I know I'm fairly late to the show on this criticism but I just started using this account again and thought the first thing I should do is get off my chest how bothered I am nobody seems willing to actually analyze a couple of fairly glaring issues in this game. Would I give it a 10/10? Sure, deserves it due to the innovation, quality, and meta nature of it. Would I give it a 100/100? No, I'd give it a distinct 96. That's a small number of difference but let me explain a couple of what I'm going to call the nitpicks I have that I feel should've been addressed more by other reviewers and why I knocked the game down 4 points from the perfect 100.
Nitpick #1: The game supplies an unfair difficulty for half its best content (Genocide Run).
Now you can argue it's a good thing and I get the argument, and as a one-off novelty concept it is interesting to make being 'ethical' the more rewarding easy path and being 'unethical' the unfairly difficult and punishing path. And yes, it is not simply very hard but immensely unfair. The fact I could burn through 20 attempts at Undyne's DDX rip-off gameplay and still not get 2/3s the way through conveys as much and frankly I think Sans was more fair of a boss than she was (though I can only surmise as much by watching videos of his gameplay since I could never get to it). You can get away with difficulties that high if you at minimum have a buildup in games where the player is trained and gradually the game increases in difficulty, but NOTHING in the game beforehand in the neutral or pacifist runs truly prepares you for Undyne let alone Sans which I can only review by means of watching various long-ass videos of his beautiful fight I can't even access because my right hand never learned how to tap-dance to Undyne's little number. Look the bottom line is defending a level of difficulty that's beyond reasonable with 'it's teaching you a lesson' to me is over-defending the game and the game would've been better had there been some sort of training beforehand that actually came remotely close to the challengingness of the two main bosses Undyne and Sans of the Genocide run. Beautiful battles, but the the unfair jump in difficulty should've been criticized FAR more by reviews instead of getting a free pass. It was annoying and it excluded a large portion of gamers including myself from enjoying the rest of the game's content.
Nitpick #2: The game punishes you for playing half its best content (Genocide Run).
Okay, now here's the part where gaming philosophy comes into play because I understand the kind of mindset people are going to come into this nitpick thinking with: "he was trying to teach us a moral lesson that killing is wrong." Okay, fair mindset to walk in with but let me attempt to retort. Okay so first off when I say 'punish' I'm not referring at all to difficulty I'm referring to how the game treats you through its characters and story. I am going to off the bat say, I could be completely wrong on this point, but it needs to be made because it personally bothered me in a manner I hope isn't done in the future and people should be analyzing. The game is so meta, and so personal with its content, that it will make you feel awful. I recall even reading some posts where players reported getting sick from the negativity they felt in playing the genocide run. In a horror game it's usually an easy swallow because the game doesn't have this meta nature going on but with Undertale, you actually feel like you're part of things in a direct alive manner. However, this metaness uniquely displays a new flaw I don't believe videogames have normally shown before and that's why most critics overlooked it or treated it like it was purely a good thing: the flaw is this game is personally causing you to feel bad for trying to enjoy the game. You wanna hear Undyne's awesome music and see her awesome art? Fuck you you monster. You want to play Sans' awesome battle and enjoy an ultimate variety of challenges and dialogue? Fuck you, you monstrous son of a ***** you killed the meta people. How dare you, the player, kill meta characters for fun. That's the main issue. Honestly at some point if the game had just at some point been meta enough to point out "but hey, it's just a game, don't feel bad" or something along those lines I might've been more fine with it. Now I get if a game makes you feel emotions that's a good thing but this game was taking it so meta and personal with me it didn't merely make me feel emotion, it made me feel disgusted on an ethical level and even though I don't believe I should feel bad for the simulated beings that cannot think, I nonetheless still do. There are upsides to this, and as a first-time novelty I can give this a pass, but in the future critics might want to call games out for treating you like an asshole for trying to play and learn ALL of the game's content. This is again a new grey area caused by a meta game like Undertale but it should be understood as potentially a bad thing and to me it is a bad thing because it discourages gameplay.
Really, the Genocide run is what brings down the game in quality, yet makes it so interesting at the same time for me and others. Genocide run had an interesting story with easy gameplay mixed with two boss battles, the first one being immensely unfair (Undyne with the DDR button-mashing) and the second one being fairly unfair but still mildly fair since at least it tests your skills, rather than how fast you can mash specific buttons (you can argue button-mashing quickly is a skill but for me it is not as fair as being tested for your actual in-game learned abilities like Sans at least does). That's the whole of Genocide along with a messed up story and overly easy fights inbetween the two main hard ones with Undyne and Sans. I cannot play it due to the unfair difficulty and cannot feel good about it due to the game hating me for taking the 'evil' route.
I get the argument you could make that Genocide mode is an easter egg, but it's treated like part of the game by the majority of the fandom and is essential to actually understanding the whole story and enjoying all the quality content of the game so for that reason it must be criticized as if it is yet another part of the game. It pisses me off immensely other critics (thatonegamer thecynicalbrit yahtzee) treat the game like its perfectly great and has no flaws when the genocide mode is a glaring issue with the game that should be criticized. Kind of reminds me of that time everyone called Portal perfect when its color palette consisted of grey and greyer though again, that's just a nitpick but an important one which should've been pointed out just like the couple of ones I've mentioned should be pointed out by more critics.
