Reviews VideoGame / Undertale

I can't help but agree with you. Especially hate that in-game comment at people like me, who did watch playthroughs and gameplay online - well, excuse me, Mr Undertale Creator, I am unemployed and have no money, so even if I have money, I have 5 other places I can put it into, which includes games that are better than this.

I've seen people give up genocide mid-run, because apparently, they begin to feel sorry for killing everything. Like, I get part of that feeling, but for the most part, it's not real. You're not actually killing humans and animals in real life. It's like people getting angry when one wants to smack a fictional character for doing something stupid. They don't exist, so why should I feel bad?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your way of thinking.

This is an RPG game, or at least it tries to be. You know, the genre of games where you are supposed to be given various choices to make, each one having its own results and consequences?

Therefore, are you honestly blaming the in-game characters for calling you a horrible person for killing everyone? (Unless the game actually breaks the fourth wall to directly call you, the player, a horrible person for doing that. I haven't seen it myself.)

And are you honestly blaming the developers for giving you a CHOICE, no matter how self-destructive or horrible it might be?

And also, you call the fighting system terrible? To me, it's a refreshing and very engaging replacement for the mechanic jRPGs usually use, namely boring as sh*t turns where all you do is choose the same attacks over and over until the enemy dies, with an occasional healing item or something. Moving your character around, though... yeah, it's mediocre-ish.

This is how role-playing works. You are given a role, and you choose to play it how you like.

Acting as if it's the game developer's fault for giving you the option to be a murderous tosspot in the first place is foolish. It is the opposite of hypocritical. Nothing forced you to do a "Genocide route." This game is not like, pulling an example out of a hat, Spec Ops: The Line, where the Bad Thing you do is an unavoidable point of progress.

If you, the player, are a jerk in Undertale, it's because you decided to be rather than because any external force compelled you to be.

Didn't buy the criticism when it was about SOTL, not buying it here.

Didn't buy the criticism when it was about SOTL, not buying it here.

Overall, I think the only problem I have with this review is the comment on the Genocide Route.

Unlike Spec Ops, which forced players to commit atrocities for a completely different type of commentary, you aren't forced to do the Genocide Route for any real reason. If you do it, it's just for the sake of doing it. Undertale gives you the option to Kill 'em All because it's asking what type of person would willingly do so when it has no real benefit to them. For 100% Completion? You don't unlock anything from the route except locking you out of the happiest endings and forcing yourself to wait 10 minutes until you can replay the game again. That's not even a Bragging Rights Reward, you just made things harder on yourself for no real reason beside curiosity.

Of course, that's just me explaining the creator's intent for the Genocide Route. You're free to find problems in it's execution and disagree with me.

Another thing I want to say is I agree with Undertale's Karma Meter being no real bit different to how other, more AAA title handle them. All it really has to stand out is greater reactivity to how many monsters you kill, which is rather easy to do with a game using 8-bit graphics and no save importer to worry about.

Even with all that said, I don't think Undertale is a bad game at all. It looks like a solid 9/10 to me.

The fact that the guy put in a way to defeat every enemy non-lethally and made distinct scenarios for killing and sparing characters in your run is pretty awesome. I haven't seen an RPG that's done that before. And from what I've seen, it really is a uniquely funny and heartwarming game.

But I can understand being frustrated at the fandom it's accumulated in the few short months that it's been out, nothing feels worse than playing a game with legions of people who love it and not liking it. It's like playing The Last Of Us and feeling fed up with the middle-of-the-road "cinematic" story and mediocre combat, because all the Game Of The Year awards and perfect 10 review scores crammed its supposed greatness down your throat.

Justifying your dislike for Undertale by saying "the developer calls ME a bad guy for killing pixels, but he thought the whole thing up and brought it into existence! What a hypocrite!" is a weak-ass argument, but I understand feeling that the game's overrated at least. The fandom grew in such little time and spread to all corners of the internet, it was inevitable that it'd eventually suffer from Hype Backlash.

This review would have more weight if it went remotely in-depth with the majority of its critiques. For most of the aspects of the game, you just say "it's nothing to write home about" or "it's annoying" as if that by itself fully explains to someone the quality (or lack thereof) of the game. This especially shows in how the conclusion says the game "isn't as clever as people want you to think" without even a mention of why people think it's actually clever.

