JRCT3E
150 reviews liked by JRCT3E
It was nice to learn about Hiroji Kiyotake, one of the directors of Metroid II, and probably a leading force in the sheer personality and fun that a run of good GB platformers have - Metroid II, Super Mario Land 2, the Wario Lands...
Despite having played most Metroid games I'd never played Metroid 2. I bounced off of it a few times, but after roughing it through Metroid 1 (another brilliant game), I went ahead and played through 2.
At first I was hesitant about the structure of the game - seeming to move away from the chaotic maze of Metroid 1 for a more linear experience. But I think the structure of Metroid 2 - that of burrowing into an ant farm, exploring smaller labyrinths budding from a main path - works well. It enforces the narrative of Samus as this bounty hunter, cold bringer of death, her triumphant "overworld medley" song being replaced by the quiet nature and sounds of Metroids merely living at home.
The black and white graphics look amazing at times - especially level 3 with its mechanical sand maze and the vertical, overgrown shafts. At its best there's a real sense of encroaching into disturbing territory, the way it feels to peer from a safe path into a deep patch of forest. The variety of 'nests' the game manages to convey is inspiring! The game fully understands its visual format and how to exploit it. Metroid fights remain tricky to cheese, with the metroid becoming invincible offscreen, always feeling claustrophobic and chaotic, thrilling.
There are a handful of rough edges (the lack of save points, occasional missile/energy grinding) but I think the rest of the game makes up for it. I love the setpieces with the Metroid counter resetting in the lair, or the omega metroid attacking you after killing the alpha, or the lair of the omegas. I do think that the art could have been a bit more interesting at parts, especially with all of the vine background layers in level 3 - some later levels feel a bit empty .
That being said, the atmosphere never feels overexplained. It was fun to stumble upon the massive Chozo compounds, with dangerous robots, butted right up against Metroid caves and lush caverns.
Shoutout to the ambient music, which works really well! Unsettling, dark stuff, really understanding the 'texture' of the game boy sound palette.
--
Overall, it's a very strong game, but I can't give it the "5 stars'... I think it might be related to the economy of ammo and energy and how they inevitably shift way in your favor as you progress through the game - enemy encounters always feel a little less exciting once you have the screw attack, plasma beam, etc. It feels a bit counter to the narrative they're setting up with you diving into more dangerous lairs. The Omega metroid may look spooky, but it's not much of a threat with my 150 missiles, varia suit, and 500 energy.
Despite having played most Metroid games I'd never played Metroid 2. I bounced off of it a few times, but after roughing it through Metroid 1 (another brilliant game), I went ahead and played through 2.
At first I was hesitant about the structure of the game - seeming to move away from the chaotic maze of Metroid 1 for a more linear experience. But I think the structure of Metroid 2 - that of burrowing into an ant farm, exploring smaller labyrinths budding from a main path - works well. It enforces the narrative of Samus as this bounty hunter, cold bringer of death, her triumphant "overworld medley" song being replaced by the quiet nature and sounds of Metroids merely living at home.
The black and white graphics look amazing at times - especially level 3 with its mechanical sand maze and the vertical, overgrown shafts. At its best there's a real sense of encroaching into disturbing territory, the way it feels to peer from a safe path into a deep patch of forest. The variety of 'nests' the game manages to convey is inspiring! The game fully understands its visual format and how to exploit it. Metroid fights remain tricky to cheese, with the metroid becoming invincible offscreen, always feeling claustrophobic and chaotic, thrilling.
There are a handful of rough edges (the lack of save points, occasional missile/energy grinding) but I think the rest of the game makes up for it. I love the setpieces with the Metroid counter resetting in the lair, or the omega metroid attacking you after killing the alpha, or the lair of the omegas. I do think that the art could have been a bit more interesting at parts, especially with all of the vine background layers in level 3 - some later levels feel a bit empty .
That being said, the atmosphere never feels overexplained. It was fun to stumble upon the massive Chozo compounds, with dangerous robots, butted right up against Metroid caves and lush caverns.
Shoutout to the ambient music, which works really well! Unsettling, dark stuff, really understanding the 'texture' of the game boy sound palette.
--
Overall, it's a very strong game, but I can't give it the "5 stars'... I think it might be related to the economy of ammo and energy and how they inevitably shift way in your favor as you progress through the game - enemy encounters always feel a little less exciting once you have the screw attack, plasma beam, etc. It feels a bit counter to the narrative they're setting up with you diving into more dangerous lairs. The Omega metroid may look spooky, but it's not much of a threat with my 150 missiles, varia suit, and 500 energy.
Deltarune: Chapter 2
2021
the rate at which toby fox designs tumblr sexymen is horrifying
Deltarune: Chapter 2
2021
There would be no better way to shoot yourself in the foot than making a sequel to a game so highly deified and demonized as Undertale, but Toby Fox somehow took the challenge head on and created, so far, a sequel worthy of its predecessor. Playing Chapter 1 for the first time back then, I wasn't expecting to be dazzled by its self assurance and showmanship, and I certainly wasn't ready for how masterfuly it weaponized its nostalgia in the same manner as only Mother 3 could. Beyond just being a spiritual sequel, it was certain that Deltarune would be a continuation of Undertale's message and concepts, and the note it ended on was prime bait I was fully willing to gobble up for the next chapter.
