Suikoden II would have done better if tapevulture was able to participate. I assume he's in jail, probably for a jan 6 related crime
@“Tradegood”#p126957 this really puts into words thoughts i have about undertale and mother/earthbound that i‘ve never really formed into like, cogent sentences! it’s also starting to feel like the thing where at this point, removed from its time and context, earthbound could feel less impressive than it did back when a lot of what it was doing was still quite novel, and today so many games are riffing on the mothers that it further dilutes the impact it could have, if you're not looking out for that?
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@“Tradegood”#p126957 I had never even heard the word “doggo” before playing it, so I had no baggage.
Wait, did Undertale popularize calling dogs "doggos"?
@“rearnakedwindow”#p126980 I think that responsibility lies with that awful we rate dogs account
EDIT: Wired's got it covered https://www.wired.com/story/rise-of-doggo/
Speaking of doggos I didn’t do my part to help but Dragon’s Dogma making the honorable mentions reminded me: ||Dragon’s Dogma 2 is gonna be soooo sick and out within two years (prolly).||
An important point that requires discussion: how is everyone internally / subvocally reading CVOOO1K?
_see voo one kay_?
_see voo ick_?
_kah voo one kay_?
_kah voo ick_?
or perhaps the first phenome is _cha_? There's a silliness to _chavooick_ I could get behind, but up until now I've been reading it as the first option I presented here.
for me it's seh-vo-ik
the o sound is really long though
seˈβojk (adding this cause I'm not good at writing english in phonetically I guess)
…
||[size=40][b][i]“COOK”||
It rhymes with “s'il vous plait”
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@“Tradegood”#p126957 Undertale rules, but then again I played it having never heard of it. I think by now its reputation precedes it and if I played it now, it may have caused me to approach it with more cynicism then it deserves (which is zero cynicism).
I played _Undertale_ with a particular pre-existing relationship to it, which is that I played it while it was still only out for a few months, and I was also still a Curmudgeon About Popular Things (But Learning), and having been (barely) convinced to play it by my cousin (who has a very strangely inconsistent track record of recommending me things that I either very rarely love, or mostly just don't give a shit about (to be fair to them they are getting better at it)).
So, I played it with at least some trepidation and skepticism, and only after I had already let the zeitgeist-y wave crash upon my heart's rocky shore dispersed. Like, I knew I had a handful of friends who liked it and others who wanted to play it, I was just being a Hater.
Does that count as cynicism? I dunno, at any rate, it won me over extremely quickly, Like surely a lot of people who have played a lot of videogames, I think I was already sold when I accidentally ||killed Toriel, because I assumed that the fight was still some kind of battle tutorial and the bosses worked according to different rules and thus it would have a scripted end despite using the attack command, and I felt so horrified and empty from how the game just proceeds as if nothing significant happened, that I just restarted the save... but then Flowy CAUGHT MY ASS IN 4K by saying that it KNEW I did that.|| That motherfucker.
At any rate, I dunno, I was pretty on the pulse of things in late 2015, _Undertale's_ reputation had already started to at least cede itself if not precede itself, at least to me and my friends, and I approached it without much generosity in my heart. I think it has enough of its own unique personality that it is maybe very difficult to form preconceptions about that won't just be undermined by what it's actually like to play. Love it or hate it, it's nothing if not a pretty novel gameplay experience that tries to as often as possible surprise and delight the player with all sorts of goofy nonsense and emotional landmines.
Perhaps another way of saying that is that _Undertale_ might have a certain reputation, but, _Undertale_ is perhaps one of those things that is very difficult to conceive of purely in the abstract. Not even necessarily because it resists description, but how one experiences and how one will feel about it depends a ton on one's own idiosyncrasies, emotional, intellectual, or otherwise. Maybe it's like how horror games with relatively low visual fidelity (wait, isn't that also _Undertale??) can often make that leap from the low visual information being objectively depicted on screen, into being even more terrifying than photorealism because your own inner fears and imagination are being tripped by the suggestive and evocative visual information on screen, it's a game that I think uses its narrative framing and just overall earnestness in purpose to come off of the screen and be experienced more in the abstract realm of emotional attachment to the funny little monster guys, with the idea looming over everything that you can, in fact, destroy them.
