I'd reserve judgement until you beat the game if you say you are up to Undyne in your Pacifist run. Comparing the game to Gone Home or other artsy games is a HUGE disservice to what Undertale is.

I just double checked the ending of the Pacifist run and it still hits like a ton of bricks. No other moment in video games captures what happens during "the moment" when music, gameplay, text, and characters all come together so amazingly well.

I haven't finished it yet but I'm super underwhelmed now. It is not a bad game, I just think it has some weird design choices.

Don't take me wrong, I'm super down on artsy stuff, my favourites games this year being The Beginner's Guide and Her Story. I don't think that the writing so far of Undertale is as good as those two.

And then I think the combat is absolutely dreadful. That minigame that you repeat over and over is not good the first time, it gets miserable when you do it again and again. Playing as a pacifist, every random encounters has me going through the same menu options everytime.

I understand that it goes for a JRPG vibe, but random and repetitive battles is not a great mechanic, it gets worse if the combat has no depth to it.

And then I hear how everyone talks about the different endings. Without finishing the game, it feels like a strict choice that you make at the start of the game and stick with. Unless I'm wrong, this is hardly better than any RPG with binary dialogs option.

Again, I haven't finished it. The music is solid and the writing is good, which is enough for me. While the game might obviously change for the better, I don't see the appeal of the main gameplay mechanics right now and they are too prevalent to be ignored.

I tend toward disliking for all of the overhype its gotten, but since I haven't played it I have to remain neutral.

I don't think I can go play the game now without the experience feeling tainted from all the things I've heard about how grand it's supposed to be.

I just bought it yesterday, I plan on playing after I'm done with Tales from the Borderlands.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian just for the hell of it, but I really just don't get it. The humor is occasionally pretty funny, and the mechanics are novel for a short time. But nothing about it is blowing my mind. The whole thing seems like a cute novelty that doesn't have the legs to carry for more than an hour or so. I just do not get it. Maybe I don't have the proper point of reference to appreciate it fully?

Ehhh.... just finished it. Didn't kill anyone, spared Asgore, Flowey appears and ices him, then the game...crashes? It has its moments, I'll give you that (particularly the Mettaton EX fight), but there are other games that have captured these kind of moments amazingly well. Bastion is one at the top of my head that pulled it off, and it was without a doubt a much better game than this. I'm still in the neutral category of this game, and I'm not really up for doing multiple playthroughs to get "true endings" to games. Might do the kill Asgore choice, but beyond that I probably won't come back to the game.

Different strokes for different folks. Didn't hate it, didn't love it. I got my $8 of entertainment out of it.

That wasn't the Pacifist route. You only did the Neutral route. The things that people talk about happens in the Pacifist route. If you really didn't kill anyone then...

HOLD ON. Did you say the game crashed?

Flowey appears during the ending and tells you that he knows how to get you a better ending. You reload your file again and you listen to what he tells you to do. There is no repeat content. It's all new content. There is no multiple playthrough. You pick up where you left off right before you fight Asgore.

This is definitely no Metal Warriors. But then, what could be?

@golguin: I wish the game was a bit more clear about that. I kept going but I had two friends who stopped there and didn't come back.

I'm 4 hours in and I'm loving it to death it's funny as. I'm trying to not kill anyone, though I had to kill Toriel and Undyne. If there's anyway to avoid killing them but still progress I would like to know.

It's fun finding ways to avoid killing the enemies, like that fire enemy tied up, he likes heat so I thought he would give up if I cooled him down (blew on him) though as it turns out that just angers him, you have to turn the heat UP so he relaxes and lets you go lol. I like that.

Thanks community for telling me about this game.

Toriel: Keep sparing her. That's it. She will go through dialog. Eventually her attacks will actively avoid you. Eventually the fight ends. I killed her the first time too.

Undyne: "YOU CANNOT ESCAPE WHEN YOU ARE GREEN!" Undyne will never give up. When she turns you red, you flee. Run away, until you get to the Hotlands.

