Review RPG Codex Review: Undertale

[Viata]

What roots? I have played every single jrpg released on nes and snes, yet I can't see "roots" in Undertale. If by roots you mean Earthbound, then yes. But that is far from jrpg roots.

Is it actually like Earthbound? I thought Earthbound was a pretty well made game. But when I look up Undertale vids on youtube, it just looks kind of stupid (writing, gameplay, graphics, etc.).

Well, it's supposed to be earthbound-like. Sadly, even Lisa did it better and Lisa was a meh game.

 

[Lucky]

Finished it. A good showcase of how a game, next to its high notes, is as strong as its weakest point. Rather than having a few brilliant moments that really stuck with me I was instead never really dipping out of enjoying myself. I suppose this is also part of why people are having trouble putting into words as to why they recommend it, since it doesn't have a strong pitch or cool mechanic to reel people in with. Instead, its strength was how consistent its design was from start to finish: how consistently good and appropriate the music is; how the bulletdodging combat is used for characterisation, variety and for breaking up the more passive exploration segments; how internally consistent and responsive the gameworld is in regards to player actions; and how well the characters' voices come through as you interact with them - not in the sense of depth, but how their personality is effectively shown through their sprite work, sound design, dialog voice, combat mechanics, etc. That's craft and care and I can appreciate that regardless of whether every character resonates with me or how much I like the game's tone.

 

[Vikter]

all JRPGs are shit

Planescape: Torment is OK.

 

[Daedalos]

Finished it. A good showcase of how a game, next to its high notes, is as strong as its weakest point. Rather than having a few brilliant moments that really stuck with me I was instead never really dipping out of enjoying myself. I suppose this is also part of why people are having trouble putting into words as to why they recommend it, since it doesn't have a strong pitch or cool mechanic to reel people in with. Instead, its strength was how consistent its design was from start to finish: how consistently good and appropriate the music is; how the bulletdodging combat is used for characterisation, variety and for breaking up the more passive exploration segments; how internally consistent and responsive the gameworld is in regards to player actions; and how well the characters' voices come through as you interact with them - not in the sense of depth, but how their personality is effectively shown through their sprite work, sound design, dialog voice, combat mechanics, etc. That's craft and care and I can appreciate that regardless of whether every character resonates with me or how much I like the game's tone.

You have a fox with a bib as your profile picture.

Wat.

 

[Lord Romulus]

I'm honestly surprised so many of you guys liked Undertale so much, I thought most of you guys would've found the type of humor grating. It certainly does a better job of being quirky and charming than most other indie games that completely fail in that regard, but even then I still found some parts, especially the dramatic scenes to be a little eye-rolling. Characters were fun and memorable enough, if a little one-dimensional, though some characters like Alphys got a little obnoxious after a while. The game's alright but certainly not GOTY material, the puzzles were way too simple, not even counting the half of puzzles that were intentionally jokes. I also found the combat was also a little repetitive halfway into the game since it lacked any real depth or challenge and just relied on throwing in new gimmicks. I'd consider it a solid 7/10 game.

 

[Azarkon]

Total bullshit, niche grand strategy games, flight simulators, difficult SHMUPS and challenging action games still sell relatively well. Dark Souls even made it into a blockbuster, and even Bayonetta manages to pull respectable sales figures. It's not about the difficulty; it's about the quality of your product - and its creativity.

There's literally no reason for me to replay Fallout 2.0 when I can just play the superior Fallout. Give me something new and creative.

These little 'hardcore' indie RPGs aren't selling well because they feel soulless, loveless. Which is amazing, considering how long so many of you worked on them. Maybe you just don't have what it takes.

It's not whether the games are hardcore. Plenty of hardcore games are mainstream hits, as you said. But it does have to do with what market you're targeting. It's also not about being stuck in the past. Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition sold 500,000 copies and all they had to play on was nostalgia because the changes they made sure as hell wasn't worth 500,000 sales at $20 a copy.

