kurona_bright
Neo Member
I am not 100% certain on this, but I think the 'Uwa!!" songs play on the gamepad setup screen (apparently that screen's background changes to match the seasons, which is pretty cool).
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Undertale |OT| Indie RPG with determination and spider bake sales
- Thread starter Earthpainting
- Start date
I am not 100% certain on this, but I think the 'Uwa!!" songs play on the gamepad setup screen (apparently that screen's background changes to match the seasons, which is pretty cool).
Stone Ocean
Member
My first time with Toriel I thought
that the solution to her battle was to attack her until she yielded like the tutorial told you to do against some enemies. So I kept talking to her until she started pulling her punches and I go "oh this is where I start hitting her right" since I forgot about the spare option. Needless to say it didn't go well and I desperately closed the game when she turned into dust lol
Which is oh so hard to do. I can't bring myself to kill these charming little shits.
Knocking points off because the game doesn't solve its own puzzles for you is ludicrous.
Personally I figured out how to spare Toriel my first time through just because I'm stubborn and took the advice that you can spare everything literally and refused to stop "spare"-ing her. But obviously YMMV and different people play differently.
1) People don't read everything
2) I feel like the answer is only intuitive if you have played ace attorney games
It's not obvious completely obvious, as what you state is not the only way. There's another way to do it that I thought was the only way to do it.
Attack her, but don't press anything and let the attacks miss. Honestly, this is a "better" solution to the puzzle based on the given information, because it mirrors the fake attacks that Toriel starts spamming you with once you're low.
Fleeing is its own issue, because you have a dream where somebody speaks to you to encourage you to go back and finish the fight.
I can't take seriously people who have this criticsm, if you're getting the game either thru steam or toby's site its literally written all over that the game can be won without killing anybody, and a few screens before that moment there is an NPC that spills the beans on how to clear it without violence.
Not gonna say that the situation is not presented to let players make this mistake
I believe the reson this was designed like it was is for the alternate text upon reloading
Besides, Toriel blatantly states that Stalling is a path to victory and "Spare" is your all purpose "pass turn" button.
It's just unusual is all. Even in games where you can talk to or befriend monsters like SMT you still always need to kill the bosses. WRPGs where you can avoid most if not all combat through speech and stealth will often do this too (see Deus Ex for an easy example where you don't have to kill any non-boss enemy but a completely non lethal run is impossible without exploiting unintended behavior due to one boss that needs to die before you can continue, and avoiding fights with a couple other bosses is extremely difficult).
Because it's an RPG. You're supposed to kill every monster you encounter and level up. Even when the game tells you not to kill everything, it goes against every base instinct you have as a player. If I'm doing the right thing, why is my level so low?
Stone Ocean
Member
That instinct is shot down before you even have your first battle. Toriel pretty much straight up tells you to not try and fight monsters, and soon afterwards you have the frogs telling you you can make monsters yield and the whole premise of the game is that complete pacifism is a viable solution, even in fights that look impossible to get out peacefully.
I had a variation of this on my first playthrough, i knew that pacifism was the way to go as stablished by the game but i was like "damn, i'll never level up, this game will get hard to stay pacifist all the way through!"
And yes, i know that's the RPG instinct (and i actually love that the whole prologue is a test to you on how much you can resist it), but i thought it was nicer to actual try the novel idea of not killing, like, when you try a new game with a huge gimmick (Not Killing), why would you ignore that gimmick? Heh.
Modest Mauser
Member
The game doesn't try to deceive you, it just reacts to your decisions. If anything, the way it subverts player expectations is something to be praised.
I loved Undertale, a lot. And the reviewer is completely correct about the early fight in question. The game takes a while to give any indication at all that what you're doing isn't futile. Games need to provide feedback; you can't expect every person to keep doing the same thing over and over if it's producing the same unwanted result each time. You are, in essence, asking the player to behave like an insane person.
Then there's the issue of (much later)
This game isn't free from criticism, as great as it is. There are many times in the game where things could be communicated better to the player.
Then there's the issue of (much later)
the Asgore fight where I spent literally 15 minutes doing exactly what finally worked against Toriel and then finally gave up and started attacking. THIS was the right decision: the game wanted me to take him to low health, even as a pacifist. This is the exact opposite of the thing from earlier and completely unintuitive.
This game isn't free from criticism, as great as it is. There are many times in the game where things could be communicated better to the player.
