It isn't possible to truly capture how wonderful Undertale is-Gamespot 9/10

It is a truly brilliant game IMHO. I would be glad to see it get GOTY attention from most sites.

Toby Fox said the idea came from Shin Megami Tensei, where you could avoid fighting enemies by talking to them, and so he expanded on the idea with Undertale.

Yeah, i was put off by the exact same reason. But this thread (and the fact that i had absolutely nothing els to do) pushed me a little to give it a go today. Anyway, i just completed a genocide-run (full playthrough killing everything in sight, took me 3 hours) of the game a few minutes ago and.. damn.

Play it. I can't even think straight because i'm still digesting that incredibly brilliant, but fucked up ending i just experienced. This will stay with me for a wile.

Just play it. (I just poured my self a cup of coffee and am jumping straight in again to do a full pacifist playthrough)

Ok, so after hearing the incredible cover by Little V Mills, reading the GS review and going through this thread, i just had to bought the game (is insanely cheap also) and i already spend a few hours with it

Anyway...i agree with some guys, the game is ugly...i mean the art style is amazing, but the graphics are just rough...still, the game is really, really charming with great sense of humor (i just met the 2 skeleton guys) and the music is just wonderful, the concept is very original as well and man Toriel is so heartwarming, i really had to spent several tries to pass the ruins in a way that everything were ok with me, but now i think i know what's the deal with the game, like i said i'm barely at the beginning, but i'm really interested from what i've seen so far...

@Lucianu: Make sure you know what you need to do for the Pacifist Run's true ending, go check a guide. There's a lot of things to do.

@ultimateimp: I know, but i wanna go blind. I'm already hooked, so after this run, i'm going to check some guides for the other endings. Nice job at making this thread. I think Undertale just might be a winner here.

Be sure to do another playthrough, genocide style (killing everything). You can't imagine what's in store for you at the end.

@Lucianu: Just be aware that you can't get the normal endings anymore, so much for that.

As I said in the past, the creators have to punish you for killing the characters they love so much. Though to be fair, at least the bosses were challenging but the grind process was just terrible. I stopped playing this game after the genocide route.

@Lucianu: http://fucknohtml.tumblr.com/post/133037946850/do-you-own-the-steam-version-of-undertale-do-you

Watch a lengthy video of it...not for me.

It's certainly not for me, the combat / navigation. I admit I didn't play a heap, but I didn't see anything to warrant such high scores..

Reminds me of To The Moon, which was a garbage game but had a good story. 9/10 pls.

Thanks. This is such a great game, i'm having a blast with my second playthrough now that i'm getting to know the characters far better than in my genocide run.

I hope this guy that made the game gets enough money to warrant a sequel.

Really want it.

Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment.

yeah sorry too busy playing Fallout 4(aka GOTY 2015) to waste my time on indie garbage with NES gameplay and graphics

If you think Fallout 4 is going to win awards in the year of The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V, I have a bridge to sell you.

Shallow

@Lucianu: I really don't know if i can go trough that route, i mean i just couldn't even began to imagine going all murder in the first 2 chapters...

Anyway, i had a long session with the game today (really loving it so far) and finally hit a wall with Undyne...that woman is though, i had several tries already and she kicks my ass all the time...i managed to flee the battle and i was surprised to see that you can proceed the game with this method...but i'm not too convinced about this route...what i'm trying to ask is, can you spare her? maybe i'm just lacking healing items but i don't know if it is possible to spare her.

Yeah, ofcourse. Just flee the battle with Undyne and the plot will progress. That's how you let her live.

It's a very, very deceiving game, no thanks in part to its piss poor presentation. It has absolutely nothing in common with To The Moon apart from the fact that they're both 2D.

I'm finally finished with the game (well, for now), and the only thing i can compare it to is 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and The World Ends With You. Basically a hybrid between those two with a tiny bit of Earthbound thrown in. You really need to replay it a multitude of times to fully understand the story, the characters, and find out some of the seemingly.. endless secrets scattered in the game.

