Cave Story Tribute Site Forums

ElecMaw
ElecMaw
Can't handle the trolling right now, you're a master troll seriously
Hiino
Hiino
ok you want me to elaborate, strap on tight

Both Undertale and Mother 3 have okay, unconventional graphics and incredible music (though I prefer Undertale's by a mile but I can understand people who prefer Mother's).
But Undertale's gameplay is somewhat new, a mix between RPG, bullet hell and visual novel kind of. It renews itself constantly, with different game modes both throughout a single playthrough (red mode, yellow mode, blue mode, purple mode...) and throughout different playthroughs (fight everything, spare everything...). Most enemies are unique and the gameplay serves both story and humor, with unique moments that occur during gameplay (like the dog in Papyrus' attack, or Undyne getting stronger then weaker, or...).
Meanwhile, Mother 3 has a subpar, boring gameplay. There is nothing redeeming about it, it's the most vanilla JRPG experience possible and then some. It's there during the entire game and mostly never changes. I mean, even among basic RPG games, it's basic. It wears on you after the first hour and the story becomes the only thing that compels you to keep playing. Thankfully, Mother 3 boasts a pretty neat story for a video game, I should say. Too bad Undertale's story(/ies) tops it completely. Three major possible storylines and endings, plus a handful of minor ones, plus all the elements that already make Mother 3 a great game (the humor and silliness, the recurring characters, the dark tones, the overall "freshness" of the narration...).

Now let's talk about the difference in context behind the two games (because I know some people use it as an excuse).
Mother 3 is an old game, it was pretty much a revolution at the time, and it's very good for its age. Although I guess nostalgia probably works out in its favor, at least a little.
But Undertale is recent, and had to cope with the flooding of the market of indie games since the end of the 2000's/beginning of the 2010's. It has all the hindsight of everything that happened in the genre and in the indie scene, and even though there are so many quality and original indie games nowadays, it still manages to be the new best thing.

Mother 3 is very good, but Undertale is just objectively better. And it was made by two people.
Fatih
Fatih
Nice opinion

my turn

Mother 3 is better than Undertale
q3hardcore
q3hardcore
Undertale was made with Game Maker, and practically has no story.
Raus
Raus
@q3hardcore
The fact that it was made in Game Maker doesn't change anything. There have already been many hit indie games made in GM.

And there is a story in Undertale; it's what makes up the majority of the game. (There are two other things that contribute too)
q3hardcore
q3hardcore
Exactly. If it had its own engine, I think it would be a bigger deal.

The story is basically meta to the point that whether or not it actually has a story is up to the player, IMO.
GIRakaCHEEZER
GIRakaCHEEZER
@q3hardcore I'm beginning to doubt you know anything about Undertale, since its plot (non-meta) is one of its bigger selling points.
Hiino
Hiino
I'm beginning to think that q3hardcore is actually in the middle of a long-term chinese room experiment, he has no fucking idea what he's reading or writing but puts up words that sound like they fit into the conversation, or else he wouldn't answer "Exactly" to Raus' post that was basically entirely a rebuttal of his previous pot
q3hardcore
q3hardcore
Kinda, except I know exactly what I'm reading. I think. "doesn't change anything" could be seen as meaning "isn't anything new" - I don't think using that interpretation is taking too great a liberty. I played the demo of Undertale, although not to completion, and have been reading about it, both here and on various other websites. I don't think the plot is a selling point. The uniqueness of the game as a whole is what really makes it, and also what limits its appeal.
q3hardcore
q3hardcore
Think different.
Hiino
Hiino
@q3hardcore One of these days I am going to take all of your forum posts and profile posts and answers since you joined this community, refute/disprove all of them, and use them to explain why I think you are one of the dumbest persons I have ever had the displeasure of meeting online

FYI, "Think different" does not mean "Think incorrectly"
q3hardcore
q3hardcore
That was literally just Apple's slogan. Sorry. If you are going to do that, do I get copy approval?
ElecMaw
ElecMaw
Huh, for a moment there i really did think you were trolling me. I could basically point out that i like Mother 3 more than UnderTale and keep it at that, but where's the fun in that?

And to you people just tuning in, be wary of spoilers!

-I'll agree with you that the combat system is presented way better in Undertale than Mother 3, UT's bullet dodging mechanic is miles ahead than what Mother 3 has to offer in terms of gameplay. M3 used a basic turn-based system with a rhythm-game tacked on it that felt kind of bland when it first came out and it didn't help it age at all in modern times.
-Both games have amazing soundtracks, M3 had far better ambient tracks than UT but the GBA-music didn't age entirely well so it evens out.

-When it comes to story, to me M3 is absolutely better than undertale. UT's story starts off fine at the beginning, then suddenly stops mid-way to make way for a ton of jokes and then suddenly wraps up at the end. Whenever UT wants to explain lore it does so by placing large slabs of text on the wall for you to read, with the true lab being especially guilty of this. It doesn't stop being charming, but it doesn't have much in actual lore and content even when you keep the short 7-8 hour running time in mind. If you keep in mind alternate routes, different endings, it's still a little short and it has you re-tread the game to get a different ending or see new stuff. When it comes to the balance of humor and drama, UT errs too far on the humor side to make the drama feel meaningful to me, and when the game tries to scare it ends up feeling dumb instead.
ElecMaw
ElecMaw
-M3 is way better for me and not just because of it's longer runtime, but because it keeps the story going strong from the beginning to the end. It's morals hit like an anvil, but it still works fine. It has a briliantly-written recurring cast and it really hits the line between humor and drama perfectly for me. I can bring up dozens of memorable moments right from the top of my head despite having played it about 5 years ago. Even keeping in mind the amount of extras and secrets UT has, M3 still beats it in terms of attention to detail. UT's story is fine enough as it is, but for me it absolutely cannot compare to the narrative of M3.

