Price tag justification?

[mfkndggrfll]

Hey I recently found out about this game and as a pure coincidence I had started my first Earthbound playthrough just a few weeks ago so this game was even more interesting to me. First I felt like this game was 100% worth it since it was the only EB clone available. Then I just discovered Undertale.

First I thought that Jimmy was strictly influenced by EB, but now I realize that it also tried to ride Undertale's success wave (which isnt bad). Now considering that Undertale goes for 10$ish, and is extremely well done, how can Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass justify the 50% price tag increase?

To me it felt like Undertale took everything that was good about older games and perfected it with modernization

Jimmy stuck to the old-school style for both the good and the bad, it couldnt get rid of that dull combat mechanic.

Undertale had much more music tracks as opposed to Jimmy reusing tracks for longer.

I also felt like Undertale had MUCH stronger writing. It was simplistic and light hearted and yet it felt deep.

Jimmy kept the simplistic an light hearted tones but failed to give any depth to the writing. In the first transformation dream-like sequence the text manages to deliver some emotion, but for the rest its all devoid of meanings, it just becomes empty descriptive text.

Jimmy has some very clunky movement mechanics, poor controller support, frame rate issues and other bugs that require a restart, which all makes it even harder to justify the price increase.

TL;DR: Why did the devs choose to sell their game 50% more than the competition when ultimately the game offers less? I think it hurts the sales overall since less gamers are attracted.

I feel like this game could have used a few more months in early access to add the layer of polish it needs to sell for 15$.

[Ghin]

This is a lot longer than Undertale and it doesn't make you repeat the same content over and over and over again with tiny differences. I liked it more than Undertale, although maybe that's because I'm not a furry. Seems like you haven't gotten very far judging by your comments.

[Fracture94]

I dont get it. Clunky movement? In an RPG game? Lol... i mean, if it was a platform game then we can talk about movement, but here you just go in four directions and select what actions to do. I really dont get it xD.

About the music, this game has A LOT of tracks, even the most secret areas that you can easily miss have his own track. In fact, i didn't found one single track repeating in the game, aside from the theme tracks of some characters, like Helga or Punch. And all of them are fantastic btw.

The combat is GREAT, and is saying by someone who hates this kind of turn-based combat. It requires a lot of strategy and it has his own features that make it unique, like the startle mechanic, or some altered states i've never seen in a game like this, like ennui, which dont let you get exp after the battle, or immunodeficiency, which dont let you heal and instead you take damage. Changing forms with Jimmy is really fun too, and again, a very unique mechanic.

This game has also way more work than Undertale. Its prettier, there are dozens of awesome sprites on full color, the enemies design are outstanding, there are some areas that have his own graphic style, like a classic RPG area with bigger pixels and classic designs, or a school with a visual novel style. There are also tons of really fun and sometimes complex puzzles.

And finally, its a really long game, like 50 or 60 hours if you want to do everything. All made by one single person btw, as Undertale, except some music tracks maybe.

This game would probalbly cost 20-25$ if this genre was more popular and the marketing were better.

[kasey.ozymy]

It's probably not appropriate for me to argue for my own price point; I mean, if the game's worth it, it's worth it, and if it's not, it's not. But, I did want to stress that my goal wasn't to ride Undertale's success. I started work on this game four years ago; Undertale came out when I was mid-development.

[Dr.maniac]

I'm at nearly 30 hours and still nowhere near done. Not only is it longer than any other RPGmaker game I've ever play the quality stayed high for the whole thing so it dosen't even have padding 'real' rpgs have.

I love undertale to pieces but I can't see how you could make the argument that it has more content. I finished all 3 main routes of undertale in ~9 hours and after that there's literally no reason to ever play the game again.


The clunkiness and slowdown suck but seem to be a problem with RPGmaker games in general.


People have some pretty insane standards when it comes to price. $15 for a 30 hour RPG is a good deal imo.


[e] Also I defintiely remember a bunch of people complaining about undertales price when it was first released so you just can't win with some people

[Fracture94]

I really dont know what are you talking about with the clunky and slow movement. Its an RPG! there is no way you can badly program the movement.

[Kiyo]

Why compare this to undertale at all? It doesn't feel like a fair comparison because the two are wildly different games. You dodge stuff with a heart in undertale, that's it. It's hardly what one would call an "rpg", maybe rpg-lite. Levels don't even really matter in undertale, you always take a certain % of damage depending on how much health you have left and all they ultimately are used for is the story itself.

Undertale was fun but it perfected nothing, it stripped down all the rpg elements and added in some meta spooky moments, that's it. It was a different experience to be sure but to say that it not only "modernized" it but "perfected" it is just plain wrong.

Undertale has a lot of appeal thanks to that, it's simple, easy to stream, doesn't require grinding(except the genocide route jesus) or setting up equipment/spells, no tactics other than make the heart avoid the thing. That's fine, both kinds of games can exist but comparing them is like comparing apples to oranges.

This game will never reach the same people or appeal because it's actually a faithful jrpg, grinding (though it is a lot easier) and turn based combat included. If you're the type of person that finds the gameplay boring then you never really liked jrpgs to begin with because this one gets it down pretty damn close.

