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So I just got past Asgore and I don't get why anybody who recommends this game doesn't add a giant disclaimer that says "WARNING: YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO ACTUALLY COMPLETE THIS GAME UNLESS YOU ARE loving AMAZING AT BULLET HELL BULLSHIT" loving christ vv thanks, I'll give it a couple more tries I guess.. zzMisc fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 22:05
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Ali Aces posted:So I just got past Asgore and I don't get why anybody who recommends this game doesn't add a giant disclaimer that says "WARNING: YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO ACTUALLY COMPLETE THIS GAME UNLESS YOU ARE loving AMAZING AT BULLET HELL BULLSHIT" Stay determined. That fight is intentionally bullshit and the game quickly starts to compensate for it.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:06
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Lurdiak posted:I dunno, I think putting the most fuckoff hard bosses in the game in the no mercy run is a bit of a deterrent. But they're not invalid choices - your choices are "man up in your pursuit of erasing reality" or "let the good guys win". The difficulty is intentional and a good contrast to your own power at the end of Neutral / True Pacifist. Ali Aces posted:So I just got past Asgore and I don't get why anybody who recommends this game doesn't add a giant disclaimer that says "WARNING: YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO ACTUALLY COMPLETE THIS GAME UNLESS YOU ARE loving AMAZING AT BULLET HELL BULLSHIT" Flowey's damage is kind of logarithmic - the first few hits do a ton of damage, and the last 10 or so hits all do basically nothing. Just focus on staying alive rather than your health bar
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Jan 4, 2016 22:11
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TGLT posted:People are blanking over his argument because he's wrapping up "I don't like that the game is critical of the standard RPG level up monster murder stuff" in purple prose bullshit. That's not why he doesn't like it.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:15
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Ali Aces posted:So I just got past Asgore and I don't get why anybody who recommends this game doesn't add a giant disclaimer that says "WARNING: YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO ACTUALLY COMPLETE THIS GAME UNLESS YOU ARE loving AMAZING AT BULLET HELL BULLSHIT" Your "progress" between each stage of the fight is preserved, so if you can survive long enough to get past the sirens you aren't losing everything when you die.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:16
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Nanomashoes posted:That's not exactly hard to understand. This thread is living proof that the "message" and themes of Undertale are very accessbile (and that's not a bad thing). Jerry has an actual argument that people are completely blanking over and not engaging with by going "he just doesn't UNDERSTAND, it's too challenging for him." You can agree or disagree with his argument, and he straight up admits at the end of that blog post that it's purely personal reasons that he doesn't like the game, but you can't just refuse to acknowledge it. It's fine if he doesn't like the game, and I don't think anyone (at least in this thread) is criticizing him because of his opinion. However, his argument is roundabout and his word usage is nearly esoteric. He seems to intentionally avoid having too much clarity. It feels tremendously insincere, which seems almost comical after his criticism of "Double Reverse Irony." From what I could make of it, he is unable to form a definite opinion on Undertale (which is fine), and his reluctance to form an opinion has lead to "hyper-earnest teens" accusing him of failing to fully engage with the game (which is an unfair criticism on their part, and he is right to be exasperated by it). He then argues that he his reluctance to give a definite opinion is because he has fully engaged with the game. "I’m delighted by the iconoclasm intellectually and repulsed by it viscerally; if nothing else, it’s providing an intense psychological workout." Maybe he should have actually said that, assuming that actually was what he meant to say. As it is, his failure to clearly express his point makes it seem like he's unwilling to engage with his audience, which (quite ironically) handicaps his argument.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:22
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Nanomashoes posted:That's not why he doesn't like it. "Parody can be revelatory of weakness in the subject, but it can also reveal strength; it can reveal what’s left after the softest parts are washed away. " "It is insufficiently reverent, and does not perform the proper obeisances. Others like it for precisely these reasons. I’m delighted by the iconoclasm intellectually and repulsed by it viscerally; if nothing else, it’s providing an intense psychological workout." I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming it's the way the game tackles typical RPG stuff, because that's really the only time it's being iconoclastic or parodic. He certainly isn't willing to elaborate on what exactly got to him. He'd probably be able to write a ton more words, meaningful words even, if he was willing to actually get specific.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:22
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OH poo poo BEATEN Thanks, just surviving long enough to get to the first transition period was enough. Still have no idea how you're supposed to dodge the eye-vomit but staying at the bottom-middle was enough to avoid everything else long enough. And yeah, after surviving that first stint it got MUCH easier. Thanks.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:27
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Jerry. posted:
