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[mbpm1]

Being streets ahead can be a problem

 

[Sarcastico]

I completed the game with the genocide route, neutral route and true pacifist. Genocide route was definitely the worst way to experience the game. By the end, you won't learn anything about the monsters or even your own character. True Pacifist was by far the most fulfilling way to experience the game.

To be honest, Undertale caught me by surprise. I never expected that I would be so emotionally invested in the story and its characters.

An unforgettable journey and my game of the year.

 

[PSqueak]

Yeah. Apparently I just ruined my run by

Spoiler

Killing Mettaton too early? She judged me as not evil enough despite killing everything I had seen to that point. The spawn rate to that point was crappy, I didn't know it'd be run over at that point.

Dunno if I just want to watch the rest of the run being done on youtube or what. Pretty frustrated right now, though it was my fault for saving afterwards. Not a clue what I was thinking there.

What ending did you get?

Spoiler

Alphys?

Tangentially related to this thread, i was wondering, why don't you have an Undyne avatar right now?

 

[EatChildren]

It's definitely not subtle (the whole game is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, which is a pro and a con) but I also did legit tear up during certain parts.

I just find the fact that Toby could inspire such intense emotion, for a character with relatively very little screentime, in the fanbase kind of amazing. With pathos that feels earned if somewhat heavy handed.

Pretty much. Regardless of my opinion I was still wholly invested in the characters and moved by the course of events. It's more of my taste thing. Especially towards the end, many of the sequences get a bit long in the tooth with the feels, and I tend to lean towards more subtle, abstract storytelling by preference.

I think it's an accomplishment for any writer to pen a cast of characters that become instantly distinct and loved by a fanbase, and that for me is Undertale's strength.

 

[Antiwhippy]

It's definitely the game with the most chutzpah I've played in awhile. Not to say that there aren't some subtlety in how he constructs the world, but he definitely wants to let you know what undertale is all about. Which I can see why that would leave some people cold.

 

[Amir0x]

Reading about how annoying Pacifist route is from all the new players has settled one thing in my mind:

Screw everyone, I'm going to go genocide when I ever buy/play the game. :L

Don't let people deter you. The game is not really hard on Pacifist if you have even just mid-tier reflexes. It's pretty simple, even the last bullet hell boss. I mean it's not easy, but there are way, way way harder games. It doesn't even rank.

 

[ar4757]

Beat the game last night, what an (neutral) ending! Papyrus was awesome

 

[Corpekata]

Pacifist route isn't hard or annoying. Genocide is, both from the difficulty of boss fights and the forced grind in an area.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Pacifist is the most fun way to play the game honestly.

 

[Moaradin]

Beat the game last night, what an (neutral) ending! Papyrus was awesome

Now go do the other ones

 

[mbpm1]

In genocide everything is too easy except for two bosses which are way too hard.

The balance is all outta whack (which is probably intentional).

 

[BrosukeHanamura]

Pacifist has a fairly nice difficulty curve. You may die to certain bosses a lot in your first playthrough, but once you get patterns down, it's not bad. Bisicles and Sea Teas were my best friends in my first Pacifist run.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

In genocide everything is too easy except for two bosses which are way too hard.

The balance is all outta whack (which is probably intentional).

Yeah the game goes out of its way to make all of your power gain in that run mean almost nothing (

Spoiler

complete with Sans just dodging every attack

). If there is one thing that Undertale has to say, it is that pure linear stat growth isn't really that interesting. The pacifist route shows this, and the genocide route tells it.

 

[EatChildren]

It's a weird one. I think the game isn't supposed to be hard/easy in any deliberate sense because the weight of the experience hinges so heavily on contexts of the options presented rather than the nuances of the options. It's why I think the best experience would undoubtedly come from someone going in almost totally blind, unaware of any particular endings that adhere to pacifist/genocide and simply taking the experience and its developments as they come.

But since it still is an interactive piece of work the nuances of how you're challenged are there, and that's where I have most my grievances. None of which are particularly serious, but yeah, like I said earlier doing a pacifist run as someone who struggled a bit with some of the bullet-hell and endurance twich-like minigames the game can descend into monotonous pattern recognition, which really isn't very fun or inventive. Learning the puzzle-like nuances of how to conquer an opponent outside of conflict is stimulating. Repeating the same ordered dodge-the-thing attacks over and over, especially after dieing, isn't.

And I think that's where I'd fault it. As a rhythm/bullet-hell/pattern game I personally don't think Undertale is all that great. I could be totally wrong, but I did feel the collision detection was at times off, and sometimes the visualisation of attacks and hit feedback were a total mess. Sometimes it was great and it worked. Other times repetitious and rough. But where it excels is the sum total of parts, where the creative puzzler elements, presentation, narrative, and subversion/exploration of genre tropes elevate the experience as a whole over its less impressive components.

