Moonspeak Undertale - friendship/genocide RPG

[Crooked Bee]

Review by felipepepe: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10176

 

[Bubbles]

Move this thread to General RPG discussion and rename it "Undertale: The Incline Awakens - RELEASED"

 

[Zetor]

Yea... the first page of the underrail steam forums was full of 'lol undertale' threads in the first week, too. Oh, internet.

that said, trading Underrail steam gift for Undertale steam gift after jan 14. PST.

 

[Phage]

lololo im gona maek cool music but not include it in gaem and instead just use it 2 trol the people messing w/ the gaem files

fuk you toby






...

I genuinely think this is one of, if not the, weakest track in the OST. The Sans battle would have been considerably less hype with this droning on for 10 minutes instead of Megalovania. That said, I am kind of surprised he didn't throw it on a miniboss somewhere since it's not bad.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Agreed on the Megalovania tune being a better choice in the end, but

https://youtu.be/Hp2NO7hQxDI

like the Metatton Neo theme above, it's a short loop because it's not intended to be listened to for long (or at all), so the two can't be compared fairly (and yes I'm aware of the irony of linking a 15 minute version of the song while making this point). I imagine he would make it more varied if it were to be actually used. Still, for a "trololo gotcha" easter egg I think it is pretty damn catchy.

And since I'm here:

https://youtu.be/4ePTXQrv_b4

 

[Talby]

Someone voiced the dialogue before the final fight, it's pretty well done in a Saturday morning cartoon way;

Spoiler

https://soundcloud.com/crashboombanger/flowey-pre-battle-dialogue

 

[Jick Magger]

So yeah, just completed it last night while trying to avoid as much info on it as possible, and I thought it was a neat little game. Thought the humor hit a lot more than it missed, found the characters to be pretty endearing, and was pretty impressed by the amount of reactivity the devs managed to put in. Guess my only major complaint is towards the gameplay, which even on the pacifist route was something I only ever really grew to tolerate and never fully enjoy. Overall, it was definitely one of the better indie games of the year.

EDIT:

Spoiler

I do think the game handles the question of the morality of killing pretty well, especially in comparison to games like Spec Ops: The Line. Killing Papyrus is an especially well-crafted gut-punch, since up to that point you could potentially rationalize a majority of the killings you've done as being in self-defense, whereas he'll actively go out of his way to avoid killing you, and will insist that you can be a good person if you're going for a no mercy run even after you've fatally wounded him. As Sans says, if you're gonna keep doing what you're doing, you're gonna have a bad time.

I did go in to this somewhat dreading it to be tumblrcancer, but the game honestly avoids making any overt political statements beyond 'friendship is great'. That said, I can see why so many people latched on to it to the degree that they have, as the game seems to push all of the right buttons for a particularly cancerous fanbase.

And as I said in the gamergate thread. Gamespot polls are and have always been a complete and utter joke, and all it really takes is a couple people with some spare time to prove it.

 

[Murk]

And since I'm here:

https://youtu.be/4ePTXQrv_b4

Is mettaton supposed to be fucking the kid's face?

 

[CryptRat]

So you asked for a neutral/negative review to discuss with?
I completed the pacifist route (or so I think, I got 0 XP) and I have to say that I didn't particularly like the game. I don't think it was absolutely horrible since it's playble, short and sometimes funny, but I eventually got bored and I don't so often get bored, particularly in a so short game. I clearly wouldn't have missed much if I hadn't played it.

The art is sometimes good, the humour is sometimes good, some characters are cool, but nothing really impressive here.
The soundtrack is great.
I thought the bullet evading mini-game was OK, particularly when it became special which means not so often in my opinion. There is one thing that pleasantly surprised me. I feared that the battles would be ridiculously easy, but they were not, I had to fill my bag with cure items, I died a few times and I'd even say that some bosses are not so easy to beat.

What I didn't like:
- The game is not Earthbound. I mean I think Undertale is much, much worse, basically in everything. That may explain my disappointement, but it's not the first game I've played which is worse than Earthbound since almost all of them actually are.
- The dialog battles (and the "dialog path", which is much better than some pacifist route with stealth and fleeing) are good on paper. But they are also very disappointing. The small dialog wheel with about 3 keywords is very limited. And I thought the humour wasn't absurd enough here. Give me some funnier text, or even better a big general keyword list from which I have to choose and I would probably have more fun (I can't say for sure, of course).
- I don't think the monsters nor the battles were particularly inspired. There are very few battles that I liked, in fact the spider is the only boss that I remember that I thought was cool from its dialog to its battle (it's not the battle where you have to do the most amount of things, though).
- The dungeons suck, the exploration is limited, the puzzles suck (some of them are funny).

It's not impossible that I consider playing the genocide path someday just to see the reactivity and because I can't really understand why the game would have to tell me I'm doing something bad, but I'm sure I'm missing something. I think that I already know that I'm doing something bad without the game having to tell me and that's exactly why I generally load my save game. OK, thinking about it, evil paths are more fun than sad. OK, I'm vaguely intrigued about the genocide path .

