Lurker > Evillordexdeath

Lightning (1)

Well, at least there's no Kirby.

Edgeworth

Kefka

Edgeworth

Maya

Squall

Kefka

GLaDOS

I don't want this either. I didn't finish the epilogues or play Friendsim past the first installment. My stance at this point is "let it die."

He seems kind of insecure.

Phoenix

Sonic

I like Palom better than his sister. At least he has a little bit of a sense of fun. Pretty much the only character trait I can remember about Porom is that she keeps smacking him, which gets tiring. I'm not about to argue that either of them is even halfway decent, though.

Okay, but the spelling he uses isn't in either translation.

Kefka

I like him better than most of the rest of you.

Auron

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Auto for Auron

For Squall

Squall

Kefka

Missile

Squall

Gaffgarion

I would've taken Yuffie if I were still trading for Ramza, but I'm not invested enough in Squall to save the guys I want to go down for him. I mostly jumped to him to express my feeling of "whatever" for what's left at this point.

MartinFF7 posted...

Hey evillord, want to do Squall for Yuffie next hour?

No, sorry. I do not like Yuffie.

Squall

Kefka

Goffard Gaffgarion

LiquidOshawott posted...

Autotrading for Gaffgarion

For Squall

Squall

I'm pretty sure the only reason Red XIII is still in this contest is that there are enough furries voting to carry him

Sonic
Sephiroth

Rikku is definitely useful in-game. No Sphere Grid challenge playthroughs are pretty much 100% based around her from the moment she joins. Can't say I care for her as a character, though - but I would gladly vote for her over Seymour or Braska.

I picked Sobble because it's the funniest name. I don't actually know what this is. Pokemon?

Kefka

Barret

captaincanadian posted...

Auto for Barret

For Squall

Squall

I think Yoshi's Island is really great! It's full of creativity - there are some really memorable sections like getting chased by a chain chomp and the boss fight on a tiny planet. The game becomes way worse when you try to 100% it, though.

Yeah. It's mostly done through total restarts though, because the game only gives you one save at a time.

Some people play through all the little variations, which would mean playing the whole game like 20 times, but I personally found that unsatisfying because the amount of dialog that changes is kind of minimal unfortunately.

Part of the game's meta-fictional element involves likening save points in video games to time travel, so a narrative like that where you learn from your mistakes can emerge "organically" depending on how you play.

If you don't complete the game "properly" and then restart, certain characters will comment on the choices you made last time around.

Yeah the game trying to call you out for your moral failings in a video game is kind of dumb, especially so because it encourages you to be evil by locking some of the best content to the path where you're as monstrous as possible.

Yeah, speaking as someone who doesn't really like Undertale I do think the combat system is legitimately well-designed and the game does a good job of exploring the possibilities that come from it.

Nelson_Mandela posted...

Give me an example of how you can win a fight without killing an enemy

This part of the game is mostly menu-based. You have an "action" command that gives you several options and if you pick the right one, it will either pacify the enemy, which lets you use the "spare" command to end the battle, or change the pattern of its next attack in some way that lets you cause that effect. For example there is one enemy that you have to pacify by touching the green zone close to its actual attack. The menu-based pacification gets more complex as the game goes so that eventually you have to pick multiple options in the right sequence. Naturally, you waste a turn and have to dodge more attacks if you mess up, which is where the sense of challenge comes from.

Nelson_Mandela posted...

What is the gist of the unique gameplay? From what I gather, you can choose to not kill the enemies and instead solve puzzles to defeat them without "killing" them--which leads to a more interesting ending. Is that correct?

This and a bullet-hell-like system where you can dodge enemy attacks in battle, kind of akin to the Mario and Luigi RPGs. A lot of the boss fights are deliberately designed so that you really have to use the dodging to win, which gives them a good sense of challenge and is where most of the fun in Undertale's gameplay comes from.

(Also, to clarify, I would agree that the gender/sexuality/social justice elements of the game really aren't important when analyzing it and can safely be ignored.)

I personally think that the story and characters in Undertale are kind of weak. Mostly comical and two-dimensional. It has a problem where the player character is so irrelevant to the emotional progression of the story itself that it feels kind of impersonal. A lot of the characters are only interested in you because you look similar to another character.

It has some meta-fictional commentary on how we approach RPGs and games in general but it's kind of asinine for the most part. None of the observations it makes mean much when we understand the separation between fantasy and reality. The game even admits during a monologue that its own philosophy doesn't hold up in real life.

What does work really well is the music. Toby Fox is a talented composer and he extensively re-uses certain motifs to create an emotional connection between different areas and scenes. He shows a good grasp of the techniques of scoring.

It also has a cute little hybridization of bullet hell games and menu-based RPGs. Its really skimpy as an RPG (barely qualifies, really,) but it does get a lot of mileage out of its core gameplay concept through boss fights that use neat variations on the basic mechanics. The puzzles outside of combat are pretty braindead, though.

I think a lot of Tumblr's praise for it does come from the fact that a lot of characters, including the protagonist, are of non-specific sex/gender identity and there are some half-baked gay romances. Its themes of pacifism and the value of life might have struck with them too. Personally, I found that going through the game being referred to as a "they" didn't help with the impersonal feeling.

On the whole, I don't think it's too hot unless you really like meta-fiction. Probably somewhere from a 4 to 6 out of 10 for me.

I think he meant that in a contest called Save My Favorite Final Fantasy Characters, we should be saving characters who are from Final Fantasy.

I would agree with that sentiment, by the way.

Kefka

...whatever

Squall