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TetsuoTW posted:On the other hand I could not try it because I don't particularly care for JRPGs. I don't know what that had to do with what I said, but OK I guess. You literally never mentioned that in regards to this, just that it being "above praise" and poo poo. So yeah, I went off what you said.
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Nov 13, 2015 04:34
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Woffle posted:He died 23 times on the pacifist end boss. It's fine if you didn't but there's no mileage is just saying, "It's actually not hard." This is where that impasse I was talking about before comes in, though, because for me it really genuinely was not a very hard game. None of the bosses (at least, other than the specifically super-hard genocide ones) took me more than five or six tries at the absolute most, and when I did a second playthrough I never died once, partly because I already knew the patterns and partly because I understood there was no reason not to stock up on healing items and use them liberally. Even when I was dying, though, the difficulty never felt unfair or too punishing and I thought the combat was really fun and inventive. That was my experience with the game, and it doesn't do anything to change the fact that you found it difficult and frustrating. By the same token, though, the fact that you found it difficult and frustrating doesn't do anything to change the fact that I didn't. So where does that leave us? Do we throw our hands up in the air and say "subjectivity!" because both sides had fundamentally different experiences that can't be reconciled? Do we just have to conclude that the game is too hard unless it isn't? This is a really weird aspect of video games that's essentially unique to the medium and I have no idea how to have a productive conversation about the difficulty that isn't just "I thought it was hard" "well I thought it wasn't hard" back and forth forever. Woffle posted:The idea that the difficulty gives weight to doing the right thing is undermined, for me, by the genocide ending, as I mentioned. If the idea is that it's hard to do the right thing, why is it harder to do the wrong thing and easiest to do the middle? That's a weird, muddled message. That's not really what it's about, though, at least not the way I see it. A genocide run is all but impossible to stumble into with casual grinding. You basically need to know it's there and deliberately choose to seek it out. A pacifist run means you were resolved to do the right thing; a neutral run means you weren't, and you started killing things that were in your way because you wanted to get stronger or you gave up trying to figure out how to avoid it or it was just faster/easier to kill someone instead of trying to spare them. Genocide, though, is a different beast. It's something you need to actively seek out and choose, not out of any desire for good or evil, but because you just need to know what happens. It's not for players who lack the resolve to do the right thing, it's for players who couldn't leave well enough alone--who got the true ending, tied everything up nice and neat with a happy ending, and then undid it all because they knew there was more and they were compelled to see everything. It's a deliberately non-standard path through the game that takes a direct look at some of the meta themes that only get touched on in the other routes, and the question it's posing isn't about morality but about the way we as players interact with a game's world. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 04:39
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I sort of buy that but it doesn't sit perfectly with me. There are elements of my problems with the game that are just, "Subjectivity!" and then there are things I think are much more valid criticisms that you may or may not have had a problem with but I think are worth talking about. Like the accessibility issue or the feedback thing. For example, I think it is actually a problem that the never ending spider boss gives you no feedback that you're on the right track as far as defeating her. Or that the "puzzles" to make friends with the monsters are really just trial and error while enduring bullet hell. I wouldn't have had as big a problem with those issues if I appreciated the bullet hell parts, so the the 100% "Subjectivity!" parts made what I feel to be legitimate criticisms feel way worse than they otherwise would.
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Nov 13, 2015 04:49
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Woffle posted:For example, I think it is actually a problem that the never ending spider boss gives you no feedback that you're on the right track as far as defeating her. What "right track." You don't have to actually do anything, it's a fight with a fixed length. Even attacking her every turn on my first run (since I had no idea you could just spam spare if you wanted to not kill a boss) the fight ended before I killed her.
