Undertale

[Sage]

Anyone else picked this up yet? It's a pretty interesting bullet hell/rpg with some off-beat humor that kind of makes me feel like I should be a better person.

[Nick]

no one on the internet has played this game. What rare indie gem have you found??

[Sage]

[Agent]

You sound disenchanted.

[Nick]

this why sage always gonna be a newbie

[dexeron]

I am always so far behind on things. I never heard of this game until just now. Seems worth checking out.

[Nick]

Fine, I'll bite. As amused as I am by the fact sage as easy to ruffle as the day he joined...

Undertale is a fantastic indie RPG and has been lauded as such by a lot of people. It's fairly popular in the type of internet holes where you talk about video games and also the type of internet holes cool people such as myself visit. Normally I would have hesitated to point out to sage that asking if people have heard of Undertale is silly but for a long time this place was one of those internet holes wherein people knew video games. I realize now of course, with the 5 people left, 3 of the don't know video games so I will join this discussion at the cost of being late to work.

Undertale is an rpg where in the primary combat mechanic is dodging. That is to say you enter combat and you are a little thing on the screen you have to avoid obstacles thrown at you, it is superficially like a bullet-hell game. I say superficially because the game plays fast and loose with the mechanics and changes them at you when it feels like it wants to. Its a novel way of combat interaction as long as you don't mind doing them precise dodging and jumping and evading. The real thing that has everyone charmed is that that combat can resolved without beating the other person up by through non violent means, should you choose to. Regardless of which option you pick, you still dodging though. The humor in undertale is a great example of a style of humor that has been going around on the internet lately. It is hard for me to quantify exactly what that style is and unfortunately the best example I can think of right now, I don't want to make because its a bit out of date and also terrible (homestuck (which I unfortunately think of because a friend mentioned it once and I was like man no way and here I am repeating it.). Obviously it also has a lot of influence from earthbound too, and it shows. The game is full of references to things but most of them are done quite well so it isn't jarring or annoying. The humor mostly consists in the fact that everything being weird is also just how the way it is for those characters in that world. Its the sort of thing where for example maybe people use bananas to make phone calls but no one calls it out or makes a joke about it, its more that huh, I guess that's how it is kind of feeling.
Anywho the writing is pretty funny and the characters are exquisite. Theres a lot to talk about there but its also all nearly impossible to talk about without ruining some part of the game for you.
Its the sort of game you should probably go in blind and enjoy thoroughly and then play the new game plus and try something new. THEN go talk to your friends on the internet about it.

[dexeron]

Also, isn't Sage in an underwater metal tube most of the time? He's probably not up on the latest gaming stuff.


...also, what that old xkcd strip, "Ten Thousand," said.

[Nick]

Git gud