If the battle/dodge system was explored a bit deeper alongside the puzzling I think the game would be borderline perfect. Thankfully it's not a huge deterrent its current form, much the same for Nier (which to be honest I actually enjoyed more in moment-to-moment play).

 

[Weiss]

Yeah the game goes out of its way to make all of your power gain in that run mean almost nothing (

Spoiler

complete with Sans just dodging every attack

). If there is one thing that Undertale has to say, it is that pure linear stat growth isn't really that interesting. The pacifist route shows this, and the genocide route tells it.

The best part is

Spoiler

getting the Real Knife and the Heart Locket, which max out your stats, just ten minutes earlier.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

I'm not super into bullet hell/rythm games but compared to actual games in those genres, Undertale's combat is not that great - but where Undertale succeeds is the little character flourishes, which is probably why the combat system was chosen. Although its not particularly good, its unique and serves the game very well, if that makes sense.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Yeah, I think I like the system more because of the way it allows the creatures personalities to blossom just through combat, in a way I haven't really seen. Could be tightened up fo sho, but I didn't really have much trouble with it. Not to say I didn't have some trouble, mostly because movement is somewhat sluggish, but I think most of the troubles I've had was due to the 360's POS d-pad.

Like when

Spoiler

Toriel started missing on purpose

it kinda blew my mind. Also some of the comedic bits occur during those parts.

 

[tomtom94]

I have a sneaky suspicion judging by posts in this thread that Undertale's combat tends to be perceived favourably by those who don't play many bullet hell games and badly (or at least worse) by those who do, in much the same way that Spec Ops: The Line was criticised for derivative gameplay by those who had played lots of military shooters.

 

[Firehead]

What ending did you get?

Spoiler

Alphys?

Tangentially related to this thread, i was wondering, why don't you have an Undyne avatar right now?

I'm trying to get him to change to one!

 

[L95]

I have a sneaky suspicion judging by posts in this thread that Undertale's combat tends to be perceived favourably by those who don't play many bullet hell games and badly (or at least worse) by those who do, in much the same way that Spec Ops: The Line was criticised for derivative gameplay by those who had played lots of military shooters.

Huh, yeah, I've never played a 'proper' bullet hell before, and I love what Undertale's battle system does with dodging.

 

[EatChildren]

I agree with Antiwhippy's examples, but yeah. I think it's more the trial and error that bothers me? It's obviously not 100% trial and error, but more that (unless I really am supremely shit) most people are going to find themselves in encounters with an enemy throwing insane, high damage challenges at them that at first are extremely hard to predict and adapt to. That's how I found it on my end; the mos difficult challenges often didn't feel fair in the sense that I simply wasn't "good enough", but that there telegraphing and feedback was so weak the best strategy is to already know how attacks will play out. So instead of something like another RPG game where most battles utilise the game systems in a way that is about strategy and adapting, Undertale relies more on its creative expression of the battle system and unique methods of input. Which is fun and fine, but on some runs, like for me True Pacifist where you have such little health most of the time unless you're happy grinding for super armour, it can lead to some really abhorrent, repetitive encounters against the stronger bosses. Because ultimately nothing changes. You go in, you listen to the dialogue, you experience and fail against the first batch of turns. Respawn, sit/skip through the same dialogue again, copy what you learned last time since it'll play out exactly the same, then fail at the second bunch. I felt a lot of the times I was getting hit by shit I simply couldn't dodge due to the flashy, stylish-over-readability attacks that are sometimes thrown at you at such speed and succession that the real strategy is already knowing how to play. And I personally don't consider that a strength, and instead a weakness that could be improved on, as end of the day to get through the game you still must engage with it including these systems.

 

[MrBadger]

Pacifist is the most fun way to play the game honestly.

No doubt. Gameplay-wise, Genocide is

Spoiler

80% grind and 20% super hard boss fights

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

I never really felt like that except for the last boss in Genocide, obviously. I guess I just picked up on it pretty fast

Spoiler

except for Mettaton EX, that was somewhat difficult

 

[EatChildren]

I'd do a Genocide run but I suspect I'd just feel awful.

 

[mbpm1]

I never figured out how to really dodge

Spoiler

Asgore's

spiraling attack.

Fortunately, had items.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

I'd do a Genocide run but I suspect I'd just feel awful.

Well that is the point. If you are like me, eventually the knowledge that you didn't actually 100% complete the game will get to you and you'll just do it

 

[JonathanNemo]

I have a sneaky suspicion judging by posts in this thread that Undertale's combat tends to be perceived favourably by those who don't play many bullet hell games and badly (or at least worse) by those who do, in much the same way that Spec Ops: The Line was criticised for derivative gameplay by those who had played lots of military shooters.

