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UNDERTALE; A wacky throwback for EARTHBOUND/MOTHER fans!

Grumpy Grumps get ready for bad times.

 
Just completed my first run of the game . 10 hours and 55 minutes of trying to find the most peaceful solution to everything and it was a pleasant ride for the most part. I'm glad I managed to keep myself un-spoiled of the plot of this game because it felt nice getting thrown for a loop multiple times throughout the playthrough.

Let me say that I LOVED the combat of this game. All of the boss fights had really nice gimmicks to them and negotiating a pacifist run was surprisingly fun given how small each area really is, and how few fights I got into so I never got to the point where fights wore on me.

The writing kept me laughing as well and I enjoyed most of the main cast and basically all of the incidental npc's. Special mention to all the shop keepers because they each fit into the feel of their zones and made me go back to them just to see if they had anything new to say after each major juncture.

Just one thing I last thing for now
Why did Toby decide to make Flowey a photorealistic abomination that looks like a rejected boss sprite for Graham Jones? The game had a really nice aesthetic going for it, especially with the boss sprites. SAd I get making him into this otherworldy creature who has twisted himself with all the power he's stolen (along with his personality) but that was a moment where I thought that maybe Undertale had stepped too far into the "art" game territory in what was otherwise a very measured game. Not to mention how many times the boss fight stops and starts as you unveil even more final forms. Maybe it'd different on non-pacifist runs when you don't have to channel everyone's friendship but the whole ending sequences takes waaaaaaaaaaay too long to complete.
 
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PaperBag_Sniper said:
Why did Toby decide to make Flowey a photorealistic abomination that looks like a rejected boss sprite for Graham Jones?
I really liked the sudden art change, though.
I also absolutely loved everything about the final sequence of the Flowey fight. it took me about 4 tries, 30 minutes~ each, to defeat Asgore so the moment I beat him and the game closed itself I just muttered "oh shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck." over and over. I just sighed and launched the game, and let me tell you: I had shivers all over and I felt chills. Few games have ever really made me feel truly unsettled and undertale did just that.
The sudden art change was jarring compared to everything else in the game, and I think that was the point.
Gaaahhhh, I really really love this game.
Everything about it just seems so perfect to me.
I only really have 2 complaints about the game though:
1) It's too easy.
Like, man, I only died to 3 bosses and the majority of the game never really posed that much of a challenge.
I've only died to Undyne, Asgore, and Asriel. I never really died once at the Flowey boss so I felt quite disappointed.
"Go fight Sans!"
I watched that fight and it had that jumpy mechanic from Papyrus' fight and I never liked that. The jumping never felt quite right so if I were to fight Sans I would really just feel frustrated instead of encouraged to keep trying.
2) There were parts that needed more hints, I think.
I spent 30~+ minutes on every attempt on Undyne and Asgore because I was going pacifist and oh my god you could've at least given me more tips on Undyne other than letting me believe that if I could dodge attacks for long enough to "tire her out of combat" until I fell into soul crushing despair and just decided to press escape. That singular moment when I finally decided to press escape after a few hours of dodging just left me laughing and it was brilliant.
Asgore was fine though.
In fact I think it made the game better with me not knowing I had to whack him a few times. I was so determined not to press the attack button the entire game that when I finally realised what I had to do it felt soul crushing. It was honestly quite an experience, never pressing the attack button for the entire game and suddenly having to do it... This is really the only game, nay, the only form of media that has presented emotion to me in a way that I was affected. I didn't just see the characters go through the scripted motions of an emotional moment; I didn't just read through words telling me emotions; I felt the very hesitation, or perhaps regret, that that scene seemed to want to convey to me as my hand hovered above the select button.

tl;dr I want a full-game hardmode, bisicle pretty much let me beat most everything in one try, this game is phenomenal.
 
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@PaperBag_Sniper

There is a reason Omega Flowey looks like that. It's not trying to step into the "art" game by looking like a photoshop boss (btw it is photoshopped on purpose) but because at that point the game is trying to fuck you up mentally by going meta/creepypasta, first by closing the game and then with the fight with Flowey.

Did you get just the neutral ending or also the true pacifist one?
 
What is "too far into art".

Art is cool, and this game in a lot of ways has lots of "artsy" things already, so any time the game goes into more Art it is cool.

And if you think the Neutral ending is long, haha Pacifist ending.
 