It does provide feedback, every time you hit spare her dialogue changes a little
Yeah, pretty much the one point where the game tricks you, i wasted like an entire hour and 8 deaths before i figured it, still
It's nice that even the one fight you have to...uhm, fight, you can spare him in the end and no blood on your hands when he dies
I completely agree.
There's several different classes of pacifist approaches, but there's not much reason why one works over the others.
Aren't the first few responses just a different number of dots?
And then the game switches to dialogue, and then back to dots, as if it is just repeating itself because it ran out of responses.
The lack of communication toward Toriel's resolution isn't an objective problem since the game isn't presenting you with a fail state either way.
You're meant to find challenge in the pacifistic options and appropriate weight should be felt when you resort to violence.
This highlights the problems with expecting to play Undertale "optimally."
You're meant to find challenge in the pacifistic options and appropriate weight should be felt when you resort to violence.
This highlights the problems with expecting to play Undertale "optimally."
kurona_bright
Neo Member
Habits are hard to break, and if you've never heard of this game before, I can see where someone might be confused about it.
Yes, even with all the taglines, and yes, even with all the hints. A couple of sentences in promotional material and some missable lines of dialogue isn't going to make much of a dent in the "kill or be killed" mentality that a lifetime playing games instills in you, unless you're specifically looking for it. And that's fine! The game accounts for that, and in the end, you learn what not to do the next time through. And you even get to go, "Holy crap, did that dumb flower just call me out on what I did???"
I don't get why it's so hard to understand that not everybody is going to be perfectly observant and pick up on the game's clues their first run through.
And that last image seems pretty condescending, to be honest.
EDIT:
Also, I think trying to talk several times will bring up a message along the lines of
But it's flat-out unreasonable to expect everybody's going to pick up on that.
further edit: Yeah, the number of ellipses grow as you keep on sparing. Here's a video: https://youtu.be/r3yrAy0ffNo?t=6m29s
Yes, even with all the taglines, and yes, even with all the hints. A couple of sentences in promotional material and some missable lines of dialogue isn't going to make much of a dent in the "kill or be killed" mentality that a lifetime playing games instills in you, unless you're specifically looking for it. And that's fine! The game accounts for that, and in the end, you learn what not to do the next time through. And you even get to go, "Holy crap, did that dumb flower just call me out on what I did???"
I don't get why it's so hard to understand that not everybody is going to be perfectly observant and pick up on the game's clues their first run through.
And that last image seems pretty condescending, to be honest.
EDIT:
There's always some feedback. It's very subtle - the dialogue doesn't repeat exactly. I think the number of ellipses increases with every time you spare, and then sooner or later, you get to the part where there is significant change in how the boss reacts.Aeana said:
Also, I think trying to talk several times will bring up a message along the lines of
"How can you show mercy without running away?"
But it's flat-out unreasonable to expect everybody's going to pick up on that.
further edit: Yeah, the number of ellipses grow as you keep on sparing. Here's a video: https://youtu.be/r3yrAy0ffNo?t=6m29s
The game doesn't try to deceive you, it just reacts to your decisions. If anything, the way it subverts player expectations is something to be praised.
I know. That's kind of the point of Undertale.
I was explaining why it was so antithetical to the common RPG.
Stone Ocean
Member
Asgore destroys your mercy button and the game straight up tells you your act options are futile past a certain point. You were also told in the tutorial that some enemies need to get their asses beaten up to a certain point in order to make them yield. Fighting is your only option and hell, pretty much every NPC before Asgore tells you that one of you has to die in that fight and that there's no escaping that since you need a monster SOUL to cross the barrier, that coupled with Asgore making sparing him impossible is basically telling you fighting is ok, how is that unintuitive?
The game is definitely way too obtuse at times, although less than the fight against
Asgore, was the fight against Undyne. The hint it gives you that 'you need to stand your ground while you're green' is way too oblique to be very useful, and it never really properly informs you that running away is a real option for progression. The fact that the game appears to give you feedback for taking mercy related actions doesn't help either. Dealing with Undyne is the primary bit of advice I wind up giving to people for how difficult it is to naturally figure out what to do in the fight without wasting tons of time.
Stone Ocean
Member
That fight was indeed unintuitive, that I can agree with. Took me several turns of act spamming till I figured out I could also do that.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Honestly after watching quite a few LPs I think the beginning at least needs some more hints since a lot of it flew over peoples heads I've seen two playthrough where people thought the froggits in the Ruins triggered encounters too since they got a random while they walked up to them.