Not quite sure I agree with this. Aside from LPers who really dig and are actually good at shumps like Slowbeef really taking this game's combat well, I (not good at games) have more than a few Saturn shmups on hand that I've enjoyed.

And I found some challenges hard, I've died a few times, but I never got frustrated. The game's short enough by the time you might get tired of the combat system, it ends. Even challenges that could have been a bit too difficult have opportunities to save, or creative solutions to accelerate their end. I'm thinking about

Spoiler

Metaton

and how

Spoiler

what words you write about him, what objects you use to heal, being close to death among others

all have an affect on accelerating the fight's end.

Then there's

Spoiler

Temmie armor

which you can grab just before you run into bosses that can kill you. The game's pretty well thought out in this way, there's an escape hatch available and it takes some discovery to find.

 

[Antiwhippy]

I felt a lot of the times I was getting hit by shit I simply couldn't dodge due to the flashy, stylish-over-readability attacks that are sometimes thrown at you at such speed and succession that the real strategy is already knowing how to play. And I personally don't consider that a strength, and instead a weakness that could be improved on, as end of the day to get through the game you still must engage with it including these systems.

Oh definitely agreed with this. Some of the patterns are somewhat inscrutable.

Definite room for improvement if Toby ever wants to explore that system again.

 

[Ruff]

Can someone remind me how you're able to (ending)

Spoiler

leave the underground during a neutral run? Especially if you don't kill flowey. You still need a monster soul, and Asgore's was destroyed. Even if you kill flowey, he never had a soul to begin with. So uhhhh?

 

[JonathanNemo]

Can someone remind me how you're able to (ending)

Spoiler

leave the underground during a neutral run? Especially if you don't kill flowey. You still need a monster soul, and Asgore's was destroyed. Even if you kill flowey, he never had a soul to begin with. So uhhhh?

You don't, IIRC. Part of the neutral run try-harder-ness is that

Spoiler

you're trapped in the place where you fought Flowey, while your friends find some peace without you. Well, most endings they seem to.

This is very evident if you try to

Spoiler

kill Flowey instead of show mercy

, then repeat the

Spoiler

Asgore fight. You're doomed to fight Flowey, trap yourself in this place of nothingness, and repeat the game until you can find a way to break the cycle.

 

[EatChildren]

Can someone remind me how you're able to (ending)

Spoiler

leave the underground during a neutral run? Especially if you don't kill flowey. You still need a monster soul, and Asgore's was destroyed. Even if you kill flowey, he never had a soul to begin with. So uhhhh?

Spoiler

If you give Asgore mercy he notes how you'd rather stay down there forever than kill someone, so you don't escape. Otherwise you aim to kill him and leave.

 

[gutterboy44]

That was a fun game. I love when games subvert your expectations. Lots of genuine lol moments which is a huge credit to the writing. All the characters were great, it just lost a little steam in the end. The conclusion was meh, and I am pretty much done with any form of bullet hell for a few years. It became so tedious at the end. I wanted the game to be over out of the bordem of that mechanic more than anything. It is fun how the story interacts with the bullet hell, but..bloody hell. It got old about half way through the game. Unfortuantely as others have mentioned in this thread, the main mechanic of bullet hell leaves me zero desire to play this game again for pacifist.

I am really happy to have played the game, it was fun, original and very memorable. But I have to say, the gameplay quickly began to hinder my enjoyment of an otherwise engaging tale. It should be on any respectable GOTY list, but it has far too many flaws to warrant all of this ridiculous best game ever over-hype. I can see if this was someones first "subvert your expectations" game, why they feel so passionately about it. I remember wanting to tell every person I knew about Frog Fractions. If you've played that, you can see where Undertale was influenced. Either way, I appreciate eveyone's passions because it got me to pick up this game I might have otherwise overlooked. Really enjoyed it and would recommend it to pretty much anyone I know who games.

 

[Ruff]

You don't, IIRC. Part of the neutral run try-harder-ness is that

Spoiler

you're trapped in the place where you fought Flowey, while your friends find some peace without you. Well, most endings they seem to.

This is very evident if you try to

Spoiler

kill Flowey instead of show mercy

, then repeat the

Spoiler

Asgore fight. You're doomed to fight Flowey, trap yourself in this place of nothingness, and repeat the game until you can find a way to break the cycle.

Spoiler

Oh alright, figured you leave since you go through the same door as Ture Pacifist....

 

[Human]

All of the neutral endings are you getting a phone call on the surface form the monsters still stuck down there, so you definitely get out.

 

[JonathanNemo]

All of the neutral endings are

Spoiler

you getting a phone call on the surface form the monsters still stuck down there, so you definitely get out.