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Nov 13, 2015 05:09
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Woffle posted:I sort of buy that but it doesn't sit perfectly with me. Yeah, and that's the other thing I was talking about before. I like that game a lot and I probably have a response for most criticisms people might have about it (for example, the spider boss has new patterns and lines of dialog for every turn, which is almost always how the game signals progress in boss fights, and while sparing enemies does involve some trial-and-error you usually get some kind of hint and you never have more than three or four options to try anyway) but at the end of the day first impressions stick and if your initial feelings are negative or ambivalent there's no way somebody like me is going to change your mind with a "well, actually..." Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 05:09
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I legitimately never even heard Undertale was considered a difficult game before. The idea of someone dying 23 ties on the final (normal) boss is crazy to me, but such is life. The whole reason most games have difficulty options is it is incredibly hard to "balance" a satisfying experience for a variety of gamers of widely disparate skill levels. Most people would look at a mario video like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWdnPd3avR8) and think it would never be fun to play, but a minority of people prefer something of such an extreme challenge. The beauty of a game like Mario Maker is the ability to appeal to such a wide range of people. Most games could really use a difficulty level modifier (that can be changed mid-game), and especially rpgs that are just modifying numbers. Stuff like Dark Souls is harder to say if the game would actually be better if it had an "easy" mode to be selected but avoids the whole issue by only appealing to "hardcore" gamers to begin with.
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Nov 13, 2015 06:22
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TooManyUzukis posted:What "right track." You don't have to actually do anything, it's a fight with a fixed length. Even attacking her every turn on my first run (since I had no idea you could just spam spare if you wanted to not kill a boss) the fight ended before I killed her. Right track meaning heading to the correct solution for the non-violent option. Like Gary said, it's the whole claim to fame that you don't have to kill anything, and yet there are a few fights where there's no way of knowing Even with the major hint of the mercy menu being stripped away I threw myself against the Asgore fight a few times, trying to do anything but attack. After figuring out I just had to outlast Moffet, I assumed it was more of the same. On regular enemy fights, this is pretty well articulated. There are a few Talk options, and some of them cause a different response that hint you're making progress. Some of the bosses simply don't provide any positive reinforcement. I got through it all by trying and guessing anyway, as many people who played the game did. But, if the bullet hell defense sections drove you batty, you can see how that would be a big push in the "gently caress it" direction.
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Nov 13, 2015 08:27
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Enh, I don't want to say that all these criticisms are somehow invalid, but for a lot of these things they are personally ways that pacifist options in this game distinguish themselves, and so it's important that the player has to deal with that sort of uncertainty. Vs the fighting option, whose main advantage is that progress is always apparent and certain. But honestly I'm mainly annoyed that there seems to be zero podcasts so far from people who like the game and are willing to dig into any reasons why they do in any (spoilerific) depth. It's a split between people on the 'It's really good, trust me!' end, and people who I feel miss the point entirely about what the game is trying to do, one way or another saying so unchallenged. The impression seems to be built that people liking the game is shallow because no one can say much that is positive about it except that it's popular, whereas I feel that impression is hugely unfair. Fangz fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 08:39
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The Short Game is having two episodes devoted to Undertale. Game Informer had an interview with Toby Fox. Any more?
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Nov 13, 2015 08:55
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For me it's a game I overall enjoyed but there are some truly terrible design choices there. The twitch reaction difficulty level is probably the biggest one for me, since it means I will never get to share the game with a lot of people I know would otherwise enjoy the good parts.
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Nov 13, 2015 09:02
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I had no problems with the difficulty, but it wouldn't have harmed the game to reduce the challenge to accommodate for people who did. The mechanics aren't the strength of the game, I can't imagine repeating the same sequence over and over would be any fun. The best moments from the combat come from the surprises and twists on the systems rather than overcoming the obstacles themselves. I don't really think the difficulty really makes the player rethink whether to kill or spare an enemy either. Like most games with a binary morality system, the player will make the choice once at the beginning of the game, then spend the rest of the game executing on that choice. I knew before playing the game that you can finish it without killing any enemies and I made the choice to do that before I even touched the game. I really enjoyed the experience of playing the game, but the raw gameplay could definitely be improved upon. Simple things like kicking the framerate up from the Game Maker default of 30 to a smoother 60 would help players identify and react to bullet patterns, etc.