Stone Ocean
Member
It could have been worse I guess. Imagine if the (neutral run spoiler)
fight
lol
Flowey
was a traditional boss battle in it's entirety
GhostTrick
Banned
To be honest,
Froggit pretty much tells you before Toriel fight that there's always a way. Asgore is basically the exception for plot purpose. Same for Undyne except you're encourage to flee away.
Yeah, I understood what I needed to do against
Asgore
Undyne, and that's because I ran away into the room before the fight because I didn't realize the mountain was a cave lmao
I don't think there's a single case where a passive option will give you repeat dialogue when it's the proper solution? There are edge cases
where the solution is a little weird, but it always felt clear within a few turns when I wasn't progressing. To say the game is misleading or lacks feedback just because some solutions are unique is bizarre.
particularly Undyne and Asgore
"This is impossible, you can't do it" is something that comes up pretty much constantly in the game, and like basically every RPG, you prove it wrong every time, because you're the exception to the rule.
Stone Ocean
Member
I think in some cases the lack of direct feedback can add to the fight. Not every boss needs to be like
Mettaton
Asriel
Sans
Flowey
A Link to the Past
Banned
I guess I don't want to be disrespectful to people who didn't pick up on that, but at the same time, to me it seemed fairly obvious that as the "dialogue" changed from one row of dots to two rows, it was conveying progress. Even when the dialogue switched back to dots, it seems alien to me for someone to immediately stop trying to spare - I mean, isn't it just one line of dialogue after the initial ellipses that is also ellipses?
That said, the Ruins could have used some improvements. It kind of felt like it was designed well before the rest of the game, and had a different focus. A few things they could have done:
1. Change the colour of the Froggits on the overworld (why were they even grey? No other enemy is grey on the overworld IIRC except for ones that are supposed to be - it really feels like a byproduct of being an early sprite design).
2. The maze puzzle is kind of tedious and doesn't really teach you anything for later areas in the game.
3. When an enemy can be spared, colour the Mercy button yellow so you don't have to check.
4. Change it so that if you are running pacifist, your cursor is on Act by default.
Probably some other things too.
I do agree to some extents that parts of Undertale would have done well to maybe be telegraphed a little more but in others I think the game already walks a fine line between risking in becoming too trivial in it's solution. Simultaneously I think having to scratch that head for a solution is ultimately what kind of sets you into the mindset of a person rather than an enabler.
The one thing I kind of disagree with Aeana with is
I think there is a point to be made that it did sacrifice a little bit of readability because of it, and I'll definitely attest to that the game ain't perfect for that. But I think the reason of going with the above was a pretty bold, risky move to do that for the most of the part served a really good narrative purpose, even if it did lose consistency because of it.
The one thing I kind of disagree with Aeana with is
about Asgore being poorly managed. I can agree with Toriel being easy to misunderstand but Asgore is a character who is mentioned throughout the game as someone who has resigned himself to inevitability, especially due to a monster's soul being required to exit. Asgore destroying the Mercy option, at least to me, struck me as him dividing the line between him and Toriel that drove the wedge between them to begin with. Asgore is someone who wants you dead yet is too ashamed to admit it. While yeah, it does subvert a bit of what the game has been basically doing up to that point, the reason I think it's justifiable is because of this - it's a pretty effective moment that actually accomplished something I've never quite experienced in a game, which is by denying the player character the mere mechanic of doing something it actually serves to define them. Asgore denying any Mercy told me exactly what I needed to know about him - how he was a pitiable, pathetic person who was beyond reason, someone who already had the blood of six other humans on his hands, who wouldn't even look me in the eye as he fought me. Not even Toriel was as cowardly as he was.
I think there is a point to be made that it did sacrifice a little bit of readability because of it, and I'll definitely attest to that the game ain't perfect for that. But I think the reason of going with the above was a pretty bold, risky move to do that for the most of the part served a really good narrative purpose, even if it did lose consistency because of it.
kurona_bright
Neo Member
Well, I got stuck there too, because of something I had learned earlier:
In the fight with Toriel, selecting the attack command and then not attacking at all (as in you just completely miss the meter) has her act just like you SPARED her. Which meant that when Asgore destroyed the MERCY button, I thought I had to start purposely missing attacks. [I remember even thinking that that would be one more link between Toriel and Asgore, on top of the identical house layout and the reprise of 'Heartache' during the battle music, and got really excited 
]
Which lead to one or two hours being completely lost.