Huh, yeah that makes sense, you sort of like, that's how you capture demons in those games. You hurt them, and then persuade them. But this isn't pokemonish in nature, this is full on you spare them or something.

Try again please.

This coming from the guy who rags on FPS games when the characters don't have feet. Maximum shallowness.

In a distinctly visual medium (as opposed to books or music), I'm not seeing how it's shallow to not want to spend time with something that is straight up not pleasant or interesting to look at.

Name one FPS game I haven't played for said reason.

I think it's stupid that an entire medium that harps on about immersion can't get to a point where first person characters have limbs, but that shit has never impacted my enjoyment of a game. So try again sunshine.

Because it happens to be an interactive medium more so, and that element means a hell of a lot more? Crazy concept I know, thinking the gameplay part matters more. "The game isn't pretty enough" is vain, spin that any way you like.

Gameplay might matter more, but that doesn't mean it's crazy to want an aesthetically satisfying experience. I have limited time, so I want to have the best experience I can when I actually have time to game, and that includes being visually engaged as well as being engaged by gameplay. It's not an either or.

Also,, to argue "that's vain" might hold some weight if we were talking about the attractiveness of people versus personality, but applied an ultimately trivial hobby, forgive me for thinking that sounds a bit silly.

Visuals without engaging gameplay is an empty experience, but I'd argue that gameplay without engaging visuals is also an empty experience. A game is more than the sum of its gameplay systems.

Luckily for me, most games with good gameplay also are visually competent as well.

Describe it any way you want sunshine, shit is vain. Dismissing a good game, potentially a good game, because it's not pretty is shallow, it's being bothered by an aspect of the medium that ultimately adds little more than flavor and context. Considering the thing is being praised for things like writing (which fair enough that's coming from people with shit taste for that stuff) and its play, in a medium where yeah it does matter how it plays, yeah missing a game like that "because it's ugly" is vain. It's like dismissing a good movie because it's black n white.

And yeah wildly disagree, great gameplay without great visuals, is a great game that just happens to look ugly.

I'm not refusing to play it. It just kinda puts me off. I'll probably sit down to play it on the cheap, but it just doesn't look good.

Sorry but that analogy fails hard. Black and white/=/ugly. It would be unreasonable to dismiss a good movie because its black and white. It would be perfectly reasonable to not want to see a movie that is aesthetically unpleasing even if the writing is good since film is a visual medium.

Also, you're just arbitrarily diminishing how important visuals are without actually providing any kind of argument beyond being insistent about your own priorities. You take it as some sort of given than visuals are unimportant when it is not a given at all. The idea that visuals simply add flavor/context is absurd. Video games are literally built on visuals (you don't have a world without them), so how is it unreasonable to expect that they be pleasing?

Finally, I wouldn't even argue that Undertale is ugly. A game looking dated doesn't necessarily make it visually unpleasing.

THE GOOD:Innovative battle system, Subverts expectations to great effect, Evocative soundtrack, Great sense of humor

THE BAD: Not a PS exclusive

ITS FUNNY COS ITS TRUE lol

*trollface*

What's arbitrary about it?

If the game plays well, as in not just the mechanics (people love mistaking gameplay with mechanics on this forum), as in all of it, from how its paced, to its level design, to its enemy variation, to having a reasonable amount of depth, to even how it conveys its plot, and in this case has the bonus of a narrative to go with it. Dismissing said game because it's ugly, is shallow. In a medium where its primary strength is its interactivity, the looking at it part, bothered you so much you ignored the playing it part. If said visuals actually impact the gameplay in a negative context, not being able to see proper enemies, no proper tells, the visual direction hurts the gameplay, that's a gameplay short coming to me as anything else. If the interacting part is smooth, and the game can get its plot across, the visuals are as good as they need to be. So again ugly? Yeah shallow.

Visuals can add plenty, atmosphere, they play a larger role in a game like Bayonetta where tells are important, and hell I'm not exactly going to act like I don't look at Witcher 3 in awe at points, either way you slice it, if you're dismissing a well playing game, because the look bothered you, you dismissed a good game for a shallow reason.

If the counter to that is "well Champ that's your opinion", yeah no shit.