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Nov 13, 2015 09:38
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I got through the game dying only once (and that was because I spent my first fight against Undyne challenging her about forty times) so I hadn't really considered how insane it is that the way you access easy mode is by grinding up way more gold than you'll ever otherwise need or get and taking it to a secret area. I've heard a lot of subjective reasons to dislike Undertale, but just having a "do you want to see the story" mode at the start that makes it so every attack only deals 1 damage to you would've been trivial to implement and would've let our boy Gary enjoy the game, so I'm calling that one a straight up design flaw. Oh, and a note on the evil run: it's not so much supposed to be the hardest run as the most poorly balanced run. The whole thing is completely devoid of challenge except for a couple of spikes that go way off the charts, because you're playing this nice game about friendly skeletons like a game where you're supposed to get to level 99 and fight Emerald Weapon. HMS Boromir fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 09:51
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I think the value of choice is diminished if you know the specifics and contexts of the endings before you play. During my blind play through I killed everything that was not a dog. I feel that I got a more meaning full experience because I was not playing to achieve a gameplay quota. I also greatly enjoy the combat. I can't play turn based RPGs anymore because of slow speed.
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Nov 13, 2015 09:53
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Yeah, I liked the combat a lot and I wouldn't have put myself down as someone who is good at bullet hell games. There's just a lot of allowance in the system if you prepare by bringing a lot of healing items. Maybe it's unfortunate that it seems like pacifist has become regarded as the only way to play. You're a child in a dangerous place where stuff are trying to kill you. If you are having too hard a time, it should be perfectly legitimate to kill some enemies in self defence. That's always an option. There is no particular reason to aim to complete the game perfectly on a single playthrough. That is simply a challenge you choose to set yourself. I'm not hugely opposed to the idea of an easy mode, but I have to ask, if an easy mode existed, what's the point of the neutral route? A change from a system where the amount of difficulty you experience is a decision you make in the game, that can create this emergent narrative where you replay (with the benefit of experience) after the neutral end to redeem yourself, to one where the decision is not part of the narrative, where there is never a reason to kill except out of sadism... surely there is something lost in that. Fangz fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 09:58
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Fangz posted:Maybe it's unfortunate that it seems like pacifist has become regarded as the only way to play. You're a child in a dangerous place where stuff are trying to kill you. If you are having too hard a time, it should be perfectly legitimate to kill some enemies in self defence. That's always an option. There is no particular reason to aim to complete the game perfectly on a single playthrough. That is simply a challenge you choose to set yourself. Coming from other games, my experiences with binary "kill or save" systems has resulted in me not trusting developers to have any nuance in how they treat player choice. Undertale falls directly in line with other games that do this, a pure pacifist run is the only way to be viewed as a pacifist in game. The game ended up confirming my suspicion that if I want to follow the path I had decided on, I wouldn't be able to stray from it at any point. I didn't want to kill any characters and I would more likely struggle with an obstacle than stray from that path. I really don't think anything would have changed if I had a hard time with an encounter because I wouldn't want the game to view me as a killer. I also I felt like I was consistently rewarded with content I enjoyed by sticking to this path, giving me even less of a reason to change from what I was doing. If I went into the game not knowing about killing or sparing my experience would have been different. It's hard to avoid that though, the trailer on the Steam page directly tells you about it: 
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Nov 13, 2015 10:52
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Undertale is not a difficult game by any stretch outside of two fights in the genocide route, I've gotten dozens of people to play through it and rarely did they have trouble (except one dude who insisted on a genocide run first). Like I watched some of Commander Holly's playthrough of it and she is TERRIBLE at it with some of the worst reaction times I've seen in a while, but she still made it through the majority of the game with not a ton of trouble and only asgore and photoshop flowey gave her serious trouble (her copilot took over for PF and died 3 times or so). I enjoyed the "bullet hell" mechanics a lot, they're super mundane in most cases and pretty creative in a lot of places. I think this is just a case of different strokes. I found the game intertwined it's battle system with gameplay very well, and provided more than enough healing options to grind through most lengthy fights if need be. I am not very good at video games and died about 12 times throughout my run, but never got really frustrated with it. The only time I got frustrated, I then subsequently felt it was my own stupidity in the undyne fight for just mashing my face on the act commands instead of trying to run away from her when I could move. She even mentions it when you fight her. It's unfortunate that the people with podcasts all seem to dislike it, or refuse to talk about it, yeah. Austin on the beastcast was just like "I loved it it's great the characters are great I wrote a review, 5 stars, go play it" and that was about it. I am eager for the giant bomb gotycasts since they're spoileriffic and hopefully dan and Austin will go on the offensive for it. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 11:00