Now living in a 6 year old post Undertale world (!), the surprising brilliance of Chapter 2's subversion is how little of it there actually is. Contrasting with Undertale's looming shadow in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 does everything in its power to make you forget what sequel you are actually playing, taking instead a celebration tone that fully takes advantage of its enormous anticipation and that constantly throws at the screen sheer effort and confidence in its presentation. Establishing a "Monster of the Week" plot, Chapter 2 is a joyful non sequitur passage that expels the darkness bubbling beneath it all to put the spotlight on the main cast, and in the course of 4 hours, Toby Fox demonstrates a full understanding and grasp of Undertale's language that he flawlessly exploits at every turn to create some of the most well crafted comedic setups and pay-offs that could only be possible in videogames.
It's a finely and carefully laid out rug to pull from under us, because at its heart, it is still a story about the escapism and its double edged nature we constantly seek from outside our daily lives. The optional content is a stark reminder that we haven't escaped Undertale yet, and the nature of the Dark Fountains explored here more overtly comment on the artificiality of this universe and its roots. Yet, Chapter 2 just decides to revel in that escapism for a little while, wearing its videogame influences on its sleeve as it gives us the calm rollercoaster of a ride before the storm. Deltarune is without an ending already a much tighter, stronger and more cohesive experience than Undertale ever was, and I'm enjoying immensely the way Toby Fox and his team are setting up the pieces on the board to throw them to the floor further along the way.
From the moment those first notes play in Cyber City and all the way up to that ridiculous genre bending final boss, I was having the most fun with a videogame I have had in a very long time, and I am left once again eagerly and desperately waiting for more. Whether the completed Deltarune experience we perceive in our minds turns out to be a reality or not, I am content with it just being this full of life and joy.
Now living in a 6 year old post Undertale world (!), the surprising brilliance of Chapter 2's subversion is how little of it there actually is. Contrasting with Undertale's looming shadow in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 does everything in its power to make you forget what sequel you are actually playing, taking instead a celebration tone that fully takes advantage of its enormous anticipation and that constantly throws at the screen sheer effort and confidence in its presentation. Establishing a "Monster of the Week" plot, Chapter 2 is a joyful non sequitur passage that expels the darkness bubbling beneath it all to put the spotlight on the main cast, and in the course of 4 hours, Toby Fox demonstrates a full understanding and grasp of Undertale's language that he flawlessly exploits at every turn to create some of the most well crafted comedic setups and pay-offs that could only be possible in videogames.
It's a finely and carefully laid out rug to pull from under us, because at its heart, it is still a story about the escapism and its double edged nature we constantly seek from outside our daily lives. The optional content is a stark reminder that we haven't escaped Undertale yet, and the nature of the Dark Fountains explored here more overtly comment on the artificiality of this universe and its roots. Yet, Chapter 2 just decides to revel in that escapism for a little while, wearing its videogame influences on its sleeve as it gives us the calm rollercoaster of a ride before the storm. Deltarune is without an ending already a much tighter, stronger and more cohesive experience than Undertale ever was, and I'm enjoying immensely the way Toby Fox and his team are setting up the pieces on the board to throw them to the floor further along the way.
From the moment those first notes play in Cyber City and all the way up to that ridiculous genre bending final boss, I was having the most fun with a videogame I have had in a very long time, and I am left once again eagerly and desperately waiting for more. Whether the completed Deltarune experience we perceive in our minds turns out to be a reality or not, I am content with it just being this full of life and joy.
Deltarune: Chapter 1
2018
This review contains spoilers
Probably with too much praise, toby could've sang pretty much any song, written any poem, and I'd be right here to sit wide-eyed giving such. The first episode here pulls back from saying anything too deep as of yet, and I imagine like Undertale some of that won't really thread together until those final moments. However, with the second chapter on the rise tomorrow though, I wanted to at least throw my hat in.
We're placed in the heart of someone isolated, and the imagery of determination and love act more like a darker "other world" that is taught as lessons, before the final bits harken back to Undertale with familiar characters juxtaposed with unfamiliar backgrounds. The story runs through familiar themes of love and friendship with characters who, largely don't have reason to care at first. Of course, they come to terms with friendship but what I find more striking is that the stories of Susie and those around her are situated in lives firmly out of their control, and lives that feel depressed and incomplete. Susie is boxed in to being the bully, unable to really deal with life as a result other than to succumb to the role she's been dealt. The king is an extension of unhinged isolation, unable to live with being alone in the dark feeling this way and wanting some form of retribution, and Lancer just has to live under that before Susie comes in. And then there's you, the creepy kid and only human among a society of people drastically different than you, who seem to really care more about your brother in conversation than who you are. There's an angst and unsettling feeling in then seeing all these characters you've certainly met before in ways that practically live on without you. You could be removed from the equation and the world would move on, but not in a way that makes the world feel truly lived in and more that, you don't really matter. Or at least that's how I imagine Kris really feels, and is the point Deltarune wants to address. Having choice and impact on your life.
