BakusaiTenketsu posted... Ok, so what am I missing?
A flower wanted to kill me. I was rescued by a monster who then wanted me to stay with her forever because she was worried about me. Most of the monsters aren't actually bad, they just want someone to talk to.
After I leave the first area, I run into some skeletons and dogs that are supposed to stop humans, but don't really take it too seriously.
The writing feels like it targets preteens who are into quirky Disney shows. And if the story is simply, Monsters aren't bad, I kind of got it.
You have correctly inferred that you're Missing Something.
The
real reason people are super into the game is that it's very
meta. "Big deal, every indie game is like that." Every indie game is like that
now. This was the game that really popularized that trend so it's uniquely resonant with a bunch of people along that axis.
As an example, the following cutscene happens if you kill Toriel and then do some spoilery stuff. This little dialog is responsible for a big % of what you're seeing (you're already past this part of the game and i've already given you a spoiler warning lol):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kt2f5Lw21I
That kind of thing was rare in 2015. It's also why there's a lot of "you have to see it for yourself," because it's considered impolite to just say "it's
metafiction"