fyi, this is what critical mass bullshit looks like. Final Fantasy 3/6, while a pretty good game, is not some holy pinnacle of gaming perfection. Its an over length, overwrought pile of nonsense that has some really fun moments and a whole lot of random battles. It certainly doesn't merit the "behead those who insult Square" treatment.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:29
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Ali Aces posted:OH poo poo BEATEN It's meant to sucker punch you, pretty much. Amazingly, someone's actually managed a no hit run of the entire fight.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:29
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TGLT posted:"Parody can be revelatory of weakness in the subject, but it can also reveal strength; it can reveal what’s left after the softest parts are washed away. " "I dislike the game, but I have to prove it to you on an intellectual/philosophical level instead of just saying I don't like it"
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Jan 4, 2016 22:31
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:I genuinely don't understand Jerry's complaint. That's because he doesn't have any complaints (about the game). The only thing negative he has to say about Undertale is that it's "insufficiently reverent," and then he immediate admits how that can be a good thing. He then says, "I’m delighted by the iconoclasm intellectually and repulsed by it viscerally;" and both of those are meant as compliments. As far as I can tell, he actually respects the game quite a lot.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:35
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TGLT posted:"Parody can be revelatory of weakness in the subject, but it can also reveal strength; it can reveal what’s left after the softest parts are washed away. " The first quote is part of an overall section about how he feels it does parody poorly, not that he's mad about it making fun of RPGs. The second part is that he personally doesn't like that, but I mean 90% of the reasons he dislikes it comes from how it handles the writing, not the subject of the writing. Vargatron posted:"I dislike the game, but I have to prove it to you on an intellectual/philosophical level instead of just saying I don't like it" OK nevermind let's put no thought into anything just simple statements of "me like" or "me no like."
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Jan 4, 2016 22:36
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Nanomashoes posted:That's not why he doesn't like it. Nobody's sure what he IS trying to say, which is why everyone should just drop it again instead of trying to figure it out. Now here's a water sausage:  [X]
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Jan 4, 2016 22:44
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Nanomashoes posted:The first quote is part of an overall section about how he feels it does parody poorly, not that he's mad about it making fun of RPGs. The second part is that he personally doesn't like that, but I mean 90% of the reasons he dislikes it comes from how it handles the writing, not the subject of the writing. I don't think you can separate those two things when you complain that the game is not sufficiently respectful. To demand something be more respectful is to demand it hold its subject matter in a higher regard. If he "intellectual likes" but is "viscerally repulsed" by the "iconoclastic" nature of the game, I think it's safe to assume he's taking issue with what the game is attack rather than how or the fact that it is. If he took issue with the writing, I can't imagine he'd like it on an intellectual level unless what he's trying to say is "well I like the idea of some one taking down RPGs but not like this", but even that still means you feel it's not treating something with the respect it somehow deserves.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:46
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If Undertale of all things isn't giving old JRPG's the respect they deserve, you'd have to join a loving monastery of random encounters to achieve the proper level of reverence.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:52
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I'm adding "insufficiently reverential" to my shutdown bin. Whenever someone uses something from that category, like for instance "wake up sheeple", I know that nothing they are going to say will be of any consequence.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:53
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Real talk the Final Fantasy 6 opera scene had me rolling once the singing started.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:57
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A.o.D. posted:I'm adding "insufficiently reverential" to my shutdown bin. Whenever someone uses something from that category, like for instance "wake up sheeple", I know that nothing they are going to say will be of any consequence. I don't think that phrase is going to make its way into the casual public lexicon anytime soon.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:58
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Oxxidation posted:I don't think that phrase is going to make its way into the casual public lexicon anytime soon. It's floating around Tumblr already. It could yet meme.
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Jan 4, 2016 23:07
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Oxxidation posted:I don't think that phrase is going to make its way into the casual public lexicon anytime soon. I'm not putting anything past the Internet any more, frankly. And yeah, my beef with Jerry.'s word soup is just that: it's word soup. I took the time to read it as closely as I can manage and I still can't tell if he actually has a beef with the game or not and if he does if it's for a good reason. It's obfuscated behind too many goddamn syllables and, yes, Double Reverse Irony. But then frankly I'm quite tired of online irony sarcasm facetiousness etc etc ad goddamn nauseum as a whole, so maybe it's me. 
