Topic: deltarune/UNDERTALE OT

Soooooo I played the deltarune chapter 1 free demo... thingy... whatever you wanna call it when it came out on the 28th of February.

A touch surprised to find there wasn't a review by the PushSquare staff (Though there was a bunch of new games out then, and sister site nintylife has one) or any topics on it or UNDERTALE in fact amongst the forum.

So I made this!

Anyone else give it a whirl? PC, Switch or PS4?

Interested to hear people's thoughts on either game or any wild theories on how deltarune relates to UNDERTALE

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I didn’t play deltarune. I played Undertale and thought I’d enjoy it but I’m not sure what all the fuss was about frankly.

Ha ha I actually agree @kyleforrester87 more or less.

I think UNDERTALE is ok, but not the gift from the heavens every reviewer seemed to think of it

I just quite like the music, the non "weird" fan art and freaky fish girl Undyne 😅

Ended up enjoying deltarune more, even though it isn't as original.

The new party mechanics are nice even if it only really gets to shine towards the end of the demo (Especially against the bonus boss) and the two to three hour runtime makes it nice and breezy!

Plus it's free which helps...

I'd say give it a whirl if you liked Undertale enough, deltarune has a measure of it's own ideas but there are some connections/cameo's to Undertale.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I played it for twenty minutes or so on PC when it first released, but as you know, most of that is just set-up. I'm planning on blitzing the Switch version soon.

I still think Undertale is a brilliant little game. Between the brutal satire of RPG game design, the devastating ways in which is addresses your choices, the brilliant chiptune soundtrack, the distinctive art-style, and some insanely creative boss fights, it's still one of the best indies I've ever played. There's an interesting critique of violence and how embedded violent narratives are in our media, as well, and the different playthroughs can be radically different (I maintain that anyone who hasn't played through the genocide route has only partially experienced the game, and will neither get the full effect of the satire or see the extraordinary ways in which the game itself transforms through your input).

Oh don't get me wrong, I appreciate the meta commentary it has @Ralizah and I certainly don't think Undertale is a bad game in any shape or form.

But I just don't think it's truly exemplary either.

• The combat isn't that impressive (Outside the boss fights)

It's true that's the case for most games (some don't even have memorable or creative fights at all!) but it kinda shows up the random encounters in particular after said boss fights where I'm having to go through the same enemies and end up doing the same thing over and over with very few different actions on the enemies part

Again that happens in most games but something about Undertale makes it stand out more.

• The overworld artwork is rather ugly (In my opinion)

That's partially down to the SNES aesthetic it's going for I feel. I'm not actually that picky about graphics (I think the original crash for PS1 still looks pretty decent for example) but this really just doesn't do it for me.

The battle/shop/first persony artwork is very nice though!

• And I guess sometimes I feel it's trying to be a bit too clever for it's own good?

Not much I really have to say about that point. It's fairly self explanatory.

I guess however it's mostly just down to the reams of praise it did get, putting it on too high of a pedestal and upon actually playing it was never going to be able to reach those heights sadly.

I had a similar experience upon trying FFVII for the first time a few years back.

I think that's partially why I actually like deltarune more. Nowhere near as hyped (Some of the reviews I've seen just called it more undertale really) and I ended up appreciating it more

Can wholeheartedly agree 100% on the soundtrack though. Some very lovely tracks on there that I have in multiple playlists

I had almost this exact conversation with someone on NL the other day. I feel like I'm going to get a reputation soon.

Sounds like most classic JRPGs I've played.

I won't deny that systematically killing everything with the attack command in the genocide route is kind of tedious, but I think, to some extent, that's a bit of the point. It's much more interesting to actually talk your enemies down with the SMT-esque negotiations. Which is also a part of the battle system, and why I'm inclined to call it interesting.

To that effect, I do think the tedium of actually battling is, at least partially, an intentional part of the artistic experience involved with playing the game.

Even then, though, I still find it more engaging than your average classic FF game because of the interesting mechanic where you have to dodge enemy attacks in real time.

I'll just have to disagree here. I think the game has a very charming and cohesive art style to it. And it's so distinctive that it'd be almost impossible to make a screen from this game for almost anything else.

I get the art style of a game putting you off, though. That's one of the biggest reasons I've yet to play Celeste: I just think it has terrible-looking pixel art.

That's a danger with any game that tries to meta-commentate on its own medium. And, y'know, I wouldn't always disagree with you. Sometimes there's stuff like gimmicky fourth-wall breaking. I don't find that it defined the game for me, though: isolated moments when the 'cleverness' was a tad too on-the-nose can't take away from what I feel like was an incredibly robust core.

EDIT:

How dare you?!

...

I kid. I love FFVII to bits and pieces, but it is very "of its time," and I don't think people coming to it in the modern age of gaming for the first time will ever be able to enjoy it as fully as someone who played it when it was still fresh. In my case, I played it as a child, so my memories of it are also tinged with an almost painful nostalgia.

I had the same experience with N64 classics Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. Didn't play them until the late 2000's, and... well, I can appreciate OoT. I hated Mario 64, unfortunately. Anyway, I couldn't appreciate either game as fully as someone who played them when they were still revolutions in 3D gaming.

FFVII has bad overworld graphics too with those nightmare inducing arms they all have that look like tin cans connected by a piece of string 😉

And touché @Ralizah , very reasonable and well thought out responses!

I'm now very curious on what you'll think of deltarune... that's two of your impressions I'll have to look out for now 😛

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I've said before that I wish SE would have done an OoT3D-esque remake that updates the graphics without totally reinventing it or breaking the bank. Just enough so that the backdrops don't look as blurry and Cloud doesn't look like Popeye if he was made out of Legos.

@Ralizah You have to buy celeste. It's really good. I obviously had a rant about the difficulty options - however in retrospect I actually got really good at the game and platinumed it. There's a mode in the game which you have to find which has no difficulty options and is a blast.

If you like platformers it's a must.

@themcnoisy So I've heard. I'm kind of hoping it comes to PS+ before my sub expires. Failing that, I'm hoping it hits $10 on sale.

My initial impression from gameplay footage was: "Super Meat Boy, but recontextualized as a sort of psycho-spiritual journey."

@Ralizah not really. It's not hard like that. You make steady progress and the checkpoints are often. The extra challenge is grabbing the strawberries which are optional. When the game does become more difficult later its because a double boost becomes available and it's hard to control (a bit too finickity) but persistence pays off.

Super meat boy on the other hand is relentless.

Anyhow I've derailed this thread enough lol.

@Kyroki Deltarune is available on pretty much everything, though. What'd you play Undertale on?

@Kyroki Why not just play Deltarune on PS4, then? Unless you're especially excited for it as a portable experience?

@Kyroki https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP3893-CUSA15235_...

So you don't need to navigate the PS4's icky web store on the console.