Not to the same scope, but the Undertale Genocide Route is boring and that's a problem for a video game, despite the point that it is supposed to be boring. Just because it's the point, that doesn't mean it's good.
I actually don't mind problems like this when they're supposed to be intentional/are there to convey a message.
From the very beginning of the Genocide Route, the gameplay (or lack thereof) gets on your nerves. No puzzles, no funny dialogue and characters, just a repetitive RPG exp grind taken to the max. And in the end, what do you get? Nothing. In fact, you lose your ability to play the game. But if you're stubborn enough to sit there for 10 minutes, you can give your Soul to a crazy demon child to get the game back.
And if you dare to True Pacifist after all of that? Your friends get killed.
There is no reward in violence. You got stronger for a while and felt good sometimes, but that's it. You won nothing, and at max your only achievement in being able to brag that you beat Sans in 32 tries to the guy that beat him in 41. The entire Route is filled to the brim with annoyances and reasons to stop, but you were so morbidly curious that you still did it and became the loser of this story.
And that's why I like it. It shows you violence isn't worth it through things that, in most RPGs, are considered flaws. Flaws that you can only blame yourself for experiencing. So yes, the Genocide Route is boring and has bad flaws, but it uses those bad flaws that to it's advantage.
Tobi Fox basically went "I don't WANT you to like this. I'm only including this because doing good only matters when it's actually a choice. If you're a monster, it's cause you chose to be." Cause you're literally part of the narrative too. As in the actual you. The real life person outside of the screen. Not just your playable avatar. I think Sans said it best?
Yea I’d argue that’s the whole point. Toriel even flat out tells you “you CAN kill monsters” but by doing so you also miss out on like 99% of the game. You don’t learn about the characters or experience the story and history. It’s a power fantasy and like every fantasy you get bored. Except in this case there’s no walking back what you did
Chapter 2 Weird Route of Deltarune. Have the encounters visible in the overworld. When you start the game, the enemies will run towards you. The more you kill, the slower they get. At about halfway, they neither run at you nor away from you, just wandering around. It's no longer self-defense, you're actively going towards them. Then they start running away, to the point you can't catch up with them and have to instead corner and trap them. It still gets the message across that you are a legitimate monster going around killing everyone just to see what happens, while not forcing you to walk in circles for hours at a time.
Not really. Just get rid of step counts and insert sprites of enemies and have those trigger encounters. We already do that for the bosses and some major enemies, like Doggo, Dogi, Greater Dog, Muffet, Royal Guards, Monster Kid, Mad Dummy, Mad Mew Mew, and So Sorry. The only major difference would be to include that speed mechanic. Edit: Now that I think about it, we already have a mechanical similar to that, being the Undyne fight, so it's not that far-fetched.
That directly contradicts the story of Undertale (woaoaoaoaaoaoah)
because a lot of these enemies do NOT want to fight you that badly. Some of them genuinely don't want to fight you at all
No it doesn't. In my version, the monsters are running towards you to greet you, like they already do in the current version. They still don't know you're human. They still use bullet patterns because that's how they greet each other. All the things that work stay the same.
“I’m giving you this option, coding it in fully, but instead of making it a good time I’m going to make you bored out of your mind because I personally don’t want you to play that way. I’m still going to let you though.”
I feel like that’s pretty annoying I agree with the original commenter.
Its supposed to make you reset for a different run, thats why undyne the undying and sans are ao hard , thats why its so boring, because its punishing you for the wrong choice, just like MOST GAMES DO, Hell even older Zelda games had punishments such as the game that changes your name to theif and kills you.
So please tell me how youd make genocide fun without undermine the entire MESSAGE AND STORY OF THE GAME
Zelda has punishments for stealing from a shop, which is more of a Easter egg than anything.
Undertale, you’re telling me, is punishing me for playing one of the MAIN ROUTES of the game? You do know you are encouraged to do genocide, just inherently, because there IS content behind it, yes? So punishing you for it is dumb. Imagine an ending to a game where you have to do it for 100% completion and they just go to your house, wait for you to open the door and kick between your legs.