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@Fumako You have excellent taste in manga judging by your avatar good sir.

fenster said:
And if you think the Neutral ending is long, haha Pacifist ending.
Oh no, I got the pacifist ending complete with the "Hey there's a whole other chunk of game you will now play even though you were just set up with the final boss". It was good stuff but it added another 40+ minutes to the game.

To answer both you and @ArgonBern about my gripe with the true boss
Looking at Flowey's abomination form, I got what it was supposed to evoke. That being the feeling that Flowey had become something both unnatural for the game world, and insanely chaotic given flowey's twisted mindset and lack of emotions.

But taking a game with well polished sprites and adding in such a jarring element didn't have the intended effect. I found him annoying and really out of place. The latter may have been the intention but I don't view that as a positive per say. maybe a repeat playthrough will change that.

There is also the television that acts as Flowey's means of conveying expressions once he adopts his abomination form. It really stuck out as something I'd see in a modern art piece and it detracted from what was good about his design in that form to me at least. And seeing it play distorted footage of what looks like the OMG Rage face doesn't help.

So I guess what I meant by "art " was that the game suddenly dropped it's established aesthetics for one that is more experimental but in a way I felt subtracts rather than adds. I can dig the idea of a screen filling creature that looks like something out of The Thing, but the drastic change in style doesn't do anything for me.
 
PaperBag_Sniper said:
You have excellent taste in manga judging by your avatar good sir.
You're damn right. :^)
PaperBag_Sniper said:
but the drastic change in style doesn't do anything for me.
I get where you're getting at, but how would you have approached this?
I really think there was no other way to approach what the boss wanted to convey as effectively as it did.
 
regarding the neutral ending boss visuals

I thought the crazed out look was more than fitting considering the circumstances. He took control of your save file and the game itself, with the power to load save states and even shut off the game entirely. He became some unnatural being, so it just made sense that his form was unnatural to everything else.
 
you guys realize Omega Flowey is supposed to look like he took control of the determination extractor right? Both the skull thing and the generator next to the elevator
 
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ArgonBern said:
you guys realize Omega Flowey is supposed to look like he took control of the determination extractor right? Both the skull thing and the generator next to the elevator
Pretty sure most people noticed that after the fact, the discussion was mostly referring to how this boss fight was not pixel art like the rest of the game.
 
Fumako said:
I get where you're getting at, but how would you have approached this?
I really think there was no other way to approach what the boss wanted to convey as effectively as it did.
Thought about this at work and came up with "Plant matter as circuitry" as a possible avenue. So I'd imagine he could take the form of a screen consuming overgrowth of vines and branches that could be drawn/animated to look like they are penetrating your monitor showing that he's merging with the technology that runs his world. Arranging them to resemble a sort of natural circuit board and maybe keep the random fleshy bits because that still looks cool having a mishmash of other things inside of him.

Another thing that I thought about was the difference between normal and combat sprites. Since sprites seen in the battle maps lack color (There are some exceptions like Asgore's spear) but abomination Flowey is very vibrant. So keeping with that give Flowey the same, or more, level of detail as those given to combat sprites and keep him colored. So instead of going photorealistic go for high detail sprites.

And lose the computer screen face.

But really even if you changed his looks you would have to look at his moves used in his fight like the fingers that shoot projectiles and photorealistic bombs being dropped as well. Regardless of my complaint his aesthetics are consistent and in another style of game I'd be ok with it 100%. Flowey looking the way he did didn't ruin the game for me and the Asriel fight makes up for it in spades. It was just something that stuck out to me as a really bizarre direction to take his power up.

RemiKz said:
Pretty sure most people noticed that after the fact, the discussion was mostly referring to how this boss fight was not pixel art like the rest of the game.
Yeah because I totally didn't just make that connection when I read that *cough*
 
Me: Turned off sync for Undertale before getting new computer, installed it as soon as I got it
>Finally try opening it, sees it goes to Intro, sync didn't go through and I can replay Undertale without feeling bad.
I had to immediately close it though because the first notes of the opening fucking get me right here
Either way
 
Found a very good Undertale inspired animation featuring a certain glamorous opponent. Obvious spoilers because it details an entire boss encounter.
 