Also, Undyne's date sequence tells you to just "talk with Asgore". And while talking does bring up "do something else" prompt, a huge part of the game (well, the pacifist run) is how determined you are to not fight! So I thought that the game was trying to fake me out!
I ended up reading through Toby's twitter feed and finding out that yeah, you're supposed to actually attack him. I have no qualms with labeling that part of the game at least slightly unintuitive.
]Which lead to one or two hours being completely lost.
Also, Undyne's date sequence tells you to just "talk with Asgore". And while talking does bring up "do something else" prompt, a huge part of the game (well, the pacifist run) is how determined you are to not fight! So I thought that the game was trying to fake me out!
I ended up reading through Toby's twitter feed and finding out that yeah, you're supposed to actually attack him. I have no qualms with labeling that part of the game at least slightly unintuitive.
Undertale is generally very successful specifically because it subverts training that players have been undergoing via other games for 30+ years. Most of the time, it manages to do that and be generally clear about it in the process. I think the game has basically a 99% success rate at this. It's just a couple of points that stick out, and it's unfortunate that one of them is so early in the game and has such lasting effects.
A Link to the Past
Banned
There are definitely a couple tweaks they could make to the
In particular,
As for what others say about
Also, I will say that
Actually, it was at 96 when it dropped.
Asgore fight.
specifically saying that you'll need to fight, rather than "ACTing won't solve this problem" or whatever. Heck, they could even take away the Talk function eventually in the battle.
Asgore, I took it to mean that they liked him because he was good to them, not that he was good to humans - especially when he already killed six others.
Also, I will say that
It could have done the game well if Toby had made a change for the boss fights, where instead of sparing them, it says "Refuse to fight". Though I wasn't really affected by this, calling the action "Spare" is weird when you're at a huge disadvantage.
Actually, it was at 96 when it dropped.
Yeah, no, I'm not going to criticize this game for actually encouraging the player to apply actual problem-solving skills and experimentation as they play the game. I don't ascribe to design philosophies that require being utterly terrified of the player making mistakes to learn things.
And this isn't stealth bragging or anything.
And you know what? I'm totally okay with all of that. In fact, it was downright refreshing seeing my mistakes in action and realizing that the answers and logic behind them were relatively simple and that I just hadn't bothered to fully explore my options. It's not the game's job to kowtow to the player's intuition at all times.
And this isn't stealth bragging or anything.
I killed Toriel on my first playthrough and didn't realize my mistake until the very end, I died about half a dozen times to Asgore before finally fighting him, it took the entire Undyne fight for me to realize that all I needed to do was flee, I never did learn the proper timing for doing a snail race, etc. etc. If there was a "gotcha" moment in the game that took advantage of my familiarity with video games then I probably fell for it, hook line and sinker.
The in-battle dialog box never tells you that you can't do something unless it's true.
Like in the case of the dogs, where you have to beckon them closer before you pet them. It tells you they're too far away and it means it. It's the same in the fight with Asgore. He destroys your MERCY option, so that's out of the question, and the ACT options just let you see his stats or tells you "Seems talking won't do any more good." I personally love the Asgore fight because the solution is very clearly stated, but at that point you genuinely don't want to attack him. One of the main difficulties is accepting the fact that you have to do what you've avoided throughout the whole game.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Any other nice LPs to watch of people going through the game?
So far I've completed these peoples LPs:
VoidBurger
Dodger
Slowbeef
Already watching these as they progress:
Super Best Friends Play
HarshlyCritical
GameGrumps
CommanderHolly
So far I've completed these peoples LPs:
VoidBurger
Dodger
Slowbeef
Already watching these as they progress:
Super Best Friends Play
HarshlyCritical
GameGrumps
CommanderHolly
kurona_bright
Neo Member
Well,
one of Flowey's lines, all the way from the very beginning if you make a clean run through the ruins is: "But what will you do when you meet a relentless killer? You'll die and you'll die and you'll die. Until you tire of trying. What will you do then? Will you kill out of frustration?"
If you remember that line and think Flowey is talking about the Asgore fight (I did), you're likely to do what I did and spend 1-2 hours banging your head against a brick wall.
The dialogue box never lying is true, but it's such a minor detail that the player isn't going to think of it as an infallible source of truth. I just saw it as another way the game was trying to get me to give up.
If you remember that line and think Flowey is talking about the Asgore fight (I did), you're likely to do what I did and spend 1-2 hours banging your head against a brick wall.