In Undertale's case, it comes from the same industry as classic JRPGs eg Earthbound and their modern RPG Maker derivatives eg To the Moon, and to a lesser degree indie games with JRPG art designs eg Bastion. The market for such games was there long before Toby Fox and despite talks of massive success, Undertale only has 770,000 owners on Steam, which is less than To the Moon at 950,000, a game that received the same sort of indie hype but nowhere close to the same amount of weeabo fanderp. I don't think anyone even on the Codex could argue that To the Moon was a symptom of the 4chan Flappy Birds generation, and yet it sold as well as Undertale. Undertale is in this respect not an exceptional game in any way.

In fact, all Undertale's media and word of mouth hype actually shows is that there is an active indie scene around "JRPG lites" that patronize such games as Undertake, To the Moon, Skybound, Lisa, etc. But this has long been the case. JRPGs were and are popular, and with the recent drought of quality JRPGs from Japan, their fans are looking towards indie games to fill the gap, so there is a hungry market. Even so, the above games are the cream of the crop; the average JRPG lite doesn't make it past 100,000 sales. Thus, it's a solid industry, but not a get rich fast strategy.

The problem with games such as our fellow Aterdux's Legends of Eisenwald, by contrast, is not that they are stuck in the past, but that the market they are targeting has never been large to begin with. I look at Eiswenwald and I can't think of who they're trying to draw in. It's a historical setting, but not historical enough for Total War and Mount & Blade fans. It's also fantasy, but not fantastic enough for D&D fans, and in any case it lacks the popular d20 ruleset. It boasts tactical turn-based combat, but it doesn't market itself as a strategy game, which is where most of the fans for tactical turn-based combat are. It's said to have solid writing, but even its positive reviews admit a lack of interesting characters & click-through story presentation, which is not what storyfags want to see in a story rich game.

So all in all, Eisenwald strikes me as a game that doesn't know who its audience is, and certainly doesn't know how to market itself, because even within the Codex, by nature sympathetic to such games, it's rarely talked about. It commits just about every cardinal sin there is when it comes to video game marketing, and tries to hit a market - European historical fantasy - that has never done that well outside of existing franchises in the past decade. In fact, our favorite Vince D. Weller's Age of Decadence has the exact same problem, which is why it and Eisenwald both sold like shit. It's though the elitist Codex fosters a concept of what a RPG ought to be that doesn't match what people actually want to pay for... Now why would that be, I wonder?

In any case, I'll be fair: I don't think the Codex ever called for historical fantasy lite European settings, which coincidentally is what both Age of Decadence and Legends of Eisenwald ultimately went for, to their mutual detriment. I don't know what it is with developers who style themselves hardcore Fallout fans setting their games in medieval/classical Europe. I suppose there is reason to believe, with Game of Thrones being all the rage, that there is a market for this out there. But I don't think Age of Decadence and Legends of Eisenwald are marketed correctly for that audience. After all, it's not the tactical medieval combat that's fueling the trend on TV - it's the story and the characters. And come to think of it, that's been the recipe for success for all new RPGs, including JRPG lites.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think the best description I've heard of what makes this game enjoyable is that it is consistently surprising enough to keep you interested the whole way through. It does that through a lot of different ways, from the humour, to little easter eggs and secrets, to the way the game reacts to you (not just in the endings but in little ways along the way) to the plot itself. Hence why people are reluctant to spoil any of it- it kills that part of the game, like explaining a joke. If you're not willing to spend 10 minutes to try the fucking game why should anyone spend an hour trying to convince you it's worth playing without spoiling it?

 

[Vikter]

I think the best description I've heard of what makes this game enjoyable is that it is consistently surprising enough to keep you interested the whole way through. It does that through a lot of different ways, from the humour, to little easter eggs and secrets, to the way the game reacts to you (not just in the endings but in little ways along the way) to the plot itself. Hence why people are reluctant to spoil any of it- it kills that part of the game, like explaining a joke. If you're not willing to spend 10 minutes to try the fucking game why should anyone spend an hour trying to convince you it's worth playing without spoiling it?

