Undertale: Old School Charm with a Subversive Twist
Undertale...
It's pretty hard to talk about in depth while avoiding spoilers, since so much of the experience is tied up in the story.
As a game: The graphics are old-school, but functional. The maps are pretty linear. Some shortcuts open up later, but it can still take a while to walk anywhere. The sound is pleasant for 8-bit-ish music and it's all text with no voice.
The battle mechanics make use of "bullet hell" (ie. use the arrows to avoid all the things coming at your icon) for defense and menu selections for offense. "Hate" might be a strong word for my feelings on reflex-heavy dodging of chaos on-screen, but I'm a long way from liking it. That said, I have to grant this is the most creative, sometimes subversive, use of those mechanics I've ever seen. That makes it slightly above average, perhaps, in this regard, but nothing really great.
As a story: There's a lot of emotion packed into the story of a human child fallen into a realm in which monsters have been sealed. Even a good number of the "random encounters" have a degree of character to them, and the recurring boss types even more so.
While you generally have a choice between killing or showing mercy to those you come across, there's far from total freedom. I wanted to linger at the beginning to talk and learn a bit more, but the only real options were to progress past that or... not play. There are also gaps in the story - the protagonist's history is never really explained. And as subversive as the mechanics are, certain story expectations are flipped and flopped as well.
Overall, it's an enthralling ride and worth every penny (even if I had to suffer through some of the boss fights).
What else to say? Potentially a lot. I really liked the motherly Toriel and wanted to spend more time with her. The "dates" are amusing. Papyrus seems pretty much straight up comic relief, but Sans shows some clear depth well beyond that. Undyne may be a little crazy, but is still cool. Alphys is comically nerdy over some real tragic mad scientist-ness. Asgore is someone I really wanted to sit and talk with rather than fight - and he seemed like-minded, really, even if he was forcing himself to go forward.
I consider the "true pacifist route" the real story, and while it has a pretty darn happy ending, there's still tragedy beneath when you think about the six fallen humans before and question whether their deaths were really necessary. Life really didn't seem all that bad for the monsters in the underground (and, arguably, they might be safer from humans there).
I found the fight with Flowey incredibly frustrating simply because of all the crap he throws on the screen to dodge. I can't overlook that, but it doesn't ruin the game for me either.
The mercy system interestingly rendered so much standard RPG stuff pointless (or even counter-productive): gaining EXP and LV (even subversive abbreviations!), weapon upgrades (though potentially useful against Asgore, I guess), and such.
It's pretty hard to talk about in depth while avoiding spoilers, since so much of the experience is tied up in the story.
As a game: The graphics are old-school, but functional. The maps are pretty linear. Some shortcuts open up later, but it can still take a while to walk anywhere. The sound is pleasant for 8-bit-ish music and it's all text with no voice.
The battle mechanics make use of "bullet hell" (ie. use the arrows to avoid all the things coming at your icon) for defense and menu selections for offense. "Hate" might be a strong word for my feelings on reflex-heavy dodging of chaos on-screen, but I'm a long way from liking it. That said, I have to grant this is the most creative, sometimes subversive, use of those mechanics I've ever seen. That makes it slightly above average, perhaps, in this regard, but nothing really great.
As a story: There's a lot of emotion packed into the story of a human child fallen into a realm in which monsters have been sealed. Even a good number of the "random encounters" have a degree of character to them, and the recurring boss types even more so.
While you generally have a choice between killing or showing mercy to those you come across, there's far from total freedom. I wanted to linger at the beginning to talk and learn a bit more, but the only real options were to progress past that or... not play. There are also gaps in the story - the protagonist's history is never really explained. And as subversive as the mechanics are, certain story expectations are flipped and flopped as well.
Overall, it's an enthralling ride and worth every penny (even if I had to suffer through some of the boss fights).
What else to say? Potentially a lot. I really liked the motherly Toriel and wanted to spend more time with her. The "dates" are amusing. Papyrus seems pretty much straight up comic relief, but Sans shows some clear depth well beyond that. Undyne may be a little crazy, but is still cool. Alphys is comically nerdy over some real tragic mad scientist-ness. Asgore is someone I really wanted to sit and talk with rather than fight - and he seemed like-minded, really, even if he was forcing himself to go forward.
I consider the "true pacifist route" the real story, and while it has a pretty darn happy ending, there's still tragedy beneath when you think about the six fallen humans before and question whether their deaths were really necessary. Life really didn't seem all that bad for the monsters in the underground (and, arguably, they might be safer from humans there).
I found the fight with Flowey incredibly frustrating simply because of all the crap he throws on the screen to dodge. I can't overlook that, but it doesn't ruin the game for me either.
The mercy system interestingly rendered so much standard RPG stuff pointless (or even counter-productive): gaining EXP and LV (even subversive abbreviations!), weapon upgrades (though potentially useful against Asgore, I guess), and such.
I found the music amazing and I was gifted the soundtrack along with the game, I like a lot of the boss themes. As for the story. A genocide run (which mimics a 'true' RPG in the sense that you grind all the enemies in the area until no more show up, kill every boss you face) adds a twist at the end about the first child who fell. It sours the game, over all, however by making your actions (as Frisk) not really your own, instead having been posessed by the murderous spirit of the fallen child, Chara. Also you fight Sans in what is said to be the hardest fight in the game. Though you learn more about Sans as well, that he's aware of the power to "Save", that he's aware the world gets restarted and people lose their memories of events. Except him, apparently. He's not lazy so much as just fatalistic. Why make anything of lasting value knowing it will be re-written?
ReplyDeleteI've read some about the genocide path, but... ugh. Even if I felt like experiencing that (and yeah, I don't), it sounds like too much work. ;) Killing everything you encounter is one thing. Going out of your way to trigger random area encounters until they run out is just burdensome. As for the soundtrack... well, it worked? It was nice, but (as I've had said to me recently and found myself in full agreement with) I am not exactly an audiophile. Music very rarely jumps out at me as a major component of a game/movie. It can either distract me from the media or support it, and if it does the latter, I probably don't fully appreciate how well it does. Alas.
ReplyDelete>Going out of your way to trigger random area encounters until they run out is just burdensome. Why don't jRPG designers get this memo?!!?!
ReplyDeleteHeh. I haven't played as many in a while, but I had the feeling that the old unseeable random encounters everywhere thing was on the decline. Though it's also a matter of experience acquisition rate and difficulty scale, too (I remember grinding dinosaurs for what felt like ages in FFVI to level up).
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