|
SirSamVimes posted:What about the shrieking mass who feel that if someone plays the game in a way they disapprove of, they must be corrected? Because there is a whole lot of that. If any game will prove that you have this in you, it's Undertale, because there's just so many ways it can go that someone else's first playthrough will always feel 'wrong' to you. I always thought I was pretty chill about that sort of stuff until my friend started playing it around Christmas. The first thing I heard from him about it was 'Toriel almost kicked my butt', and it's amazing how many ways that single short sentence made me twitch. He still found a few things I didn't on my first run, but the fact his approach was 'kill unless I can't manage it' really bothered me. And now he's doing the genocide playthrough I'll never be able to bring myself to do, and that also hurts. Basically, when learning about other people's playthroughs, I think everyone becomes Flowey in the Ruins. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Jan 2, 2016 |
#
¿
Jan 2, 2016 14:01
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:17 |
|
|
stringball posted:I love how everyone told you he's super nice and cool and he is when you meet him, he at least allows you to say goodbye or if you have "unfinished business" you can do it before he slaughters your mercy button and then you probably I like that he's one of the few to really, properly understand saving. It's him, Sans and Flowey, and that's it. And it's really understated with Asgore, it only comes up in that he's fully understanding when you say he's killed you before. And while this probably singles me out as a massive wuss, I do want to say it because of how much I've been thinking about it: I think Flowey (and to a lesser extent the fallen human) is perhaps one of the scariest villains to my own sensibilities. Because he messes with what you know as his own constraints and limitations; the neutral ending, and his boss fight, is all about taking away all of the actual 'game' features that you see as your own, and using them against you. He's not just menacing you directly, he's using the medium itself to do so. It's unnerving as hell, and even though it's been a week since I finished the game I can still get kinda nervous about them. They already break the confines of the game, who can say they aren't just biding their time?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2016 04:13
|
|
|
GeneX posted:I hope this isn't too tangential in this, the LP meta-discussion thread, but I think Undertale is a very good game and that watching a let's play of it doesn't have the same impact as actually playing it. I agree, but I also think that the personalizing of the experience leads it to being really good to watch after you've completed it yourself. After you've gotten 'your' Undertale experience, it can be really interesting to go to Youtube and see some other person doing it, making different choices, observations and mistakes that you would have never considered. It's a supplementary experience, rather than a total replacement, but for once there is a place for the blind, undirected LP.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2016 14:26
|
|
|
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 |
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2016 01:32
|
|
|
ZiegeDame posted:Yeah but if Flowey was capable of killing Asgore without you weakening him first, wouldn't he have done that already? I'm not sure where exactly they get this info, probably from the genocide ending, but according to the wiki apparently Flowey has killed Asgore, as well as basically everyone else, in previous timelines. He just hasn't done it this time. And just checking, this is fanart of sorts, right? I just want to be sure, since I'm vaguely planning an article on W.D. Gaster for my blog about cut content.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2016 03:51
|
|
|
Raserys posted:I eagerly look forward to Undertale appearing on Top 10 Games You Didn't Know Were Actually Horrifying lists and video game creepypasta in the future The neutral ending basically already is a creepypasta, the leap will not be a big one to make.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2016 08:03
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:His point is that there's no soul left to put back in, and the only experimentations with bringing people who've lost their souls back to life via souls and determination were a huge failure. The game makes it clear that, without a soul, you can't live, except for Flowey whose lack of a soul is the whole reason he is alive in the first place. So it wouldn't really make sense in the game's world for it to just spontaneously happen in the name of a happier ending. Something I only realized when the comments of a video I was watching yesterday pointed it out: there actually is one instance of a monster surviving through determination. It's the reason Undyne becomes Undying in the genocide run, and why she melts after you kill her again.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 03:04
|
|
|
This question is weird to me, because I just realized that I genuinely do not think of any part of the game as bad enough to count as a 'least favorite'. I suppose it has to be Asgore in my largely-pacifist first run, just because it outstayed its welcome. I get and like what they're doing, but if you're doing it at level 1 it goes on for too long since you're super weak and flimsy. I feel like Mettaton EX was a bit too much, too, but he's at least an engaging idea. Favorite part of the game has to be Omega Flowey, though. The True Lab's got a lot of good in it too, so it's a solid second place, but it's got the bad luck of competing with a boss that successfully managed... that. All deserved credit to Snowdin, Hotland and all that, the whole game is genuinely fantastic, but Omega Flowey elevates it from 'a good game' to 'holy poo poo what is even going on'.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 07:10