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So after now finishing the pacifist and neutral endings, I can safely say that Undertale is very...meh to me. Its a lot like Minecraft, when I finally got around to playing it, it was everywhere and I was sick of it, which didnt help my outlook on the game at all. Undertale just didn't feel...I don't know...thorough? It felt like a lot of ideas and random designs thrown into a fairly simple art style. The monsters run a giant gambit for both enemies and npcs, and tbh it felt jarring thinking about it all.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the story. Its meta in places, serious in others, and comedic through most of it. I did laugh a lot, but I found it hard to connect to a lot of these characters when moments happened. The comedy and serious moments didn't feel balanced or paced right I guess.

Now, I do wish to clarify that I liked a lot of the cast, but the story didn't really stick with me too much. Just throwing my opinion now that I've played enough to have a concrete opinion on the game.
 
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Hello beauties and gentlebeauties.

 
45 seconds in and I gave up. I can only stare into the void for so long.
 
I can't be Asagore on my first time through (Pacifist run). Man I suck.

I forget, you move during orange right?
 
Master Chibi said:
I can't be Asagore on my first time through (Pacifist run). Man I suck.

I forget, you move during orange right?
That's right. When the attack is blue, you don't move. Don't worry; there are plenty of those who haven't beaten Asgore on the first try.
 
I've tried 3 times at this point. :S
 
Don't worry: it took me somewhere between 5-15 tries to beat him. Just keep at it, and you'll win eventually.

Granted, I was stupid, and still had Tough Glove for that fight... but regardless, you can do it.
 
I'm not sure I have anything, I sold most of it for $$$ since I blew it on the Muffet fight lol
 
If you're still having trouble, here is my expert advice:
Fill your inventory with a shit ton of bisicles.
You laugh at me now, but this carried me through all the bosses.
 
Master Chibi said:
I can't be Asagore on my first time through (Pacifist run). Man I suck.

It's alright, Asgore is one of the harder fights on pacifist. A few things to keep in mind:

Always always always talk to him for the debuff, it makes him so much easier, it's worth the turn investment.

If you're out-out of healing items and mostly out of money, there's a few things you can do. If you have enough money to buy Cloudy Glasses (30 g) then you can sell them at the Tem Shop for profit to buy Bisicles (Which is by far the best healing item in pacifist aside from a few moments). If you don't, then you can use Dog Residue to sell infinitely (Though it might be faster to just try and get Dog Salads).

It's never too late to head back to New Home and grab the Worn Dagger and Heart Locket, they help immensely in the fight.

Asgore's attacks can be hard to dodge until you get a feel for them, but one thing to keep in mind is that Asgore will always reduce you to one HP before he'll kill you outright. Just something to keep in minds so you don't waste healing items.
 
And I'm just sitting here having beat Asgore on my first try, with no prior knowledge and trying to talk him out of the fight for far too long...

Carry on.
 
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Kawalorn said:
And I'm just sitting here having beat Asgore on my first try, with no prior knowledge and trying to talk him out of the fight for far too long...
Are you...
me?
 
Say that to people who tried to do that with Flowey.
 
I actually didn't know that you could lose the Flowey fight until I watched a playthrough later. Every time I got close to death, one of the SOUL mini games would happen, which you can't die on, and I just assumed that was the way it was always supposed to go.
 
MMan7172 said:
I actually didn't know that you could lose the Flowey fight until I watched a playthrough later. Every time I got close to death, one of the SOUL mini games would happen, which you can't die on, and I just assumed that was the way it was always supposed to go.
I didn't die either, I kept getting the magic pixel and seemed to miss, even when I intentionally tried to die to see what the game over screen would look like, magic pixel.
 
yeah that's the mindfuck with this game, i don't know if i'm doing it 'right' or not even when im just trying everything i can think of lol
 
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The Merchandise at Fangamer has been restocked
There are also new shirts and the TORIEL PLUSH
 
I am hyped as fuck for the Papyrus statue though.
I wonder if those who got the discount also got their Toriel plush Mettaton'd in the face. After all, the discount does change the look of the postcard you get and Mettaton mentions Toriel plushies with his face in the game.

EDIT: okay there's this Enhancement pack they offer at one extra dollar on the info page. It's probably a Mettaton face accessory. I'm calling it.
 
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Yo JoJo fans, I found out that Papyrus Tarrot card is the Hierophant...

which makes him Kakyoin
I can't believe that Papyrus got killed by Mount Ebbot
 
HOLY SHIT UNDERTALE PINS I AM SUCH A FUCKING WHORE FOR PINS

Also how would one go about in cosplaying Napstablook? lol
 
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