LogFAQs > #979411447

KanzarisKelshen posted...

I couldn't disagree with this more strongly

Undertale is a ludic masterpiece. It's one of its strongest aspects, in fact -- the intermixing of gameplay and story is what makes it such a memorable experience and without it it'd land a lot less hard. There's a reason tons of 'boss fight' mods exist for it too, like for example Undertale RED. It holds your hand a lot early on and if you stay on the 'correct' path, but the deeper into it you go the less true this is. That one fight (you know which) made like ten hours of my life vanish in a flash and I can't say that a game that did that has weak gameplay.

I agree with the ludic aspect but stand by what I said. I think we're talking about slightly different things.

The gameplay fits the narrative yes, but I don't think Undertale would have been the hit it was if you ditched the story and just made it a mostly-storyless bullet hell dodging game with its current mechanics. And that's what I mean by it not being carried by its gameplay.

I frequently see people complaining about the gameplay being boring / clunky / half-baked, and that's because it's so simple. There's almost no items other than healing items. Acts are often very simple and just involve trial and erroring the correct answer. Fight is completely ignored in most playthroughs. For people who want a little more strategy and RPGness, or want the act trees to be a bit more involved, or for the battle system to vary it up more than it already does, it's disappointing. Something like Shapes and Beats gets away with it by being even more extra with its presentation, and extremely focused.

For some people, narrative is deeply secondary and they aren't going to give it a chance unless the gameplay bangs on its own, ignorant of its context. I know people like that.