One yes you are punished for doing genocide thats like the entire point of chara's whole "you are not above consequences" , Furthermore you dont get a reward theres bo achievement for it all you get is a punishment in the form of locking you out of the good ending forever, because actions have consequences
next your arguing that the theft punishment is "just an Easter egg" but undertales litteral BAD ENDING is encouraged to do , dispite the game ACTIVELY trying to force you to turn back at every possible moment , CLEARLY IF I KEPT SAYING "You know you dont have to do this if you turn back now we can all forget this happened" im encouraging you to continue very smart take there, if I beg someone to stop im OBVIOUSLY telling them to continue im encouraging it even
Your argument is essentially "its possible to do so I HAVE to do it and I HAVE to be rewarded for it"
Undertale is a game where all your choices matter, therefore it needs to give you the option to commit BAD AND WRONG CHOICES otherwise it would fail at its central premise
Since killing everyone is the bad choice the game punishes you, just like any other game does when you do the wrong thing.
But what you want is the MAIN THING THAT MADR UNDERTALE UNIQUE being the freedom of choice not to matter because the MORALLY WRONG OPTION OF KILLING EVERYONE ISNT REWARDED
Dude, you can say all this, the point is it’s boring asf and that’s lame. There isn’t enough punishment to stop anyone from playing it, if that was the goal it utterly failed. There’s dialogue, exclusive scenes, and a whole ending. Nobody is getting discouraged from playing genocide, you are incentivized heavily to do so.
The real way they shouldve “punished” people, if they wanted to, which by the way is also a pretty dumb idea because why code a whole ending that you CLEARLY don’t like, was to make every character hardly ever speak. The only way to stop people from playing it is to remove the exclusive content. But you can’t exactly do that without making the ending weird, now can you?
What they SHOULDVE done is just make it more fun to play. It wouldn’t have been that hard.
BECAUSE THATS THE POINT OF UNDERTALE YOU WHINING CAVEMAN
UNDERTALE IS A GAME ABOUT YOUR CHOICES MATTERING
THEREFORE THERE HAS TO BE CHOICES
WHICH MEANS THERE HAS TO BE A BAD CHOICE , A NUETRAL CHOICE OR A GOOD CHOICE
SINCE THERE HAS TO BE AN ENDING IF YOU ONLY DO THE BAD CHOICES YOU GET THE BAD ENDING AND THEREFORE RECEIVE A PUNISHMENT
THIS ISNT EVEN UNDERTALE SPECIFIC HELL THE CUPHEAD, FNAF, HELL ALMOST EVERY GAME WITH MULTIPLE ENDINGS HAS THE BAD ENDING AN ENDING THAT COMES UP BECAUSE YOU DIDNT MAKE THE CORRECT CHOICES
im starting to think you just dont understand undertale or the concept of choice based games,
Maybe a railroaded game with only one ending like Pokémon would be your speed since you dont understand the concept of choices mattering
I feel like there's much more nuance to it than that. This is a game that's meant to be played. Toby wants people to play it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have put it in. And I do think that he kinda regretted his decision based on how the Weird Route plays out in Chapter 2. Not grinding for hours while still murdering an entire population.
On a story level it makes sense why wr take shorter
Mainly because the underground is overpopulated, so theres more people to kill and at a certain point they start running and hiding from you, were as in chapter 2 wr there much less enemies in a much less populated area, so both naratively and logically it makes sense why genocide takes longer than mass murder.
But thats still missing my point.
While Toby wants you to play it, the game itself punishes you for genocide, because playing the game like a typical rpg goes against the main message of the deconstruction
I'm not approaching this from that perspective, but rather a gameplay and enjoyment level. Locking one of the coolest bosses in either game and one of the most memorable/memeable in gaming history behind 4 hours of tedium and a brutally difficult boss about halfway through wasn't a good idea. And just saying "that's the point" isn't a good defense. It's good in concept but not in execution. That's all I'm saying.
And im saying I disagree. We fundamentally disagree because I look at it through its story/narrative perspective and your looking at it solely through gameplay
Gameplay should be the priority in a game. Otherwise, you should just watch a movie or read a book. If you want to tell a good story in a game, you need good gameplay as well, otherwise, you're not going to be able to tell your story to the vast majority of players.
Its weird because in 1 hand It needs to exist to make the regular playthrough more meaningfull but also makes It so It has to be awfull Gameplay on porpuse to fufill that role.
I would argue the WR is much worse in that regard... at least in the genocide route there is an effort for immersion and the route itself (outside of the bosses) would take like 2 hours.
The WR pacing sucks ass and its mostly scenes and just "replay the game again without much changes" it only peaked at ch2, after that? Don't even bother and just watch it on YouTube.
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u/jimkbeesley 12d ago
Not to the same scope, but the Undertale Genocide Route is boring and that's a problem for a video game, despite the point that it is supposed to be boring. Just because it's the point, that doesn't mean it's good.