 

[felipepepe]

CryptRat just not killing doesn't take you to the pacifist route. You must befriend / help every character - for example, Papyrus' battle is huge, and you must befriend him and later even go on a date with him.

But yeah, try a genocide route, it's much shorter than the neutral/pacifist one, and will trully challenge your SHMUP skills.

 

[CryptRat]

OK, so I indeed missed the pacifist route. I think I helped every monsters I met except for the plane that I didn't manage to help and so I fled everytime I met it. It's very ironic that it's the one which you explain in the review how to help him. There are probably some monsters that I never met, though.

EDIT : I spared every monster I met except for the plane, I don't know which ones I helped/didn't help outside battles (the date with Papyrus was cool).

 

[lightbane]

You do not have to spare EVERY kind of monster of the game, you need a killcount of 0 when you speak with Sans, then do the Papyrus date, then befriend Undyne and the lizard. From here you will know what to do.

 

[felipepepe]

After dating with Papyrus and saving Undyne you must visit her house with Papyrus and befriend her as well. Then you'll gain access to Alphys secret laboratory, which explains much of the plot.

Since you already beated the game, give a look at the game's wiki on how to get the true pacifist & genocide route.

 

[Ivan]

Do you even have the option of visitng Undyne on 1st playthrough? I know for a fact that Papyrus will only call you informing you that you should on the 2nd playthrough.

 

[Siveon]

Kinda. But the way I did it was that the game let me go...back? From the neutral end, to go full pacifist. Which only took like an extra 30 minutes. I have a bad memory but I remember doing something like that.

I wouldn't call that a separate playthrough entirely.

 

[CryptRat]

I dated Papryus and visited Undyne. I probably only missed the laboratory then.

Since you already beated the game, give a look at the game's wiki on how to get the true pacifist & genocide route.

I don't know, I haven't cheated for a very long time. I don't want to relapse .

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Is mettaton supposed to be fucking the kid's face?

Some argue that this

is supposed to look like this



so, maybe.

 

[J1M]

Tried it. Couldn't finish it. Not interesting enough. Don't understand the hype.

 

[Murk]

Ugh. The fanbase truly is the worst part of the game.

 

[CryptRat]

Kinda. But the way I did it was that the game let me go...back? From the neutral end, to go full pacifist. Which only took like an extra 30 minutes. I have a bad memory but I remember doing something like that.

I wouldn't call that a separate playthrough entirely.

Yup, I did that. The Codex, and the flower, and Undyne told me to go and see Alphy so I thought that was the right thing to do.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Ugh. The fanbase truly is the worst part of the game.

Y'know for the last couple years or so I've heard heard this about any game, show or book that gains a big enough following. If Star Wars or OG Star Trek were just starting out as series today I shudder to think how many times I'd stumble across it.

 

[Zetor]

Ugh. The fanbase truly is the worst part of the game.

Y'know for the last couple years or so I've heard heard this about any game, show or book that gains a big enough following. If Star Wars or OG Star Trek were just starting out as series today I shudder to think how many times I'd stumble across it.

I was going to say that "the fanbase is the worst part of the game" is pretty much what everyone was/is saying about Dark Souls. This makes Undertale the Citizen Kane Dark Souls of Earthbound-inspired games. QED.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

If I let fanbases influence my opinion of games, I wouldn't have touched Fallout. Have you seen how insufferable those nerds are?

 

[Murk]

Ugh. The fanbase truly is the worst part of the game.

Y'know for the last couple years or so I've heard heard this about any game, show or book that gains a big enough following. If Star Wars or OG Star Trek were just starting out as series today I shudder to think how many times I'd stumble across it.

I was going to say that "the fanbase is the worst part of the game" is pretty much what everyone was/is saying about Dark Souls. This makes Undertale the Citizen Kane Dark Souls of Earthbound-inspired games. QED.

I love dark souls 1 & 2, but I also agree -- the fans are fucking horribad.

Fuckit, I had like 3 glasses of windex+drano, so I'll spill some shit.

The reason why I, specifically (as I can't speak for others), think Undertale's fans are shit is because of how absolutely eager they are to identify with something based entirely on a relatively shallow shared experience of what should have been a "neat game that was kinda fun" that they then turned into some kind of self-rationalizing ordeal. I'm not even pretending that this is the majority, but all 4 times I tried to see what "others" thought about it outside of the thread on ze codex led me to run away with my hands covering my mouth for how much vomit was pouring out. This sounds like standard hater shit, but you'll notice from my earlier posts in this thread that I actually like this game for what it is (a neat game.)

Also, Clockwork Knight, that's some gamespot and/or reddit shit ma niggu ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3olvxv/i_cant_believe_ive_not_noticed_the_immense/ ) and I know you ams better than that. There's shithole fans, like us, and then there's shithole fans that are so bad that they transcend badness into some kind of quantum state that retroactively invalidates any quality the original source of fandom may have ever had. Like fucking dr. who cunts, or the kind of star wars shits that stay up over night to watch a gatdamn movie.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3olvxv/i_cant_believe_ive_not_noticed_the_immense/

Its not even like Oblivion was a bad game! "Oblivion plus guns" sort of sounds like a positive recommendation