[Ice in Chains]

15 bucks is far from a steep price tag... I've played shorter less fulfilling games for 4 times the price on the reg so I don't see the problem here.

I really don't see the Undertale comparison? Is that just a go-to argument for any quirky Mother inspired RPG now? I recall people saying the same crap about Lisa the Painful and that one came out BEFORE Undertale. .

[mfkndggrfll]

@Ghin Game might be longer but you still end up mashing A to play fights, while in Undertale every encounter is different.

And the movement is clunky with a controller, only 4 directions and no diagonals like Earthbound or Undertale. No D-pad support either.

Jimmy might feel longer but that is because there is a lot of combat and grinding. It has small bits of story separated by exploration sections filled with encounters.

And to be honest I am not far in, I just escaped the alien spaceship, delivered the honey and got the cake, and the story really stopped being interesting. The game forces you into an exploration/combat section at the castle for a really stupid reason, the guy mistakes you for an enemy and creates a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Its really hard to care for the story at this point.

[Fracture94]

If you only mash A during the fights, you will die.

Now that i noticed, you dont even bought the game lol. You pirated it and yet you are complaining about the price. Wow.

[Hoodoo Bobo]

Amazing. Every word of what you just said, was wrong.

This game isn't an Earthbound fan-game, if that's what you're looking for, of course you're going to be disappointed. It is a game that took inspiration from Earthbound in more ways than one, but if you're looking for an Earthbound sequel, I suggest Mother 3.

The rest of this is just you comparing Jimmy to Undertale, and as others have pointed out, it is not Undertale, nor is it trying to be Undertale. The only thing these games have in common is that they were both inspired by Earthbound ...and they both have a happy little sunflower!

Myself, I enjoyed the story through and through, I thought the interactions with enemies from world to world were fun, for once. The constantly changing party combined with Jimmy's ability to change up his role on the fly was also, you guessed it, fun. And there's a load of little things that made this a very good experience for me and many others.

This is all just silly. I don't think loosening up on the price by $5 would've magically made you or anyone else like this game, and you've been complaining the whole way through. So I won't justify this purchase to you, I'll just tell you why Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is $15 and nothing lower: Because it's a labour of love that'll take you at least 40 hours to complete, and that was worth a couple hours work at minimum wage for me, I'm sorry it wasn't for you.

[Hoodoo Bobo]

Originally posted by Fracture94:

If you only mash A during the fights, you will die.

Now that i noticed, you dont even bought the game lol. You pirated it and yet you are complaining about the price. Wow.

Steam now has more advanced options in terms of privacy, his games are hidden because that's an option now, not because he hasn't purchased anything.

[mfkndggrfll]

''The constantly changing party combined with Jimmy's ability to change up his role on the fly was also, you guessed it, fun.''

I find the different forms quite underwhelming personally, it seems like you are always the party's weakest link and you mostly end up using regular attacks no matter which form you use.

''This is all just silly. I don't think loosening up on the price by $5 would've magically made you or anyone else like this game''

It would have expanded its target audience which would have offered more visibility to the game. The review count is extremely low and I dont think the game is selling that well right now.

''Because it's a labour of love''

Just like the game its inspired from... Cant really say any of them arent full of love.

''that'll take you at least 40 hours to complete''

That 40 hours figure is quite bloated, most of the game is repetitive combat while in Undertale each encounter is unique. The game is also re-using bosses which takes away part of its charm.

[Kituss]

I really don't see the point in that kind of posts. You don't like it and don't seem to want to listen to others, so why even bother?

[Fracture94]

Apparently he finds the game repetitive. Lets see what i did the last time i played. I solved a bunch of puzzles in the "math" area, visited a side area with a funny little story that makes you follow some fun rules (and with a great reward), explored a garden trying to find different types of polen to heal some bees, won another cup in the arena, farmed some marvelous coins in a secret area so i can access to another secret area xD. And finally, played some minigames in the arcade just for fun. And of course, with some great and really fun battles during all the process. Damn you are right this game is repetitive!

EDIT: Regarding the piracy theme, if you own the game, there is a mouse icon on your name. He doesn't have it.

[ZKaagelnaodsa]

If you're a person who likes turn based combat, this game is ripe with content. If you're not someone who enjoys that, you should look elsewhere. This is a game of decent stradegy, a good story, and enough side content to last; at least in my case; over 50 hours of content. I'm still trying to beat the 2 hardest bosses in the game and I'm level 80-90+ on my characters.

This game incorperates a lot of thought in battles, even at the very beginning you won't get by spamming "Attack" and it shows you very quickly (mostly in the part with the alarms and those who played that part know what I mean without me being spoilery) that thought will be incorperated or you will be thrown to the floor. The grinding in this game isn't too bad, mostly because as long as you do side content you'll be definitely strong enough to handle things in the future.

Heck, an RPG where items are actually USEFUL just shows what kind of RPG you're going to be playing. Even when it comes to armor there isn't usually a "Best" piece of gear and even if there is something that's subjectively amazing you can usually only have 1 of it, so you need to decide who even gets it, along with multiple unique accessories and other knick-knacks that belong to each character. Overall, money is subjective, but this game is still holding my attention and was well worth the money spent for me.