It's arbitrary because you haven't actually provided a reason that aesthetic experience should be marginalized. Why should we operate under that assumption (that aesthetic experience is not particularly important)? Aesthetic experience is important in other mediums, so why are games different? Certain groups of gamers seem to be the only group of people that completely dismiss the importance of aesthetics in entertainment (well, actually, there are some hip hop fans that think that one should tolerate shitty music if the rapper's lyrics and flow are good).

Now if somebody just didn't like the look of a game and said, "This game sucks because I think it's ugly," that would be shallow because it would be one dimensional critique. But to say "this game doesn't engage me on a visual level, so I will play something else that does," is no more shallow than not listening to music that doesn't agree with one's ears.

The alternative works the same way. Why should I put so much stock in the aesthetic, when that could be divine as ****, and it's irrelevant if the gameplay is average? if I said shit was useless, you'd have a point, I simply said that dismissing a game that thrives in the area that is exclusive to this medium: the gameplay, simply because it looks ugly is a shallow reason to dismiss a game. More to it we had this argument in bold already, you're more than fine listening to a rapper who is dog shit on a mic if the beat is there. Me I don't care if the beats are good (not that I can't appreciate a good beat), if the thing the person is saying doesn't entertain me/get me to find it compelling, I don't give a shit. Give me the instrumental and **** off.

Only time the visual of a game will truly bug me, is when it has a negative impact on the interactivity: as in I can't see what I'm doing, I'm getting mixed messages as far as the games ruleset, the hit detection and what I'm seeing on screen doesn't match, poor visual feedback specifically tied to the gameplay (selling hits, bullets, etc). Beyond, don't come within the vicinity of giving half a ****.

I didn't say that the alternative doesn't work the same way. A game with amazing aesthetics and shit gameplay is obviously not worth one's time. Likewise, a rapper whose beats are amazing but who can't rap is not worth listening to. My point is that not listening to a rap artist because they can't bother to actually put together a good instrumental is not shallow. In the same way, there's nothing wrong with not bothering with a game in which the developers couldn't be arsed to make something at least somewhat visually interesting/pleasing. If I'm going to be inhabiting a world for a long time, I want to enjoy being in that world. Aesthetics play a big part in enjoying being in a developer's world.

You didn't argue that visuals are useless, but you did argue that aesthetic experience is superficial or secondary. I see no reason to assume that. People pretty much agree that aesthetic experience is a huge part of enjoying literature, music, film, etc. Why should games treat visuals as something functional rather than something that is integral to enjoyment? Why is there an issue with the notion of aesthetic pleasure?

This first part for instance, ignores that not all games invite you to a world, some are pretty cold and straight forward systems. And plenty of them can be well executed on that alone, Tetris happens to be an excellent example of this. I'm sure you want to argue that Tetris was elegant, its simplicity did this and that, and yeah it's not ugly, but let's also cut between the crap shall we, the aesthetics do nothing more than serve a functional purpose. Shit was on the gameboy for crying it loud, and it was blocks, literal blocks. There was no world, there was no nothing, you know what there was? A great fucking game.

Can games have more than Tetris? Sure, do they need to necessarily? Absolutely not. Dismissing OG Tetris because of how it looks? Pretty fucking shallow considering you missed out on one the greatest video games ever made, period. Are there examples of games that use their visuals for more? Sure, Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill 2, and yeah recently The Witcher 3 use their technical and aesthetic achievements to create a proper setting and atmosphere. That list is a hell of a lot shorter. Square has some of the best video game artists (atrocious character designs aside) on God's green earth, how many of their games actually use those visuals for anything more than being functional and pretty in a superficial manner? About none of them. Maybe FF6 because of the Opera scene.

The difference between the passive mediums your comparing, where your input is nonexistent is that this one happens to be an interactive one. You don't sit and listen. You don't sit and watch. You don't sit and read. Exclusively like you do in those mediums, for this one to work, you sit, and you play. It's no different than how I feel about stories. Can they add something to a game? of course, are they necessary? Absolutely not. Dismissing a game that excels at the interactivity because of it? Would be a shallow thing. You're comparing it to music and literature, and I'm looking at gaming as games. As connect 4, as chess.