I'm about 45 minutes into the game right now. Combat seems really tedious. Music sounds catchy. Not sure if I will continue, got a lot of other games I'd like to mess around with. Kind of a downer, that this game hasn't hooked me right away, after having just played Her Story in one four hour session.

@wallee321: Have you left the first area yet?

Tried playing it without taking out any enemies (except for when the game forces you to), and the encounters became too difficult so I gave up.

@beachthunder: No haven't left it yet. But man all the random battles and fall through the floor until you find the right path puzzles have been a huge turn-off.

IDK, maybe I'll go back to it, but I could play more Downwell, Ori, Gravity Ghost, or some other deeply discounted games. Plus I'd like to dive deep back into the Witcher 3 before New Year's.

I liked it, but didn't love it. Can totally see why people do though.

It strikes me as the sort of thing where the less experience you have with the things it's drawing from (most importantly the Mother series), and the less experience you have with the tricks it pulls on you (e.g. kicking you out to the desktop and replacing the .exe with a new one), the more impressive you're going to find it.

Like... I wonder how many of the people that seem obsessed with Undertale are familiar with the opera scene from FF6 that it parodies.

It's one of those games that has become enough of a talking point that I'll inevitably have to play it at some point, even if I seriously question if it can live up to the hype machine that seems to follow every vaguely retro indie darling of the week.

It was fucking great. It was touching, funny, and charming in so many ways. My biggest issue was the pacifist ending - way too schmaltzy and "anime" for my tastes. But everything else was good enough to make me wish I never left that world and its characters, and that's a sign of a good piece of entertainment in my eyes.

I don't know about that. I've played pretty almost every SNES RPG there is (and Mother 3), and I loved it. Like, I honestly think it's better than most (all?) of the games it's drawing from.

You've probably heard this before, but the game picks up significantly after you get out of first area. That was the literal first part he made; it's the demo from when the game was on kickstarter two years ago and it shows. The puzzles, in particular, are significantly less obnoxious and "clever" (I am not in love with that perspective puzzle) once you get out of there. My suggestion would be to get through the second part. It's more indicative of the game as a whole I feel, and you'll know then if you want to continue or not.

@beforet: oh damn can I still get the pacifist ending? I just defeated Asgore and now I'm fighting the big disturbing monster made of eyes and mouths is that it?

Edit: don't worry I didn't get it :(

@kentonclay: Sure. I didn't mean to imply that was an impossible opinion, or anything. But from the discussion I've seen of the game, a lot of people are referring to the aspects of it that I see as derivative of earlier RPGs (even the parts like I mentioned that are directly referential) as "innovative." So I wonder if this is a case of a younger generation encountering things out of context - which isn't to imply that makes their enjoyment of it "less than," either.

Personally, though, I can't really get with you on that third sentence. Undertale, to me, so lacks in the gameplay substance that I require from an RPG that I honestly consider it more of a meditation on RPGs, or a short-story/novella told in RPG format. There's really not a lot of meat on those bones - you would be hard pressed to get more than ten hours out of Undertale. Pretty much the thing that keeps it out of "visual novel" territory is the bullet-hell dodging bit. I couldn't seriously compare Undertale to even one of the Mother games; they're not even in the same category.

@treetrunk: Killing a single thing (any single thing) locks you out of the true pacifist. So once you see that first neutral ending, you will, unfortunately, have to restart and replay the game with your new knowledge.

One of the few games that turn age-old game conventions and mechanics (saving, loading, start screens, game over screens, user interfaces) on their heads in a lot of interesting ways. Been a long time since I played anything that blend the meta-experience with the in-game narrative experience to the same degree.

It's great. Lovely game.

Too many holes to drop into.
Other than that, its okay.

I don't hate it, but I have no urge to play through it again and I didn't really enjoy my time much playing through it the first time.

