Undertale: A Review in Hindsight

[Demonic Quote]

Undertale seems to have reached that point in it's life where most people have somewhat forgotten about it, but there are still those devout hundreds of YouTube accounts playing role-play in Earthbound videos and making Skeleton Puns that nobody asked for. This means only one thing for me; to throw my rose-tinted glasses, stomp on them until they're but a measly pile of pink atoms and complain about it in a review in hindsight.
After have thought about it for at least 30 seconds I've concluded that Undertale really didn't deserve all the praise. Don't get me wrong, the story and the characters are great, the music is amazing and there is a good reason that people say the game was the best of the year. This said, I don't really think that the game deserves to be called "The Best Game Ever" as so many have dubbed it. Because it's not. Undertale tells a great story, but in terms of gameplay it gets pretty boring pretty fast. Sure, you've got a level of interactivity in choosing what to kill and what to spare, and it influences the game a heap. But that gimmick gets old pretty fast. There's a reason people remember games like Braid (of the indie) and CoD 4 (of the cis white male AAA scum). It's because they had some form of replay value. Undertale, on the other hand, despite the multiple endings, has little to no replay value once you get to the bones of it (get it?). I really don't think the game is worth playing a second, third or even fourth time to have a fucking flower scold me in a different manner.
With a game like Braid, you could attempt to speedrun it, you could collect all the stars, you could discuss for hours on end the meaning of the notably cryptic books. But I think with Undertale everything's a bit obvious, and shoehorning Gaster in seemed like a bit of a heavy-handed attempt to garner some kind of discussion to prolong the shelf life of the game.
Now don't get me wrong, it's still a great game, and worth checking out if you somehow still haven't. However, the praise which the game received when everyone was still entertained and bemused by a skeleton in a hoodie was a bit ridiculous.
In Hindsight.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

They say it's the best because it's meta. Meta in today's culture is often far confused with 'really good' when that isn't necessarily the case. It was interesting and quirky like Homestuck and had quality music and art but it does kind of have a limit. Like Portal, it was a great game, but it was short and once you've played it, that's it. I'd have preferred more length personally and once you beat this game for the second time, there isn't a whole lot left you can get out of it. As for the puzzles they were garbage and I think everyone kind of just glazed over the fact those puzzles weren't really good. As for Genocide mode, it bashing the player on a personal level for so much as playing the mode, is pretty annoying to me as is its inconsistent difficulty and unfair DDR-based gameplay in the case of Undyne the game never remotely prepares you for. Great art, music, and story. But there were some areas it clearly fell short I feel reviewers should've given it a harder time for falling short on.

All things considered I still give it a 96/100.

 

[Demonic Quote]

Yeah, that's one of the things that really annoyed me about the game. I find it frustrating that games being self-aware and breaking the 4th wall are praised for being intelligent and, as you said, by effect "really good." I just finished playing Cave Story+, and to be perfectly honest I thought it was a much better game because it wasn't completely hinged on being self-aware, and it just let the gameplay and the characters speak for themselves. Fortunately, UnderTale pulls off being meta pretty well, so it definitely deserves praise on that front, and as far as characters go UnderTale has some of the best. But you're right, it's really frustrating that self-awareness is translated to better reviews most of the time.

 

[Overusedname]

They say it's the best because it's meta. Meta in today's culture is often far confused with 'really good' when that isn't necessarily the case. It was interesting and quirky like Homestuck and had quality music and art but it does kind of have a limit. Like Portal, it was a great game, but it was short and once you've played it, that's it. I'd have preferred more length personally and once you beat this game for the second time, there isn't a whole lot left you can get out of it. As for the puzzles they were garbage and I think everyone kind of just glazed over the fact those puzzles weren't really good. As for Genocide mode, it bashing the player on a personal level for so much as playing the mode, is pretty annoying to me as is its inconsistent difficulty and unfair DDR-based gameplay in the case of Undyne the game never remotely prepares you for. Great art, music, and story. But there were some areas it clearly fell short I feel reviewers should've given it a harder time for falling short on.

All things considered I still give it a 96/100.

I definitely agree on the unfair gameplay and puzzle complaints. I managed to get through the hard parts fairly well, but a lot of people are just not experienced with shoot 'em ups. And if you aren't, you're kinda screwed, since spamming items can only do so much. And while the puzzles being easy might be a joke, it's a joke that kinda wore out its welcome pretty fast.

But yes, all in all, the story, polish and fun factor kind of remedy all those issues for me.

 

[Bealzibob]

I've considered Undertale to be one of the most puerile gaming miscarriages of the last few years. There are solid glimpses of a good game parallaxing away in the background but overall it's a self-indulgent mess with to much meta and far to little substance.

 

[Saulkar]

Personally I still think it is one of the best games I have ever played and that is coming from someone who has been gaming consistently for 21 years. The thing that I do not get however is the love for Sans and Papyrus. I found the former unnerving and the latter insufferable. The characters who really mattered to me and to this day rank there amongst my all-time favourites are the Dreemur family.

 

[Fox12]

Another one of these threads? Really? Well, seeing as I just played it, I'll offer my view of why it was good or bad.

Good:
-Your decisions have a profound impact on how the game unfolds. In fact, unlike other games, your decisions essentially lead to an entirely different game. I, personally, got at least three radically different playthroughs. Yes, the game is short, but the trade off is that it has high replay ability.

-It's a solid deconstruction. Undertale isn't the first game to deconstruct video game violence. Both Spec Ops and Nier had done it before. However, Undertale handled it much better. As much as I love those games, I never felt bad when they tried to judge me for my actions. The shades in Nier had been attacking me and the villagers since the beginning of the game, and I was basically forced to use white phosphorous in Spec Ops. Undertale doesn't do that. It isn't even a real deconstruction if you play the pacifist route. It judges you for the actions you chose to make of your own free will. Unlike the other games, it's criticism is fair.

-It's extremely tightly designed. It's short, but everything has a place. The ice blocks being sent down the river? You'll see them at the end of the game, being used to coo a reactor. That random enemy you saw earlier? You'll see his dad in the hotel later. That spider bakery? It relates to a boss near the end of the game. Almost every random enemy has their own character arc. Furthermore, the world design is quite complex. It's actually similar to dark souls. You'll routinely circle around and find a shortcut to an old area. Most of the character know each other, and are interrelated.

-The story is quite subtle and nuanced. The game doesn't beat you over the head with its story. It gives you information, but you have to put the pieces together. You have to discover that nabstablook is metatons cousin. You have to discover that Sans was involved in an experiment that separated him from friends and family, and that he's a depressed nihilist. You have to piece together Charas backstory. Again, it's a lot like Dark Souls in this way. The themes are nuanced too. In the end, you can't save everyone. You can't save flowey. The character remarks that the outside world is a dangerous place, and there are a lot of floweys. You can't save everyone just by being nice. What the game is saying is that, if you have the power to save people and do the right thing, then you should. It's very well thought out. There's a huge amount of depth in this game, if you look for it.

-The meta works. Yes, a story isn't good just because it's meta. However, it's not automatically bad either. There's good meta and bad meta. Undertale is good because it reinforces the themes of the work. It only judges you based on your decisions, and the commentary it makes on the industry and player is fair. It makes you question things through game play that you may not have questioned before. I know it's the cool thing to hate meta, but you need more solid criticism of why the meta is bad.

Bad:
The neutral and pacifist routes sometimes lapsed into shonen anime tropes. You win because you're determined. You defeat the villain through the power of friendship. That sort of thing. Compared to the genocide route, it's a little bit cliche.