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Jan 4, 2016 23:13
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Ciaphas posted:I'm not putting anything past the Internet any more, frankly. Yeah, he probably has decent arguments that I could work with/agree with about the game, because it definitely looks like he's given it a lot of thought, but in absolutely no way do I feel like he's conveying any of this well. He's just trying as hard as he can to flex his vocabulary while talking about a game. I don't mean that as an outright insult, he probably just wants to pseud-perform for his audience since it's expected that he is a wordy person, but he's still radically screwing up what could have been a decent dissection of a game he seems to like.
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Jan 4, 2016 23:24
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TGLT posted:I don't think you can separate those two things when you complain that the game is not sufficiently respectful. To demand something be more respectful is to demand it hold its subject matter in a higher regard. TGLT posted:If he "intellectual likes" but is "viscerally repulsed" by the "iconoclastic" nature of the game, I think it's safe to assume he's taking issue with what the game is attack rather than how or the fact that it is. This is not an uncommon opinion, and a lot of people have expressed similar thoughts. How many times in this very thread have people said that they were surprised how violent and emotionally disturbing the genocide ending was--and that it was a better game for it? The twisted thing is that, from what I can tell, the PA guy seems to have been strongly impressed by Undertale, even if he personally didn't enjoy the game. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 23:24
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Schwarzwald posted:Immediately after he says that he acknowledges how that lack of respect can be a point in Undertale's favor. He's not making demands of the game, he's merely stating his own opinion Yes, but not a point in favor for him. "Others like it for precisely that reason" would mean he's not one of those people. So either he dislikes it for that, or is indifferent to it. But he also says "the thing it is dismantling is too close to me" which doesn't really strike me as indifference. No, he's not literally calling up Toby Fox to demand this be a different game, but if he's bothered by its irreverence, then it's because he feels the subject matter is deserving of more respect. That it would be a better game for him it if it did treat its subject matter with respect. And maybe he isn't, and if that's the case he should really drop the thesaurus and communicate that point more clearly. Schwarzwald posted:It's not that he "intellectual likes" but is "viscerally repulsed" by the game, it's that he "intellectual likes" and is "viscerally repulsed" by the game. He approves of the fact that Undertale repulses him. I guess so? Coming after "others like it for that" I took it to mean that was part of the reason he didn't like it, or at least didn't totally like it. The whole thing really suffers from being a lot of what he thinks the game is in broad strokes but not specifically why he feels that way or how it is those thing. Just some solid examples would clear up a lot of the confusion about what he's apparently trying to say. For example, I think Genocide's criticism of typical RPG violence is undermined by the fact that its monsters are mostly just people that look funny, but in most RPGs they're either animals, aggressors, or magical hate machines. Monsters in Undertale aren't like people in Spec Ops because monsters aren't real and there's no actual basis for any of it. That fact doesn't totally invalidate its criticisms, but it's a similarity that the game draws upon, in the last dialogue bit at the end of genocide, that I feel disconnects it from its much better criticism of violent power fantasies in general.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:16
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Glad I finally pushed through that battle, I went back and made friends and got the true pacifist ending and this game is adorable and I really could not care less what some obnoxious internet weirdo with a lovely yet bizarrely popular webcomic has to say. And I don't understand why anyone thinks PA went downhill, that thing was never funny. Heh, I like what they did with the 'special thanks' backer credits.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:22
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Ali Aces posted:Glad I finally pushed through that battle, I went back and made friends and got the true pacifist ending and this game is adorable and I really could not care less what some obnoxious internet weirdo with a lovely yet bizarrely popular webcomic has to say. I'm glad you liked the game. 
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Jan 5, 2016 00:24
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Abyssal Squid posted:Now here's a water sausage: Is the poking sharp teeth (which Sans wouldn't have) a reference to something?