So what do you guys think of Undertale as a whole and nitpicks you have with it?
Nitpick #1: The game supplies an unfair difficulty for half its best content (Genocide Run).
Now you can argue it's a good thing and I get the argument, and as a one-off novelty concept it is interesting to make being 'ethical' the more rewarding easy path and being 'unethical' the unfairly difficult and punishing path. And yes, it is not simply very hard but immensely unfair. The fact I could burn through 20 attempts at Undyne's DDX rip-off gameplay and still not get 2/3s the way through conveys as much and frankly I think Sans was more fair of a boss than she was (though I can only surmise as much by watching videos of his gameplay since I could never get to it). You can get away with difficulties that high if you at minimum have a buildup in games where the player is trained and gradually the game increases in difficulty, but NOTHING in the game beforehand in the neutral or pacifist runs truly prepares you for Undyne let alone Sans which I can only review by means of watching various long-ass videos of his beautiful fight I can't even access because my right hand never learned how to tap-dance to Undyne's little number. Look the bottom line is defending a level of difficulty that's beyond reasonable with 'it's teaching you a lesson' to me is over-defending the game and the game would've been better had there been some sort of training beforehand that actually came remotely close to the challengingness of the two main bosses Undyne and Sans of the Genocide run. Beautiful battles, but the the unfair jump in difficulty should've been criticized FAR more by reviews instead of getting a free pass. It was annoying and it excluded a large portion of gamers including myself from enjoying the rest of the game's content.
Nitpick #2: The game punishes you for playing half its best content (Genocide Run).
Okay, now here's the part where gaming philosophy comes into play because I understand the kind of mindset people are going to come into this nitpick thinking with: "he was trying to teach us a moral lesson that killing is wrong." Okay, fair mindset to walk in with but let me attempt to retort. Okay so first off when I say 'punish' I'm not referring at all to difficulty I'm referring to how the game treats you through its characters and story. I am going to off the bat say, I could be completely wrong on this point, but it needs to be made because it personally bothered me in a manner I hope isn't done in the future and people should be analyzing. The game is so meta, and so personal with its content, that it will make you feel awful. I recall even reading some posts where players reported getting sick from the negativity they felt in playing the genocide run. In a horror game it's usually an easy swallow because the game doesn't have this meta nature going on but with Undertale, you actually feel like you're part of things in a direct alive manner. However, this metaness uniquely displays a new flaw I don't believe videogames have normally shown before and that's why most critics overlooked it or treated it like it was purely a good thing: the flaw is this game is personally causing you to feel bad for trying to enjoy the game. You wanna hear Undyne's awesome music and see her awesome art? Fuck you you monster. You want to play Sans' awesome battle and enjoy an ultimate variety of challenges and dialogue? Fuck you, you monstrous son of a ***** you killed the meta people. How dare you, the player, kill meta characters for fun. That's the main issue. Honestly at some point if the game had just at some point been meta enough to point out "but hey, it's just a game, don't feel bad" or something along those lines I might've been more fine with it. Now I get if a game makes you feel emotions that's a good thing but this game was taking it so meta and personal with me it didn't merely make me feel emotion, it made me feel disgusted on an ethical level and even though I don't believe I should feel bad for the simulated beings that cannot think, I nonetheless still do. There are upsides to this, and as a first-time novelty I can give this a pass, but in the future critics might want to call games out for treating you like an asshole for trying to play and learn ALL of the game's content. This is again a new grey area caused by a meta game like Undertale but it should be understood as potentially a bad thing and to me it is a bad thing because it discourages gameplay.
Really, the Genocide run is what brings down the game in quality, yet makes it so interesting at the same time for me and others. Genocide run had an interesting story with easy gameplay mixed with two boss battles, the first one being immensely unfair (Undyne with the DDR button-mashing) and the second one being fairly unfair but still mildly fair since at least it tests your skills, rather than how fast you can mash specific buttons (you can argue button-mashing quickly is a skill but for me it is not as fair as being tested for your actual in-game learned abilities like Sans at least does). That's the whole of Genocide along with a messed up story and overly easy fights inbetween the two main hard ones with Undyne and Sans. I cannot play it due to the unfair difficulty and cannot feel good about it due to the game hating me for taking the 'evil' route.
I get the argument you could make that Genocide mode is an easter egg, but it's treated like part of the game by the majority of the fandom and is essential to actually understanding the whole story and enjoying all the quality content of the game so for that reason it must be criticized as if it is yet another part of the game. It pisses me off immensely other critics (thatonegamer thecynicalbrit yahtzee) treat the game like its perfectly great and has no flaws when the genocide mode is a glaring issue with the game that should be criticized. Kind of reminds me of that time everyone called Portal perfect when its color palette consisted of grey and greyer though again, that's just a nitpick but an important one which should've been pointed out just like the couple of ones I've mentioned should be pointed out by more critics.
So what do you guys think of Undertale as a whole and nitpicks you have with it?