You can masterfully make your way out of a hot zone and achieve the main objective against all odds but then still lose your entire team, thereby effectively ruining your entire game because you were one move too slow.
It makes me feel like this game could benefit from a Darkest Dungeon style mechanic, where if you run out of time you may still be able to escape... but one of your soldiers must sacrifice themselves to give everyone else time to get out! I've not experienced it myself but I've heard a few horror stories of evac points placed way, way too far out to get to them in time thanks to the procedural level generation, and that could help make it less game-ending when your best squad is caught out like that.
I love them. After playing so much EU and Long War, I've grown utterly sick of the optimal strategy that mainly consisted of crawling around the map on overwatch at a snail's pace for an hour every mission. It's slow, boring and absolutely the best way to play the game if you want to have a chance of surviving the higher difficulty levels. I can see why the timers would frustrate those who enjoy that style of play, or people who are not experienced enough with XCOM to reach the point where they discover the necessity of it, but they are now essential for me.
I've actually reached a strange point where I actively dislike the missions in XCOM 2 without a time limit, because it returns to being a sluggish bug-hunt. Without the timers, I probably wouldn't be playing XCOM 2, as weird as it feels to say it as such an avid fan of the series.
I didn't buy it when it came out because I have no interest in the casual internet humory 'so much feels' crud that it looked like and sounded like from what everyone told me. Eventually got it because I decided I wanted to see what it was before it got spoiled for GOTY and such.
I love this game, but I will say that even if you're not the sort of person who is turned off by hype, the fanbase also does a very poor job of actually explaining what makes the game enjoyable. 'It's funny!' 'You can date a skeleton!' 'Goatmom!' are not compelling arguments. Even if those things are parts of the game that a fan will recognise as being really good inclusions, it just ends up looking like nonsense and memes from the outside.
I don't want to say too much about my feelings on it because it's a game best played blind and there are people in this thread who haven't played it, but I will say I particularly like how the music uses recurring leitmotifs to both overtly and subtly establish relationships between characters as well as build on themes that run throughout the game. It may not have won 'best music' this year, and perhaps the music itself isn't what's so good. It's the use of music in relation to the story and characters that sets it apart.
That's sort of how I feel about the game as a whole. The component parts are all pretty generic from chiptune music to pixel art and shmup-style combat. What makes Undertale different is that each of those familiar components are used together in ways that create a unique and weird experience that succeeds because it manages to be more than the sum of its parts.
@mechamarshmallow: Yep. And there we go with the "you can never objectively say anything about anything ever because perception of reality is a relative experience..." and on and on and on and on. Glad you enjoyed. I really need to turn off Giantbomb message notifications lol
Oh no! We're trapped in a feedback loop! Nooooooo!
Apparently I slip into 'bad philosophy undergraduate paper' writing mode while eating pizza.
I'll never be convinced that Undertale is a superior entertainment product to Metal Gear Solid V, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3 or Bloodborne. But I'll guarantee you'll find it topping some year end lists with the rationale of: "It doesn't matter how short it was or how it looked - The EXPERIENCE I had was unlike anything else this year..."
You can't really objectively rate the entertainment value of a game, it's a very subjective thing. I've played all of those games (other than Bloodborne) you listed along with Undertale, and Undertale was the only one I didn't leave a few hours in bored and frustrated. Different strokes, but Undertale is higher on my list of games I enjoyed this year and not because of some nebulous 'experience'. I just had more fun.
More on topic, I've been following the game faqs board in light of this contest and it's been pretty funny watching everything descend into a terrifying hole of paranoia and indignation over a 17 year old console game not being voted as the best game of all time by internet randoms.
I'm not a star wars fan, honestly. But I've seen them all, because they're big movies. While I can respect and enjoy a lot of the original trilogy, I really don't like the prequels in any capacity. FWIW I was 9 when Phantom Menace came out.
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