It'd be easy to have enough room to elaborate on those points, too; just cut out the entirety of the review talking about the No Mercy path. The complaints about it border on nonsensical because it's essentially saying game developers either can't write stories about morally bankrupt characters, or they can't explicitly point out those characters are morally bankrupt. With other games, where the player is criticized for following the game's one path, I could maybe understand. But Undertale has multiple paths, and there's literally no reason to take the No Mercy path other than for its own sake.

I can understand that kind of critism when it's with games like Spec Ops: The Line. It is stupid frustrating when the game makes you do the bad thing, giving you no other option at all, and then calls you out for it.

But with Undertale? There's absolutely no reason to do Genocide other than the player's own curiosity. They are called out for doing something awful on their own; something that's greatly discouraged in both gameplay and story.

The Genocide route is deliberately designed to be as miserable as possible. It requires tedious grinding as you trudge through an empty world, with very little humor and the only challenge coming in the form of two bosses who are absolute bullshit. The game also gives you multiple clear "you can stop being an asshole" signs.

As for how it "taints" the ending on future playthroughs... saving, reloading, and resetting the game are all story elements. Are you seriously faulting the game's narrative for being consistent in that regard?

What a moron! As someone who tries to keep my opinions of opinions nonexistent, this actually deeply offends me. The graphics are beautiful (you probably saw a picture of Jerry), the soundtrack is unanimously praised, and you're an unfeeling chodewangler if you dislike the Genocide Route for making you feel bad for, I dunnno, KILLING. You're just a heartless 12-year-old hipster who tries to be cool, and just because you're a shit-for-brains who clearly hasn't played the game, it doesn't mean that you should taint the opinions of other people. Stop blaming the game on your unhappy childhood.

Dude, chill. You look silly. :|

Buying into the hype is homestly one of the best things I did all fall; I wasn't expecting to like it, but wow did it give my mood a boost.

Smart-aleckiness aside, I can't help but hang up on the fact that the bulk of the "I'm actually serious about this" portion of your review emphasizes the Genocide route. Taking it isn't for everyone, and I've kind of got personal issue with it, too, but saying a developer's got no right to criticize an option they included in their own game when it's not like they so much as point a player to it (you can't likely get the Genocide route unless you actively try; even if you're a grinder by nature, with the way the game's advertised, it's not un-obvious along the way you're doing something you shouldn't necessarily be doing) is kind of melodramatic. It isn't a KILLING IS BAD message, either - a Neutral run gives you enough of that, and yeah, that can be kind of "ughhh, the game's guilt-tripping me" inducing, even if it comes from characters who would care - it's more of a critique if the 100PercentCompletionist mentality, i.e. it's a level-grinding slog that removes a lot of what a lot of people agree is the charm of the game for sonething you do because it's there; it imcludes some Black Comedy and story plus a couple of cool boss fights to throw you a bone, so to speak.

As for THE DEVELOPER EXPECTS ME TO FEEL BAD ABOUT KILLING PIXELS, heck, why play character-driven RPGs at all? Nothing's for everybody (including the battle mechanics and sense of humor [which seriously isn't LOL RANDOM MONKEY CHEESE - it surprised me and hit just the right notes to keep me smiling even when I tried to call its bluffs or guess), and that includes Video Game/Undertale, but I sure do see where the mass joy out of it comes from and that it was made with care.

God why can't we edit reviews - sorry 'bout the HTML, first time commenting to a Review tab. But I also did want to say I appreciate the variance in the Bullet Hell thing - I won't specify, in case spoilers matter here, but there were a couple of bosses I really enjoyed.

We can't edit our responses to reviews anymore because the old system allowed tropers to edit someone else's response as well. This eventually lead to vandalism of oppositing posts whenever flame wars erupted in the comments section, so as a result we lost the ability to edit them.

What's clever about this game is that it was designed to be "alive" with great thought put into making it react to the player's actions and making gameplay like interacting with a living thing. Being given the freedom to play the villain in lieu of the game clearly favoring being a pacifist presents an interesting experience and rewards the player with repercussions. This makes the journey an emotional one, which many would argue is a positive quality.

I think that you have failed to understand or simply do not appreciate the genius and creative talent that is required to craft this sort of feature. In that case, this really is not the game for you, but DO NOT wave off every detail as "nothing to write home about" when you do not explain why they are bad or perhaps do not comprehend them in the first place. That immediately discredits you as a reviewer and makes your opinions sound half baked.

@superdawge: Can I just say that your comment sounds really condescending? "Oh, you just don't GET IT" is what I get as the main message from it.