I imagine it's like moving into a new place you've been forced in, reality changing things too fast to where you're backed into one that feels so utterly lonely. Ralsei is trying to make you feel happy and loved but when you come home the reality sets back in again. And Kris has had enough of trying to feel anything anymore too, because when you get home with them they throw you into a cage as they wreck whatever pent up frustrations they have. Making friends is certainly a first step to trying to get out of that box, but life is complicated and so is overcoming demons that have you still thinking that there's nothing you can really do.
In some ways, I'm unsure if Deltarune actually is thinking what I am reading from it. "Control over your life" is definitely a huge explicitly said message but these feelings and thoughts could be easily estranged. It's a little scary, but I for one, am ready for what tomorrow will bring.
We're placed in the heart of someone isolated, and the imagery of determination and love act more like a darker "other world" that is taught as lessons, before the final bits harken back to Undertale with familiar characters juxtaposed with unfamiliar backgrounds. The story runs through familiar themes of love and friendship with characters who, largely don't have reason to care at first. Of course, they come to terms with friendship but what I find more striking is that the stories of Susie and those around her are situated in lives firmly out of their control, and lives that feel depressed and incomplete. Susie is boxed in to being the bully, unable to really deal with life as a result other than to succumb to the role she's been dealt. The king is an extension of unhinged isolation, unable to live with being alone in the dark feeling this way and wanting some form of retribution, and Lancer just has to live under that before Susie comes in. And then there's you, the creepy kid and only human among a society of people drastically different than you, who seem to really care more about your brother in conversation than who you are. There's an angst and unsettling feeling in then seeing all these characters you've certainly met before in ways that practically live on without you. You could be removed from the equation and the world would move on, but not in a way that makes the world feel truly lived in and more that, you don't really matter. Or at least that's how I imagine Kris really feels, and is the point Deltarune wants to address. Having choice and impact on your life.
I imagine it's like moving into a new place you've been forced in, reality changing things too fast to where you're backed into one that feels so utterly lonely. Ralsei is trying to make you feel happy and loved but when you come home the reality sets back in again. And Kris has had enough of trying to feel anything anymore too, because when you get home with them they throw you into a cage as they wreck whatever pent up frustrations they have. Making friends is certainly a first step to trying to get out of that box, but life is complicated and so is overcoming demons that have you still thinking that there's nothing you can really do.
In some ways, I'm unsure if Deltarune actually is thinking what I am reading from it. "Control over your life" is definitely a huge explicitly said message but these feelings and thoughts could be easily estranged. It's a little scary, but I for one, am ready for what tomorrow will bring.
Undertale
2015
i have daily traumatic flashbacks to high school where i was walking down the halls wearing an Undertale shirt and this one random guy was like "wh-what??? a gamer girl!" and then blocked my path and did the entire Sans speech. the whole thing. in public.
Undertale
2015
remember when the internet tried to convince itself this game was bad actually. lmao
Undertale Yellow
2023
This review contains spoilers
tl;dr Overproduced, misguided, focused on difficulty over the value in how the original delivers its message in both gameplay and writing, bad writing, fanservicey
To sum the experience up, Undertale Yellow feels like Undertale but without the soul that made the game stand out and become one of the best games of all time, and instead trying to fill that in with just overproduction.
Did you like Undertale for the characters being fleshed out and given just the right amount of time to actually add emotion to the moral choices of killing and sparing or the world feeling full enough that going through pacifist felt rewarding? Tough luck, the characters barely get explored, and when they do, it's either an archetype that was similarly done in Undertale and then beaten over your head anyways, or sprinkled into stuff that you won't encounter until you really can't be bothered to care anymore.
Did you like Undertale for the decent RPG gameplay balanced with a moral mechanic? Well, too bad! because now it's been "improved" by upping the difficulty and complexity of even the basic enemy encounters, defeating the whole point of the very carefully balanced system that the original game had, where a neutral route has a pretty average experience, pacifist comes with more character and joy and generally happier endings, but comes at the difficulty, because making the morally right choice is sometimes HARD, and genocide being the note on just grinding mechanics in RPGs in general, sprinkled in with some superbosses, You know, something nuanced, creative, deep.
Instead of that you're getting the rose tinted fan view of that idea, where the game is a means to an end for an overproduced superboss no matter which route you take, and worldbuilding and characters being more of an afterthought, I always thought it was a really cool part of the story being that you weren't seeing merely a slice of the Underground, you were seeing a decent chunk of it, They're oppressed, cramped, scared, trying to just live anyways, under the hopes that Asgore will free them with the seventh human soul, but no, Instead you get multiple new areas bursting with new characters, and even near the end implies that there's EVEN MORE to the underground you haven't seen, it's totally pointless.
