Undertale - More positive Reviews

Undertale - a game that is liked by reviewers and gamers:

Kotaku:

People don’t just like Undertale; they love it. This game is personal for them. It’s personal for me, too.

FemHype:

So all in all, Undertale is a very diverse game with all sorts of lovable and relatable characters, and while not perfect (nothing ever is), I still think it’s a good step forward to see a game with a good bunch of prominent representation be hailed as an instant classic by critics and players alike. I absolutely adored this game and its mix of deep character building, bizarre humor, satire of games as a medium, and really fun gameplay. I hope if you decide to try the game out you will enjoy it too!

Escapist:

What really makes Undertale is the story and writing, which is on the one hand hilarious enough to suck you in from the start, and is also, by the end, rather heartfelt as well. I'm not too proud to admit that the Pacifist ending consistently makes me well up a bit every time I see it. And anything that can touch my stony heart deserves a good hard analysis.

PCGamer:

The fact that this is basically a one-person project only makes it more impressive, from the excellent use of simple graphics to convey emotion, to the fantastic lo-fi soundtrack. It may or may not be the best RPG you play this year, but it’s certainly going to be one of the most worthwhile—as memorable as anything in, say, The Witcher 3, and every bit as worthy.

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Thanks Eye!

Haven't tried it myself yet, but hey! There's a free demo.

Originally Posted by screeg
Haven't tried it myself yet, but hey! There's a free demo.

It looks bad, so this is my plan too. If the gameplay is good enough that I can ignore the graphics/art style then I'll buy after trying. It is good for the indies to create demos; though it can backfire. Exanima probably lost So Generic a ton of potential sales. A drunken combat simulator doesn't look much like a crpg

Almost 300 000 copies sold just on steam… very impressive… I guess I should try this sooner or later!

So anyone tried this yet? It is up to almost 600 000 copies sold… which is completely amazing for such an indie title!

I played the demo a bit a while ago and I don't understand its popularity. It's definitely not a game for me.

I could only play about a half hour though. "Combat" consists of picking one of 4 choices, moving a heart around a box and then trying to line up a line in the middle of an oval, then repeat until you " win or lose"

To be fair though this isn't a game for me. I'm a combat first type person and this has the worst "combat" I've experienced. From reading online it seems its strength is building relationships with characters and that just doesn't interest me in video games so this game was probably never going to appeal to me.

Not enough time for everything and my backlog from 0, in last two years reached 20 titles waiting.

However, if anyone here says it's a mustplay because of <insert> reasons, I'll squeeze it in.
Definetly impressive sales number for an indie, but that still doesn't guarantee overall quality.

I was a bit reluctant to play it, because the graphisms were not appealing, and because it seemed to have an overwelming hype around the game (which is not necessarily a good thing).
Finally, I tried it because my sister offered it to me for christmas, and because at my parent's home, the PC is not powerful enough to play games with good graphics anyway.

So here's my quick review:

The beginning of the game is not great, the introduction is a bit boring (it's not terribly bad, it's just not so good). The game mechanics are explained to you:
- you can spare any monster you fight in the game by "acting" instead of "attacking".
- when you're under attack, you control a small heart in a close area that you have to move to escape ennemies attack (as in a shmup game).
You solve some easy puzzles, and you have a bit of generic "full of good intentions" story: you're an human who has fallen into the monster kingdom, you want to go home, you encouter a bad monster, but a nice monster saves you and propose you to stay with her forever.

After you escape, the "real" journey begins, and it's much better! You will encounter a lot of funny characters with their own (a bit crazy) personality. The puzzle are never very difficult, but the combats will start to be tough (don't expect to die before the middle of the game, but after that, some ennemies will give you a lot of trouble). And the game will very often surprise you with jokes, plot twist and some new gameplay mechanics that I really don't want to spoil (because I think that the surprise is a big part of the experience).

The not-so-great graphics are never a big problem, and you can even find some scenes or animations really well made. The music is always nice (and each unique situation has its unique soundtrack). Finally what keeped me playing was really the story: I wanted to know what will happen next (and I'm glad I avoided most of the spoilers you can find online). Maybe it's weird, but it reminded me a bit of The banner saga: you don't play for the game mechanics, but because you want to know what will be the destiny of the characters! (of course, The banner saga would be a tragedy, and Undertale a comedy).

The game has some little problems, like :
- at some point I was really clueless how to win a battle (and I had to cheat online, which is not really good, because it makes you feel that the game is unfair).
- at some point you can go back to every place you visited, but the backtracking is really painful (especially since you can't move faster than "walk").
But it's really forgiveable if you like the storytelling. Also, if you played pacifically (which is highly recommended in my opinion), the game is nice enough so that you can see the "true" ending just after the "normal" ending without redoing all the game (you only have to complete new special missions and redo the final boss battle).

Finally, the game last about 8h00 (a bit more if you want to see the true ending), and I was nearly never bored (apart from the beginning). So I would really recommend it to anyone that likes good funny stories.

TL;DR:
Undertale is not the best RPG ever made, it's not even really a RPG. The game mechanics are closer to a shoot'em up (it requires no strategy at all, only dexterity) mixed with a visual novel. But it is still a very good indie game, and it is really the story (and humor) that will make you enjoy it (or not). Also, the beginning is really the worst part of the game, so I'm not sure that the demo is a great marketing idea…