Let's all agree: This game is overhyped as shit and honestly shouldn't be. If it's good, it's good, but it's not the best thing since the invention of breathing.

And can I just say that it's really difficult to make a full in-depth review on anything if the limit is 400 words? I noticed this myself: I either have to give vague details on various aspects or have one big thing take up majority of the review.

It's not hard, so long as your "review" isn't just running it over with the Bias Steamroller over and over again.

Everyone I've seen complain about the length keeps mentioning how they could whine and nitpick forever, but that isn't "reviewing." That's just venting. And, frankly, I think I've only got one major "vent" review on the site, and it still got my point across within the word limit.

Also, cat, I don't mean to be rude, but literally every post and review I've seen from you has reinforced my opinion of you as a cynical hipster who thinks her low opinion of everything makes her better than the poor dumb sheep that is the average consumer. Taste is utterly subjective.

@catmuto I am being condescending. Just as you have a right to point criticisms at a game, I can also defend it. Also, may I add that your standards for video games are very lofty and pretentious.

Let's all agree: This game is overhyped as shit and honestly shouldn't be.

Nah.

Is it overhyped? Sure, I can agree with that. That the game "honestly shouldn't be" is another matter entirely. The game did something different from its contemporaries and clearly captured the enthusiasm of a lot of people.

Quite frankly, I find your umbrage at the jab at LP-watchers a lot more seriously. "Yeah, fuck that writer for taking into account Youtube/LP culture and correctly guessing that a bunch of people would watch rather than play themselves, and including a line referencing that fact to make them uncomfortable at a creepy part of a creepy storyline."

@superdawge: Lofty and pretentious? First time I've heard anything about me being called that.

@Pannic: Honestly, it never felt like it's supposed to make a player (or viewer) uncomfortable during a creepy part. More like it's just a Take That jab at them. Not meant to be funny or uncomfortable but just mean.

What's wrong with caring for fictional characters? If a character doesn't exist, you can still like them an relate to them much like a normal human.

"Let's agree that the game is overhyped as shit"

Well, in my opinon, I think some things deserve to be over-hyped. Undertale does something I don't see many games nowadays do, takes risks.

When you perform the genocide route, most of the areas are abandoned by everyone as an evacuation. You know what? I haven't seen that before, and I welcome it! It's rare when a game does things like that. With most RP Gs, even if you did some bad stuff, the NPC characters tend to ignore it. Here, they actually worry and get scared and everything, which IMO makes them more realistic.

The reason it's over-hyped is that there's a lot to talk about in the game. I'm sure if Earthbound and other games where released closer to the times of the internet, it would roughly be the same thing with Undertale.

@n3rd_d4sh: No, things do not deserve to get overhyped, period. Hyped, sure, if you think that something deserves to be hyped, you can do so. But not overhyped. Nothing deserves that.

Much as I enjoy Earthbound, I don't see how people can compare that to Undertale. They don't have the same type of humor - Earthbound had leaning on the fourth wall once or twice or maybe one or two instances of talking to the player, but beyond that, the jokes are very different and Undertale's jokes are not Earthbound-like at all.

@catmuto I think when they said that if Earthbound were released closer to now, it would be just as hyped, they were talking about more then just the HUMOR. Just like there are a lot of things to love and talk about with Undertale, there are a lot of things to love and talk about with Earthbound. And while I agree with you that Undertale is ridiculously hyped, I don't think it's undeserving of that hype. It is a really fun game that has a lot of good ideas and effort put into it, and a lot of people really love it. And if the game's hype is by people who truly love the game, and helps to introduce it to other people who also try the game and love it, then is its hype really a bad thing?

@Pikaman20008: Yes. Hype, in general, is bad because it makes people's expectations rise and, the more hype the hear about it, the higher the expectations go. And when they do decide to experience the hyped medium, they are let down horribly.

That was my problem with Danganronpa. Practically every corner of the internet talked about how awesome the game was. Unfortunately, I allowed that to raise my expectations and what happened? I ultimately judged the game WORSE than I would, had I played it without buying into the hype and simply called it a decent game, compared to what I am actually calling it: a mediocre PoS that has a split personality whether it should take death seriously and is probably intended for dumb children, given how easy the murders are to figure out.

@catmuto

But isn't that "your" problem then? at the end of the day hype is your desicion, since opinions are well, opinions. That's in the same line as judging something based on it's fanbase.