Because it costs money and most other games have a good reason to be recommended. People recommend The Witcher because of its interesting lore and characters; Dark Souls because of its combat; Pillars of Eternity because of its NeoGaf references. If you can't recommend it for the combat, the story, the atmosphere or anything tangible I can see why people get upset that they recommend a game without any proper explanation, say it's the GOTY and then say you can only understand if you play it several times over and over.

I mean, at least say it should be played because it is funny and has a great soundtrack. Any surprise should come naturally with that.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So pirate it. It's what I did before buying it.

Watching people play it on youtube is retarded, it'd be like watching someone playing Fallout or Arcanum and then bitching about how it's just a stupid game where you play as a dumbass and everyone mocks you. If you're not playing yourself you're not seeing the game reacting specifically to the way you play, which is a large part of it's charm.

 

[Durandal]

Let me talk about this bullet hell in unorganized bullet points and some spoilers

-Graphics quality ranges from 9-bit retro trash to serviceable
-Character design is fairly good, all characters stand out from eachother pretty well
-The characters themselves are pretty one-dimensional, but like DanganRonpa it tries to balance this out by quickly refreshing the characters you encounter with other one-dimensional characters with their own quirks.
-The pacing (for a JRPG) is great, usually it follows a structure of character introduction -> puzzle -> character development -> random encounter -> puzzle -> boss battle etc. New characters are introduced every 15 minutes to keep things fresh. There's no grinding unless you are a scrub or are playing the Genocide route You're not gonna get bored, if that's what you're asking
-The game maintains a healthy variety of exploration, puzzles, bullet hell, and dialogue time. Hotlands aside, you won't feel like you're spending too much time on doing one thing
-Puzzles are insultingly easy at times
-You get to kill monsters you encounter or spare them. Sparing them means you get no XP and thus less health, while killing them means you get more health, but eventually all monsters will perish, affecting the game world in several ways
-You spare monsters by fucking around with the Act commands. There's little strategy involved other than using two braincells to figure what would obviously work against Monster X, and just exploring all options like a Fallout dialogue tree until you find something that can make you give them the Mercy
-Attacking is done by a shitty timing minigame, even though games like Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden and the Mario & Luigi series have more varied and interesting attack inputs for a turn-based JRPG. It's pretty unengaging to the point where it makes me ask why the attack minigame was even included
-Enemies attack you through the use of bullet patterns. I don't think I've seen a bullet hell game more easier to survive than Undertale, but the bullet hell elements are usually more engaging than YOU RECEIVE 2 DAMAGE. YOU RECEIVE 2 DAMAGE. YOU RECEIVE 2 DAMAGE.
-You get plenty of health and health consumables in case the target audience inevitably fucks up. Like Earthbound, there's a limit to how much consumables you can carry, so you can't cheese out with 99 health potions
-Sometimes the challenges are just ridiculously easy for the sake of not ruining the experience. The first boss' bullets will even be pushed away from you if you are on low health, and the final boss isn't even a fair challenge with the fuckton of HP you are given, and all the savescumming the boss does.
-There is a Hard Mode with more challenging bullet patterns and enemies, but it only lasts until the Ruins area because fuck you that's why. Only Sans is a real challenge
-Thankfully each bullet pattern matches its respective enemy in terms of personality and quirks, so it does gain more points for originality there
-However, bosses can't be as easily given the Mercy, and require more out of the box thinking to spare them
