Undertale

[brat-sampson]

Undertale might be my Game of the Year. It's an RPG, kinda, the encounter system is more based around avoidance and timing or testing out different actions on different enemies. It's utterly charming, the soundtrack is phenomenal, the writing is brilliant, it has more depth than you could possibly imagine, it breaks rules you didn't realise existed and provides the most exhilarating climax to anything I've experienced in years. It was made primarily by one guy over about four years and is a stunning effort.

It's one of those where reading too much around it can easily result in spoiling things, it's about 6-8 hrs long for a single playthrough. I fucking love it to bits.

EDIT: It has a free demo! But yeah, the full game is something else.

[madhair60]

S'good this.  I only played a little and had to stop because I felt like my heart was gonna break.

[brat-sampson]

If you're fearing a sad ending just

Spoiler alert

don't cause a sad ending.

[close]

[MojoJojo]

Yeah, I saw RPS give this a big thumbs up and wanted to play this remembered I have kids and no time to play games :-(

[Thursday]

Finished this a few days ago, getting the true pacifist ending, (you still have to get the normal ending first and then just continue from your last save) Really lovely stuff.

I am total shite at it's "bullet hell" combat though which made it very frustrating at times.

[Bhazor]

Found a fair chunk of the writing pretty insufferable and oh so pleased with itself. Especially the skelecunts and fangirl. But there were still plenty of good parts and some of the passive puzzle fights were great

Spoiler alert

I especially liked the TV ratings fight even if it did overstay its welcome.

[close]

On the other hand some were just tedious "Talk 50 times to win".

All told I'd say the price was right for an admirably unusual game. But I can already tell this game is going to end up getting the full internet treatment and I will come to retroactively hate it because of all the fucking memes and fanart that keep getting posted everywhere.

[brat-sampson]

I felt that it towed the line of being insufferable through some of the first playthrough, but going full pacifist, and really getting to interact with the characters and (more importantly) seeing them interact with each other, made it a more cohesive and lovable world. By the end of the end I was mentally fist-pumping and loving the experience more than I have anything since Wonderful 101.

Papyrus and Sans make for an excellent brotherly duo, Undyne is a lot more likeable after her cooking lesson and Alphys is a tragic nerd-type who you can't help but want to help with her love life. Maybe it'll never make that flip for you, but for me it turned into an incredibly lovable cast, where I was listening to the characters, rather than the writer trying to write as different people. The exceptional sprite art and music also helped a ton.

[madhair60]

yo what up so this is the best game ever made.

[zomgmouse]

Bought this recently and played about an hour yesterday, really enjoyed it. Such a fun vibe, very silly but also dark and personal. Will be playing more definitely.

[MojoJojo]

I want to play this, assuming I get a bit of time. Does it need/benefit from a controller - not sure mines survived the upgrade to Windows 10.

[The Boston Crab]

Is this a game or someone who plays games wanting you to know they once got dumped or something? You know what I mean.

[zomgmouse]

I want to play this, assuming I get a bit of time. Does it need/benefit from a controller - not sure mines survived the upgrade to Windows 10.

I'm playing it on my laptop, all you need are arrow keys and a handful of others (enter, shift, control/z, x, c). It's got really simple controls.

[madhair60]

Is this a game or someone who plays games wanting you to know they once got dumped or something? You know what I mean.

Game mate.

Never feels like a tract.  Promise.

[studpuppet]

Knew nothing about it until I read this article, now I'm intrigued.

http://kotaku.com/undertale-is-tearing-gamefaqs-apart-1747991599

A couple of things:

1. Do you think that gameplay would be suitable for 9-10 your olds? Can't find an age-limitation anywhere.
2. Is the soundtrack worth buying or is the game all right without the music?

[madhair60]

1. Yes, but I'm not certain the content would be.  It's not especially "adult", but I don't know  if they'd get much out of it.

2. Er, well, the music is in the game anyway.  The soundtrack is seperate MP3s for if you want to listen to it outside of the game.

[studpuppet]

Blah blah blah, answers...

Thanks - you've saved me money and given me a reason to test drive the game first as well!

[Thursday]

I pretty much instantly bought the soundtrack after I'd finished the game because there's some great tracks and I wanted to throw more money at the developer.

[BritishHobo]

I really loved this on my first playthrough a few weeks back, so it's amazing just how much more it comes alive playing a True Pacifist run. I'd expected marginal changes, but I was a bit breathless at how wonderful and complete it becomes. Everything from Snowdin onwards is a joy, but the whole final fight was really something else, really genuinely wonderful.