OK I played through again, I defeated the last boss with my LV as 1 but at the end flowey told me to hang out with my friends more. I just looked up what additional steps I had to take. I didn't have to play again thankfully I just had to back track and go on a couple dates. I then finally got the True Pacifist Ending. I watched to the end where the dog falls asleep.

Incredible. Very touching. Thanks Undertale.

It's in a similar place as Fez of me having petty reasons to not play a game I'd probably enjoy.

Just bought it. No idea.

@luchalma: But... but Fez is so frigging good! Both that and Undertale are high up there on my "wish I could play it for the first time again" list.

@petethepanda: I'm sure it is! I even booted it up once, in a weird "life is too short" mood. But I made it only a few minutes in. I'd like to try Undertake really, but not enough to buy it.

I knew it was the Celes scene the moment it started and I kinda flipped out due to how good the homage was. However, the game is way more than just references. It does things that no other JRPG or Western RPG has done before.

Went in to playing Undertale expecting it to end up somewhere near the bottom of my top 10. I was kind of put off by the hype the game was getting and trying not to expect too much. That being said I enjoyed the game a lot and it ended up in my #2 spot (Bloodborne, Undertale, MGSV, Witcher3, Rocket League.) Obviously not everyone who played it is into it, but don't let the hype train stop you from playing a game you might end up loving. I recommend not killing anything so you can get the neutral/good endings. As people have said, the game gets a lot stronger in the second half.

Also for anyone who finished the game i recommend watching a genocide difference run through. Sans is a fucking beast. Get dunked on!

I liked it. The game is pretty good, but the music is fantastic.

@golguin: Just curious - the things that "no other JRPG or Western RPG has done before" - what exactly are you referring to? Not trying to put you on the spot or anything, but I've seen a lot of people say that about this game and it's just not the impression I get. I don't think Undertale is just a bunch of slapped-together references either (it's clearly its own thing, particularly narratively), but it does seem to me like a pastiche of a variety of influences more than something to be taken in a vacuum.

Did you get the Neutral, Pacifist, and Genocide ending?

@golguin: Yup.

Then you know that Undertale makes the "game" and "gameplay" part of the narrative. It explains why "the grind" exists in role playing games and it brings to light player and character motivations in that "game" space.

If you know of other JRPGs or Western RPGs that do that then you can let me know.

Now go kill everyone and experience the best playthrough. Somewhat joking, somewhat.

I played it in a single sitting yesterday. I liked it. The music was good, the writing was ok and the comedy hit a few times. I like bullet hell games so I didn't mind the combat much, though there's a steep ramp up with certain bosses that seemed unfair.

I got the Neutral ending I think because I killed two people that I couldnt figure out how to progress past. But. Im not dying to go back and play another 4 hours of it. Or another 4 after that. Or follow guides to get the endings. Or restart from the very beginning because one ending is completely locked away on that save.

I'll admit even yo me it seems odd to complain about having to play another 4 hours since jrpgs are typically very long and very grindy. But at least with the grind in jrpgs I enjoy both leveling up, unlocking abilities and the story. Undertale just seems to have the promise of a story and I dont know if that's enough for me.

@jesus_phish: Most of the backstory is locked away behind that "pacifist" ending. If you don't want to replay the game, just youtube it.

@jesus_phish said:

That's pretty much where I am at with it. Completed it with the neutral ending and got to the point where I am told that I can go back and do a couple more things to get a different ending but I don't really have any desire to. I have heard that the 'true' ending is really great but I have zero desire to play the game any more to see it.

@golguin: I guess I hadn't viewed it in that specific context - it does poke fun at a mostly unexamined trope in the RPG space - at least if I'm inferring the correct meaning from your description. In that way, it is sort of a satire of RPGs; mostly JRPGs, really. But I don't really think this kind of thing is that uncommon. You'll find that kind of satire in games like Breath of Death and Cthulu Saves the World, the Penny Arcade games, even that South Park RPG.

Other RPGs with pacifist completion methods are admittedly rare, but not unheard of. Just off the top of my head, you can complete Arcana without killing anything. You can talk your way through the old Fallout games. You can beat Nethack as a pacifist (although I guess that might be more of a technicality, because you still have to have pets to kill monsters for you).