-For example, the first boss you encounter will give you the same unsuccessful dialogue if you try to spare her, most players will attack her in hopes that she will stop once she's weakened, but she doesn't and then she's dead. The flower taunts that you could have saved her, so most players will reload their save in order to find a way to save the first boss (by giving her the Mercy even harder) because people often refuse to accept consequences in games and then turn to savescumming. Once you have spared the first boss, the flower will consequently taunt the player about how much of a savescummer they are. This is one of the many 4th-wall breaking 'gotcha' moments, which is what alot of people find so interesting about this game
-The humor in the writing largely relies on its quirkiness, which doesn't mean memes, like the constant CONDUCTOR WE HAVE A PROBLEM CONDUCTOR WE HAVE A PROBLEM spam which only braindead retards on forums for braindead retards would think is remotely funny. It means it's humor you'd be more likely to find in games like Earthbound, if I had to put it in words. Shit like the LOL OTAKUS ARE SO INSECURE ridiculing found around Alphys can be funny if you are a tasteless pleb who only watches anime recommended to you by top tier lists found on the first page of Google and/or pretend to like anime ironically on your Tumblr
-Progression of equipment is mostly linear in terms of damage output and reduction, but with the limited amounts of attack and defense options it's not like there's much point to having unique equipment anyways
-When fighting multiple enemies, their bullet patterns overlap properly, which is kinda neat
-There's no political pandering or anything like that
-The genocide route requires you to kill literally everything, which also means grinding an area until no more monsters remain. The boring grinding makes you numb towards really feeling anything, which I guess like Drakengard 1 is intentional to get you in the right mindset of being a mass murderer. Whether you think this is a brilliant decision or just a poor excuse for grinding depends on your point of view
-Interestingly, when the main bad guy reveals his motivations, he says he did it out of curiosity, which can also be said for the player when he goes on the Genocide route
-The music is certainly one of the strongest aspects of the game. There's a seperate song for nearly everything (the soundtrack has 101 songs, apparently), and each of them fit their respective situation very well. Also strong is the use of leitmotifs used in certain moments, which creates an even higher emotional impact. There's alot of variety in the songs and each of them are pretty good. It can be catchy, tense and atmospheric. But I do wish that the square synth would be used less. I guess Toby wanted to add a little 'retro' to his songs because Undertale is a retro-inspired game, but hearing the square synth in songs where real instruments are used can be a little jarring.
-Another strong aspect of the game is how consistent the world is. Alot of care and detail has been put in the world design, and there are plenty of elements that recur later on in the game, like revisiting the house in the last stage you have first encountered in the first stage, and the pie you receive from Toriel at the start of the game having a debuff effect on Asgore when you use it in his battle at the end of the game. Characters you spare also come back in some way later, and characters you kill are also references later in some way.
-Larger boss battles usually have some color gimmick which involve limiting the control scheme in some way, although all it does is turn dodging bullets into a rhythm game or a Flappy Bird clone. It gets more interesting when the color gimmicks are turned off and you return to your normal control scheme in the middle of dodging a pattern, but sometimes I feel there was alot of missed potential here.
Like other users said, there isn't anything specific that will hook you to the game like combat, story, CnC, or having an interesting setting, and neither should you expect that. It is rather the sum of all the elements and a good consistency you don't find in many games anymore, that really appeals people to the game. It's not a great SHMUP, RPG, or story, but it's really something else, and that something else is what makes Undertale stand on its own. Or to put it in less 2deep4u words, it's a charming JRPG that actually bothers to react to the player's actions, something the Codex has always wished to see in WRPGs.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeesh. Unorganized bullet points would still be unorganized if you put spaces between them

