Your_ResidentGuy
2015
I think Undertale has gotten a lot of undue hate over the years. Forgive me for sounding like most Obnoxious Person Ever, but it really does remind me of the overall discourse with—please bear with me here—In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, especially recently. It's an album which people go into expected this unbelievable, 11/10 experience with the BEST production and BEST lyricism but in reality it's simply a neat, imperfect album that was just different from what was out at the time, trying something new. Do I LIKE like the album? No. But I can be impressed with it's earnestness and what it's trying to do.
Undertale had the same effect on people: many, many people went in expecting to be blown away but probably got turned off by the Tumblr-era random humor and somewhat tacky characterizations. It's definitely not something that was meant to be presented on a wide scale and I understand why people may not vibe with it. I can agree that a lot of the characters and your relationship with them feels really forced. Undyne is a fantastic character and the hang out section with her is funny and heartfelt. But it really feels like you were rushed into that plot point. It should've taken a LOT more to befriend her. Papyrus, again, love the goober but he really feels like he could've gotten to know you better more beforehand. And I never really felt any real connection to Toriel.
Maybe I feel this way because obviously, something talked and discussed on THIS scale I was bound to have pretty much every detail spoiled before picking it up. But I found what really makes Undertale work are the tiny details that make a pretty small game feel much, much bigger than it actually is. Just so much care was put into the whole package. San's blue stop sign joke got a hearty chuckle. Talking to the first Echo Flower before talking to the Echo Flower Explainer Guy gives you some pretty funny dialogue. Reading about Water Saugages and then interacting with the unidentified plant again will claim "Oh! It's a Water Sausage." Alphy's fake date, unbelievably funny. Asgore's reaction to you walking into the room. The genuinely haunting tapes in the true lab. And I thought I wasn't gonna cry during the pacifist ending! I swear I almost made it through. But it wasn't anything that Asriel said that made me tear up, nor was it any big bombastic moment, nor was it the true lab. It was the hug. The hug itself didn't get me either! It was the subtle arm movement. The simple movement the arm up and down to comfort a scared child. That fucking got me so bad. You don't animate that if you don't care. This is a game made by someone who absolutely cares and believes in what they're saying. I think the small moments get overshadowed by all the big "WTF" moments, which is sad because to me that's what makes UT special.
I would say that Undertale is a simple but heartfelt story with simple but heartfelt character but I'd be completely wrong. What's unique about Undertale and what makes it stick around was that it's probably one of the first games that wasn't overtly comedic like the STanely Parable to be THIS malleable and reactive to decisions. The Natural endings tend to get overlooked a lot and I feel like those are always so fascinating: the little dialogues that change depending on a myriad of different decisions you can make throughout the game. And I think it's unfair to say that Undertale is specifically "murder bad," which, duh! Obviously. But what makes the genocide route so effective is that you have to continually make the constant decision to continue to do what you're doing. You could kill everything you encounter but you'll just get a "bad" neutral ending. But the truly bad ending you are given so, so, so, SO many opportunities to stop but you keep going JUST to see what would happen. And then you get Flowey's monologue which may be one of the coolest bits of metanarrative... ever? It even calls out people who straight up just go online to watch the genocide route as pathetic weirdos... like me. Lol. I didn't feel like going through with it. I have a life. But it genuinely fascinates me that the characters aren't directly looking at the camera to say "hey look! We're a video game!!! LOL isn't this weird!" It's more like the characters are aware that their own reality is being intruded upon by some... force beyond their understanding. The actual mechanics of the game work more as physics or magic than mechanics in the game world and it makes sense. The Genocide route is genuinely so haunting, it reveals so much information about the world that you don't get from the other two endings that honestly should just be left alone because of how hazardous it can be to re-experience and how damning it makes everything.
In conclusion I'm tired of people thinking Sans isn't cool! He is! He may have been circle jerked and glazed to hell and back but that doesn't make it any less cool.
