Just finished playing Undertale. And by finished I mean stopped playing it because the design actually outright annoyed me and doesn't inspire me to finish the game. Spoilering below if anyone is interested in my take, since I understand saying this kind of stuff probably means I'll get crucified online.
Oh boy, this is a long one.
! Ok, let me start with some things I did enjoy
Some character development was outright solid and enjoyable, highly so. Toriel was pretty alright and how that transpired in the beginning as a sort of tutorial was great. Sans and Papyrus were obviously great, quirky and hilarious and developed magnificently, Sans in particular. Characters made Undyne seem really interesting and that arc was nicely concluded with her battle and everything. Good stuff character-wise.
! I also really like the animations inside the battles, the writing in them, the quirkiness of the enemies, the music (Spider Dance in particular is a huge earworm right now), and the whole concept of having the heart move around to avoid damage and to change up battles is altogether a mechanic I really really appreciate because:
1- makes the game fresh
2- makes an RPG combat system extremely approachable, which is just awesome to me
3- it's fun and hilarious. I love how it allows the characters to get fleshed out while also having you fight them/remain safe from them.
! But, the things that I just could not overlook
By around the last third of the game the pacing began to just outright irk me. The section with Undyne chasing you was were I first began to get kinda bored at what felt like rooms being longer than they needed to be, areas that were ultimately inconsequential and completely not memorable, and it was really just walking until the next character moment. Random "puzzles", not really so, just… so much walking and empty, and the occasional hilarious enemy that appears fails to interest the third or fourth time around.
! But the battles were fun, so the game went on. Then the hotlands or w.e. area was just, imo, fucking terrible. Mettaton stuff was occasionally hilarious but it just feels so goddamn tacked on and random for the sake of random. And what's worst about this, what truly pisses me off, is Alphys or w.e. her name is being such an aggravating character. It was maybe amusing once when she randomly sends an update, or says something quirky. But it just went on AND ON AND ON AND ON and jesus fuck, people fucking hate Fi and Navi for less than this.
What's worse is that on its own this area had more interesting puzzles and areas, and introduces the orange/blue mechanic that's a nice escalation on the battle and movement... but jesus fuck, the constant interruptions from alphys, and the random "we'll bring you back into the game in a bit but for now here's a random robot doing random shit" just felt horribly paced to me. Not to mention that it's funny a couple of times when the game is all "oh yea, all that you just did was pointless. LOLZ, TROLLED."... but doing that over and over just leads one to wonder what the fuck the point of anything even is aside from just being a bunch of wario ware games tacked on together with an excuse for a plot. Like, they were enjoyable and entertaining... but maybe just let me play the puzzles and minigames on their own without poorly paced walking around corridors and getting CONSTANTLY texted by some weird dinolady?
! I actually wonder right now why this isn't a mobile game. But that's a random thought I had while watching some of the mettaton minigames unfold.
! But before I get to my main point, other random points:
- the art in the overworld is just not something that appeals to me. Battle animations though, good stuff, love them.
- Some of the battles in pacifist were pretty interesting, like figuring out you have to flee from Undyne. But A LOT of other ones felt kinda simple... like, it just devolves into sparing a character for a couple turns until they happen to say something you can use. So it's really just waiting, not a lot of actual knowing the character. Game highlights this a lot when random villains you never really thought about and, without any lead up whatsoever, turns out that their thing is that you have to get one to undress so the other confesses love. I mean, sure, that's amusing... but it just comes out of nowhere with no set up which makes me feel like that's not something I was able to figure out from paying attention to the world as much as the game pretty much propping up arrows within the fight.
! Ok, now what really pissed me off though, was the ending and how it completely destroyed my entire expectation of this game being a game about choice. For this I have to clarify how my experience started.
When starting this game, I wanted to do a pacifist run. Why? Because the game makes it extremely clear that 1) that's an option, and 2) that for certain things it's simply what the game would like you to do. So I go in, avoid killing things, and get to the Toriel fight. Nothing was happening, so I figure "hey, someone somewhere said that I may have to lower a character's health before I am able to have them to the point where I can spare them. A'ight, maybe that's what I have to do", and then using my pokemon math skills I get Toriel to a point where after one hit I should be good.
NOPE, my attack suddenly does stupid damage and I kill her instead. Because lulz I guess? Later on, WAY after this the game mentions damage is based on someshit or other so it's variable and etc etc., point is, I restart because I wanted a pacifist run and the game made me feel like shit for killing Toriel.
Restart, and then turns out that you just had to wait and wait and wait and wait and Toriel talks herself into being spared. Ok, w.e.... and what? game knows I killed her before? Fuck man, there really are consequences, this game isn't fucking around.