 

[Eyestabber]

The only good things this thread delivered were Alex reminding me to buy LoE and Roxor reminding me to buy EYE: DC before the Steam Sales are over.

Spoiler

Oh, who am I kidding. I only stuck around to see the King of Edge™ trash the review.

 

[likaq]

So all in all, Eisenwald strikes me as a game that doesn't know who its audience is, and certainly doesn't know how to market itself, because even within the Codex, by nature sympathetic to such games, it's rarely talked about. It commits just about every cardinal sin there is when it comes to video game marketing, and tries to hit a market - European historical fantasy - that has never done that well outside of existing franchises in the past decade. In fact, our favorite Vince D. Weller's Age of Decadence has the exact same problem, which is why it and Eisenwald both sold like shit. It's though the elitist Codex fosters a concept of what a RPG ought to be that doesn't match what people actually want to pay for... Now why would that be, I wonder?

In any case, I'll be fair: I don't think the Codex ever called for historical fantasy lite European settings, which coincidentally is what both Age of Decadence and Legends of Eisenwald ultimately went for, to their mutual detriment. I don't know what it is with developers who style themselves hardcore Fallout fans setting their games in medieval/classical Europe. I suppose there is reason to believe, with Game of Thrones being all the rage, that there is a market for this out there. But I don't think Age of Decadence and Legends of Eisenwald are marketed correctly for that audience. After all, it's not the tactical medieval combat that's fueling the trend on TV - it's the story and the characters. And come to think of it, that's been the recipe for success for all new RPGs, including JRPG lites.

I'm pretty sure AoD sold like shit not because of the setting but
1. lack of hype / free publicity from youtube celebrites/ 4-chan/ reddit/ mainstream sites like gamespot( unlike undertale )
2. very hard combat
3. the fact that combat is turn-based is not helping with sales either.
They may be other less important reasons ( graphics is not on par with AAA games, iso camera, lack of multiplayer / co-op ) but first 2 are imo main reasons why AoD sold so shitty.

 

[Lurker King]

It's not whether the games are hardcore. Plenty of hardcore games are mainstream hits, as you said. But it does have to do with what market you're targeting. It's also not about being stuck in the past. Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition sold 500,000 copies and all they had to play on was nostalgia because the changes they made sure as hell wasn't worth 500,000 sales at $20 a copy.

Look, an indie game success is the furthest thing from merit. We have great games that sell poor, mediocre games that are overhyped, mediocre games that are ignored, bad games that are ignored, bad games that are praised, etc. The studios are composed of few individuals, if that. The media cover is random, and all it’s done by a few groups in the traditional word of mouth. Sometimes it works, and you have a significant heard to buy your product, sometimes it doesn’t. The variables are many, and most of the time we have no clue. There is nothing new in Undertale or in the way some people praise this game. This game cater mainly to three groups: (1) post-modernistic types that have the misplaced idea that games should break the conventions of their genres, because games are art, and art must make people think and reinvent itself every day; (2) weaboo groups that love to praise weaboo shit because this reinforce their poor tastes; (3) the rest of the heard, that followed groups (1)-(2). Probably 80% of the sales were made by group (3), which followed the rest in the typical heard mentality.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Undertale is to JRPGs what AoD is to late 90s WRPGs. If you don't like the roots why would you care about a game with meta aspects about said roots?

jRPGs are shit.

Bros, but Undertale is not a jRPG.
It's a bullet hell game that deconstructs jRPGs.

(could use a "hipster indie dev troll" emoticon)

 

[Jasede]

So all in all, Eisenwald strikes me as a game that doesn't know who its audience is, and certainly doesn't know how to market itself, because even within the Codex, by nature sympathetic to such games, it's rarely talked about. It commits just about every cardinal sin there is when it comes to video game marketing, and tries to hit a market - European historical fantasy - that has never done that well outside of existing franchises in the past decade. In fact, our favorite Vince D. Weller's Age of Decadence has the exact same problem, which is why it and Eisenwald both sold like shit. It's though the elitist Codex fosters a concept of what a RPG ought to be that doesn't match what people actually want to pay for... Now why would that be, I wonder?

In any case, I'll be fair: I don't think the Codex ever called for historical fantasy lite European settings, which coincidentally is what both Age of Decadence and Legends of Eisenwald ultimately went for, to their mutual detriment. I don't know what it is with developers who style themselves hardcore Fallout fans setting their games in medieval/classical Europe. I suppose there is reason to believe, with Game of Thrones being all the rage, that there is a market for this out there. But I don't think Age of Decadence and Legends of Eisenwald are marketed correctly for that audience. After all, it's not the tactical medieval combat that's fueling the trend on TV - it's the story and the characters. And come to think of it, that's been the recipe for success for all new RPGs, including JRPG lites.

I'm pretty sure AoD sold like shit not because of the setting but
1. lack of hype / free publicity from youtube celebrites/ 4-chan/ reddit/ mainstream sites like gamespot( unlike undertale )
2. very hard combat
3. the fact that combat is turn-based is not helping with sales either.
They may be other less important reasons ( graphics is not on par with AAA games, iso camera, lack of multiplayer / co-op ) but first 2 are imo main reasons why AoD sold so shitty.