The dialogue box never lying is true, but it's such a minor detail that the player isn't going to think of it as an infallible source of truth. I just saw it as another way the game was trying to get me to give up.
Joel from Vinesauce has been doing a great stream of the game for the last two weeks. Right now he's fresh off of having beaten Muffet. If you can't catch the streams live when he does them, be sure to check the YouTube channel above as he posts the full streams there after doing them. He does some really fun voice impressions of the characters too and he's pretty perceptive to the little details.
He's doing True Pacifist and even though he promised to do a Genocide run afterwards he said he's starting to regret promising that since he's enamored with the game.
Cryatoic's and Vincesauce Joel's are good, but they're both still ongoing.
The only situation I had a problem with was with Undyne and
having to run away from her. Only reason I realized was that flee option was added under spare. Game didn't really seem to hint at it from what I remember. I felt that the Toriel fight was kind of obvious what to do due to the Froggit though I could see why people accidentally kill her. The game pretty much purposefully misleads players into killing her thinking it might work if they get her health down and then it crits her and kills her. I felt the Asgore fight worked well due to how the mercy button was destroyed. No matter what you try, you eventually have to fight him. He has no dialogue either so it should eventually become apparent.(Though it did take me like 30 minutes and multiple times dying to figure that out)
OniBarubary
Banned
Yeah, I can't say I agree even a little bit with a lot of this stuff about the beginning not clearly outlining what you're supposed to do. You go through a tutorial about sparing monsters and get an entire dialogue in a tutorial room that literally says "ONE DAY YOU WILL HAVE TO SPARE EVEN IF THE NAME ISN'T YELLOW. THIS IS IMPORTANT. YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PAY ATTENTION TO THIS."
I don't understand why it's so hard for people to just pay the fuck attention and not give up when they don't see immediate results for trying something. I don't stop shooting an enemy in an FPS when I've put one bullet into them and they didn't react to it and think "Huh, guess bullets don't work."
There are legit criticisms with this game but I think a lot of blowback to bad reviews or criticisms that's happening online right now is because most of them are not that good and get incredibly aggressive in their language as if they're angry that other people like it when they don't so they become very accusatory and condescending.
I've seen like, 2 legit and well-thought out criticisms in reviews of this game and a couple posts on here that bring up some good points. But that's like the few sprinkles on a giant mound of garbage that repeatedly shouts that THING ISN'T AS GOOD AS PEOPLE SAY AND THEY TRICKED ME INTO PLAYING IT AND I'M ANGRY
I don't understand why it's so hard for people to just pay the fuck attention and not give up when they don't see immediate results for trying something. I don't stop shooting an enemy in an FPS when I've put one bullet into them and they didn't react to it and think "Huh, guess bullets don't work."
There are legit criticisms with this game but I think a lot of blowback to bad reviews or criticisms that's happening online right now is because most of them are not that good and get incredibly aggressive in their language as if they're angry that other people like it when they don't so they become very accusatory and condescending.
I've seen like, 2 legit and well-thought out criticisms in reviews of this game and a couple posts on here that bring up some good points. But that's like the few sprinkles on a giant mound of garbage that repeatedly shouts that THING ISN'T AS GOOD AS PEOPLE SAY AND THEY TRICKED ME INTO PLAYING IT AND I'M ANGRY
thatdenalidude
Neo Member
It does give a small hint in the battle itself,
when Undyne turns you green she mentions that now you can't run away.
OniBarubary
Banned
Legit criticism: That puzzle is garbage.
kurona_bright
Neo Member
I don't think that was a very good analogy. Shooting another bullet in a fps takes a lot less time and effort than a turn in Undertale.
Also, not everybody's going to notice everything or remember everything, and I generally hate 'git gud' as a response to "I don't think this game did the best job at explaining things or making the solution clear".
I don't think it's unfair to ding Undertale on not making the indicators a little clearer, and I have gushed in this thread about it to excess. Or maybe that was another forum. Either way, I love this game a lot, but it's perfectly possible to love the game and still think some (relatively minor) aspects could have been improved.
Also, not everybody's going to notice everything or remember everything, and I generally hate 'git gud' as a response to "I don't think this game did the best job at explaining things or making the solution clear".
I don't think it's unfair to ding Undertale on not making the indicators a little clearer, and I have gushed in this thread about it to excess. Or maybe that was another forum. Either way, I love this game a lot, but it's perfectly possible to love the game and still think some (relatively minor) aspects could have been improved.