Moonspeak Undertale - friendship/genocide RPG

[Jick Magger]

Like I said before, Undertale seems to hit all the right marks for a particularly cancerous fanbase. Dark Souls' fanbase is shit because it was marketed as TEH HARDEST GAEM EVAH, so of course the fanbase that developed around it was a gaggle of tryhard, wannabe-elitist faggots that'll excuse each and every legitimate issue with the game with "Git gud". This wasn't as bad in Dark Souls 2, because that game has a lot more staggeringly idiotic design and gameplay decisions that only the most blind fanboys can ignore, and didn't really happen at all with Demon's Souls because that game was too small and its marketing campaign non-existent.

Undertale, on the other hand, seems to hit everything on the checklist to appeal to the tumblr crowd: retro graphics, obvious Earthbound influences, main character of ambiguous gender, gameplay actively encourages you to avoid killing people (so we can avoid that dang dirty toxic masculinity, even though the game tells you that uncompromising mercy can be just as bad as uncompromising violence), Undyne is a strong independent womyn who don't need no man (despite later interactions proving that the only real difference between her and Papyrus is that she's willing to kill you), gay romance (even though it's just played for laughs), so on and so forth.

Like everything they get their hands on, tumblr seizes on it and takes it just one step over the edge, which is why you get stuff like Mettatron being interpreted as trans because of his EX mode, like they've never heard of glam rock before (Ziggy Stardust, anyone? David Bowie had killer legs), or people making fanart which arbitrarily assigns race or gender identities to characters that never identified as such (often in the name of 'diversifying' the cast, but ironically excluding any white characters).

Ironically, I think the only reason this didn't become the indie darling that game journos latched on to to heap all their awards upon rather than Her Story (Which, even if you hate Undertale, at least it isn't just google image search with FMVs strewn throughout) is because its lighthearted tone doesn't fit with their "GAMES NEED TO GROW UP" narrative, even though I honestly think it handles the theme of violence in video games much, much better than shit like Spec Ops: The Line, shit they were hailing as revolutionary years ago for its daring narrative leap of telling you to do things and then telling you you're an awful person for doing it.

 

[Talby]

The Bowie influence for Mettaton should be obvious.

It's also why he's my favourite character in the game.

Edit: Better comparison;

 

[Jasede]

I have to agree with all the sentiments on this page.

It should have just been a neat little game with a neat little story - which doesn't need to appeal to everyone; not all stories do. Even so, it still has notably clever mechanics especially near the end. And yes, certainly not unique, but used extremely well. You must realize -- every single story in the world is about love and hate, about death and life. All stories have already been told; they're all just variations on themes we can all relate to more or less. So appeals come not from how unique a story is, but how well it is told, and how we can relate to it.

That said, I'm very tired of having to tell all my friends it's not the best game ever, just like Dark Souls is not the hardest game ever. Both of these remarks are plain stupid, fueled by some kind of memetic engine, the same that made everyone praise Helix during Twitch Plays Pokemon.

Some will argue that what others feel about something does not change its merits but it's not true. If you were to buy a really fine wine (and yes, let's assume Undertale is a fine wine, even if you disagree on this, it's just for the metaphor) and you were about to try it - and then notice that everyone else who likes it is covered in feces and a serial killer. It's silly to say that wouldn't at least somewhat color what enjoyment you were to get out of your wine, or not.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Some will argue that what others feel about something does not change its merits but it's not true. If you were to buy a really fine wine (and yes, let's assume Undertale is a fine wine, even if you disagree on this, it's just for the metaphor) and you were about to try it - and then notice that everyone else who likes it is covered in feces and a serial killer. It's silly to say that wouldn't at least somewhat color what enjoyment you were to get out of your wine, or not.

I suppose this is true for most people, but you're ultimately doing this to yourself. I'm not exaggerating when I say this doesn't apply to me- my baseline respect for strangers is so low I give zero fucks about their preferences. It's the equivalent of trying to only eat food flies don't eat as far as I'm concerned. Likewise for trying to feel better about sharing the experience of prestigious people. I don't care if royalty likes it, I find caviar far less enjoyable than a 25 cent packet of ramen.

Edit:

That said, I'm very tired of having to tell all my friends it's not the best game ever

I hear a lot of people saying this but we've got a 16 page thread here with only 5 mentions of "best game". Two of them are from you, another from Clockwork Knight, all bitching about it, a fourth from someone talking about the game over screen as opposed to the game as a whole. Only one person actually made this sentiment in the whole thread, and it's some random guy with all of 7 posts that got 0 brofists.