! Lessons learned:
1. Don't attack because you may not know how much damage you do.
2. Consequences are harsh and unforgiving, EVEN if you save beforehand.
! With this knowledge in hand, and wanting to do a pacifist run because that's an option the game provides AND encourage, I get to go through the rest of the game never attacking a single time. Equipping as many healing items as possible to survive, so whenever an attack item comes up I just didn't pick it up. I mean, why would I? The game taught me that attacking leads to shitty repercussions. Plus, more inventory space for items.
Onwards, and the game particularly screws you in an unexpected fight where it implies you have to pay your way out of the fight, but then the fight ends later and there's no evidence of whether or not that helped. Cool fight, kickass music, but I guess the game just shat on my money build-up? W.e., I guess no way to buy more expensive equipment or food items. No biggie.
! Then you get to the end, Sans weighs your actions and is all proud because look at how good you have been. Woo pride in hard work. And then you get to the final boss and the game just fucks you over
1. After the entire game pretty much teaching you NOT to attack, you are somehow supposed to decipher that you have to attack. "But, the game tells you beforehand that it's either you dying or Asgore dying? I don't understand why someone wouldn't figure it out"… well, that's true, but then there's multiple times in the game where characters and the game tell you it's kill or die and then nope, alternate way wins anyway, so as a pacifist run enthusiast naturally I would use the knowledge taught by the rest of the game and not attack.
2. BUT, because lulz, I have no strong equipped item useful for attacking. Because, as a pacifist, there was no use for attacking and yes use for items (items I couldn't buy because the game took my money of course), so eventually I'm stuck in the end boss battle with no healing items, shit HP, shit attack, and I'm supposed to whittle his health down and survive increasingly tougher attacks somehow.
! So, I think options. I could travel back several long corridor screens to fucking knows where the last shop was and then find a way to get money (lol you can't sell items, what is this a pawn shop?... so I guess I had to money grind on the super low enemy encounter rate? Seriously though, the game never emphasizes or teaches reliable ways to earn money) and then somehow get super equipped. But that's several hours of work for doing something to counter what is ultimately, to me at least, the extremely shitty design of having a final boss design around a quality most likely available only to people who played a certain way but not the other.
! I tried a couple more times, and ultimately I just got too pissed and stopped. Left with many questions.
I don't understand why after encouraging and teaching me to not attack I get to Asgore and get completely punished for pursuing that route. Someone tells me that I cannot achieve pacifist on my first run too... but why not? If you're designing your game around choice, and I choose a side and carry it out, why the fuck is the game punishing me with shitty boss design or restricted access to end-game content, presumably? If you wanted me to do the game with killing initially, then fucking don't introduce the concept of pacifism UNTIL the postgame, and then challenge the player to do a second run without killing. That would have made a fuckton more sense to me.
! I also don't understand how people compare this to the Mother series. Sure, the battle mechanics make this a more approachable RPG... but take something like mother 3, and seriously look at the game design there
- The chapters are paced into segments where you have proper down time, tasks, times to explore, time to complete a dungeon, time to follow a corridor and expand on plot, etc. It varies, and even where it lacks (pacing in chapter 5 is particulary weak) there is still stuff to be engaged in.
- The game teaches you ways to get money to get stronger.
- The final bosses have particularities to how they're supposed to be defeated, but they are properly paced and explored for a purpose, not to shit on the player. The Asgore fight is not paced at all... it just gets increasingly more and more difficult leading to a ramp up in difficulty that's just simply not sustainable unless you somehow were prepared for it. Meanwhile, even when bosses in mother 3 ramp up, they do so in sequential segments... after x hits, it changes... then after x hits, changes again. Then a cooldown period, then over.
! Idk why I feel compelled to compare the games. Probably it's because everyone and their mom keeps insisting to me that I love Mother, therefore I MUST love this game, "heck, it might be better", but just no.
! Do I think it's a terrible game? Not by a longshot. I still think it's an important game overall. More than anything in terms of battle mechanics and character development. I used to think that the morality mechanic of killing or not killing was a HUGE thing in its favor, and for months its a concept I've been tossing in my mind and studying in terms of how to successfully do it in a game. And with that in mind, I was hyped to play this game, because it's been overhyped to the point where I thought it would nail it.
! But then when I make a choice, a choice the game tells me I can make, where the game teaches me what to do or not to do, and that leads to a situation of getting locked into either winning an impossible battle or backtracking through uninteresting areas to grind for money (somehow?)... I'm sorry, but that just shuts me down and away from the game.
! That Spider Dance tho, such a great song.