|
|
|
Toxxupation posted:hey. don't you insult alphys. she apologizes totally flaccidly about two minutes before the climax of the game happens, so that totally invalidates all the horrible and downright dangerous things she does or enables. Alphys is a terrible person that is both aware of that fact, and unable to stop herself being such. Depressingly, I think many of us know that sort of person, or are that sort of person. Cerebro posted:Am I seeing things, or does Flowey stalk you in the Ruins sometimes offscreen? That happens all through the game, actually. You can double back at a lot of points and catch it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 07:29
|
|
|
Toxxupation posted:Yeah, it's not like the game never condemns her for her actions in the slightest way, or she gets the happiest and most comparatively undeserved ending of the final group, or that her motivations for literally everything she does in the game is "me me me me me me me me me". it's not like, those things are true, or something. because if they were, she'd feel like a bad character who the game completely fails at characterizing as anything but a sorta-jokey loser who gets everything she wants through no influence of her own. The game does not directly do those things, but in both the true ending and the genocide ending she gets a shot at redemption. In the pacifist ending she finally admits her lying and manipulative tendencies and gets the support of Undyne in bettering herself. And in the genocide ending she's responsible for mitigating a lot of your massacre. And there's also like, a LOT of neutral endings where she apparently commits suicide because she lost the people who kept her going. So her happy endings are only really noticeable because she specifically gets them, as opposed to (for example) Papyrus just sort of lucking out. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jan 6, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 07:39
|
|
|
Raserys posted:Alphys blocks Flowey's attack with electricity magic so she's clearly capable of some kind of magic. Whether not it has any use in combat is anyone's guess. This is all I will be contributing to the Great Alphys Debate She uses Mettaton's moves in the Lost Soul fight, too. Since she made his body, it's not surprising that she'd have similar attacks. Angry Avocado posted:Alphys commits suicide if you kill either of her best friends, how does that not count as "receiving deep consequences for their failure"? Even if you're going to make the argument that this doesn't count because they're her actions and not yours, it still shows the literally unbearable emotional toll she suffered as a result of what you did, and what she didn't do to prevent it. And yeah, Toxx seems to be largely ignoring that Alphys does get 'punished' for her actions, it's just from an internal source. And that, honestly, a vast majority of her possible endings are pretty poo poo. EDIT: Actually, just remembered. Mettaton pretty clearly disapproves of Alphys' shenanigans too, he just doesn't have much of a choice but to go along with it. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Jan 6, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 09:49
|
|
|
Filthy Hans posted:Possibly stupid question: are Undertale and other current 8-bit indie titles actually coded in an 8-bit system, or are they merely using 8-bit style graphics? Depends on the game. Some are designed with specific system specs in mind; the best example I can think of is Shovel Knight, which was designed with NES hardware in mind. An NES could actually pull off most of Shovel Knight, although certain things are beyond it (I think there's like two colors in the game's entire palette that aren't doable on an NES, and they're both on Polar Knight). Most games just use it as an aesthetic, though. Undertale's made with Game Maker, it's only the graphics that are designed to be retro, being largely inspired by the Mother games. Undertale is something of a weird exception there, though, it uses the aesthetic as a limitation specifically so that it can find opportunities to break it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 13:52
|
|
|
Top Hats Monthly posted:anime , also known as 'cartoons with sword's', is most assuredly real.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 16:31
|
|
|
Krilion posted:You can pet FIVE different dogs. My favorite part about the 'at least five dogs' joke is when it actually gets called back to by the game. You're not sure how many dogs the Endogeny counts as.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2016 03:44
|
|
|
kvx687 posted:He also said a while back that he recycled most of the Ruins songs from previous projects, and Falling Down was one he specifically named. As I recall, the recycled songs from old projects are Falling Down, Heartache, Bonetrousle, Megalovania, and Another Medium (which was at least modified from its original status as a Doctor remix for Homestuck). Cleretic fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jan 9, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2016 04:25
|
|
|
Yeah, I haven't really looked into Pony Island, but it really doesn't actually look like it does the same stuff as Undertale. Both of them play with the fact that they're games, but Pony Island looks to be all about that. Undertale only uses it as part of an overall narrative, and in a very different way. So even putting aside any issues with quality, it's a bit like going 'oh, you liked Skyrim? You should play Saint's Row, it's got a character creator too'.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2016 07:03