Major characters are a massive blunder, you have Martlet which is just an okay crack at the type of personality Papyrus does in Snowdin, but it lasts like no time at all before you're split off and yet the game still expects you to care about them, there was no scene with setting up the puzzles and having amusing gags, there was just flavor text saying "The puzzles are a bit fucked up LMAO" Nothing really changes with her, but there'll be another note in the genocide ending section.
Starlo is just... another type of Papyrus character who's a bit over the top but intended to be endearingly so, it's the other half of his character, Not really much of note, it's similarly endearing and the scenes with coming to terms with his emotions are nice, even if they are predictable.
Ceroba, I thought she was just a neat character to have as an addition to Starlo, but then after you leave the dunes she's... following you... This can't end well, She ends up just being a bit of dialogue to constantly hammer into you "MY HUSBAND WORKED IN THIS LAB, THE LAB IS SHUT DOWN NOW" or "I AM UPSET" Not a fan of her design, and it only feels like a means to an end for her role overall in the Pacifist route, being an overdesigned superboss (surprise! her character was that she has a DEEP DARK SECRET!)
Neutral, you go through and suddenly Flowey says "WAIT YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY, SUPERBOSS AND THEN ENDING NOW" and then finishing it off with "Okay now play the pacifist route"
Mediocre ending, Boss fight was really cool though excluding the annoying creepypasta level stuff and the glitch filters.
The heart of Undertale's neutral ending rests in the fact that it is still a full on ending, life goes on, it's a proper ending with a proper epilogue, though being fully text-based is supposed to make it feel a bit, bittersweet, to make you think "Could I have done better?" And then Flowey is supposed to be the voice to the player telling them yes, let's see if we can do better.
Pacifist, It's pretty much the same deal as neutral but with more Ceroba, because they wouldn't want their star of the show to have a dull fucked up backstory.
Long story short she's an idiotic hypocrite but since she was almost surely created just for this moment, she has to overpower all your friends and want to KILL YOU!!!
And then begin overproduced superboss fight.
Afterwards you get a weird mildly satisfying ending, but it struggles hard because they REFUSE to interact with anything seen in the base game, so it ends off feeling really shallow and more of a pointless tug on the heartstrings.
"u sacrificed urself... because then the monstres can live..." Why not have the neutral route be the canon ending to Undertale? Have the previous 6 humans be a little more trigger happy, to make it as reasonable that the monsters are afraid of the humans, why people like Undyne are around, why the Royal Guard exists, etc. and then let the Pacifist ending in Yellow be a "what if" where Clover just lives on, doing their best to help the monsters, and when the day comes that the Eigth human falls down, they can help them and potentially unite the underground, or find a way to pass through the barrier and destroy the divide forever, send home that Toriel was right, they could have found a way if they strived for peace instead of just trying to protect their own kind in fear.
EDIT: After a bit of extra research, it seems like this is just here because the other outcome to this route is killing Ceroba and then fighting Asgore, same end result but fits in with Undertale a lot better, no idea why the fully pacifist route doesn't end similarly, the reflection into self-sacrifice part is just a bit corny, I assume it's trying to convey the whole "Justice" thing but it isn't doing a great job at it.
Genocide, bad, major identity crisis too.
It can't decide if it's supposed to mimic the "oooh creepy Chara" stuff or the cold fist of justice, so it just does both whenever it feels like, but by trying fails at both.
If you're going for the Chara thing, skip the puzzles, the whole point is supposed to lampshade the culture of optimizing the fun and character out of a game, a mindless killer trying to be as powerful as possible, you know, the player CHARActer, but instead you have Clover, the angsty evil child.
Could have something going with the whole justice thing, Clover is looking for the 5 missing humans, and it could be treated as trying to lampshade the idea of "self defense" where if Toriel had another minute she would have told you, if a monster initiates battle "Try starting a conversation with them" and instead running the route with the idea of "Okay, most people going through this know what Undertale is about. So let's dial back the you're a monster part and leave the morals less written on the sleeve, less supernatural, more "who's really in the wrong here" and that could have been done by removing the genocide route, being totally out of character for Clover, and instead being more of a "Self-defense" route, where you're killing anything you come across, but not grinding them.
But nope, Clover the angsty evil child (with a gun) proceeds to go around murdering everyone they can find, and the gameplay isn't much better to make up for this, you g et to pick from 1 of 3 things, Hard mode fights, Pitiful bosses that can't do anything to you, and, you guessed it, MORE OVERPRODUCED SUPERBOSSES!
What's that? You enjoyed Sans and Undyne the Undying because it's a sad turn for the two protector characters of the game, trying to be major roadblocks, and Sans revealing that he knows what's going on behind the scenes? You thought those were cool moments that expanded on the characters?
Great! Here's a recycled fight from pacifist, now easier, who is meaner to you and that's it, there's your Undyne!
Aaaand here's some random shmuck who didn't get enough development in any route, now she's UNDYNE THE UNDYING's design and determination, mixed with Sans power level, Nothing interesting happens character wise, and then you just fucking nuke Asgore for no conceivable reason other than "U R SUPWER POWERED NOW CUZ U KILLED A REALLY STRONG PERSON" and then they're like "Oh shit wait a minute, this isn't a Chara thing" and rush to say "UHH CLOVER WAS DOING IT BECAUSE SHE WAS AVENGING THE FIVE HUMANS AND THEN SHE LEFT THE BARRIER NOW WITH THE HUMAN SOULS FREE MONSTERS DEFEATED FOREVER" which could have been an interesting route to take, if there was ANY reference to this at any other point in the game other than one of your starter items being the missing poster.