We've already established difficulty has never held a game back, so point 2 is moot. Plenty of games with turn-based combat sell really well or bring in lots of money, so 3 is moot. And Undertale didn't have too much hype - there was no advertising or anything. The game got hyped on YouTube and 4Chan etc. because people liked it, not because TobyFox gave copies away or told Streamers and Youtubers to play it. In fact, he asked them multiple times NOT to play it so it won't be spoiled for others - but their fans all begged them to do it anyway.

I don't think you're making any good points here. I know you're in denial but AoD's sales have nothing to do with the graphics either. I quote you: "graphics is not on par with AAA games, iso camera, lack of multiplayer / co-op" -- these all apply to Undertale as well, if you substitute iso camera for top-down perspective.


Also, great post, Azarkon.

 

[hivemind]

: "AoD is shit and Undertale is GOTY."

nya, nya ~

 

[Jasede]

Nah, that's Underrail. (Just kidding. I don't think any of the games this year were any good. Still looking to play Witcher 3 and Vermintide though; those might change my mind.)

 

[hivemind]

Same thing.

 

[Jasede]

Everything sucks.

 

[ArchAngel]

lol I had much more brofists than her before DU zeroed them after I quoted a joke by Lundb that she had enthralled DU with magical vagina powers. Also, Ulmicati has more brofists than her, 4x more if I'm correct. Yeah, I had more brofists then him before some betting shit happened too.

Ok, but she only has 2000+ posts. It is an insane ratio which only means her opinion and likes are super highly regarded on this forum. And when such a person glorifies a shit game like Undertale logical thinking only brings me to conclusion that most of Codex would agree with her. So Codex is not the droid I am looking for..

 

[ArchAngel]

Ok, but she only has 2000+ posts. It is an insane ratio which only means her opinion and likes are super highly regarded on this forum. And when such a person glorifies a shit game like Undertale logical thinking only brings me to conclusion that most of Codex would agree with her. So Codex is not the droid I am looking for..

Bye.

Go fuck yourself in the mirror.

 

[ArchAngel]

lol I had much more brofists than her before DU zeroed them after I quoted a joke by Lundb that she had enthralled DU with magical vagina powers. Also, Ulmicati has more brofists than her, 4x more if I'm correct. Yeah, I had more brofists then him before some betting shit happened too.

Ok, but she only has 2000+ posts. It is an insane ratio which only means her opinion and likes are super highly regarded on this forum. And when such a person glorifies a shit game like Undertale logical thinking only brings me to conclusion that most of Codex would agree with her. So Codex is not the droid I am looking for..

I forgot to add, her post was just below Infinitrons who while being the most useful member of this forums has an infinitely worse ratio of brofists to posts. When I looked at both, I cannot come to another logical conclusion.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

What's the name of his game again, I need to buy it before they die.

It's not that we are going to die soon but we definitely will rethink our approach. Our bet on this niche was not a good bet overall, and there are other issues as well. Now in the survival mode difficulty, novelty, experiments will go out the door. Good difficult hardcore games will still be present in the market I think but mostly done by bigger companies. I think the whole niche is too small for indies to live on it. And I think it's time again to go back to publishers - releasing on Steam without marketing is not enough anymore, and Steam has moved definitely a few steps closer to the app store in this regard.

 

[likaq]

We've already established difficulty has never held a game back, so point 2 is moot.

1.Where and when.
2.Which pc crpg with hard combat did not flopped hard? examples?

[/QUOTE]Plenty of games with turn-based combat sell really well or bring in lots of money, so 3 is moot. [/QUOTE]

Are you retarded? We talking about pc crpg here. Not about strategy games or weeaboo shit. How many turn-based pc crpgs sold very well? I can think only about divs.

And Undertale didn't have too much hype

game is hyped everywhere form youtube, mainsteram sites to metacritic and hipsters from steam = it didn't have too much hype

Nice.