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:Other way around. Pony Island's been knocking about in some form or another for a couple years now, apparently. Its Steam page declares it to be one of Zoe Quinn's games of 2014, which gives a vague idea. I remember that list as the one that introduced me to The Uncle, a Twine game which ALSO plays with very similar themes, so I guess there's just been a lot of similar ideas floating about as of late. Homestuck might have something to do with it, since while not being a video game it definitely does play in a similar field. The Uncle is what I'd recommend to people who want more stuff like Undertale, by the way. It's a horror game through and through, but it uses a lot of similar ideas Undertale does.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2016 07:28
|
|
|
Tengames posted:the other thing is that he likely could't avoid killing the humans even if he wanted to (and he certainly gives you every chance to delay actually battling): eventually, any human in the underground is going to want to kill him for his soul to get out. Its kill or be killed. The ability to SAVE goes to the person with the most determination in the underground. Even if Flowey did exist before all of the previous humans came (which doesn't look to be true, the timeline seem that the sixth soul was harvested, then Alphys made Flowey), a human will always have the most determination in the underground by virtue of being the only body that can house it reliably. Basically, Asgore's whole strategy revolves around hoping he's in the one timeline that works out. And at least with you, that's never going to happen.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2016 08:23
|
|
|
My theory on the other souls was timeline splits. Saving is a form of time travel, with different runs being divergent timelines, which the game makes pretty clear. The game simply takes place in a timeline where six different humans before you died; it's possible, and even likely if this is true, that they did reload and escape the underground. That's just not the game we're playing. It's a bit like how XCOM 2 is set in the future of a failed Enemy Unknown game.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2016 02:02
|
|
|
Normal Adult Human posted:If I beat undertale, then play another game, am I still playing undertale? Yes. Undertale is your life now. Haven't you noticed the Papyrus/Burgerpants fanart spontaneously appearing on your hard drive?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2016 04:38
|
|
|
Yeah, I don't think there's anything structurally all that unique about Undertale's morality. What is unique is that it goes harder on both extremes than any other game around, and is completely naked about it all. Look at the pacifist ending, and you'll see perhaps the kindest goddamn protagonist a video game has ever had. Even the brightest heroes usually have some blood on their hands, but your approach is amazingly peaceful. You made friends with everybody, including the ones outright trying to murder you; your response to meeting an ungodly eldritch abomination is to play fetch with it; and when somebody kills everyone you've ever met in an effort to destroy the world, you make friends with him, too. Sure, you can be a pacifist in Fallout, and you can go straight Paragon in Mass Effect, but even when you're trying you can never be that angelic anywhere else. And nothing's really forcing you to do any of that, you're likely just doing it because you want to be a good person. And as far as the pacifist ending goes in letting you be a good person, the genocide ending permits you to be a monster so horrible that I struggle to think of many characters, playable or not, that are worse. Simply stating the fact that you kill everyone doesn't even go far enough to describe it. You kill everybody personally, including innocent children, people just offering you hospitality, and people preemptively begging for mercy. Sure, you eventually kill the world, but that doesn't say as much as the deeds you personally did to reach that. And the lack of reason one way or the other is even stronger here, because what you're doing is so unabashedly awful. You're murdering everybody for no in-game reason, you're doing it because of you. And even the neutral ending plays into it. When you don't stick to either extreme and make entirely your own choice on how to play the game, it doesn't really judge you for it. It makes efforts to understand you, based on how you approached everything, but it doesn't say you're right or wrong for doing any of it. So I think if anything can be learned from Undertale's approach to morality, it's how players actually approach it if you don't push them any one way or the other. Which is that they'll explore every inch of the spectrum anyway, no matter how far you stretch it or how little you give them for doing so.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2016 13:57
|
|
|
kw0134 posted:What the game doesn't do, is actually stop you from doing anything. It'll tsk-tsk you, and the ramifications of going either route are obvious, but it won't physically pull your hand away from the fire. In most games, you can't kill plot-important characters or torch the capital, or go around [LEFT-HOOK]ing everyone -- or if it does, it'll shake its head sadly and say you've done hosed up, go revert to a save. Here the fact you can and may well be considered an integral part of the game mechanics by modifying the outcome appropriately is something that has relatively few precedents, none I can think of off the top of my head. Right, this is more what I mean. The game does its fair share of talking about what you do, whether it's Sans considering your actions in the Last Corridor or Flowey criticizing your choices in the ruins, but it never stops you. It just gives you your consequences, and it's up to you to decide if you're okay with that. Ultimately, you are the only arbiter of your morality in Undertale; the game will never stop you making a choice, and it only looks down at you for them if you really go off the deep end.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2016 16:16