Tetris is a great game, but personally it's not a game that I'm going to be truly excited about simply because it lacks aesthetic pleasure. My personal enjoyment is besides the point tho: I can appreciate Tetris as a game that is simply about visual problem solving and skill. However, if a game is trying to put me into a setting of some sort, it needs to do it well and good aesthetics is part of that.

I would argue against the notion that Square's visuals are functional. Their games practically distinguish themselves by appealing to the human desire to experience beauty. For Square, the gameplay is actually the functional part. Nobody would give two shits about Final Fantasy X is it wasn't for that gorgeous lush world and the lavish character design. Square didn't design the look of that game with the intention that the visuals should be functional; they designed it knowing that gamers crave aesthetic pleasure because humans crave aesthetic pleasure.

As for your last paragraph, I'm not arguing that gameplay should be ignored or marginalized. I'm arguing that there's no inherent reason to value it to the point that aesthetics become superficially important. You say that it's an interactive medium. Fine. That's a good argument for gameplay being extremely important, which nobody would disagree with. But in no way does interactivity mean that the "video" or visual part suddenly gets placed on the backburner. You bring up Chess and Connect 4, but that just bolsters my point because it shows the difference between a board game and a video game. Chess and Connect 4 don't appeal to one's desire for aesthetic pleasure. Video games absolutely do because they are games with visuals as a primary element, which is not true for board games.

WTF is Undertale?

a game

@lostrib: elaborate?

OMG Undertale...there is been a while since a videogame didn't engage me like that, i finally finished the Neutral Route...that final boss, i'm speechless, it was so good, so, so good, so epic, so memorable...this game is just something else, i mean how can something so simple looking can be this good, is insane...also the music, my god this music is on the level of other classics like Zelda or Halo, i just can't stop hearing those songs, every single boss theme is just incredible.

Anyway, from what i've been reading, avoiding sppoilers as much as i can, i still have some things to do in order to get the True Pacifist Ending and i'm aiming for it...as for the Genocide ending, i just not going to do it for a few reasons. First, it seems that the grinding is just too much and is really easy to messed up without a guide so yeah...also, i just don't have the heart to do it, yes i'm that kind of guy who really connects with the characters and i just can't, so i gues i'll will just watch a playtrough to see the ending and stuff.

If you like RPGs, original games and don't mind how dated the game looks (i mean, i love the atmosphere, the NPCs, and the battle screens, but they could have done a much better work with the main character and the overall world), you are in for a wild ride of emotions, i would easily call it my personal GOTY if it wasn't for Super Mario Maker but Undertale its definitely up there.

A game that's way too hyped for its own good.

How can it be way too hyped for its own good when several people (including me, i admit it) are having a blast with the game, if a lot of people is finding the game that good, how can it be way too hyped?

The more people like a certain game, the more likely a mindless drone comes and throws silly buzzwords. "over-hyped" is a term mindless, and people with no creativity throw when they really have nothing negative to say about things people like. Don't mind him, it's not like he understands what "too hyped" even means.

LOL. I can't believe the conversations about graphics. The game is not visually appealling, but it kills in every other aspect. The humor, music, battle system/dialogue. Its your loss if you can't see past one thing.

Also, Undertale is way more of a RPG than Fallout and I dare to say, at the risk of sounding like a hipster doofus, it is better.

You are both those things, but you are also correct.

So are you trying to imply that I'm some idiot that blatantly dislikes just because it's popular and a lot of people like it? Please, not everyone who doesn't like your favorite game is some moron hipster who's going to hate on anything that's popular without not playing it first which I actually did play. I played the game till the end, while I can appreciate the music, certain characters, and certain story bits, I still didn't enjoy the game fully. Undertale isn't even that creative to begin with either, you don't need to be "creative" yourself to judge the game too (what the hell does that have to do with the topic at hand anyway?).