Maybe this is the strongest example of how preconceptions of _Undertale_ can seem reasonably accurate on the surface, but, in the act of gameplay, end up feeling so much more profound. The "you can talk to these creatures" or "you can kill everybody in the game if you want to" premise of the game, I think, comes off as trite if you _only_ just hear about it. In fact, thinking about it now, I think my reluctant haterdom of the game was probably borne out of exactly that, the premise sounds trite, it might even grate on me. Actually, I even saw its Steam page for a second when I went to double check when I was gifted the game by my cousin, and it has this as a tagline:
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UNDERTALE! The RPG game where you don't have to destroy anyone.
...and to be honest, that kind of comes off as annoying to me! Even in 2023, after I know that I already deeply love the game and feel playing it is a truly cherished memory of mine. It comes off as trite, even sanctimonious.
But then, in the face of actually playing the game, that trite premise is executed on in such a sincere way, and with total commitment to the idea, that the premise of the game changes from a back-of-the-box boast to an actual emotional experience you're having. The welfare of the funny little monster guys, and one's sense of actually being able to meaningfully change the world of the game, makes the abstract activity of shoving RPG numbers up against each other to receive more text boxes and art becomes damn near reified into a true attachment and sense of responsibility to the game's world. I love those little monster guys. They feel real to me in a way few other videogame characters do. For example, even if the ||Genocide Route|| had some kind of incredible additional gameplay (and arguably it does if you're a masochistic bullet hell fan, but I am not), I don't think I could _ever_ bring myself to physically play it. This seems truly, viscerally _wrong,_ and, well, I don't think anyone who does that for gameplay purposes is a _bad person,_ but... I think it's all executed in such a way that that particular way to play the game, might hold a unique sort of appeal to someone who is actually cruel or immoral. Again, just to repeat, if you didn't feel the same kind of emotional attachment to the characters, or are some kind of compulsive completionist, I don't see the problem in being curious enough about it to play through it that way! But, like, I think I would be legitimately scared of someone who could actually revel in it, or who just thinks it's funny. Toby was not subtle about it, but, in a way I think the lack of subtlety is a product of the game's sincerity, not a lack of narrative craft.
Is it cheating to make the "bad" route so morally unambiguous as to be bad? It's interesting, maybe, that the existence of a way to play a game has an effect on the player specifically because you feel obligated to _not_ play it that way. Perhaps it also matters that it's, either, a style of play that is pretty similar to the other side of the gameplay dichotomy, and/or it's a style of gameplay that is a down-the-middle execution on RPG genre conventions (which, imo, _Undertale_ largely uses as a clever disguise for being, gameplay wise, a lite strategy bullet hell).
Maybe it's also at least partially how in most games that actually let you affect change on the world only allow it to happen in such trite and sanctimonious ways. Maybe you could say that it was at least somewhat easier to make a game that actually thought through how to actually make the player feel that their choices had an impact on the world than it would be because the competition is so bad. But... there weren't more games like _Undertale_ then, and there might not be that many more around now _(Deltarune,_ I guess counts lol). So we can't really fault it for just actually delivering on the substance of its premise just because other games primed the landscape by being so cloyingly mediocre about it.
That being said, you probably have to like the game's vibe and think the writing is at least charming going in for this to happen, and these are of course still matters of taste at the end of the day and especially with regards to Toby's comedic sensibilities, even if I do think _Undertale_ is something special in how it accomplishes building that framing for emotional attachment with its characters and world, and its level of commitment to that premise getting through to the player in a way that feels so impactful.
But, still again taste aside, perhaps it is possible to be cynical about _Undertale_ based on its reputation, and maybe even to read this post and even having not played _Undertale_ before, and know that the game has had this kind of effect on people. But, I think it will probably happen anyway. Maybe unless you're _real_ cynical, lol.
I really, really love _Undertale._ It's like the ultimate game for the sort of person who likes to do quests in an MMORPG because you like helping the little virtual people in the computer.
...which is also why I hate that I contributed to splitting the vote on it by voting for _Deltarune,_ even though I do think _Deltarune_ is gonna be the better game overall!!!!!!! Damnit!! But, to me that doesn't change that my little monster buddies are all in their little houses goofing around with each other.