I'm halfway through a Genocide run at the moment (paused for a while because

Spoiler alert

Undyne the Undying is fucking hard

[close]

), and same again. The way the whole world is altered in so many different ways, and on this run it builds up such an amazing, uneasy atmosphere. From what I can tell, this is the perfect order to play it in, because

Spoiler alert

there are a lot of lovely lines that only make sense after the Pacifist run - once you understand the characters and their relationships to each other. Sans off-handedly saying 'you really know how to pick 'em' wrt Toriel asking him to protect you. Also it means you've already had the moment during the dinner in the Pacifist Run where he briefly gets really sinister and tells you you'd be dead where you stand if he hadn't made the promise. Which makes it extra terrifying when he starts getting threatening in this run.

[close]

I'm really excited to see where it goes.

[brat-sampson]

Spoiler alert

You're gonna have a bad time...

[close]

[BritishHobo]

I also love the turtle in the Waterfall shop

Spoiler alert

treating you with total fucking contempt, and also showing a bit of self-awareness about his safety - because you can't fight shopkeepers.

[close]

Can someone come round my house and do Undyne for me? I wanna see how this plays out.

[Thursday]

I'll just watch a playthrough online, I don't want the game remembering forever that I did a genocide run.

[BritishHobo]

Oh aye that's the other great (in a weird way) thing I found about doing Genocide last. The fact that, after doing a True Pacifist run,

Spoiler alert

the game gives you a boatload of guilt if you try to reset the save file, and erase the happy ending.

[close]

[brat-sampson]

From what I've seen you should work at taking down

Spoiler alert

Undyne

[close]

, it only gets worse after that.

[BritishHobo]

I cheated. Downloaded Cheat Engine which lets you alter your stats, so I just froze my HP during battles and ploughed on. I don't mind the bullet hell stuff, but by this point, my third playthrough, I was more interested in getting through the story. I kept thinking of Dara O'Briain on Gameswipe talking about how he's always missing out on story content because he's not good enough to succeed at certain parts of the game. I think that's really interesting, although off the point here.

You're definitely not wrong, brat - without giving anything away, I genuinely don't know how I'd have gotten through that without freezing my HP.

HEAVY GENOCIDE ENDING SPOILERS:

Spoiler alert

Sans was INSANE! I went in with the cheat on, so I never experienced it normally. But... how?! How is it even possible to survive that long with those attacks? Either way, I am now waiting through a black screen so that I can sell my soul to a mysterious disembodied voice in return for resetting the world. I'm told this will permanently fuck up my game, although I don't know how yet. I'm excited.

[close]

[brat-sampson]

Check out the end of this playthrough, you can see it takes a ton of attempts over the space of hours. In fairness that does also just mean more of the best fucking music in the game. Also, Genocide Ending Spoilers

Spoiler alert

Sans has different intro text as you lose more.

[close]

Because of course.

[BritishHobo]

I suppose

Spoiler alert

your attacks always missing means you can use every turn (or every other turn) on healing. Some of those screens are ridiculous though!

[close]

I actually fucked the game at one point.

Spoiler alert

When you spare Sans, he kills you, but my HP was frozen so it just ran through his whole (impossible to avoid) attack and then I was stuck moving around the box with nothing happening and no way out but to quit. And then in typical Undertale fashion, when I didn't spare him next time, he gloated about the fact that I must have been burned by that once already.

[close]

[falafel]

If I don't fucking get it after an hour,  like not at all,  will I ever get it?

Because after an hour, it's a tongue in cheek old school RPG. And... yeah... and?

[Thursday]

If you're not liking it at all, then I don't know. My experience after the first hour or two was "oh this is nice, and it's quite funny as well" the "This is amazing" feeling comes after you get the True Pacifist ending.

[brat-sampson]

If you've only done the ruins, I'd say stick it out. If you didn't find Sans/Papyrus's antics charming at the very least, then maybe this just isn't your bag. Plough onwards anyway, because the mechanics of the bosses alone make it a worthwhile experience, but the true joy comes from the establishment and interaction of the characters and they way these are combined in numerous different ways by the end of the TP run.

[falafel]

"oh this is nice, and it's quite funny as well".

I guess that's where i am. Sort of, 'yep, mildly subversive tongue in cheek retro RPG,  kind of amusing,  don't hate it.... But how on earth could this evolve into a seminal masterpiece?'

I am going to stick with it. On face value it's not really my thing but there must be more to it than that.