It's fine if you like the game but you fans are preemptive to leech on those who have a different opinion on the game. Lastly, it is "too hyped", I mean look at the big fanbase preaching about how the game is so amazing and saying how everyone should play the damn game like it is the next best thing since slice bread.

I think it's time to take off the fedora.

My friend bro, apologies for the late response, Gamespot has all but deteriorated and notifications are a luxury it seems.

I'm not saying that Undertale is alone in this respect, not at all. Even my own personal game of the year has way too many angsty cheerleaders rooting for it.

And no need to preach about TW3, I agree. I actually enjoyed Undertale while I couldn't even push myself through TW3.

Nothing wrong with rooting for the underdog, Undertale is a fine game. I just think it's been blown way the **** out of proportion. Some of the more ignorant users around here like to claim that all indie games receive undue praise simply because of their status. I usually disagree, but it seems Undertale is starting to fit that narrative. It's a fine game, it deserves some praise, but it's being paraded around as an all time great and I'm just not seeing it. I don't believe it's some instant classic that we'll still be talking about a decade from now.

And yeah, you're right. Not only will TW3 be walking away with RPG of the year from most sources, it will also be the biggest taker on GOTY in general. It's a funny thing, sure, but no biggie.

@ConanTheStoner: Honestly, i think it is THAT good, not because its indy, not because it was made by just a bunch of guys but because it is clever, original, charming, funny and with amazing soundtrack, and you can't say that about many games nowadays...should it be blown out of proportion? i don't think it is in the first place, is not like Journey where even the press is throwing awards left and right at it...and yes, The Witcher 3 will most likely (and rightfully) win every single award this year but with that being said i think Undertale is receiving the praise it deserves as a great indy game, nothing more, nothing less and that should be played by everyone who enjoys this kind of games.

If you think this game is great you probably think...

• Feelings should be appreciated
• Recycling is worth the effort
• Trees need to be hugged
• Games are art

For the real world this is a passable game.

And I would argue as a result they created a shallow game, that pleases a desire that doesn't stack up favorably in value to I don't know good writing, likable characters, and more importantly in this medium: the playing it part. I bring up chess and connect 4 because we assume gaming's logical comparisons should be with a movie or television, when in reality it's the board games, sports, or games in general that video games have a closer kinship with. Aesthetic pleasures can add a lot, they are at best, at their best 2nd to the interactive elements, and yeah dismissing Tetris and its place would be for a shallow reason, a vain reason, a pretty shitty reason. You make a game that actually plays well, you make a video game that plays well, where its visuals don't get in the way of you comprehending what is on the screen and all that jazz, that game can overcome any other short coming it has. Not saying it's the greatest thing ever (naturally a game with more varied strengths will tend to be a better game), but it more than earns its keep giving that it doesn't compromise the one area of this medium that under no circumstance should be forgiven when compromised.

The music comparison? Doesn't fly, the beat is important, because that is the music. There is a harmony to the lyrics and melody that needs to be there, albeit yeah I think in rap if the subject matter is there and the rapper has the lyrical skills, they can mask some iffy production (Nas), meanwhile sloppy lyrics aren't saved for me with stellar production (Kanye). But a game? The aesthetic pleasure? You want to have one, have one, I'm not going to act like I don't play The Witcher 3 more for its setting and because it looks pretty vs it actually playing well (it doesn't, it's more good enough territory than anything). But dismiss a game because the visuals are fugly? I find that shallow.

And since neither of us are arguing facts, but a philosophical difference here, I'm sticking with my response of vain. Seems fair no?

Would argue it has more to do with video game reviewers being poor writers since forever, that includes the people that try to gas up old school 1 up, or greg kasavin, or jeff g to boot, and more so the way this medium has always used their review scale. Listening to the game being talked about on podcast and stuff like that, I think the reaction to it makes a hell a lot more sense, and a level of restraint. The game's simply clever, takes surprising twists, and uses its gameplay nicely as opposed to relying on some tricks. Plus the usual hipsterbait applies to things like Gone Home and Journey (and Journey is terrific at what it does, but that's neither here nor there), Undertale is more a game than a shit load of the production value wank people gas up.