Undertale

You have some valid points, it does have an NES color palette and a primitive engine, but I like that it has you questioning if you did the right thing, the whole morality aspect you dislike. As for the fandom, I absolutely love it, but I think with all the hype over Undertale, Toby is going to be worried about meeting expectations of his gamer fanbase. The fanbase is creative. Some have even made fangames and improved upon things in their games that fans probably wanted out of the game. I think that is pretty rad.

:Shrug: I'm much more of a traditional JRPG guy. Just read my retrospective and essay on Phantasy Star I did in this forum today. For the record I don't really care for the NES's colour palette, its too drab and brown, and except for some games like Mario Bros 3 and Earthbound Beginnings or Rockman it just really deprives me of sensory information. I'm much more into a Sega Master system colour palette which displays many more colours, and the later Sega Mega Drive. Its much cleaner and vibrant. Just compare the Sega Master System and NES ports of Ys I or else Bubble Bobble or Rainbow Islands, the Master system really manages to make brighter and happier games.

This is true. I think for being underground during the game the scheme made sense, but it would have been nice to see a lot more color. I'm actually not much of a gamer. My favorite game is probably Katamari damashii. I do stress reliever type games I guess. Undertale was the opposite of what I was used to and I found myself very stressed at certain points so maybe it was just something new, but the goofy creative fandom is what made me stay.

Whatever makes you happy. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. For some of us, it's less about noticing one piece of the picture and more about how the big picture is presented. There are those that enjoy the challenge such as the genocide route and the NES was famous for it's hard and sometimes frustrating hard difficulty compared to more modern things. The original Castlevania is still a fan favorite despite it's age for several reasons. But I've gotten off topic. When it comes to Undertale, it's proven that sometimes less is more and has presented that well considering the large fanbase. Whether you agree with that or not is your choice. A quirky game is loved by quirky people.

And I like the game. I just don't think that entitles people to be blind to any problems or criticisms with the game that are valid. The genocide route really isn't hard because I was able to afford the Temmie armor by the time I reached the temmie village due to dying on purpose a lot to reduce the price of the armor. Sans boss battle required use of dog residue, dog salad and lots of practice, along with other tricks I learned. To be honest, the original Castlevania doesn't bother me because its vibrant, the one thing I hate is the jumping control, which was improved in Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines to the point that those two are my favourite old school Castlevanias. I don't have a problem with difficulty, but when you derive difficulty by handicapping the player or otherwise that's just BS. And luckily Undertale really didn't here, it was easy enough that practice made perfect. The gripes I have are minor. I just don't think the RPG is as relevant as the fandom believes it to be because, above all else, its a game made in Game Maker Studio - its not high tech, its not high budget and its definitely just bleh from a technical standpoint, and from an industry impact standpoint.

Well there's part of the problem. Using the Temmie armor means turning the game difficulty down from the normal setting. The Temmie even tell you that it would make the game easier. I can at least agree that Undertale is massively overhyped and things have kind have gotten out of control. Do I still enjoy the same and some of the fanmade stuff? Of course. Did I support Undertale for becoming the best game ever on gamefaqs? Yes and I laughed when it won. Do I actually think that it is the best game ever? Of course not. As I said, less is more and this game works because it's so simple from a playable point of view. Between this and Cave Story, you don't need high tech or a high budget to make a fun and memorable game.

And your statement just reinforced that neither game is ground breaking in any serious fashion. Undertale and Cave Story are both generic, but at the same time unique. My own points are that there's much more important games.

I never stated that they were ground breaking, only fun, simple and memorable. Cave Story was ground breaking in the sense that indie games weren't just discount games that were inferior to console games. People started noticing that after the popularity it had gotten. Undertale simply has a huge fandom, nothing ground breaking but it never was about being ground breaking. While yes, there are more important games, what is considered important varies from each person. Important or not, as long as a person is having fun, that's all that matters.

In my opinion, there's no objective ways to view art. Either something moves you or it doesn't. I'm not the biggest Metal Gear Solid fan in the world because it didn't affect me in any profound ways. I think it's a good game, and I can attest to it's importance in gaming history, but I feel like there's a genuine disconnect between me and it's fairly giant fan base. I'm completely fine with that though. Undertale certainly doesn't do anything particularly special in the grand scheme of things, but I think it comes down to how people were affected by it. Yeah, there's probably some asshats who jumped on something popular to feel included, but I know how the game makes me feel, so I'm not bothered by the opinions of others. There's always going to be fanboys who can't or refuse to see the faults in things they enjoy, and I don't believe anyone should listen to their nonsense. One of my favorite games, God Hand, doesn't do anything special either. On most scales of quality, it's pretty piss poor. You just punch and kick the crap out of people; there's not even a coherent story of any kind. The graphics were fairly lazy at the time, the gameplay is repetitive, but I love the hell out of it, and that's the only thing that matters. TLDR: None of your thoughts on the game are wrong, but neither are mine.