But more importantly, Undertale is a story that really truly only be told through a video games. I respect the hell outta it just for that: it's not a masterpiece obviously, just a small game made by one person that was doing things nobody else was really doing at the time, or doing something in a different way. Whether you're drawn by the passion, heart and pure joy of the main game or the dark mysterious underbelly, there's a lot to appreciate. Deltarune seems to be taking what limitations that Undertale has and compeltey breaking past them so I'm excited to see the "full vision" that will probably be the true 10 once that game is complete. But Undertale will still always be Undertale.
couldnt fit this anywhere but this game also got a lot of undue hate for it's style simply because it kinda got subsumed into a general "style" that it ended up creating which is always a stupid argument. The recent twitter discourse about Portal 2's writing/humor was so fucking stupid. First off it never had "cringe internet humor" outside of maybe Cake is a Lie (which is not even in the second game)), second it came out BEFORE the deluge of internet humor that it (PARTLY) inspired and people who weren't around during it's release just lump in with the rest which again is stupid and dumb and stupid. Happened to undertale too if I catch you saying "quirky pixelated Earthbound inspired RPG about depression" I will shoot you dead on sight I stg
Undertale had the same effect on people: many, many people went in expecting to be blown away but probably got turned off by the Tumblr-era random humor and somewhat tacky characterizations. It's definitely not something that was meant to be presented on a wide scale and I understand why people may not vibe with it. I can agree that a lot of the characters and your relationship with them feels really forced. Undyne is a fantastic character and the hang out section with her is funny and heartfelt. But it really feels like you were rushed into that plot point. It should've taken a LOT more to befriend her. Papyrus, again, love the goober but he really feels like he could've gotten to know you better more beforehand. And I never really felt any real connection to Toriel.
Maybe I feel this way because obviously, something talked and discussed on THIS scale I was bound to have pretty much every detail spoiled before picking it up. But I found what really makes Undertale work are the tiny details that make a pretty small game feel much, much bigger than it actually is. Just so much care was put into the whole package. San's blue stop sign joke got a hearty chuckle. Talking to the first Echo Flower before talking to the Echo Flower Explainer Guy gives you some pretty funny dialogue. Reading about Water Saugages and then interacting with the unidentified plant again will claim "Oh! It's a Water Sausage." Alphy's fake date, unbelievably funny. Asgore's reaction to you walking into the room. The genuinely haunting tapes in the true lab. And I thought I wasn't gonna cry during the pacifist ending! I swear I almost made it through. But it wasn't anything that Asriel said that made me tear up, nor was it any big bombastic moment, nor was it the true lab. It was the hug. The hug itself didn't get me either! It was the subtle arm movement. The simple movement the arm up and down to comfort a scared child. That fucking got me so bad. You don't animate that if you don't care. This is a game made by someone who absolutely cares and believes in what they're saying. I think the small moments get overshadowed by all the big "WTF" moments, which is sad because to me that's what makes UT special.
I would say that Undertale is a simple but heartfelt story with simple but heartfelt character but I'd be completely wrong. What's unique about Undertale and what makes it stick around was that it's probably one of the first games that wasn't overtly comedic like the STanely Parable to be THIS malleable and reactive to decisions. The Natural endings tend to get overlooked a lot and I feel like those are always so fascinating: the little dialogues that change depending on a myriad of different decisions you can make throughout the game. And I think it's unfair to say that Undertale is specifically "murder bad," which, duh! Obviously. But what makes the genocide route so effective is that you have to continually make the constant decision to continue to do what you're doing. You could kill everything you encounter but you'll just get a "bad" neutral ending. But the truly bad ending you are given so, so, so, SO many opportunities to stop but you keep going JUST to see what would happen. And then you get Flowey's monologue which may be one of the coolest bits of metanarrative... ever? It even calls out people who straight up just go online to watch the genocide route as pathetic weirdos... like me. Lol. I didn't feel like going through with it. I have a life. But it genuinely fascinates me that the characters aren't directly looking at the camera to say "hey look! We're a video game!!! LOL isn't this weird!" It's more like the characters are aware that their own reality is being intruded upon by some... force beyond their understanding. The actual mechanics of the game work more as physics or magic than mechanics in the game world and it makes sense. The Genocide route is genuinely so haunting, it reveals so much information about the world that you don't get from the other two endings that honestly should just be left alone because of how hazardous it can be to re-experience and how damning it makes everything.