|
|
|
Augus posted:Barry comes across as pretty genuine at the very least. Yeah, Barry's pretty legit about all this. Ross is definitely hamming it up, but you can tell when something gets him off-guard.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2016 00:54
|
|
|
Well, the Nose Nuzzle Championships was in '98, and the game's set in 201X. So the competition was somewhere between twelve and twenty-one years ago, and hasn't been held since. They clearly held the champinonships sometime soon after the pacifist ending, since Dogamy and Dogaressa's yellow credits mark them as having won afterwards. If the contest was only held by Asgore and Toriel's wishes, and so the championship was never held afterwards, then we have a vague timeframe on how long it's been since Asriel and Chara died and Toriel left. However, this fact is not a given. Or it's just a silly joke that doesn't matter. One of those two things is true.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2016 06:08
|
|
|
Ciaphas posted:Looking forward to when the series goes from hammed-up I feel like Barry will at least make it through Undyne without getting stuck too hard. He's actually remarkably good at the bullet hell stuff; he lasted against Asgore for like ten minutes before he finally realized there was no way out of attacking him. Sans is an entirely different ball game, so that'll be a rough one.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2016 03:30
|
|
to 
to 
, personally
for BPants
|
Roland Jones posted:GameFAQs in general apparently skews towards older gamers, apparently, hence the nostalgia, but, yeah. It's a cesspit. I always figured GameFAQs was a mix of that crowd, and kids who want to seem cool by being into 'classic, retro games' that were out before they were born because they're better than modern games. The video game equivalent of a teenager who's really smug about the fact he listens to Led Zeppelin, basically.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2016 06:02
|
|
|
I think Homestuck has a similar greatest strength and weakness to Undertale: it's the unfiltered story of exactly one person, making exactly what he wants to exist with all his eccentricities. And you probably aren't him, but a window into one person's weirdness, especially when it's mostly your kind of thing too, is great. It has one big flaw that Undertale doesn't, though, and that's not knowing when to stop. I don't mean the overlong chatlogs, I'm fine with those because he's a good writer that's made fun characters, but the problem is he kept getting ideas, and then kept cramming those ideas in without regard for how well it would work. Hussie's said that he's known the whole time how Homestuck will end, and I believe him, but I'm pretty sure he didn't plan three sets of twelve trolls all being relevant despite most of them being, like, super dead. It's in stark contrast to Undertale, where Toby clearly knew not just exactly what he wanted to write, but exactly where he was drawing his boundaries.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2016 08:18
|
|
|
Abyssal Squid posted:This is a gorgeous bit of animation: I don't think that's quite right. I always thought Chara's 'creepy face' was the big, drippy smile thing he does in the genocide ending.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2016 03:33
|
|
|
Samovar posted:The only annoying thing about Lauren's videos (at least she doesn't do it as much) is she continually Acts during Boss fights instead of hitting Spare. It's something I see a few people do. I've been watching both Duncan from the Yogscast and Super Beard Bros. playing, and they both have the same problem there. That tendency at least doesn't cause much problem beyond Snowdin, but both playthroughs fell into the same pitfalls of constantly trying to do poo poo and not thinking to Spare when doing nothing else. That only really causes a problem with Toriel and Snowdrake, though, after that wanton sparing doesn't do much. It is the leading cause of regretting their actions in both of those cases though.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2016 14:15
|
|
|
waywardhorizons posted:Best Papyrus I've ever heard was Sean Chiplock's version. If you're interested, definitely check this out. Skeletor-ish, but much more shrill. That Sans is pretty good, too. It's one of the few versions that could probably convincingly pull off both 'I'm doing a ton of work. A skele-ton' and 'kids like you should be burning in hell'. They're pretty similar to Ross and Barry's takes on them, but a little less cartoony.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2016 07:11
|
|
|
A friend of mine sent me this Bonetrousle remix yesterday, which is utterly amazing. I love both games involved, so it's basically the best remix.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2016 05:47
|
|
|
Muffet was the only character I outright tried to kill, because her fight was so grueling and I couldn't figure out how to spare her. Everything just seemed to be going nowhere, and I couldn't outlast her scripting enough that a way would present itself. But because I hadn't killed anything before then, I was weak as hell in actually fighting her to the point where I couldn't do enough damage to kill her before the telegram arrived anyway.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2016 02:14
|
|
|
Hopping Ghost posted:Are there any other games that actively punish you for doing "bad" things just to see all the content? I don't mean like, the ending is more of a downer than usual, but rather were deliberately made with the creator's intent to criticize completionist play? Not that I think Undertale is the first, I just don't know of any others and I'd like to see the concept explored more. I know Braid's 'get all of the really stupidly hidden collectibles' ending is a big spiel on the lovely things that obsession does to us. I mean, that's not much more than telling you off, it's not really punishment, but there it is.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2016 06:44