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weird bleep posted:Coming from other games, my experiences with binary "kill or save" systems has resulted in me not trusting developers to have any nuance in how they treat player choice. Undertale falls directly in line with other games that do this, a pure pacifist run is the only way to be viewed as a pacifist in game. The game ended up confirming my suspicion that if I want to follow the path I had decided on, I wouldn't be able to stray from it at any point. I didn't want to kill any characters and I would more likely struggle with an obstacle than stray from that path. I really don't think anything would have changed if I had a hard time with an encounter because I wouldn't want the game to view me as a killer. I also I felt like I was consistently rewarded with content I enjoyed by sticking to this path, giving me even less of a reason to change from what I was doing. But there is tremendous nuance in the neutral route. The game goes out of the way to forgive you for killing people, acknowledging that you acted in self defence. In terms of content there was a lot of effort put into implementing the individual combinations of people you killed, so you are 'rewarded' with consequences for your acts. Yes, there is only one perfect pacifist route, but that's what perfection is. Ultimately the decision to keep struggling and not go for the easier, more compromised path, is your own choice. I mean yeah, it's true that mostly the game isn't built so that the player considers pacifism on a case by case basis. But the point that pacifism presents a challenge that you can either voluntarily overcome or give up on is a legitimate artistic choice, in my view, and thus not a mistake. The fact that you sacrificed time and effort to get there lets you *own* that happy ending, as opposed to it being a story that you read. I like it much better than the approach in say, Bioshock, where the removal of any serious consequence to choosing to Save the little sisters kills off the point of the Harvest route entirely. It needn't be easy to be the good guy. Fangz fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 11:53
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The amount of variety in character interactions based on who and what you kill is pretty incredible. Including subsequent playthroughs, which can further alter dialogue or even how the story plays out.
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Nov 13, 2015 12:11
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Fangz posted:But there is tremendous nuance in the neutral route. The game goes out of the way to forgive you for killing people, acknowledging that you acted in self defence. In terms of content there was a lot of effort put into implementing the individual combinations of people you killed, so you are 'rewarded' with consequences for your acts. Yes, there is only one perfect pacifist route, but that's what perfection is. Ultimately the decision to keep struggling and not go for the easier, more compromised path, is your own choice. I think I would have a greater appreciation for what's on offer in the neutral path if I wasn't aware that sparing everyone was an option before going into the game. It's one of those things where getting a peak behind the curtain of the game removes some of the illusion. I don't think it impacts the game much, it's still some of the must fun I've had playing a game this year. Even though I was going into battles with the goal of sparing everyone, everything else about the encounters was surprising and interesting. I probably would have wanted to explore the conversation anyway given how much more interesting it is compared to the standard attacking.
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Nov 13, 2015 13:00
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The only thing I don't like so much is that it's rarely apparent you can do things past just getting them into the spare state, so most people just hit spare as soon as their names turn yellow. But if you continue petting the lesser dog, or continue humming with shyren as two examples, you can get five+ minute side stories/hilarious gags you'd otherwise miss. The lesser dog one is probably my favorite.
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Nov 13, 2015 13:26
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Captain Invictus posted:The only thing I don't like so much is that it's rarely apparent you can do things past just getting them into the spare state, so most people just hit spare as soon as their names turn yellow. But if you continue petting the lesser dog, or continue humming with shyren as two examples, you can get five+ minute side stories/hilarious gags you'd otherwise miss. The lesser dog one is probably my favorite. Between Undertale, MGS5, and Fallout 4 it's been a strong year for Dogs in Gaming.