 

[CryptRat]

I suppose this is true for most people

No, Jasede's statement is a weird statement, it's not like you would have to deal with the community. You won't play a live Trading Card Game if all the players who play the game are morons, but changing your opinion about a single player game you've actually played based on players you have no respect for is weird.
I don't even know why someone would know what all those people think about Undertale (the only thing I know is that the game sold a lot so/because people talk about it, I have 0 clue about a tumblr community or whatever, except what I've read on the Codex), the consensus in the different forums that I follow is that it's a cool little game, that concerning the JRPGs of the end of the year it probably beats Xenoblade Chronicles X particularly if you're looking for a particular experience, and nothing more, I don't think that these are overly praising statements, we don't even talk about Undertale as much as about Hotline Miami, Darkest Dungeon or Shovel Knight.

 

[Jasede]

Some will argue that what others feel about something does not change its merits but it's not true. If you were to buy a really fine wine (and yes, let's assume Undertale is a fine wine, even if you disagree on this, it's just for the metaphor) and you were about to try it - and then notice that everyone else who likes it is covered in feces and a serial killer. It's silly to say that wouldn't at least somewhat color what enjoyment you were to get out of your wine, or not.

I suppose this is true for most people, but you're ultimately doing this to yourself. I'm not exaggerating when I say this doesn't apply to me- my baseline respect for strangers is so low I give zero fucks about their preferences. It's the equivalent of trying to only eat food flies don't eat as far as I'm concerned. Likewise for trying to feel better about sharing the experience of prestigious people. I don't care if royalty likes it, I find caviar far less enjoyable than a 25 cent packet of ramen.

Edit:

That said, I'm very tired of having to tell all my friends it's not the best game ever

I hear a lot of people saying this but we've got a 16 page thread here with only 5 mentions of "best game". Two of them are from you, another from Clockwork Knight, all bitching about it, a fourth from someone talking about the game over screen as opposed to the game as a whole. Only one person actually made this sentiment in the whole thread, and it's some random guy with all of 7 posts that got 0 brofists.

You are not my friends, though. So I wasn't referring to you or this thread.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You are not my friends, though.

 

[Murk]

tfw =(

jasede, did undertale teach you nothing about friendship? for shame!

 

[Damned Registrations]

I did just mean it as a general statement though, as opposed to trying to say you were lying specifically. A lot of people are saying they keep hearing "BEST GAME EVER" all over the place, but I haven't seen that at all, it's a very tiny minority of people saying this, about what you'd expect for any popular game. There's always going to be a handful of people who've only ever played a half dozen shitty games (or watched movies, anime, read books... you get the idea) before and will place anything that is good right at the top of their list. And of course a handful for whom the game simply clicks that well.

If you're seeing a majority of people saying this... get better friends/spend less time on tumblr maybe?

 

[SerratedBiz]

Well, felipepepe's review DID call it the most consistent game of all time or something like that...

 

[Mozg]

I was in favor of it when it was just another plucky solodev indie that knew how to play the quirk violin. Then it became like the newest My Little Pony thing of the internet.

I figure a lot of it is teenage boys that are trying to pre-emptively reject masculinity before it has a chance to reject them.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I was in favor of it when it was just another plucky solodev indie that knew how to play the quirk violin. Then it became like the newest My Little Pony thing of the internet.

This is the exact definition of a hipster. "I liked it before it was cool but other people enjoying it ruined it for me."

 

[Mozg]

Sort of.

It's like if I tried a new little restaurant and thought it was good, then suddenly that place was getting wildly praised everywhere. It changes the landscape from, "Hey, you could check that place out next time you go by" to, "Maybe that restaurant shouldn't be the model for all restaurant food everywhere going forward? Maybe chipotle flavor isn't objectively important?" at a constant level of intensity of my judgement about said restaurant.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Ah, well that's fair enough. I'd certainly prefer to see another Armored Core before another Undertale myself. I think people (at least the ones with the skills and traits to make something worthwhile) generally make whatever the fuck they want though, rather than following trends. There's no danger the guy who made KotC is going to abandon KotC2 in favour of making a quirky jrpg.

 

[Blowhard]

Personally, I don't see how no longer liking something because it's also liked by a certain group of people you loathe is somehow disingenuous. There are plenty of things to like on this planet. I don't have to choose. You don't lose much by excluding a few things that could potentially lump you in with people you'd like to beat the shit out of. It's like leaving a party. Sure it might be fun in there, but the people you'd have to share it with aren't worth the time.