And to top it all off, they can't even make the character deaths sad, they're just, gross. There's an attempt to make you feel bad by having them suffer when they die and melt more gruesomely than Undyne did, but it just feels like a shitty creepypasta story, I don't feel bad when Super-Martlet melting disgustingly says "HELP ME" I felt bad when in her last moments, Undyne was still smiling confidently, her character still showed, it's the same character that you fall in love with in the other routes, but pushed to their limits.
Sure I feel a bit bad when the dance guy just gets ignored then murdered, but he's of no impact to the rest of the story.
Onto the nitpicks, Spritework is inconsistent as all hell, They try to stick with the undertale style, basic sprites, detailed but black and white battle sprites, which is good! but then as you go on, sprite complexities in both modes increases, leaving the older areas looking bad and outdated, they branch away farther from the zones of Undertale, and even make a massive sin of animating the sprites heavily, a part of the humor was with how basic the sprites were, seeing some movements were just funny, being lifted by a bird and you're just in the same pose, and it added a lot of impact to when a character was actually animated, like Asgore taking out his weapon from under his cloak, it's not something you see all the time, but instead basically any advanced movement is animated, RUNNING is animated, it's jarring going from a NES spritework walk to a "So retro!" Indie game run animation, It's something I feel Toby probably learned from Andrew Hussie, where in Homestuck a lot of quick little visual gags were something like a basic still sprite for a character wobbling around and falling over, or bouncing around all over the place, etc.
Clover interacts too much, The whole point of the silent protagonists is that they don't talk, outside of the basic decisions obviously, but they're supposed to be so basic you might as well not be talking, it's a game about tackling RPG tropes, you are a vessel for the player, and having a lot of moments where Clover goes in for a hug, or waves back at someone or something like that, it does both a disservice to the humor of the game like mentioned above, and just feels disconnected from the style of Undertale.
And another point on the writing, it just fails to be funny in general, it lacks that writing style, that self-referential humor seen in Undertale and Homestuck, and there's not even any hard hitting lines, nothing like the scarier lines from Genocide in Undertale like in New Home, or the famous "Despite everything, it's still you." It just feels like fanfiction made by people who loved the characters and gameplay of Undertale, but not people who loved the whole package, or even understood it.
I was just not fond of the soundtrack, it was weak minus a few parts and I feel this comes heavily from being too ambitious with the soundtrack, everything, even the stuff that heavily carries motifs of Undertale tracks has a lot more going on, more advanced soundfonts, it needed to be dailed back.
Lastly, balance was just fucked, throughout the middle of the game it was all over the place, then in all but Genocide (because it's always fucked up difficulty wise and that's the point) you're smacked with a sudden superboss that just grinds the game to a halt, and doesn't play fair like Omega Flowey or Asriel.
Sometimes bosses would just have suddenly bad difficulty curves in their own fights, having like 2 moderately difficult attacks, and 1 that can easily just be AFK dodged, and then putting you in one where you're likely to be hit 3-5 times in a row only 30% into the fight, forcing you to restart and make sure you're max health so you can understand what the hell is going on for the next attempt, in general it felt like a lot of the fights just wanted you to be juggling health items.
But then, in the final boss in the steamworks areas, you get NO VENDORS, You are told to get fucked if you wasted your healing items beforehand, because you can't backtrack, It was a huge pain in the ass and I have no idea that oversight didn't get noticed.
Regardless, after all of my complaints for the game, I think for any Undertale fan, you should at least play it, it's competently made enough that you'll probably at least come out thinking something, which is far better than I can say for the mods that are literally just boss fights, or just not having anything like Undertale instead.
To sum the experience up, Undertale Yellow feels like Undertale but without the soul that made the game stand out and become one of the best games of all time, and instead trying to fill that in with just overproduction.
Did you like Undertale for the characters being fleshed out and given just the right amount of time to actually add emotion to the moral choices of killing and sparing or the world feeling full enough that going through pacifist felt rewarding? Tough luck, the characters barely get explored, and when they do, it's either an archetype that was similarly done in Undertale and then beaten over your head anyways, or sprinkled into stuff that you won't encounter until you really can't be bothered to care anymore.
Did you like Undertale for the decent RPG gameplay balanced with a moral mechanic? Well, too bad! because now it's been "improved" by upping the difficulty and complexity of even the basic enemy encounters, defeating the whole point of the very carefully balanced system that the original game had, where a neutral route has a pretty average experience, pacifist comes with more character and joy and generally happier endings, but comes at the difficulty, because making the morally right choice is sometimes HARD, and genocide being the note on just grinding mechanics in RPGs in general, sprinkled in with some superbosses, You know, something nuanced, creative, deep.