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Nov 13, 2015 19:42
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I've never played Undertale but all I'm getting from this hand-wringing explosion of words is that it's some quirky poo poo where you sometimes don't have to kill monsters and make friends with them instead
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Nov 13, 2015 20:43
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Tae posted:Congrats Retronauts, you got your english DQ 7 (And 8). Since it's my episode, I'm taking full credit for this. Also, I'm 9000 posts late to the party, but I don't really view Undertale as an RPG. In my eyes, it's a strange creation that uses the grammar/structure/iconography of JRPGs to set you up and then subvert your expectations at every turn. I wouldn't like it nearly as much if it set out to be a standard RPG with jokes and fun characters. bobservo fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Nov 14, 2015 |
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Nov 14, 2015 00:07
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Listened to the Comrade about Undertale. I basically don't disagree with any of Gary's criticisms of the game (despite loving it, bullet hell included, to bits) except for a minor nitpick about there being no feedback for sparing Toriel at the start, since there's no repeated responses even if the differences are a bit subtle. I think it ends up being the case that most people are either good enough at the bullet hell sections or willing enough to beat their head against them that they never end up seeing the problems with it, like how in (for example) Gradius, you never find out about how much goddamn level you have to redo when you die if you're just really good at it and don't ever die. Gary's definitely converted me to the "should have just had an easy mode where everything deals 1 damage" camp. Hell, have it ask you if you want to enable it after you die 3 times without making progress if you want to keep it gated and hidden. There's no reason why in the year of our waluigi 2015 a story rich game should lock you out of its story because you're bad at the game. Hell, didn't one of the Mass Effects have a casual low-gameplay story mode?
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Nov 15, 2015 10:50
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Yeah, Mass Effect 3 did something quite neat that didn't get a lot of attention: you can basically turn on god mode to make combat really easy (enemies go down with a few hits and you only die if you walk around outside of cover for a few minutes or something), or you can pick action mode which makes the game pick all conversation options for you so you can focus on shooting mans. Or you can keep it on RPG mode which is the way 99% of the people play the game.
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Nov 15, 2015 11:24
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Samopsa posted:Yeah, Mass Effect 3 did something quite neat that didn't get a lot of attention: you can basically turn on god mode to make combat really easy (enemies go down with a few hits and you only die if you walk around outside of cover for a few minutes or something), or you can pick action mode which makes the game pick all conversation options for you so you can focus on shooting mans. Or you can keep it on RPG mode which is the way 99% of the people play the game. Most of the attention it did get was negative. People talking about how 'Hamburger Hepler' was devaluing games by letting people skip the game part. I agree though, I thought it was pretty neat. Giving people more options is rarely bad.
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Nov 15, 2015 11:26
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HMS Boromir posted:Listened to the Comrade about Undertale. I basically don't disagree with any of Gary's criticisms of the game (despite loving it, bullet hell included, to bits) except for a minor nitpick about there being no feedback for sparing Toriel at the start, since there's no repeated responses even if the differences are a bit subtle. I feel that way about LISA, which is brainbreakingly hard to the point where I just quit playing because of how annoying it was. I really loved everything about it except the hosed up difficulty which is a huge shame.
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Nov 15, 2015 18:14
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MinibarMatchman posted:I feel that way about LISA, which is brainbreakingly hard to the point where I just quit playing because of how annoying it was. I really loved everything about it except the hosed up difficulty which is a huge shame. I can give LISA some more slack on that front since it fits in with the theme and tone, but I agree with the frustration. Irish comedian Dara O'Brien has a pretty good bit on the absurdity of video games as a medium preventing you from experiencing them. (could someone not stuck in the sticks on a crappy phone connection post a link?) VVV Thanks! VVV Bug Squash fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 18:41
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Gotcha covered.
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Nov 15, 2015 18:51
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I'd say gaming's ability to cater to specific audiences is the medium's greatest strength. With a movie you always get the same experience but every single element of a game can influence how the player experiences it. Like I absolutely can't get into the Souls series even though it is conceptually my perfect game. But something about the series' presentation, handling, story, and design does nothing to grab me and yet I got super engrossed is King's Field a few years ago, a 1995 first person dungeon crawler on the PS1 with a frame rate of 10 at best. You'd think if I liked one I should like the other but the switch is never flipped and that's perfectly fine.
