i appreciate your rants as ever, lauren. i'm sorry it's so easy to feel like you've messed up the moment that getting emotionally worked up over something frustrating makes you speak strongly and fear that you'll get chewed out over it. i think your commentary is valuable whether it's from fun or overwhelm. and i do think you've addressed an interesting subject with your grievance over the execution of the genre shift here.
I think there is an interesting point to be made about why Undyne's green soul mode is way less frustrating than Bailador's rhythm game, when on the surface, they seem like similar ideas. I suppose it comes down to the controls for the green soul being much less obtuse, and the fact that Toby didn't demand such a high level of complexity in the normal Undyne fight.
it took me 6 deaths to finally get used to the middle that i don't have to hold arrows there and only left right and Z to hit, i am too stubborn so i took this as a challange lol but overall the execution on this rhythm battle really sucked
Me: * Wow the bullet patterns in this is really well executed, I like the way it feels- El Baliador: * ITS TIME FOR A RHYTHM GAME! Me: * What? El Baliador: * CAN YOU BEAT ME IN A DANCE OFF? Me: * I don't... want to- El Baliador: * TOO BAD ITS *mandatory* AND IF YOU SCREW UP YOU HAVE TO START OVER!
@@resolutionblaze363 its not even that the concept of the mechanic is poor, i think the other gimmick fights in the game are more properly executed, but the execution was just not it, it feels wrong to dodge middle lane and the music being off sync to the atacks doesnt help, i think a game like Undertale requires gimmicks like these to be interesting cause the other option is what certain boss fight in this game does which is throw a million things at you (and telegraphs) to generate a sense of Difficulty, I think it also doesnt help that This is the first true Gimmick fight of the game since all the bosses from that point forward have one but Decibat, Dalv and Martlet didnt really have any gimmicks
The bosses don't get much easier in the game, but El Baliador was the only boss that made me feel genuinely frustrated with the game, even though in terms of bosses I died to him the least amount of times next to Martlet. Dying to bosses is normal, expected even. I go into it expecting to have a struggle. With El Baliador, not only was it unexpected, its a random minigame that completely sets up new mechanics that you have to learn mid-fight, with a finale that allows you no healing items to prepare for.... Just all around felt much more like an obsticle than an actual boss fight.
I don't mind dying a lot to a boss if it feels fair, like the game has prepared me to fight that boss and I am given the pieces I need to learn to improve and figure out how to win. It can be frustrating, but it doesn't make me angry. This fight is just badly designed, and it's frustrating because it feels like *any* amount of playtesting would have caught it.
I laughed when I saw this comment! I did ramble a bit about various unrelated things before loading up the game, but none of it seemed like it belonged in the VOD. Don't worry, I'm sure I will get back to my usual long-windedness next time :)
El Bailador fight was clearly a terrible mashup of Undertale mechanics and rhythm games. If you wanted example on how to do it right, there's Undyne fights from canon. The biggest issue is that the soul movement controls are absolutely atrocious way to handle a cursor in rhythm game. If they wanted the fight to look the way it looked, they should have gone for more Everhood-like control scheme, where you dodge the projectiles, not hit them.And if they wanted specifically musical fight, they definitely should have just done a reskin of Undyne fight rather than movement controls. This halfway is definitely very unique and is probably the only moment in the game where it actively feels terribly designed. The auto-rhtythm barely even helps because the issue isn't hitting z on time, its gettign to right position without messing up on time. The fact that El Baiador is also this game's Mad Dummy in terms of amount of impact it has on grander plot only makes this whole situation so, so much more atrocious. Like, if you just removed the fight from right this spot, game would just be BETTER.
Spoilers for the genocide run so don't continue reading: I think it's interesting that the parallel version of this fight actually had you dodging the incoming notes. Even though it wasn't much of a challenge I did love the duality between the fights.
Did not know you were a big Morricone fan! He's probably one of my favourite movie composers besides maybe Herrmann. I always like when games incorporate spaghetti western style instrumentation and musical nods.
I am absolutely obsessed with that style of music. When I was a kid, I would perk up when the Pace Picante Sauce commercials came on the radio, because they had a Morricone-inspired sound and I just couldn't get enough of it! So I'm absolutely beyond delighted that this game is musically delivering on the promise that a cowboy (gender neutral) main character sets up.