Instead of that you're getting the rose tinted fan view of that idea, where the game is a means to an end for an overproduced superboss no matter which route you take, and worldbuilding and characters being more of an afterthought, I always thought it was a really cool part of the story being that you weren't seeing merely a slice of the Underground, you were seeing a decent chunk of it, They're oppressed, cramped, scared, trying to just live anyways, under the hopes that Asgore will free them with the seventh human soul, but no, Instead you get multiple new areas bursting with new characters, and even near the end implies that there's EVEN MORE to the underground you haven't seen, it's totally pointless.
Major characters are a massive blunder, you have Martlet which is just an okay crack at the type of personality Papyrus does in Snowdin, but it lasts like no time at all before you're split off and yet the game still expects you to care about them, there was no scene with setting up the puzzles and having amusing gags, there was just flavor text saying "The puzzles are a bit fucked up LMAO" Nothing really changes with her, but there'll be another note in the genocide ending section.
Starlo is just... another type of Papyrus character who's a bit over the top but intended to be endearingly so, it's the other half of his character, Not really much of note, it's similarly endearing and the scenes with coming to terms with his emotions are nice, even if they are predictable.
Ceroba, I thought she was just a neat character to have as an addition to Starlo, but then after you leave the dunes she's... following you... This can't end well, She ends up just being a bit of dialogue to constantly hammer into you "MY HUSBAND WORKED IN THIS LAB, THE LAB IS SHUT DOWN NOW" or "I AM UPSET" Not a fan of her design, and it only feels like a means to an end for her role overall in the Pacifist route, being an overdesigned superboss (surprise! her character was that she has a DEEP DARK SECRET!)
Neutral, you go through and suddenly Flowey says "WAIT YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY, SUPERBOSS AND THEN ENDING NOW" and then finishing it off with "Okay now play the pacifist route"
Mediocre ending, Boss fight was really cool though excluding the annoying creepypasta level stuff and the glitch filters.
The heart of Undertale's neutral ending rests in the fact that it is still a full on ending, life goes on, it's a proper ending with a proper epilogue, though being fully text-based is supposed to make it feel a bit, bittersweet, to make you think "Could I have done better?" And then Flowey is supposed to be the voice to the player telling them yes, let's see if we can do better.
Pacifist, It's pretty much the same deal as neutral but with more Ceroba, because they wouldn't want their star of the show to have a dull fucked up backstory.
Long story short she's an idiotic hypocrite but since she was almost surely created just for this moment, she has to overpower all your friends and want to KILL YOU!!!
And then begin overproduced superboss fight.
Afterwards you get a weird mildly satisfying ending, but it struggles hard because they REFUSE to interact with anything seen in the base game, so it ends off feeling really shallow and more of a pointless tug on the heartstrings.
"u sacrificed urself... because then the monstres can live..." Why not have the neutral route be the canon ending to Undertale? Have the previous 6 humans be a little more trigger happy, to make it as reasonable that the monsters are afraid of the humans, why people like Undyne are around, why the Royal Guard exists, etc. and then let the Pacifist ending in Yellow be a "what if" where Clover just lives on, doing their best to help the monsters, and when the day comes that the Eigth human falls down, they can help them and potentially unite the underground, or find a way to pass through the barrier and destroy the divide forever, send home that Toriel was right, they could have found a way if they strived for peace instead of just trying to protect their own kind in fear.
EDIT: After a bit of extra research, it seems like this is just here because the other outcome to this route is killing Ceroba and then fighting Asgore, same end result but fits in with Undertale a lot better, no idea why the fully pacifist route doesn't end similarly, the reflection into self-sacrifice part is just a bit corny, I assume it's trying to convey the whole "Justice" thing but it isn't doing a great job at it.
Genocide, bad, major identity crisis too.
It can't decide if it's supposed to mimic the "oooh creepy Chara" stuff or the cold fist of justice, so it just does both whenever it feels like, but by trying fails at both.
If you're going for the Chara thing, skip the puzzles, the whole point is supposed to lampshade the culture of optimizing the fun and character out of a game, a mindless killer trying to be as powerful as possible, you know, the player CHARActer, but instead you have Clover, the angsty evil child.
Could have something going with the whole justice thing, Clover is looking for the 5 missing humans, and it could be treated as trying to lampshade the idea of "self defense" where if Toriel had another minute she would have told you, if a monster initiates battle "Try starting a conversation with them" and instead running the route with the idea of "Okay, most people going through this know what Undertale is about. So let's dial back the you're a monster part and leave the morals less written on the sleeve, less supernatural, more "who's really in the wrong here" and that could have been done by removing the genocide route, being totally out of character for Clover, and instead being more of a "Self-defense" route, where you're killing anything you come across, but not grinding them.
But nope, Clover the angsty evil child (with a gun) proceeds to go around murdering everyone they can find, and the gameplay isn't much better to make up for this, you g et to pick from 1 of 3 things, Hard mode fights, Pitiful bosses that can't do anything to you, and, you guessed it, MORE OVERPRODUCED SUPERBOSSES!
