2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

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VideoGameCritic
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2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby VideoGameCritic » November 12th, 2017, 11:00 am

This review, written by eneuman96, has been sitting in my queue for a while. Looks like a very innovative game. I took my pen to it as usual but hopefully I didn't change the spirit of the review. Feedback encouraged!

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Retro STrife
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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby Retro STrife » November 12th, 2017, 4:18 pm

Woah woah woah. Big thanks to eneuman96! Certainly for the review itself, but equally so for pointing out that this game is on the PS4. I did not know. I'm going to take this life-altering information and go download the game ASAP.

Undertale has been on my radar since it came out for PC in 2015. I don't play PC games, so it takes a lot for me to take notice of one. It got great reviews, but that wasn't enough to get my attention. That changed, though, when it won GameFaqs "Best Game Ever" poll in 2015, beating out about 63 classic games in a March Madness style bracket. Yes, Undertale fans banded together online to help make that victory happen, but still, anyone who follows those GameFAQs polls knows how impressive that victory was. GameFAQs polls are dominated by the biggest group of Nintendo fanboys ever, which means that Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Smash Bros., etc. DESTROY all the competition when they do those "Best Ever" contests. For a small indie title like Undertale to defeat Ocarina of Time in the finals was a miracle- no matter how many Undertale fans banded together. On the road to victory, it had direct head-to-head wins over Mass Effect 3, Fallout 3, Super Mario World, Pokémon Red and Blue, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros. Melee and, ultimately, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which won the contest when it ran in 2009. I realized at that point that I had to give it a shot and see what all the fuss was about.

With that victory, and the great review scores (always impressive for an indie title, since you know it's not biased by advertising dollars, like other reviews might be)--and the fact that it's a 10-15 hour RPG (finally, a short RPG!)-- I've been planning to download the PC version. But my lack of PC gaming has always stalled that. I'll definitely pick it up now that it's on the PS4. Any differences over the PC and PS4 versions worth noting?

Paul Campbell
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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby Paul Campbell » November 12th, 2017, 4:45 pm

I'm not much of a fan of this type of game, but after reading about it I decided to take a chance, and I have definitely enjoyed it, but I think I might stop where I am and start over again, because I got a bit stuck and looked up online for some answers, and from reading people's explanations of where they were at that point in the game, I think I have been playing this game wrong, possibly trying to force the game to play the way I wanted it to play, and it caused me to miss out a bit, and I think I would be enjoying it even more if I had been more open minded.

A few other comments, the writing is brilliant. My 7 year old son actually had tears in his eyes watching me play, after one if the early moments, when something bad happened to a character he liked (another thing I realize I may have done wrong).

To me, the graphics have an indistinguishable quality that doesn't make the game look like it belongs to any specific era of past gaming decades. I like this alot. It feels original and fresh.

The music is certainly original and good, but as a particular fan of classic gaming music, I've been less impressed with it than I thought I would be. I'm hoping a new playthrough will change that.

I'm almost hoping to get some specific advice on how to play this game in a way that gets the most enjoyment out of it, because I always worry that my choices are steering me away from something I would enjoy.

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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby eneuman96 » November 12th, 2017, 10:46 pm

Retro STrife wrote:Any differences over the PC and PS4 versions worth noting?


There are a few, the most major of which are arguably spoilers, but the *vast* majority of the game is unchanged. There are a
couple parts in the game I thought would only ever work on a PC, but the PS4 version handles them well.


Paul Campbell wrote:I think I have been playing this game wrong, possibly trying to force the game to play the way I wanted it to play, and it caused me to miss out a bit, and I think I would be enjoying it even more if I had been more open minded.


There is no "wrong" way to play Undertale. Many would argue that the "right" way to play it would be a Pacifist run (not killing anyone at all), but there's nothing stopping you from playing it differently, and the fact that there are tons of lines of dialogue that you only see under specific conditions actually encourages players to experiment.

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Rev
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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby Rev » November 13th, 2017, 11:24 am

Just beat the neutral path on undertale. Snagged the physical release collector's edition. Been very happy with the game and finally being able to play it. Nice review!

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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby Atarifever » November 13th, 2017, 1:43 pm

This review and the comments here (and in the review crew section) are really making me interested in this one. I had no idea I wanted to play this, but it sounds like maybe I'm missing out. Great review.

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Rev
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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby Rev » November 14th, 2017, 4:12 pm

I beat the true pacifist route and have to say I really enjoyed the game. Not going the killer route. I don't want to kill any of the mobsters in this game. Very fun game and the thing that sells the game is the characters. None of the menus or graphics are particularly well done but man, he really put everything into his characters. It sells the game.

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JustLikeHeaven
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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby JustLikeHeaven » November 14th, 2017, 7:50 pm

FYI for anyone interested...Fan Gamer has a pre-order up for more copies of the physical collector's edition if you're interested. They say it will ship in December. If anyone is on the fence, I own the collector's edition and it's one of the most evocative and beautiful editions of a game I've ever seen. Worth every cent. It doesn't hurt that the game happens to be amazing too!

https://www.fangamer.com/products/undertale-ps4-vita

You can also go ahead and order the standard edition right now if you'd rather have that. It seems to be in stock. I ordered directly from Fan Gamer and had zero issues with them.

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Re: 2017/11/12: Playstation 4: Undertale

Postby Retro STrife » February 5th, 2018, 2:33 am

Thanks again to eneuman96 for this review. As you can see from my initial post above, I was very interested to try this game. I downloaded it after learning it was on PS4, and I've slowly progressed through it over the past 2 months. I finally finished a True Pacifist route this weekend.

While often described as an RPG, to me the Pacifist route is barely an RPG and more of an adventure game. And the battles are less RPG battles, and more a mix of shmup and puzzler (because you avoid enemy attacks much like you would in a shoot em up, and then try to decipher how to save the monsters without fighting them). That's not a complaint though--I liked the uniqueness of the gameplay mechanics.

My feelings about this game wavered throughout, from loving it at points, to being totally bored and wanting to quit at other times. Yet I missed the game once I was done. The real star of the show is the incredible writing, and that's what pushes you to keep playing. I won't call it a great story (it's good, but not great), but the writing/dialogue itself is incredibly smart and entertaining and some of the best I've ever experienced in any game.

While this won the "Best Game Ever" poll on Gamefaqs a few years back, I now realize that that must have been spurred by the rabid online community that was active with Undertale at that time, rather than genuinely deserving it. It's just not on that level. More recently, this past year, Game Informer ranked this game at #70 on its list of the 100 Best RPGs Ever, and I think that's a more realistic honor for Undertale. It belongs on that list for its writing and unique pacifist battles alone.

Next up, I have to decide if I want to try a Genocide route. Has anyone tried this? I'm interested in seeing it, but also worried that it will bother me to kill off all these characters that I've grown to like.


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