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Nov 15, 2015 23:04
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CottonWolf posted:Most of the attention it did get was negative. People talking about how 'Hamburger Hepler' was devaluing games by letting people skip the game part. I agree though, I thought it was pretty neat. Giving people more options is rarely bad. I think the reason people who weren't just sexist morons and weirdo spergs resented the attitude (to the extent any did) is because it isn't "free" to just add features like entire extra modes to games; everything in a game costs time and money somehow, and they'd rather that time and money be spent making the game most people want to play better rather than creating bizarre inclusion features that apparently didn't catch on because DA:I didn't have them There's definitely a group of people who think every game should have variable difficulty selection, for example, and I think that's stupid both because it's prescriptive about a game's content and themes (a behavior that's ironically coincided with the recognition of games as art, with people on one side vehemently insisting that Gone Home isn't a game because it's non-violent and impossible to "fail" and people on another who think that Dark Souls is bad because it doesn't explain enough or have an easy option for people who just want to see the story) and because in many games putting in five granular levels of difficulty isn't a simple matter of just adjusting player health or enemy damage up (changes that usually make a game messed up and play like poo poo anyway, which is why I almost always play a game on normal the first time)
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Nov 15, 2015 23:15
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Zombies' Downfall posted:There's definitely a group of people who think every game should have variable difficulty selection, for example, and I think that's stupid both because it's prescriptive about a game's content and themes (a behavior that's ironically coincided with the recognition of games as art, with people on one side vehemently insisting that Gone Home isn't a game because it's non-violent and impossible to "fail" and people on another who think that Dark Souls is bad because it doesn't explain enough or have an easy option for people who just want to see the story) and because in many games putting in five granular levels of difficulty isn't a simple matter of just adjusting player health or enemy damage up (changes that usually make a game messed up and play like poo poo anyway, which is why I almost always play a game on normal the first time) I agree with that in many cases. I still maintain it would have been easy to add a story mode to Undertale. It's a game with two systems: the combat and the CYOA/Save Game Fuckery/Persistence. The 2nd wouldn't need to be touched. The game is simple enough, mechanically, to resist a complete overhaul in the interest of making numbers smaller.
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Nov 15, 2015 23:30
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I mean, if you want an easy fight where you only take 1 damage per hit, you can just fight Sans. He is the laziest and weakest of monsters, even says so when you Check him. His attacks only do one damage, too! and ignore invincibility so do 1 damage 40+ times a second
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Nov 15, 2015 23:44
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Woffle posted:I agree with that in many cases. I still maintain it would have been easy to add a story mode to Undertale. It's a game with two systems: the combat and the CYOA/Save Game Fuckery/Persistence. The 2nd wouldn't need to be touched. The game is simple enough, mechanically, to resist a complete overhaul in the interest of making numbers smaller. Well, I don't think there's no merit to such an approach, but like I suggested, it's not like adding such an option is entirely lossless either. For all the people who are now able to enjoy the game because it's easier, there will also be a corresponding set of people who screw themselves out of what a challenging playthrough has to offer because they underestimated their own skills/determination or overestimated the difficulty of the game. Also Undertale isn't really an Alpha Protocol/Mass Effect where there's massive branching and so it can be played as a pure CYOA. If you remove all gameplay challenge - and noting that people who want this want pure pacifist only, otherwise there's very simple ways to make the game very, very easy - then you don't really lose all that much relative to just going and watching a Let's Play. Also most of the branching is there really to catch the 'failure' states arising from the gameplay systems. So if you remove gameplay failure and pressure, you actually do rip out the way most of the 2nd part you listed can arise naturally in a playthrough. Fangz fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Nov 16, 2015 00:37