In conclusion I'm tired of people thinking Sans isn't cool! He is! He may have been circle jerked and glazed to hell and back but that doesn't make it any less cool.
But more importantly, Undertale is a story that really truly only be told through a video games. I respect the hell outta it just for that: it's not a masterpiece obviously, just a small game made by one person that was doing things nobody else was really doing at the time, or doing something in a different way. Whether you're drawn by the passion, heart and pure joy of the main game or the dark mysterious underbelly, there's a lot to appreciate. Deltarune seems to be taking what limitations that Undertale has and compeltey breaking past them so I'm excited to see the "full vision" that will probably be the true 10 once that game is complete. But Undertale will still always be Undertale.
couldnt fit this anywhere but this game also got a lot of undue hate for it's style simply because it kinda got subsumed into a general "style" that it ended up creating which is always a stupid argument. The recent twitter discourse about Portal 2's writing/humor was so fucking stupid. First off it never had "cringe internet humor" outside of maybe Cake is a Lie (which is not even in the second game)), second it came out BEFORE the deluge of internet humor that it (PARTLY) inspired and people who weren't around during it's release just lump in with the rest which again is stupid and dumb and stupid. Happened to undertale too if I catch you saying "quirky pixelated Earthbound inspired RPG about depression" I will shoot you dead on sight I stg
2002
you really gotta haul a whole lotta ass in this one
2008
FUCK you Jimmy Lightning
2023
Finished it
Every frame an MS painting.
Every frame an MS painting.
2023
As a high-strung easily stressed Italian man yeah this is accurate to my day to day life
Do not ask me my favorite sprite there's way too many
Also probably the funniest game I've ever played and it gets that achievement without a single line of dialogue and leaning into that fun, slightly edgy 90's cartoon aesthetic
Do not ask me my favorite sprite there's way too many
Also probably the funniest game I've ever played and it gets that achievement without a single line of dialogue and leaning into that fun, slightly edgy 90's cartoon aesthetic
2004
Still like midway through but that Crab level was enough for me to know what to give this
2020
The culture around this is really starting to get aggressively unfunny and cringe
Can the "this game=sex" joke die now before it goes any further
Can the "this game=sex" joke die now before it goes any further
2016
After a few years of listening to the soundtrack, I finally picked this up today. I'm already at the Song. This shit is SO fun. Unbelievable how polished the game is (at least from a gameplay perspective)
2013
I enjoy the satire of how cartoonish the escalation is, and even more so how they hide it all from the player. There is an insane amount of content under the surface. Unfortunately it does get really boring and the gameplay loop just becomes grindy and not fun, especially in the mid game grind. You have to rely a lot on golden cookies the stock market to make meaningful progress which sounds fun on paper but it makes the idle part of the game a whole lot less idle
2020
Finally got around to Act II, and my opinion still stands that this is a good ass shooter. The new weapons are ridiculously cool, the new enemies remain creative, Gabriel has a surprising amount of character development which I never expected, the Dante's-inferno stylized settings continue to be evocative and creative allegory, the reworks to certain enemies and mechanics are welcome, and the soundtrack just... oh my god. Greed and Wrath are fantastic layers that I don't have many complaints about, and Heresy is still awesome, but I'll get back to what I didn't like about it later.
Considering the game is now a larger, longer product, some small problems have arised.
The joke bosses still stand out like a sore thumb in a game with atmosphere this rich, but that's a pretty small problem.
Boss runbacks are annoying making P-ranking more of a chore. With Minos I guess it's fine considering you still have to fight the hand before the actual boss but Gluttony Gabriel, Greed V2, and the Leviathan could have used shortcuts to make P-rankings less grindy. It's weird that this exists considering the game is paced pretty much flawlessly otherwise.