It's fine, it's just a reminder that, for all its polish, this game is made by people who don't always know what they're doing. There are enough other good things in the game that I suspect I'm going to continue enjoying it, even if occasionally I get annoyed and have to vent a little about a bad decision they've made.
I remember when Lauren in the first stream said she might be excited about the inclusion of rhythm mini-games and I was just like "oh noooooo... well I guess I better not spoil". But yeah, even though I usually love rhythm games, this was probably the most frustrating and least fun part of the game for me personally. (Also side note - I really dislike resetting music during boss fights so that was an additional ear sore for me - couldn't even enjoy the music when I was struggling through it)
Also I wrote this comment before listening to the whole rant so sorry if I just repeat whatever you elaborated on! It just triggered my memory of that time haha.
Edit: I had misunderstood, disregard. I don't think it's an error or a messup. It's intentionally difficult. Some fans of undertale do like difficulty, like look at the sans fight. The only real "mess up" is that when you pick the pacifist route in these sort of games it's sort of heavily implied it'll be story mode, instead of game mode, so things are more fun and less technical. However it's also not truly the way these games are designed to be played at first, it's usually neutral, get neutral ending, find out you can be pacifist and then try pacifist, then find out there's genocide, go super hardcore genocide. If you had been playing the game fighting and neutral you would've had more time and practice with some pretty challenging fights and modes. That's the only "error", that they put a hard game design in the middle of story mode. Other than that I actually welcomed it because I want the story and amazing plots of undertale, but I actually also want to have some difficult battles. So while many people who came from undertale got a bit annoyed at the difficult of it, I was like, "YES!", and I'd actually say the opposite. These are people and gamers who know game design, the vast majority of us do want to actually have challenges to overcome. Toby Fox's game was basically punishing us for wanting to play (fight), so at best there you just had to duck and dodge a few times with some mini games. So it's more fun to watch someone play it than to actually play it myself. So this to me is a step up in game philosophy. The discordance is because since they're not the same creators it's game philosophy isn't mirrored so it comes out of left field when suddenly during the fights there's different attacks, hard moments, and then suddenly a mini game that's not all cutesy and just fun like metatron in the original, this one is actually "do it or die". So my wish is for the game creators to go even deeper in this mindset, and give me curve balls, things outta nowhere, and absolutely no handrail. This to me, was a great decision. I don't want normal mode to feel like easy mode. BUT cons were, I needed the notes to match the music better, I couldn't feel the "rhythm" because it felt like I was playing a tune inside another song, also let me please skip cutscenes when I've already watched it lol
I have to point out that "I need the notes to line up better with the music" is exactly what I'm complaining about; this is a badly-designed rhythm minigame.
Also, "they put something really hard out of left field in what most players would expect to not be Hard Mode" is also in line with what I'm complaining about. The Sans fight is meant to be a roadblock as the culmination of a grueling and optional experience. This random boss battle with (badly designed) gameplay that is unlike anything else in the game is not meant to be a roadblock, nor is it the culmination of anything. It's people who don't know how to make a rhythm game trying and failing to make a rhythm game.
@@LaurentheFlute Ah, I missed that, then yes we're totally in the same page! I thought you meant more about it being there to begin with, a rhythm game. The sound matching is definitely bonkers.
@@LaurentheFlute I get it now, you mean it was a bad decision to put a badly finished mini game into it. Sorry I hadn't understood, I thought it was just about the difficulty of it, not about how it was unnecessarily difficult because of it's unpolished finish.
@@Saphthings The people who made this fangame clearly designed it to be more difficult than regular Undertale, presumably thinking "you've already beat that game and possibly even the no-mercy run, let's keep the difficulty interesting" - this is not what I personally want out of the game and it isn't what I would choose to do in their shoes, but it's a valid choice and very clearly an intentional decision. Also Easy Mode is right over there for folks who want it, because the *point* isn't for the game to be so hard that a lot of players can't beat it; the point is to experience the game and its story, so the designers made an easier option so the story can still be experienced instead of making the difficulty a wall for those players. Given that, it seems like the difficulty scaling on El Bailador is accidental (especially since some of it comes from *not lining up the rhythms right* like wtf why why whyyyyy). I don't think he's meant to be a wall, but he *is* a wall, and he's a wall because his gameplay is badly designed. And that's frustrating. If this were a game that intended the gameplay to be a wall you throw yourself at to overcome (like the Sans fight is for a lot of people), then I wouldn't be complaining about this fight - I simply would not play that game. But they messed up here, and I'm frustrated about it because they poured so much love and effort into making the game that I wish they'd done better here! Alas.