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Fangz posted:Well, I don't think there's no merit to such an approach, but like I suggested, it's not like adding such an option is entirely lossless either. For all the people who are now able to enjoy the game because it's easier, there will also be a corresponding set of people who screw themselves out of what a challenging playthrough has to offer because they underestimated their own skills/determination or overestimated the difficulty of the game. We don't need to go around and around with this but I think you're overestimating what challenge brings to the game. Even if I buy the idea that it contributes, I don't think it's the most important part of the game or the neatest or most noteworthy thing it does. Even in that case, I'm generally in favor of letting people approach or experience a game the way they want. Cheat codes, save scumming, etc don't bother me. In the case of Undertale, it might have made it possible for me to appreciate it. If the option is: do this one way that some people feel is less than ideal, but you'll still get a lot out of it, or don't do it at all, the choice seems clear to me. I wrote this while you were editing and couldn't respond: fairplay on the 2nd point. To the first, I'd bring up again that everything about this game communicates a pacifist playthrough to you. If you're coming to it in good faith and engaging it the way it wants to be engaged, you're playing it pacifist. We're just going to end up making the same points again where you say that the temptation to make it easy is the point and I argue that the weird meta 4th wall stuff and writing is the actual point. No need to go in circles. Happily and respectfully bowing out. Woffle fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Nov 16, 2015 00:47
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Woffle posted:We don't need to go around and around with this but I think you're overestimating what challenge brings to the game. Even if I buy the idea that it contributes, I don't think it's the most important part of the game or the neatest or most noteworthy thing it does. There's ways to use memory editors to increase HP amounts. At least one reviewer completed the game using this method (resulting in him missing certain points entirely, but well....). I don't think challenge is the most important part of the game, but I do think it matters to how the majority of people have enjoyed the game and felt a sense of ownership over the story results. Personally as someone who considered myself bad at 'bullet hell' games, the fact that I persevered and eventually succeeded by uncovering gameplay mechanics that helped me to circumvent my, well, crumminess with this sort of game, instead of just playing on Easy, I found that really important. I found the game offered me multiple ways of succeeding, and rewarded what I considered to be cleverness in seeking out alternative solutions.
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Nov 16, 2015 00:52
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So I listened to the Comrade about Undertale and I'm glad I did! As a noted Liker of the Thing, it really didn't bother me and I'm not sure why it would bother anyone. I think it's totally plausible that color blindness would ruin some of the boss encounters and make them unmanageably difficult, and I agree that there's some weird pacing stuff with how the cutesy VS weird meta creepy elements are used (Flowey in particular is a criminally underused antagonist). I still think some of your criticism is coming from weird notions about what you think the game is trying to do and failing at, and in some cases is just based on a false premise; that the relationship between you (Gary) the player, the player character, and the first fallen child you named is muddled and unclear isn't sloppy writing, it's deliberate and serves both the meta crap the game is doing and the weird supernatural horror element of the plot that's exposed when you start overturning stuff. Your review is totally fair, though, and you're right that it's been the subject of nerd hyperbole and aggressive fandom that probably do the game itself no favors.
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Nov 16, 2015 01:10
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Personally I just thought the bullet hell stuff was really fun & rewarding and I wouldn't want to change it. There would definitely be ways to balance an "easy mode" that would help people who hated the mechanics and couldn't deal with them get through the game without taking away too much of what made that stuff work for me (because I actually totally disagree about the combat and the storytelling being separate things), but that wouldn't come for free. Implementing an alternate difficulty mode has a pretty significant cost in terms of development time and resources, especially if you do it right and rebalance the game in a meaningful way instead of just saying "gently caress it have an extra 80 HP," and while this is a purely subjective opinion that I'm able to hold largely because I like the gameplay as much as I do, I'm glad that theoretical opportunity cost went towards making the core experience stronger instead. The colorblindness thing is a fair point, though, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if you could get Toby Fox to look into implementing a colorblind mode if you mentioned it to him. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Nov 16, 2015 01:20
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Undertale was kickstarted and made by some random nerd completely by himself who obviously never expected his game would be anything more than an extremely niche game that appealed to a select group of people, much more akin to Lisa than Final Fantasy. While it wouldn't hurt the game to have difficulty modifiers, it seems kinda disingenuous to act like the developer should have specifically catered his quirky indie anime game to such a widespread audience coming from disparate skill levels and backgrounds.
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Nov 16, 2015 01:31
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Noting that the thread is probably going to turn into a shitshow over this sooner or later just going back to this: thank god y'all are being decent about this, he says, as the Steam thread turns into a circuitous firestorm over this very topic elsewhere on the board
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Nov 16, 2015 01:36
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