- UT is heavily inspired by the Mother 3 series. The witty dialogue, the clever play on RPG tropes, modern settings, final boss turning into a lovecraftian horror stopped by the power of love is stuff taken straight from the Earthbound series. A lot of recent indie JRPG's takes it inspiration from the EB-series, and if you play the inspired games before the source material then of course the EB-series will end up feeling plain. That doesn't change the fact that this series was crucial to inspiring new indie game developers, and of course UT. Toby even made an EB Romhack before he started working on UnderTale!

I doubt i can sway your opinion, but i feel the need to make a counterargument in the least. Additionally i need to bring this one up, there's no objective quality to a videogame and thinking so would be silly and not to mention toxic. I mean, you aren't going to kick someone in the teeth for liking vanilla more than chocolate, right?
Hiino
Hiino
YES I AM, HOW DARE THEY LIKE VANILLA MORE

I'd like to point out that the fact that one inspired the other is meaningless when it comes to comparing their quality.
Same for the fact that it inspired many other games. Plus, Undertale is extremely recent, who says it won't inspire even more people? It definitely made me motivated again to make games, at the very least.

You seem to be implying that I played Undertale first. That's technically the case, but only because I tried playing Earthbound (not Mother 3, alright, they're kind of similar in terms of feeling though) a few years ago and I could never force myself to keep playing because the gameplay felt just THAT boring to me. I didn't need to compare it to Undertale to think that way. It's really a bad point imo.

I agree that the Mother series look and feel more polished than Undertale. I don't agree that UT has unbalanced humor/story ratio. You say it stops in the middle and wraps up quickly at the end, but when does it happen? When you meet Sans and Papyrus, it's an obvious cut that needs to be made between your expectations when leaving the ruins (and after Toriel's warning) and what's actually out there, which is a world full of hope and happiness. Then it becomes grim again when Undyne chases you, then when you follow Alphys' self-confidence struggles, then when you meet Flowey again.
Hiino
Hiino
To be honest, the True Lab is way less guilty of using signs on the walls to explain lore than the Waterfall. They are written as logs, so it does make sense, at least. But the point of the lab is way less in the logs on the wall and way more on what you actually find there. The atmosphere of that whole area felt great, something that I hadn't seen before in a game of that genre. Also, the whole genocide run. It completely changes the game, and since you made the choice to do so yourself, it affects you even more personally. And if you thought there was too much humor, well, genocide run contains none ("get dunked on" aside, I guess). I personally think UT isn't complete until you haven't played both true pacifist and genocide. And I don't agree either with having to re-tread the game. Genocide and True Pacifist are completely different from each other, from the gameplay style to the contents to the bosses to everything. Now if you want to get the other endings, sure, but it's not like you miss anything if you don't. If you're a big fan, you can keep playing, and that's what counts. You're not forced to.

I'll admit, the "objectively better" bit was actually a troll. Or rather, a half-troll, because I'm not like the hippies that think "it's all subjective and you can't say something is bad, only that you do not like it" in order to cover for their shitty tastes, I think there is actual objectivity to be found in the quality of things (obviously there's subjectivity too). I'm kind of tired of the people that think a game is good just because they played it in their youth and they keep drooling over it because "nowadays we don't have games like these", but you seem to have an actual opinion so, hey, that's good.

Anyway, Mother doesn't have Temmie so Undertale wins.
ElecMaw
ElecMaw
I wouldn't compare EarthBound with Mother 3, because M3 actually has a story going on while EB is just a quirky macguffin hunt. EB didn't age well at all, especially the early dungeons in the game are really unforgiving and boring. Earthbound was novel for it's time but what made it special has been replicated by other games(and done far better) so it didn't age well.

UT dropped the ball for me when it hit Hotlands, where suddenly the entire game revolves around sketches with Mettatron and Alphys. I got sick of those jokes very quickly and found them far to obstrusive, not to mention i find Alphys really irritating even if you learn her backstory afterwards. But hey if you like that, that's allright.

And hey, M3 and UT are both pretty darn good but the FNaF series is still infinitely superior to both of them, combined!
GIRakaCHEEZER
GIRakaCHEEZER
Yeah hotlands is definitely where the game drops the plot for a bit. The jokes were good/fun IMO, but for the most part that area could be removed and the main plotline itself wouldn't be missing much.
Hiino
Hiino
Oh no I agree with you that that part of Hotlands is boring and Alphys is boring and I dislike her and eugh. But the whole thing being a scheme by Alphys with Mettaton going all plot twist on you at the end was nice. It's definitely the worst part of the game though.

If you say M3 was better than EB in this regard then I might try playing M3 again (I tried, after playing Undertale, and figured that it was the same kind of stuff as EB).

If you think FNaF is good I'm betting that you haven't even tried playing Cave Story yet, you should do that instead of losing your time on these Undertale forums
q3hardcore
q3hardcore
It's a shame that the author of Undertale didn't list Cave Story as in inspiration. Toby Fox clearly respects Pixel and it would be nice if more people knew about Pixel's games.
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