I had no problem with El Bailador at all, but I'm a rhythm game fiend. It was made for people like me, specifically. It clearly wasn't tested or looked over by someone who isn't comfortable with rhythm games, or maybe it was and the solution was just, "Eh, turn auto-rhythm on then I guess". Awkward controls aside, you could have had a dynamic difficulty thing here. Make the fight more accessible to everyone, and if the player makes very few mistakes in the first attempt of the fight, just throw an in incredibly technical finale at them so those players feel like their rhythm game skills were expressed and got them past. They'll likely even know that the fight was made much harder because they got a degree in rhythm gaming from the university of smartarse.
I'm *comfortable* with rhythm games, but I wouldn't call myself a rhythm game fiend, so I guess it might have been designed for a specific advanced skill level? It's the sort of error that I would not be surprised to see in a student game, but given the level of care and polish that has been put into this game, it's kind of shocking to find something that seems so blatantly not tested at all. It would actually be really cool for there to be an optional super-hard finale that unlocks if you are able to play all the parts before it well enough! That's a great idea.
And you don't need to feel self conscious about it. The El Bailador dance off is really badly sound matched. So to someone who's musically inclined like you it's even harder. Most players sort of ignored the music and just focused on the bars, whereas your first instinct is to try to make it sound good. That should've been just like rockstar and guitar hero where it's a song and the bars match the notes on it, and I don't know why they skipped that one essential part of almost even music rhythm game. If it had been properly sync'd you would've shined in it, but asking a musician to ignore the music not only feels wrong... but also goes against the soul of UT, where the music is so integral to it.
I dont mind any of the otehr gimmick fights in the game, i think it makes the game more interesting than to just make the enemy deal more damage or throw telegraphed stuff at you (Ehem, Certain boss fight in this game), but i think el bailador suffers from being Really hard to get used to specially cause the middle lane doesnt require any action, having to let go of the keyboard to dodge middle lane feels really weird and the fact the music is just slightly off sync, i think the game could have done better if the sound effects that play when you catch a note werent as loud so the music could pop more, they could have also done the Everhood route and have the atacks come out to the rythm of the song but the dodging itself is free and up to you
Yeah, El Bailador sucks. Undertale Yellow is really, really, really bad when it comes to difficulty. It seems that the developers idea for making the game harder is throwing a bunch of random new mechanics at you without giving you time to get used to them, while also making them really complicated and hard on top of that, resulting in some really frustrating gameplay. I doubt it was play tested by anyone outside of the dev team, as El Bailador is unfortunately not the only time the game does something like this. It's a shame, it really takes you out of it.
Spoilers: I assume you're talking about the Axis fight? It's very strange that this game's alternative to the soul modes from Undertale ended up being so much more frustrating when on paper, they are kind of the same thing: One-off gimmicks that change the bullet dodging gameplay. I wonder why Undertale was more successful in that regard, do you think they were just more polished? Or is there a difference in design principles going on here?
@@umyum3858Gonna be honest while yes the el bailador fight does suck because of the controls, the idea itself isn't half bad at all And honestly i think the reason most people find undertale yellow's one off gimmicks frustrating is because they just forgot the frustration of the original ut's gimmicks Let's not kid ourselves, undertale is going to be 9 years old this year, and i remember alot of people having trouble with undyne, muffet, and mettaton fights aswell Plus undertale yellow is supposed to be a bit harder than regular undertale
@@CoaLMaN122PL There's a difference there, though. Yellow should be harder than Undertale (IMO) but only because the player has beaten Undertale, and thus the primary gameplay loop, which is the bullet hell stuff, is a natural evolution of Undertale. If you're going to have gimmick fights like Undertale did, which is totally okay, you can't also make the gimmick fights that are introducing a completely different gameplay loop considerably harder. The player's skills aren't evolving from Undertale there. It's just overall a harder game which is a bad design choice.
