ITT: pretentious core

It would be bad if that's all there was to it.
UT works and is appreciated because after that initial twist, the game goes on to showcase that the world is not a joke, it just feels like one due the contrast of monsters - humans. IT's not just a "haha, gotcha, subverted your expectations", but with a "so what will you do from now on?" added after that, and the game made to allow both takes (fuck this world and save this world).

What I don't udnerstand is what do you expect to archieve with these kind of full cynic criticism, if we can call it that. All you do is point out and claim bad, but not why it's bad, how it affects it's surroundings, how would you do it "right" or most importantly, what it is gained byspending so many resources in figuring out where a game sits in an arbitrary spectrum of quality.

Attached: 1623245196926.png (576x661, 310.31K)

dammit Any Forumschuds we got too cocky

Undertale toes the line. It's a bit up its ass, but it's willing to take the piss about its presentation without giving up on being sincere about the drama.

You want pretentious, try Everhood.

Attached: shit.png (1000x1000, 1.62M)

"Pretentious" is a codeword for "too smart for me"

Attached: a45.jpg (1000x1024, 58.13K)

>It would be bad if that's all there was to it.
That's the part people focus on, remove that and you have a trash low effort tumblr JRPG

It leans too hard on "lol this game is bad," yeah.

It's misused like that by retards, but there are plenty of actually pretentious games that think simple statements are really profound. Usually fans of those kinds of games mistake "the execution was bad" for "not getting it."

I was on board with Everhood until it nullified its moral drama by conjuring up a cool afterlife everyone likes.

Remove the meta and you're left with a decent but generic JRPG with some funny jokes and gimmicks. Plenty of people who like it never engage with the metanarrative.

"It looks bad on purpose" is enough to be called pretentious, Undertale goes on beyond that to pretend it's important or meaningful somehow when it's an amateur-made VN for sad tumblr kids

Attached: 10958.jpg (900x375, 38.5K)

>remove that part
But why would you do that? you need that twist to introduce the world and story, to showcase. The whole "cute thing that's actually evil" isn't that valid here since flowey makes it very clear from the start that he'll be an asshole and there's assholes all voer the world. You even have Undyne serving as a counterpart of a character that is presented as threatening and dangerous that's actually a good guy.

Why would you remove an integral part of the story and themes? Who cares people focuses on that, people are dumb and will always be dumb. It's your job to look beyond it, to see the game for what it is and make your own judgement.
The only thing you're proving here with that statement is that you're as dumb as the people you complain, since what they use to praise the game is the same thing you use to critisize it.

I know why pigs eat shit, why would I discuss if it's right or wrong?

>But why would you do that?
Because you said "It would be bad if that's all there was to it." which would mean the game would remain to be good even if you removed that element

It fucks up way before that. The problem is it worries too much about emulating cool twists and climax moments from other games over its own campaign design.

Instead of actually exploring the ideas of grief and obsession it insists are bad in order to make the journey interesting, it just insists upon the player a lot. YOU ARE BAD or YOU ARE GOOD repeated for minutes at a time. It refuses to leave anything to interpretation despite being a story about letting go, and fails to give the player anything to think about.

Attached: Majoratubers.png (2271x1726, 3.2M)

I haven't played it but i get a massive pretentious vibe from Yiik.

No, I said that the part is more than jsut a simple statement. It shapes and defines the entire themes of the game, from the first town to the final boss. It's like saying that "once you remove all the hack n slashy in Revengance, the game has nothing". Yeah? what do you think will happen if you remove such a core theme of the game, wether it's gameplay or story?
What's the issue with this part? For real, no jokes or memes. What is the problem with the world of UT being a wacky place of monsters and things, with the idea of it being to contrast with how humans see the world more rationally. What crime or poor execution does it do that it's so bad, as oppossed to similar ways other works simplify themes?

the story's no Flowers for Algernon, sure. how is it pretentious when not even the writer took it seriously?
compare to actually pretentious video game plot:
>revenge is... LE BAD

Attached: TLOU_P2_Box_Art_2.png (220x220, 69.8K)

>despite being a story about letting go, and fails to give the player anything to think about
Honestly I think that's its greatest failure, now that you mention it. At no point did I really feel like it was a story about that.

>not even the writer took it seriously?
That's just part of his millennial "I want to be deep and taken seriously but everyone will call me cringe so I'll just pretend I'm being ironic" upbringing and mindset

Its problems pretty much all come from that. It wants to make a point about narcissism but isn't self aware enough to get how much is too much.

It's the typical
>help the spirits move on
spiritual journey, but it's reframed as the pacifist/genocide split because MUH UNDERTALE. It wants to do an EPIC REVEAL or ten, so instead of making the typical exploration of the faults of obsession in the journey itself it pushes most of it into the back end when the player already did everything, which is just unsatisfying. The creators have little to say, so the characters have one point they harp on at length and the story keeps going in circles. It wants big reactions so it keeps trying to go for big YOU MONSTER moments that aren't earned.

The exact same game and story would be great if the script was half as long and/or you moved content around.