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Jan 5, 2016 00:36
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TGLT posted:The whole thing really suffers from being a lot of what he thinks the game is in broad strokes but not specifically why he feels that way or how it is those thing. Just some solid examples would clear up a lot of the confusion about what he's apparently trying to say. This is definitely the problem. He seems so determined to prevent discussion that he becomes deliberately obtuse and indirect. It's as if he felt obligated to provide his opinion on the game despite not wanting to give it. I'm curious why he even bothered at all.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:36
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Ali Aces posted:Glad I finally pushed through that battle, I went back and made friends and got the true pacifist ending and this game is adorable and I really could not care less what some obnoxious internet weirdo with a lovely yet bizarrely popular webcomic has to say. I just did both of those a few hours ago too, and I was literally tearing up because I'm a huge baby who loves the power of friendship, especially when it comes across as earnestly as it did here. I'm left with the same feeling The Witcher 3 gave me where I know there are more endings, but I was so satisfied with what I got that I don't really want to go back. What a fantastically charming game.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:43
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Fine, so I guess we're going in-depth on this PA stuff. Quoting your earlier post so everyone can operate from the same translation:Nanomashoes posted:OK so to understand a Penny Arcade blog post, first you have to grasp that Jerry Hokins is a kind of mad scientist of writing, who tears apart the English language and stitches it back together in a horrifying, unnatural form all the while cackling with a mad glee. His blog posts are bad from any sort of technical sense, but to someone who can read the sheer joy he takes from assembling these thought-structures from previously cogent and logical points is palpable. He has a lot of fun writing bad stuff and people should have the same fun reading it. Anyways, the blog post is mostly him voicing the complaint that in order to criticize Undertale, constructively or not, you have to go through a feeling out process where fans will grill you with the game's hot memes to make sure that you "get it." Now the excerpt that you have cut out is a pretty simple read: the first sentence is his only criticism of the actual game, that he doesn't like it's rhetorical tone. In his eyes, it tries to flip flop too much on whether or not it's being sincere or ironic. For example: the game has Alphys say anime is good, sincerely, then it makes fun of her for being a fat loser shut in, turning its position on liking anime into an ironic one, then the ending is all feel good and anime is secretly real all along, and good again. He feels he has come across this tone enough to give it its own distinct name of Double Reverse Irony. The second sentence is about establishing his feelings about DRI which is that while it's bad, he doesn't hate it unless people try to "transform a work into a litmus test" IE saying that if you don't like Undertale you "just don't GET it" and disregarding anything you have to say about it. That behavior is what angers him, and is why Tycho is angry in the comic. The third (and fragment fourth) sentence is about his overall opinion of the game, not just its tone, saying that it's hard for him to form an "objective" opinion of good or bad on the game because he's too wrapped up in it, and the irony/sincerity thing is a pet peeve that affects him too deeply to be an impartial judge. Then he goes on for another paragraphs explaining why he thinks Double Reverse Irony is bad, and since he is intimately familiar with bad writing he lays out a pretty solid argument that you can agree or disagree with based on your personal taste re: parody and satire. He then ends with a proper conclusion once again summing up his thoughts about the game which is: it's complicated. He likes that it tries but that it fall short in his eyes for reasons that others may like it for. I have a friend who's really into US politics. Not really about a particular ideology, but the day-to-day bullshit they talk about on political blogs. He'll ask what everyone thought of last night's debate, whether a bill will pass, stuff like that. He gets excited about the subject sometimes, people poke fun at him because of it, and after awhile he started occasionally overblowing it for comedic effect. My point is, being a politics wonk is one of the facets of his personality. Equal parts annoying and entertaining, it's simultaneously a quirky gimmick and a positive trait. He's my friend. When I first encountered Alphys in my Undertale playthrough, I was reminded of that guy. Her lines are obviously video game-ey and going for laughs, but the tone seemed like something resembling an actual friend. So when I read that Alphys example you posted, I just thought "Wait, isn't that an example of the 'sincerity' people often praise Undertale for? Is THAT 'DRI'?" It turns out that what I thought was a genuine positive in the game's favor was actually a cardinal sin. I guess?? See, I'm ignorant of DRI as a writing trope. If it's being ground into the dirt by a dozen recent works of fiction, then I've either failed to notice them or inadvertently avoided them entirely. But I think that's part of the reason why I can really enjoy this game. If Jerry went in with expectations that Undertale was yet another one of some new wave junk that overuses a certain writing gimmick, then that premise (and the community surrounding it) is going to taint his experience from the outset. But that doesn't mean it's correct to judge Undertale outside its own merits. It's too similar to a guy I once knew who avoided the original Half-life because he was "sick of Quake clones". edit: An addendum that I just realized: Undertale is a game that the Gamefaqs crowd and their ilk call "an SJW game", and here's a guy who can't enjoy it because he's being triggered. The other big issue I take is the notion that Undertale is a parody of RPGs and disrespectful to them. Oh, it's a subversion of the genre and often meddles with the player's expectations, certainly! But the game is unique and effective precisely because the core premise here is so much different from a typical RPG. In most games, committing genocide is unquestionably the correct and moral choice, because you are protecting good people from malevolent non-people. (There's no moral ambiguity when it comes to the eradication of Ebola.) If Undertale was chastising the player under the premise that all those evil monsters from the decades of RPGs were actually perfectly nice and you're a piece of poo poo for killing them, then I could understand how someone would assume it's disrespectful to the genre. But it's not. As for parody, the game isn't devoid of it -- the Ruins has a literal handholding tutorial segment, there's the dating HUD gag, and of course the Opera. But that just serves as a contrast to what Jerry is calling parody, which is just a fundamental misuse of the term. It's like saying that G.R.R. Martin's books are a parody of Tolkien's. This wouldn't bother me if large portions of his piece weren't branching off of it. Magitek fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 00:49