There's (still ending spoils)

Spoiler

a door, that leads to end credits. But even the monsters seem unaware of where you went. They just assume you're at the surface because they can't find you underground anymore

And then (spoils for a specific choice

Spoiler

no mercy on Flowey, replay Asgore fight

)

Spoiler

there's a peculiar dialogue sequence where Flowey returns, and it's clear you can't escape from this cycle. Can't even get a proper ending really, apart from that phone call and end credits. Can't get the boss monster soul you need to escape, either.

 

[InfiniteNine]

There is a really cool fan-made boss fight someone made:
http://taxiderby.tumblr.com/post/135354499621/hi-i-made-playable-undertale-tribute-made-from

 

[How About No]

Dat looks coo

 

[toastyToast]

I need to finish my genocide run. I went to the gamefaqs board during the goat vote and had the shit spoiled out of it from topic titles alone lol

 

[1upsuper]

I need to finish my genocide run. I went to the gamefaqs board during the goat vote and had the shit spoiled out of it from topic titles alone lol

Woah. That really took on new meaning this year.

 

[DNAbro]

That was a fun game. I love when games subvert your expectations. Lots of genuine lol moments which is a huge credit to the writing. All the characters were great, it just lost a little steam in the end. The conclusion was meh, and I am pretty much done with any form of bullet hell for a few years. It became so tedious at the end. I wanted the game to be over out of the bordem of that mechanic more than anything. It is fun how the story interacts with the bullet hell, but..bloody hell. It got old about half way through the game. Unfortuantely as others have mentioned in this thread, the main mechanic of bullet hell leaves me zero desire to play this game again for pacifist.

I am really happy to have played the game, it was fun, original and very memorable. But I have to say, the gameplay quickly began to hinder my enjoyment of an otherwise engaging tale. It should be on any respectable GOTY list, but it has far too many flaws to warrant all of this ridiculous best game ever over-hype. I can see if this was someones first "subvert your expectations" game, why they feel so passionately about it. I remember wanting to tell every person I knew about Frog Fractions. If you've played that, you can see where Undertale was influenced. Either way, I appreciate eveyone's passions because it got me to pick up this game I might have otherwise overlooked. Really enjoyed it and would recommend it to pretty much anyone I know who games.

If you aren't going to play it again I would recommend looking up the pacifist exclusive scenes cause there is quite a bit.

 

[Aureon]

There is a really cool fan-made boss fight someone made:
http://taxiderby.tumblr.com/post/135354499621/hi-i-made-playable-undertale-tribute-made-from

The bossfight seems bad, though. The attacks are terribly bad, with none of undertale's design.

 

[L95]

The bossfight seems bad, though. The attacks are terribly bad, with none of undertale's design.

Cutting the movement area itself in half is pretty spiff, though.

 

[gutterboy44]

If you aren't going to play it again I would recommend looking up the pacifist exclusive scenes cause there is quite a bit.

Fingers crossed for a Vita port or PS4 for remote play. I would definitely run through it again then.

 

[DNAbro]

Fingers crossed for a Vita port or PS4 for remote play. I would definitely run through it again then.

Toby seems like he really doesn't want to work on the game anymore so I don't think a port is happening unfortunately. Would re-buy it in a heartbeat though.

 

[L95]

I thought console ports were never happening due to a few reasons?

 

[gutterboy44]

Toby seems like he really doesn't want to work on the game anymore so I don't think a port is happening unfortunately. Would re-buy it in a heartbeat though.

Bummer. Maybe if he outsourced the port with some Sony help.

 

[DNAbro]

I thought console ports were never happening due to a few reasons?

Some things would definitely have to change and the stuff hidden in the (spoiler is guess? nothing plot related)

Spoiler

files would just probably not be there or he would have to create a direct way to access it.

 

[Syril]

Some things would definitely have to change and the stuff hidden in the (spoiler is guess? nothing plot related)

Spoiler

files would just probably not be there or he would have to create a direct way to access it.

Also the way some of the more meta stuff is done would probably fail certification.

 

[PSqueak]

There is a really cool fan-made boss fight someone made:
http://taxiderby.tumblr.com/post/135354499621/hi-i-made-playable-undertale-tribute-made-from

Havent had the chance to play this, looks plenty fun.

But from the look of the attacks, it kinda bothers me that people who often do this sort of thing focus too much into making their (often self inserts, not the case here it seems tho) be "oh! so badass!" characters with overblown cool/edgy looking attacks.

How come no one ever embraces the silly aspects of the system? Where are the whimsical monsters with silly attacks?

 

[Weiss]

Havent had the chance to play this, looks plenty fun.

But from the look of the attacks, it kinda bothers me that people who often do this sort of thing focus too much into making their (often self inserts, not the case here it seems tho) be "oh! so badass!" characters with overblown cool/edgy looking attacks.

How come no one ever embraces the silly aspects of the system? Where are the whimsical monsters with silly attacks?