|
|
|
Killed By Death posted:So, you can get into the beta for the coming patch through Steam (Toby explained how on his twitter), and some people apparently found something new in Sans' hidden room ...Toby, you motherfucker. There's not much we can read into it yet; one of the three is definitely Gaster, and the other two are probably Papyrus and Sans, but it could easily not be. They're almost certainly the two people Gaster talks to during his Entry 17, though.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2016 07:30
|
|
|
death .cab for qt posted:When Gaster fell into the Core, he was scattered across the universe. He's literally scattered throughout the game files, unfinished and forgotten by the game and everyone in it, despite being present everywhere in the world. Oh my god. Of COURSE he's reimplementing the cut content! And as he patches the game, more and more of Gaster becomes openly present.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2016 07:35
|
|
|
Rayjenkins posted:This is something I'm curious about too. If I recall, this wasn't something you could see until the very end, after the fight with Asriel and you're going through doing your victory lap. Or maybe I don't remember investigating the coffins before the fight. If you check the coffin before Asgore, it's noted as empty and having the fallen human's name on it. It's not open, though. I think the idea is that the flower bed you landed on (or perhaps emerged from?) in the Ruins, that you meet Asriel at, is where Toriel moved the human's body for burial after she left New Home. But it's not confirmed.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2016 09:23
|
|
|
Tengames posted:i didnt realize not holding a direction was also a different note so i had to look it up to figure it out. I hosed that one up, too. I got the rest of it remarkably right given how poo poo I am at music, but without that crucial knowledge I was completely screwed.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2016 04:08
|
|
|
Consist posted:There's nothing wrong with having chiptune-focused songs on the soundtrack, especially with the nature of the game invovled, but y'all are crazy if you don't think Papyrus' theme isn't 50,000% improved the instant those drums kick in during the fight. Like with a lot of Undertale, it's at its best when the limitations and constraints it's pretending to have are being broken. There's a reason that's a common theme with all three final bosses, but Nyeh Heh Heh launching into Bonetrousle with Papyrus' blue attack is the first time it really happens. Kind of unrelated, but thinking about it I do like that every major boss in the game pushes the envelope of 'what you think the game can do' just a bit more, and actually build on each other. Toriel is pretty grounded, but she does introduce Spare having a non-obvious function. Papyrus uses that while adding the soul colors and, through Bonetrousle, that the apparent limitations of the game (in this case, the music) are just affectations that it's willing to break. Undyne provides 'reacharound' options, showing that what you're doing inside of a fight can carry over outside of it and vice versa. Muffet brings in a game function previously untouched by the battle system, forcing you to pay attention to something you're not usually keeping in mind in a fight. The fight takes what Undyne introduced and expands on it, by making money an in-battle function, and by changing things depending on your out-of-battle actions. Mettaton then takes what Muffet does even further, by introducing an entirely new feature you have to keep on top of, manipulating the UI itself to do so. After all of that, it's not even that surprising that Asgore can reach into the UI and shatter the Mercy button. And then, of course, Omega Flowey takes all this to extremes. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jan 21, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2016 08:36
|
|
|
I always felt like Undertale's usage of leitmotifs works very well, because there's always a contextual reason for this tune to come in. Your Best Friend is involved only when something related to Flowey is going on, His Theme is more geared towards Asriel, the game's main theme seems to be dedicated to Frisk and their strengths while Anticipation seems reserved for the Chara dark streak. And there's also Dogsong, which I guess is just a thematic 'stupid poo poo's goin' down' one. The only one that really doesn't work is when Muffet hijacked the ghost leitmotif used by Napstablook and the Mad Dummy, and then did so well with it that it's easy to just kinda forget that it was supposed to be theirs.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2016 14:10
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:17 |
|
|
THE AWESOME GHOST posted:Is that why I saw a dark figure in the mist in the lab? No, the dark figure's always been in the mist. Well, the chance to see him is completely disconnected to the fun values, at least. What happened is that the Gaster followers--and Gaster himself--could only be accessed if you specifically capitalized the F in 'fun' in undertale.ini, and then entered the corresponding value. Since the game always wrote 'fun' as lowercase by itself, they would never trigger without file editing. In the new patch they properly appear with a non-capitalized fun value, so by my math everybody now has a 5% chance to stumble onto one of them (although I think the corridor with the Gaster door has another random element on top of that, so it might be more like 4.something%). Cleretic fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Jan 22, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2016 13:43
|
|