In terms of a system that encourages alternative methods of character growth from mass murder, Undertale's is really fairly simple. There are plenty of RPGs out there (mostly in the western style) that encourage you to solve encounters not only through non-violence, but to avoid them entirely, or to arrange events in such a way that conflict is never necessary. In a maybe hilarious coincidence, a recently released game called Underrail that styles itself after older WRPGs has an experience system based entirely around recovering artifacts from around the game world. There are plenty of older games that try to recreate pen and paper roleplaying systems have alternative experience systems as well. Hell, Dungeons and Dragons Online is an MMO where you only get experience through completing quests, making fighting unnecessary if avoidable.

Undertale is certainly a unique mix of a variety of things you don't see everyday in RPGs, but it didn't have anything in it that I would say makes it historically significant to the genre.

Still a good game! I enjoyed the shit out of Mettaton, in particular.

Space Funeral definitely treads some of the same ground.

South Park: The Stick of Truth does not have what I'm talking about. It breaks the fourth wall and the comedy in the game is derived from RPG tropes (as well as South Park's own lore), but that is not Undertale. I've never played the Penny Arcade RPG so I wouldn't know if it has what I'm referring to.

I also would not say that the ability to talk your way out of situations in Fallout Games or the Mass Effect series describes what happens in Undertale. The act of killing and not killing in Undertale is unique to it's own narrative. It means something to take even a single life in Undertale. It means something to spare everyone. Killing everyone also plays a big part in the narrative as you know. Grinding for experience in D&D doesn't mean anything to the world of the game.

The combat in Undertale could have involved a different system, but even that lends context to the overall story.

@golguin: Well, sure - I'm with you that Undertale's exact structure is unique to Undertale; I was just trying to explain why the things it does feel informed, to me, by the history of the genre.

Also, I can't get with you on the "it means something to take even a single life in Undertale" bit. It means something, yes, but it mostly means that you'll get a different ending. Functionally, most people are going to play through the game imperfectly the first time, getting the neutral ending, because the game doesn't explain its expectations of you until it's almost over. Then you'll go through it again with a different method to unlock a bit more of the narrative. But it's not as if you're making individual choices as you go along - it's pretty binary. You're either killing everything, or sparing everything, to see a specific result (that let's be honest, you probably looked up the details of on the internet). The actual playing of it feels like getting the different endings of Chrono Trigger: you've beaten the game like a normal person would, and now you get to go back and uncover some easter eggs. But I didn't feel any sort of dilemma about a given encounter - I just did the thing I knew I had to do to see the stuff I hadn't seen.

So I guess I would say that Undertale is unique in the specific sense that you're pointing to - the game keeps track of killing individual enemies, and your outcome does change somewhat depending on that at the end of the game (and of course when you kill the main NPCs). It's just that a) that seems like an evolution of older ideas to me rather than a brand new idea, and b) that seems like a less impressive or individual part of the game (again, to me) then, say, the writing.

But "to each their own," said the old lady as she kissed the pig.

@homelessbird: Just a reminder that "innovative" and "unique" don't necessarily mean 100% original. It's arguing semantics, sure, but based on your definition, nothing could or will be innovative ever again.

Undertale takes a bunch of queues from other games, sure, but it's the sum of those parts that feels fresh to a lot of players-- even the ones well versed in JRPGs etc.

Boring, kinda funny and OK.

It's a fun little game with some funny and endearing stuff in it. I think it's well worth the ten bucks price of admission.

It's incredibly over rated, however, it's not even close to being the game of the month it was released, yet I see so many people claiming it's the game of the year. The overly passionate fanbase of the game has kind of soured me on it and I don't like discussing it as much with people anymore.

Weird that some people say the game only gets good later, to me the game is at it's best on it's first third, and gets annoying and bad on it's last third when you get to the lava level (aside from the Sans boss fight if you go Genocide)