and fucking murder the giant asshole who is trying to murder you first.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Like the game, grossed out by the fanbase.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Of course the characters in a game world are going to react to the player doing bad things; that’s how an evil route in any game works. And how is it manipulation that the most fulfilling ending requires you to play the game in a way that promotes interacting with characters and moving the story along to build toward that ending instead of it being given to you for no reason? No idea where you’re getting the “infantile fourth wall message”, either. Do you mean when the game’s villain taunts you for helping them succeed? Or when the last non-villain you fight plays the sympathy card to trick you into an insta-kill after you’ve already passed the point of no return?

Again, you’re making up some kind of scenario where a dev made an entire alternate route for their game with unique fights and story elements, then didn’t want anyone to actually play that route.

There is a difference between addressing the player character and the player itself, and the evil route will basically ignore the player character to tell the player how he is evil for seeing part of the story (including referencing people watching it via YouTube).
And considering just about everyone will do the pacifist run after the shit normal ending, the question of "why even have the attack option" rises, besides trying to subvert genre conventions. And here comes my problem with the infantile message of "violence bad".

And yes, the genocide run is supposed to not be played because it will corrupt your game for future playthroughs. It's like the retarded case in Spec Ops The Line where the devs told you that the only correct action is shutting the game off.

 

[Two Dollars]

There is a difference between addressing the player character and the player itself, and the evil route will basically ignore the player character to tell the player how he is evil for seeing part of the story (including referencing people watching it via YouTube).
And considering just about everyone will do the pacifist run after the shit normal ending, the question of "why even have the attack option" rises, besides trying to subvert genre conventions. And here comes my problem with the infantile message of "violence bad".

And yes, the genocide run is supposed to not be played because it will corrupt your game for future playthroughs. It's like the retarded case in Spec Ops The Line where the devs told you that the only correct action is shutting the game off.

It really sounds like you’re being too sensitive and making up messages where they don’t exist. The game isn’t calling you “evil”, it’s making a tongue-in-cheek reference (again, from the game’s villain) saying you’re a wuss if you watch a let’s-play of the hard parts of a game instead of playing them yourself. If you choose to be offended by that, that’s on you.

As for not attacking, the fight with Asgore requires you to attack. If you had been playing the entire game up to that point without fighting, it’s meant to be a significant story moment indicating that the thing you’ve been avoiding until now can’t be avoided anymore, and conflict is inevitable. Even the pacifist ending addresses this; going back to the starting area to talk to Asriel has him tell you point blank that trying to spare everything in your world (real life) won’t work the same way it does with monsters in the underground (the game). Some people can’t be reasoned with just by talking to them, sometimes you have to fight, and the best you can attempt is “don’t kill, and don’t be killed”.

And yes, having the game acknowledge that you completed a genocide run (or “corrupting” it, as you put it) instead of ignoring it adds to the story by foreshadowing the in-universe consequences. The only thing it changes is the last few seconds of the post-credits ending cutscene, and the only difference between a fresh save and a completed genocide save is a flag indicating that you completed genocide, so you can just delete your save if it bothers you that much.

 

[LoveBunny<3]

Sans ruined my life.

 

[p00pyman]

i hate alphys but undyne and toriel made me gay lesbian gay

 

[Shitassdeaddude]

Overhyped but good shit. Loved the soundtrack. A little preachy here and there, but not to the extent where it got annoying. From what we've seen of Deltarune, Undertale is clearly just the prototype version of what Toby originally wanted to make.

 

[Dave.]

I think it is overhyped trash that actively harms it's supposed "Themes" by making every enemy attack you mercilessly as you try to Pheonix Write your way through their fucking personal issues and god help you if you actually defend yourself and fucking murder the giant asshole who is trying to murder you first.

At least you have some measure of justification to Phoenix Write stuff. Undyne is a role model to her people and stops at nothing to help them whenever. Papyrus just wants to play around and be a hero. Alphys can go eat a bag of dicks and have corrective rape applied to her because she won’t stop pausing the game with her stupid texts.

 

[soda pimp]

I really like the genocide route because I got to kill furries, especially Sans since he's into goat fucking.

 

[Justwandering02]

replayed a "improved'''' mod called undertale bit and piece. Yeah graphically it better, they're more area to explore but even that it still very linear and boring. I don't understand why the fanbase call it a ''masterpiece''
The game in a nutshell; follow the path go to a room resolve a simple a puzzle rinse and repeat. Also the battle system, I feel it kinda lackluster if you know the ''right way''to play making the button [fight] and many weapon you can get meaningless. You can still play fully blind but it feel ''wrong''
Found the message more childish than preachy

 

[Snake of Diamond]

The music is pretty good but over all its got that wannabe EarthBound vibe. I haven't seen much of the sequel but I'm assuming it's spawning more autusts.

A lot of these games take from the Mother series but only the "funny and quirky" stuff. You get a lot of people who retroactively call something an Undertale thing because they haven't actually played a Mother game (somewhat understandable its isn't a popular franchise)

 

[Xerxes IX]

Overhyped but good shit. Loved the soundtrack. A little preachy here and there, but not to the extent where it got annoying. From what we've seen of Deltarune, Undertale is clearly just the prototype version of what Toby originally wanted to make.

It basically is, Deltarune was always the game Toby wanted to make and Undertale was more of a warm-up.

 

[huecoffs02]

Overhyped but good shit. Loved the soundtrack. A little preachy here and there, but not to the extent where it got annoying. From what we've seen of Deltarune, Undertale is clearly just the prototype version of what Toby originally wanted to make.

Deltarune is a much superior game IMO. It does much more interesting things with the combat, and the narrative so far is doing the meta shit in a more engaging fashion than some dialogue from time to time.

 

[Mega Black]

Undertale is genuinely great for what it is and most of the people that hate it or critique it from a position of intentional retardation or bad faith.

WHAT THE FUCK MAN WHY IS THE GAME PUNISHING ME FOR KILLING EVERY MONSTER I SEE ITS SELF DEFENSE BRO