What's that? You enjoyed Sans and Undyne the Undying because it's a sad turn for the two protector characters of the game, trying to be major roadblocks, and Sans revealing that he knows what's going on behind the scenes? You thought those were cool moments that expanded on the characters?
Great! Here's a recycled fight from pacifist, now easier, who is meaner to you and that's it, there's your Undyne!
Aaaand here's some random shmuck who didn't get enough development in any route, now she's UNDYNE THE UNDYING's design and determination, mixed with Sans power level, Nothing interesting happens character wise, and then you just fucking nuke Asgore for no conceivable reason other than "U R SUPWER POWERED NOW CUZ U KILLED A REALLY STRONG PERSON" and then they're like "Oh shit wait a minute, this isn't a Chara thing" and rush to say "UHH CLOVER WAS DOING IT BECAUSE SHE WAS AVENGING THE FIVE HUMANS AND THEN SHE LEFT THE BARRIER NOW WITH THE HUMAN SOULS FREE MONSTERS DEFEATED FOREVER" which could have been an interesting route to take, if there was ANY reference to this at any other point in the game other than one of your starter items being the missing poster.
And to top it all off, they can't even make the character deaths sad, they're just, gross. There's an attempt to make you feel bad by having them suffer when they die and melt more gruesomely than Undyne did, but it just feels like a shitty creepypasta story, I don't feel bad when Super-Martlet melting disgustingly says "HELP ME" I felt bad when in her last moments, Undyne was still smiling confidently, her character still showed, it's the same character that you fall in love with in the other routes, but pushed to their limits.
Sure I feel a bit bad when the dance guy just gets ignored then murdered, but he's of no impact to the rest of the story.
Onto the nitpicks, Spritework is inconsistent as all hell, They try to stick with the undertale style, basic sprites, detailed but black and white battle sprites, which is good! but then as you go on, sprite complexities in both modes increases, leaving the older areas looking bad and outdated, they branch away farther from the zones of Undertale, and even make a massive sin of animating the sprites heavily, a part of the humor was with how basic the sprites were, seeing some movements were just funny, being lifted by a bird and you're just in the same pose, and it added a lot of impact to when a character was actually animated, like Asgore taking out his weapon from under his cloak, it's not something you see all the time, but instead basically any advanced movement is animated, RUNNING is animated, it's jarring going from a NES spritework walk to a "So retro!" Indie game run animation, It's something I feel Toby probably learned from Andrew Hussie, where in Homestuck a lot of quick little visual gags were something like a basic still sprite for a character wobbling around and falling over, or bouncing around all over the place, etc.
Clover interacts too much, The whole point of the silent protagonists is that they don't talk, outside of the basic decisions obviously, but they're supposed to be so basic you might as well not be talking, it's a game about tackling RPG tropes, you are a vessel for the player, and having a lot of moments where Clover goes in for a hug, or waves back at someone or something like that, it does both a disservice to the humor of the game like mentioned above, and just feels disconnected from the style of Undertale.
And another point on the writing, it just fails to be funny in general, it lacks that writing style, that self-referential humor seen in Undertale and Homestuck, and there's not even any hard hitting lines, nothing like the scarier lines from Genocide in Undertale like in New Home, or the famous "Despite everything, it's still you." It just feels like fanfiction made by people who loved the characters and gameplay of Undertale, but not people who loved the whole package, or even understood it.
I was just not fond of the soundtrack, it was weak minus a few parts and I feel this comes heavily from being too ambitious with the soundtrack, everything, even the stuff that heavily carries motifs of Undertale tracks has a lot more going on, more advanced soundfonts, it needed to be dailed back.
Lastly, balance was just fucked, throughout the middle of the game it was all over the place, then in all but Genocide (because it's always fucked up difficulty wise and that's the point) you're smacked with a sudden superboss that just grinds the game to a halt, and doesn't play fair like Omega Flowey or Asriel.
Sometimes bosses would just have suddenly bad difficulty curves in their own fights, having like 2 moderately difficult attacks, and 1 that can easily just be AFK dodged, and then putting you in one where you're likely to be hit 3-5 times in a row only 30% into the fight, forcing you to restart and make sure you're max health so you can understand what the hell is going on for the next attempt, in general it felt like a lot of the fights just wanted you to be juggling health items.
But then, in the final boss in the steamworks areas, you get NO VENDORS, You are told to get fucked if you wasted your healing items beforehand, because you can't backtrack, It was a huge pain in the ass and I have no idea that oversight didn't get noticed.
Regardless, after all of my complaints for the game, I think for any Undertale fan, you should at least play it, it's competently made enough that you'll probably at least come out thinking something, which is far better than I can say for the mods that are literally just boss fights, or just not having anything like Undertale instead.