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Niton posted:In a similar vein, unless you're doing True Pacifist or Genocide, Undertale never really does anything to stop you - you can kill basically anyone, be as much of a dick as you want, backtrack all the time (and get new content!), and the game never goes this is an invalid choice, try again. Being able to play exactly how you want through the first run is something that's really unique for a modern RPG. Not quite true, the game really encourages you to not kill Papyrus.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:54
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From rereading that PA post a few days later, it seems like while none of his ideas is automatically incoherent, they can look that way because he hasn't developed them at all or provided any examples. He's just pushed out ideas a sentence at a time and immediately moved on to the next. That's the sort of thing you'd point out as an issue in first-year student writing. "It is insufficiently reverent, and does not perform the proper obeisances. Others like it for precisely these reasons." Okay, what are the proper obeisances? What is it about this irreverence and lack of proper protocol that "works" in a way that causes its target audience to like it? Unlike many folks here, it seems, I don't have a problem with any of his word choices per se--they're all legitimate words and nothing leaps out at me as being completely misused. But I do see where it seems that way because the density of flowery language is so high and the level of explanation is so low. His ideas need more room to breathe. Again, this reminds me of the sort of thing you see with entry-level writers who are thinking at a relatively high level but forget the need to develop and explicate their ideas for the reader (to say nothing of the need for editing).
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Jan 5, 2016 00:59
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Keiya posted:Not quite true, the game really encourages you to not kill Papyrus. the game still lets you kill papyrus. there are no "but thou must" moments
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Jan 5, 2016 01:01
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Keiya posted:Not quite true, the game really encourages you to not kill Papyrus. The characters encourage you not to kill Papyrus. The game is fine with it.
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Jan 5, 2016 01:11
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I don't hate Tycho's view on Undertale on its own merits. Not because I agree with him, or see his point or anything: I just don't know what his loving point is. That's really something that has to be handled before tackling his views themselves, because I've got no clue what he's saying.
Cleretic fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 01:32
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Keiya posted:Not quite true, the game really encourages you to not kill Papyrus. The fact that it's incorrect from the perspective of "this character is built up by the writing to be an amazingly good and innocent person" doesn't mean it's incorrect from the perspective of "the game is objectively worse if you kill him regardless". In fact, the game reacts to you killing papyrus, and in a semi-believable manner: sans despises everything about you, monsters evacuate, undyne is incredibly pissed off. The only way it can be considered the wrong choice is if you buy into the world of the game, and it becomes an actual moral choice instead of a content based one. It's the fact that people buy into that that makes the game so loving good at what it does! I guess you could argue that Demon-Chara's little speech at the end is a condemnation instead of a fulfillment of what you've been doing all along, and I wouldn't argue that it could have been presented in a less morally judgmental way while still conveying the message. (Even though the game has been out for a while, it's still worth not spoiling: it's sold nearly a million copies, and people will inevitably trickle in here from time to time. This isn't directed at anyone in particular, by the way.)
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Jan 5, 2016 01:35
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I honestly think at least part of it is "those people" like it, and "those people" bullied him and Mike about dickwolves, so they are not to be trusted.
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Jan 5, 2016 02:02
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YES bread posted:the game still lets you kill papyrus. there are no "but thou must" moments The game does not allow you to just let Asgore kill you and take your soul.
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Jan 5, 2016 02:11
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okay? "but thou must" means the game gives you the option, you select the option, then the game goes "psyche, you actually can't" it has nothing to do with the game nudging you in specific directions or not having those options in the first place
YES bread fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 02:20
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Nanomashoes posted:The first quote is part of an overall section about how he feels it does parody poorly, not that he's mad about it making fun of RPGs. The second part is that he personally doesn't like that, but I mean 90% of the reasons he dislikes it comes from how it handles the writing, not the subject of the writing. He says that it is too critical of RPGs without also paying homage to them. Ignoring the fact that the game is a walking talking tribute to how great Earthbound, another RPG, was, and also that it shows how good RPGs can be at making people attached to characters, it's still a really stupid criticism. Also it looks like it was written by a college freshman with a thesaurus open at his side. Augus fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 02:23
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