Also re: _Mother 2_
...I really don't like it all that much lol. Maybe it's because I just find it kinda boring to play for most of it. Not enough of it compels me to keep playing it It's fair to say that I've never gotten far enough into _Earthbound_ to experience it, but,
I'm not even sure I see a profound connection to _Undertale,_ beyond that the enemies are made out of little weird punchlines, and the player character is a little kid with a striped shirt, and the dialogue is funny, and it intentionally clashes light and breezy and quirky fun things with dark, emotionally intense, and devastatingly confronting themes. Maybe those are big points of comparison, but, like, it's the everything else of the games that don't seem to have much to do with each other. As well, _Mother 2_ feels like much more of an intellectual experience from the beginning, and if _Undertale's_ masterstroke is in throwing those characters you become emotionally attached to into the Vitamix of those dark, intense, and confronting themes, I don't really know if I can imagine feeling a similar tug of attachment and love for the characters and world, because I really don't feel much at all for Ness or the people or the world. I like it and think it's charming and weird and neat, but, like, the idea of Ness and whoever the other ones besides Poo (hehe... Poo) are getting thrown into a deeply confronting situation doesn't make me feel anything. Maybe I'm being hypocritical here, because I'm also saying that I believe _Undertale_ has the capacity to get people on that kind of deeper level even if you intellectually inoculate yourself against it. Nevertheless... I know I have played _Mother 2_ for as long as it took me to get to where _Undertale_ had already hooked me many times over.
Maybe with regards to _Mother 2_ you had to be there, either contemporaneously at the right stage of your life, or maybe you have to have the capability to send yourself there. Not sure where "there" even is, but, I know I can't really send myself there.. I was certainly too young to appreciate it contemporaneously and trying to do so retrospectively didn't work for me, personally.
@“rejj”#p126990 see vee back one thousand K
Or CV<1K
Kevorkian
@“rejj”#p126990 чвоек
mother 2 is a game for adults about kids that kids play and get adult feelings about being kids and i think that's neat
of the top 10 imo Earthbound is the one that deserves to be there. I could see a case for Yakuza 0 and Disco Elysium. Dark Souls is a great game of course, but I don’t quite understand why it should be held in higher regard than Bloodborne and Sekiro. If we’re talking historical importance, isn’t Demon’s the one? I also think Demon’s is stranger and more mysterious. I guess it’s not as “good” though - Dark is both more refined and more elaborate, but I think you can see it ossifying into a “thing.”
_Link’s Awakening_ is a good choice as far as Zeldas go. I get why so many people would include it in their top 10s. Ditto for _Chrono_ and _Katamari_. I like _Automata_ too but it winds up being a bit sentimental and indulgent imo. _NieR_ is, like _Demon’s_ more interesting although not as “good.” BotW is high fructose corn syrup and I hope it keeps losing votes !
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@“yeso”#p127007 I guess it’s not as “good” though - Dark is both more refined and more elaborate, but I think you can see it ossifying into a “thing.”
I love _Dark Souls_ as much as the next person but I feel like love and attachment for _Dark Souls_ depends on something crucial that is simply not a straightforward love of _Dark Souls._ What it actually is, if you're being honest with yourself, is that you love the first half of _Dark Souls,_ and then you love what you know in your heart the second half of _Dark Souls_ could have been.
Truly, From Software's continual search for recapturing the raw wonder of playing _Dark Souls_ started in _Dark Souls_
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@“Gaagaagiins”#p127008 if you’re being honest with yourself, is that you love the first half of Dark Souls
my favorite area in _Dark Souls_ is the Demon Ruins + Lost Izalith which is why I like _Demon's Souls_ better
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@“captain”#p127009 my favorite area in Dark Souls is the Demon Ruins + Lost Izalith which is why I like Demon’s Souls better
I thought I was being clever with the twisty-turny logic here, but, this statement is utterly mysterious to me. You are so fucking good at liking games, @captain
But maybe I get it. I had a moment deep in the rabbit hole of thinking about Dark Souls and ascribing meaning to every aspect of it I could, and something about the absurdity of all of the Taurus Demons and Capra Demons just standing passively just made me think, like, damn, even this world‘s hell just gave the hell up. Those Capra Demons aren’t hastily copy-pasted, they're just Depressed
Deep in the H-Hole (Hellhole)
[img]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/darksouls/images/b/bd/Demon_Ruin.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20160608105531[/img]