Undertale Yellow
2023
competently made, but never manages more than to replicate some of the surface level charm of undertale. narratively it's a fairly ill-considered sequel, sort of at odds with the original's specific flavor of metafictional logic and fails to contribute anything beyond extraneous detail. the concept of flowey controlling your saves is initially intriguing, but the execution is confused and half-baked. more than anything it really put into perspective for me what a creative and interesting sequel deltarune is.
the game is still worth checking out if you liked undertale's bullet hell combat, though. the genocide run has some fun and very tough bosses - i made it to the last one but got my ass kicked and didn't really care enough to see it through to the end.
the game is still worth checking out if you liked undertale's bullet hell combat, though. the genocide run has some fun and very tough bosses - i made it to the last one but got my ass kicked and didn't really care enough to see it through to the end.
Fallout
1997
I can tolerate this game much more than i do for Fallout 2 tbh since it's the first game in the series. It was a short, kind of boring but also sometimes a fun game overrall. It just wasn't for me i guess. You can give it a shot if you want, i would recommend it just for trying. 5.5 / 10
Fallout
1997
Small town. A few brahmin herds, and a single watering hole. I step into the musty saloon. A local girl slithers up to me, complaining about her quiet farm life. She tells me about a local Vault - Vault 15. She mentions it by name. I press the "ask about" button and ask her about Vault 15. "Never heard of it" she says. I try to ask her about anything else whatsoever. She's never heard of anything. Alright. Keep your secrets honey... I tell the local gay man, Ian, he will get paid if he follows me forever until his eventual inevitable death. He agrees immediately and eagerly, because I am very "good at speaking".
We wander to the Vault that doesn't exist. We wander back, because we forgot to bring 50 ropes. We try again - the dungeon takes 10 minutes and nothing happens. A weapon is hidden in the bathroom smeared by 10 layers of poop, piss, pixels and blood. We find what we came here for (it's nothing), and go back to town. "Noo you gotta save my girl she's gonna get boiled in shit". I find the raider camp - I tell them I will fuck their mom. They let the girl go for some reason.
8 hours later my dog and all 3 of my friends I tricked in the same way as Ian the Twunk die in a single dungeon because they won't wear any clothes thicker than a dress shirt. It's a Mad Max reference or something. The travel time on the overworld gives me time to think. I think about the giant, barren wasteland. I think about how far and dangerous there is between settlements. I think about how no one has grabbed a broom in 100 years. I think about telling murder mutants where my family lives. I don't know what my meds do and I'm not sure how to find out. I found a backpack in this videogame that I simply couldn't figure out how to use - What? I think about why I have 4 CHA instead of 1. I think about the 2 hours I spent getting this game to run on a modern PC and a 4K monitor. I think about so far only having found one character that allows me to sex and cum in the entirety of California. It's lonely out here. Many games would throw sex and cum at me. Fallout? In Fallout it's about the lack thereof.
Eventually my player character completes their quests and drowns in an ocean of jank - jank that would later continue on through an entire genre shift, a new company, several new engines and somehow be recognizable still as the same old jank. After being stuck for half an hour I had to google an alternate solution for one of the final dungeons because it bugged out on me. Luckily there was one, because many quests don't have that kind of privilege. Some bugs in this game somehow persist in Todd Howards' Starfield. No one knows how. It's beautiful in a sense. A red string of jank.
This game is unfinished - like half the quests have cut content and an entire act of the game got left on the floor. It's a good basis. I hope the sequel will use it well. I hope someone mods it for Steam Deck controls.
We wander to the Vault that doesn't exist. We wander back, because we forgot to bring 50 ropes. We try again - the dungeon takes 10 minutes and nothing happens. A weapon is hidden in the bathroom smeared by 10 layers of poop, piss, pixels and blood. We find what we came here for (it's nothing), and go back to town. "Noo you gotta save my girl she's gonna get boiled in shit". I find the raider camp - I tell them I will fuck their mom. They let the girl go for some reason.
8 hours later my dog and all 3 of my friends I tricked in the same way as Ian the Twunk die in a single dungeon because they won't wear any clothes thicker than a dress shirt. It's a Mad Max reference or something. The travel time on the overworld gives me time to think. I think about the giant, barren wasteland. I think about how far and dangerous there is between settlements. I think about how no one has grabbed a broom in 100 years. I think about telling murder mutants where my family lives. I don't know what my meds do and I'm not sure how to find out. I found a backpack in this videogame that I simply couldn't figure out how to use - What? I think about why I have 4 CHA instead of 1. I think about the 2 hours I spent getting this game to run on a modern PC and a 4K monitor. I think about so far only having found one character that allows me to sex and cum in the entirety of California. It's lonely out here. Many games would throw sex and cum at me. Fallout? In Fallout it's about the lack thereof.
Eventually my player character completes their quests and drowns in an ocean of jank - jank that would later continue on through an entire genre shift, a new company, several new engines and somehow be recognizable still as the same old jank. After being stuck for half an hour I had to google an alternate solution for one of the final dungeons because it bugged out on me. Luckily there was one, because many quests don't have that kind of privilege. Some bugs in this game somehow persist in Todd Howards' Starfield. No one knows how. It's beautiful in a sense. A red string of jank.
This game is unfinished - like half the quests have cut content and an entire act of the game got left on the floor. It's a good basis. I hope the sequel will use it well. I hope someone mods it for Steam Deck controls.