 

[Blowhard]

Personally, I don't see how no longer liking something because it's also liked by a certain group of people you loathe is somehow disingenuous. There are plenty of things to like on this planet. I don't have to choose. You don't lose much by excluding a few things that could potentially lump you in with people you'd like to beat the shit out of. It's like leaving a party. Sure it might be fun in there, but the people you'd have to share it with aren't worth the time.

Your analogy makes no sense because, unlike in a party, you don't need to interact with other people on a single player game.

Not realistic in the internet age. Everyone who plays any game is going to interact with other people about it. You are right now. No one does anything in isolation anymore. Enjoyment in the traditional sense is dead to myself and to countless others. We can only enjoy things from a strictly voyeuristic sense. Ie. take something in rather apathetically, then get enjoyment from it retrospectively by talking with other people who "enjoyed" it.

 

[Siveon]

No one does anything in isolation anymore.

Speak for yourself. I play my weird shit alone in the dark without telling anyone, thank you very much.

Breaking news, in the "internet age" you could do whatever the fuck you want.

 

[Siveon]

I just find it odd that people would feel the need to talk about everything that they're playing. For Blowhard... well, it is in his namesake I suppose.

 

[Talby]

No matter how weird the Undertale fanbase may be, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game. Same goes for any singleplayer game.

 

[TigerKnee]

There's no danger the guy who made KotC is going to abandon KotC2 in favour of making a quirky jrpg.

Just the danger of him abandoning KOTC2 in favour of a shitty RTS worse than Dune 2

 

[lightbane]

Goods news for everyone that likes Undertale: we got new avatars from the game itself! Thank you Crooked Bee. Now, let's see how long it takes until another shitstorm happens.

 

[Jasede]

cool leg

 

[Talby]

Sweet.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

So, I got around to playing this to see what all the fuss was about, and just ended my first playthrough. Rather underwhelmed overall. There's a good amount of clever fourth wall breaking and subverting of expectations based on traditional videogame logic; it's a rare example of a game that manages to be intentionally funny most of the time; and the narrative, while simple and wrapped in very abstract imagery and writing, manages in the end to be quite poignant - another rare feat. Music is also very good. Apparently there's also some reactivity, but one playthrough is not enough to tell.

Unfortunately, non-combat gameplay is simplistic and limited, there's very little exploration to be done, basically no systems (why are we even calling this an RPG? It's more like an adventure game with a bunch of combat minigames) and puzzles are laughably easy. Combat, on the other hand, is pure form over function, an indie version of what you see in AAA action-adventures ala Assassin's Creed or Witcher 3 - it looks nice and lets the designer show off their cleverness, but is kinda shit to actually play. Grand majority of it is easy to the point of being boring, and the somewhat challenging parts are only so because they involve weird gimmicks or are just cheap memo trash. Also weird hitboxes and a plethora or similar problems indicative of "I'm going to design a shmup in spite of having no clue about shmups" on the designer's part.

So basically the game is a series of cool or fun scenes interspersed with extremely dull walking, puzzle solving or random encounters. And now, having finished it once, I apparently have to do it all over again in order to figure out what's actually going on and get the "good" ending. Not really feeling very motivated, to be honest.

 

[Phage]

So, I got around to playing this to see what all the fuss was about, and just ended my first playthrough. Rather underwhelmed overall. There's a good amount of clever fourth wall breaking and subverting of expectations based on traditional videogame logic; it's a rare example of a game that manages to be intentionally funny most of the time; and the narrative, while simple and wrapped in very abstract imagery and writing, manages in the end to be quite poignant - another rare feat. Music is also very good. Apparently there's also some reactivity, but one playthrough is not enough to tell.

Unfortunately, non-combat gameplay is simplistic and limited, there's very little exploration to be done, basically no systems (why are we even calling this an RPG? It's more like an adventure game with a bunch of combat minigames) and puzzles are laughably easy. Combat, on the other hand, is pure form over function, an indie version of what you see in AAA action-adventures ala Assassin's Creed or Witcher 3 - it looks nice and lets the designer show off their cleverness, but is kinda shit to actually play. Grand majority of it is easy to the point of being boring, and the somewhat challenging parts are only so because they involve weird gimmicks or are just cheap memo trash. Also weird hitboxes and a plethora or similar problems indicative of "I'm going to design a shmup in spite of having no clue about shmups" on the designer's part.

So basically the game is a series of cool or fun scenes interspersed with extremely dull walking, puzzle solving or random encounters. And now, having finished it once, I apparently have to do it all over again in order to figure out what's actually going on and get the "good" ending. Not really feeling very motivated, to be honest.

top pleb, tbqh