I await the enemy AI updates that Hakita wants to implement as well, considering some enemies like Schisms and Strays could use a rework. Soldiers having explosion immunity was a small change but added many more layers to the combat and incentives the airshot mechanic of the new rocket launcher.
The only major issue I have is that there really isn't anything fresh involved with Heresy. Considering the dense, rich setting of the level I expected maybe a new demon type? At least Swordmachine returned but for such a cool map it's kinda a shame 6-1 didn't get a new enemy type. I think again the demon/husk enemy types feel very boring and homogenous especially compared to the machine enemies.
This act had a lot of refights and while V2 was a very good rematch, I don't think Gabe was distinct enough from his first fight to take a boss slot, even if it was climactic plot-wise. So I hope that the next act doesn't lean as far into that and the next two layers at the very least get completely new and unique final bosses and a couple new enemies each (because Treachery will probably end up looking similar to Greed and Heresy with a Gabe refight). I really do hope that new ideas continue to come out at a good pace cause that's what really excites me when it comes to this game: seeing what new fucking crazy-ass horseshit New Blood comes up with.
If Act III continues the insane momentum, this can easily be the best game ever created. I've really been scraping the bottom of the barrel for any complaints but that's only because I fucking love what we've been getting here and I want to make sure that it remains near-perfect as the game expands. Just continue with the creativity, keep injecting new ideas, and this already fantastic early access title will be hands down the best game of the year it releases in. Can't wait to see the new secret levels soon as well!
Considering the game is now a larger, longer product, some small problems have arised.
The joke bosses still stand out like a sore thumb in a game with atmosphere this rich, but that's a pretty small problem.
Boss runbacks are annoying making P-ranking more of a chore. With Minos I guess it's fine considering you still have to fight the hand before the actual boss but Gluttony Gabriel, Greed V2, and the Leviathan could have used shortcuts to make P-rankings less grindy. It's weird that this exists considering the game is paced pretty much flawlessly otherwise.
I await the enemy AI updates that Hakita wants to implement as well, considering some enemies like Schisms and Strays could use a rework. Soldiers having explosion immunity was a small change but added many more layers to the combat and incentives the airshot mechanic of the new rocket launcher.
The only major issue I have is that there really isn't anything fresh involved with Heresy. Considering the dense, rich setting of the level I expected maybe a new demon type? At least Swordmachine returned but for such a cool map it's kinda a shame 6-1 didn't get a new enemy type. I think again the demon/husk enemy types feel very boring and homogenous especially compared to the machine enemies.
This act had a lot of refights and while V2 was a very good rematch, I don't think Gabe was distinct enough from his first fight to take a boss slot, even if it was climactic plot-wise. So I hope that the next act doesn't lean as far into that and the next two layers at the very least get completely new and unique final bosses and a couple new enemies each (because Treachery will probably end up looking similar to Greed and Heresy with a Gabe refight). I really do hope that new ideas continue to come out at a good pace cause that's what really excites me when it comes to this game: seeing what new fucking crazy-ass horseshit New Blood comes up with.
If Act III continues the insane momentum, this can easily be the best game ever created. I've really been scraping the bottom of the barrel for any complaints but that's only because I fucking love what we've been getting here and I want to make sure that it remains near-perfect as the game expands. Just continue with the creativity, keep injecting new ideas, and this already fantastic early access title will be hands down the best game of the year it releases in. Can't wait to see the new secret levels soon as well!
2020
Pretty sure I got kicked out of a friend group for not playing enough of this shitter ass game lmao
2019
Somehow makes the base game level design look like amateur hour. Extremely OK Games fires at all cylinders to present a level that not only tells the story of a girl learning to move on from grief, but allows the developers to say goodbye to a project that has helped kick off their own journeys of self-discovery. An excellent send- off for an excellent game, one last mountain to climb.
2022
A massive game with so much to love that even it's (admittedly also massive) flaws are overshadowed by it's scope
The most frustrating part of the game is that it's major flaws could be fixed really easily.
-Underpowered horse: There are like five horseback/horse bosses that could give small or significant upgrades depending on their level ([Draconic] Tree Sentinels, Night's Calvary, Ancestor Spirit, Lorettas)
-Obnoxious bosses: literally just simple balance tweaks would completely overhaul some bosses from dogs hit to incredible. Radahn is the only one they changed and it's definitely the best fight now
-repetitive bosses: Maybe instead of Regular Dude You've Fought Before as an end-dungeon boss, use one of the actual boss enemies like Fallingstars or Magma Wyrms. Maybe include 4-5 more of those kinds of enemies to to replace some bosses like Borealis and Ezeykes.
The most frustrating part of the game is that it's major flaws could be fixed really easily.
-Underpowered horse: There are like five horseback/horse bosses that could give small or significant upgrades depending on their level ([Draconic] Tree Sentinels, Night's Calvary, Ancestor Spirit, Lorettas)
-Obnoxious bosses: literally just simple balance tweaks would completely overhaul some bosses from dogs hit to incredible. Radahn is the only one they changed and it's definitely the best fight now
-repetitive bosses: Maybe instead of Regular Dude You've Fought Before as an end-dungeon boss, use one of the actual boss enemies like Fallingstars or Magma Wyrms. Maybe include 4-5 more of those kinds of enemies to to replace some bosses like Borealis and Ezeykes.
2020
I gotta say, in a time where the Quake clone craze is long gone, this game is out here acting like the genre is still in fierce competition for blood and glory. Hakita just gets it.
If I had any complaints it's the YouTuber bosses. The Mandalore one is fine I guess considering it's hidden pretty well and doesn't actually give a tangible reward, but the Ciive fight is required to get a weapon unlock. Ah, the guardian of Limbo's great secret, the great Cancerous Rodent. Kinda lame.
The fact that this is my only relevant complaint should show how fucking amazing this game is. Go buy it while it's on discount
If I had any complaints it's the YouTuber bosses. The Mandalore one is fine I guess considering it's hidden pretty well and doesn't actually give a tangible reward, but the Ciive fight is required to get a weapon unlock. Ah, the guardian of Limbo's great secret, the great Cancerous Rodent. Kinda lame.
The fact that this is my only relevant complaint should show how fucking amazing this game is. Go buy it while it's on discount
2018
The feeling I get from looking through those final binoculars and seeing the summit... completely indescribable.
I adore games which weave storytelling directly into the gameplay, and this is one of the very best at it. The duality of determination and perseverance in the face of oppressive self-doubt is front and center; a game about trial and error and failure portraying the beautiful, wonderful irony of human nature. Celeste continually presents mountains at you and encourages you that it's entirely possible to climb it. You think to yourself, "this next mountain is insurmountable," but the quick restarts, snappy controls, and absolutely killer soundtrack beg you to try just one more; until you finally, somehow, make it to the next screen. In the end, it doesn't matter if I died 1400 times from the Summit C-side. What matters is that I made it. I did it. And I really think that's something special.
Stay safe fellas. Take care of yourselves. You may climb your mountain and find yourself at the base of another, but please keep climbing.
I adore games which weave storytelling directly into the gameplay, and this is one of the very best at it. The duality of determination and perseverance in the face of oppressive self-doubt is front and center; a game about trial and error and failure portraying the beautiful, wonderful irony of human nature. Celeste continually presents mountains at you and encourages you that it's entirely possible to climb it. You think to yourself, "this next mountain is insurmountable," but the quick restarts, snappy controls, and absolutely killer soundtrack beg you to try just one more; until you finally, somehow, make it to the next screen. In the end, it doesn't matter if I died 1400 times from the Summit C-side. What matters is that I made it. I did it. And I really think that's something special.
Stay safe fellas. Take care of yourselves. You may climb your mountain and find yourself at the base of another, but please keep climbing.