Undertale or Earthbound?

[Panazois λ]

I haven't finished Earthbound yet but in my opinion if you are more into the rpg genre and care more about getting an exciting gameplay then Earthbound is better. If you like story rich games and don't care that much about playing then Undertale. In conclusion Earthbound is more into the rpg element but Undertale is into the story and characters more.

[Blargo]

Okay.

[HarleyIsntReal]

ok cool

[ErickaUnlimited]

Earthbound in every aspect > Undertale.

[Meneluma]

There's also Yume Nikki (which has a version on Steam though you could argue for hours with a die hard fan if that is as good). Since it is free on Steam you can just simply download that and don't worry about the versions thing.
It's an offshoot of EarthBound but it went into a different direction compared to MOTHER 3 and well, Undertale.

Earthbound was this highly experimental and novel thing that didn't feel like your traditional RPG, leaning more to be this expectation shattering artsy thing (with it's terrible sales being a result of their pretentious anti-advertising where it literally advertised as "this game stinks")
I personally hated playing through EarthBound even if I found the world design and a lot of the visuals to be phenomenal, I liked MOTHER 3 more because it was more refined in terms of gameplay even if it came at the cost of significantly dialing down the crazier themes EarthBound ran with making it a more down to earth Nature VS Industry story as the central aspect which a lot of JRPGs like running into the ground.

I liked Undertale's gameplay more, though I didn't find the character and world aspect to be that interesting. It's essentially just a rather generic isekai story with the whole "morality" part being the centerpiece of any substance. That brings to the main issue of Undertale, the notoriously bad fanbase for a veriety of reasons, the main one being that the vast majority of it are high on this "morality" kool-aid and would lash out at both people not admiting the binary kill/spare distinction to be the bee's knees(Undertale didn't even invent the pacifist run option, plenty of games had it already, with my favorite being Mirror's Edge which gave alternate routes to make going for the achievement for beating the game without killing any guards) as well as infamously attack let's players who'd play the game differently than them, namely not going pacifist.
The soundtrack is pretty good though.

Full disclosure, Yume Nikki is basically a non linear walking simulator with a dash of being a horror game where certain areas have enemies that essentially make you reset back to the start on touching you and depending on the route you take you might be running into them a lot before you get any abilities making dealing with them easier/completely trivialize it.
However what I liked about Yume Nikki is that it ran with the more bizzare visuals and areas of EarthBound like Moonside or Magicant and took it to 11.
Also it's the type of game that doesn't really explain the story or give you a clear goal, exploration is the main draw, with pen and paper notes and drawings being kind of necessary to make a map for yourself to have a chance at getting all the effects collected and events witnessed.

If someone wants some arbitrary scoring on those games from me, then:
-EarthBound would be around 5/10 because while I really liked the style, I found myself actually hating having to play it because it wasn't very interesting in terms of gameplay and I just suffered it through because a friend that was die hard fan insisted I go through with it.
-I'd give MOTHER 3 around 6,5, the gameplay was much better with a lot of quality of life for the day to day stuff like beeing able to sprint from near the start of the game instead of moving at a snail's pace. (Even the cycling speed in EarthBound felt like a drag) The combat system was much more interesting too and it even has a hard mode if you'd like to have that as an option.
But I found the loss of that distinct style to outweigh some of the positives.
-Undertale was a solid 7 to me, as in it had good gameplay, passable story and design, but really set back by how the three routes for a full experience got handled.
For the most part how the best ending can only be obtained on your second playthrough, while true pacifist not being too different from a regular pacifist playthrough aside the occasional moment where that game is being self aware of it being a second playthough.
The genocide route being rather underwhelming, with a lack of content too, with a majority of the bosses dying in one hit aside a few who serve as harder versions of the regular bosses, yet you having to grind every area until you kill a certain amount of enemies just to progress without an interesting boss fight to make it worth it in most areas. That and there being a lot of special events that randomly get assigned to a random value upon creating a save file meaning the three playthroughs would still not get you to see all of the content.

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

Undertale is story rich? since when?

Earthbound is in a completely different league to undertale, not worth trying to compare them.

[Electric Cupcake]

Earthbound only if you have the time to play Mother 1 and 3 as well.

[Alliesaurus]

Hugsie Muffinball님이 먼저 게시:

Earthbound only if you have the time to play Mother 1 and 3 as well.

Why 3 aswell? 1 is really good on it's own

[F]

OFF is better than those two

[Ophem]

Captain Yorshka님이 먼저 게시:

There's also Yume Nikki (which has a version on Steam though you could argue for hours with a die hard fan if that is as good). Since it is free on Steam you can just simply download that and don't worry about the versions thing.
It's an offshoot of EarthBound but it went into a different direction compared to MOTHER 3 and well, Undertale.

Earthbound was this highly experimental and novel thing that didn't feel like your traditional RPG, leaning more to be this expectation shattering artsy thing (with it's terrible sales being a result of their pretentious anti-advertising where it literally advertised as "this game stinks")
I personally hated playing through EarthBound even if I found the world design and a lot of the visuals to be phenomenal, I liked MOTHER 3 more because it was more refined in terms of gameplay even if it came at the cost of significantly dialing down the crazier themes EarthBound ran with making it a more down to earth Nature VS Industry story as the central aspect which a lot of JRPGs like running into the ground.

I liked Undertale's gameplay more, though I didn't find the character and world aspect to be that interesting. It's essentially just a rather generic isekai story with the whole "morality" part being the centerpiece of any substance. That brings to the main issue of Undertale, the notoriously bad fanbase for a veriety of reasons, the main one being that the vast majority of it are high on this "morality" kool-aid and would lash out at both people not admiting the binary kill/spare distinction to be the bee's knees(Undertale didn't even invent the pacifist run option, plenty of games had it already, with my favorite being Mirror's Edge which gave alternate routes to make going for the achievement for beating the game without killing any guards) as well as infamously attack let's players who'd play the game differently than them, namely not going pacifist.
The soundtrack is pretty good though.

Full disclosure, Yume Nikki is basically a non linear walking simulator with a dash of being a horror game where certain areas have enemies that essentially make you reset back to the start on touching you and depending on the route you take you might be running into them a lot before you get any abilities making dealing with them easier/completely trivialize it.
However what I liked about Yume Nikki is that it ran with the more bizzare visuals and areas of EarthBound like Moonside or Magicant and took it to 11.
Also it's the type of game that doesn't really explain the story or give you a clear goal, exploration is the main draw, with pen and paper notes and drawings being kind of necessary to make a map for yourself to have a chance at getting all the effects collected and events witnessed.

If someone wants some arbitrary scoring on those games from me, then:
-EarthBound would be around 5/10 because while I really liked the style, I found myself actually hating having to play it because it wasn't very interesting in terms of gameplay and I just suffered it through because a friend that was die hard fan insisted I go through with it.
-I'd give MOTHER 3 around 6,5, the gameplay was much better with a lot of quality of life for the day to day stuff like beeing able to sprint from near the start of the game instead of moving at a snail's pace. (Even the cycling speed in EarthBound felt like a drag) The combat system was much more interesting too and it even has a hard mode if you'd like to have that as an option.
But I found the loss of that distinct style to outweigh some of the positives.
-Undertale was a solid 7 to me, as in it had good gameplay, passable story and design, but really set back by how the three routes for a full experience got handled.
For the most part how the best ending can only be obtained on your second playthrough, while true pacifist not being too different from a regular pacifist playthrough aside the occasional moment where that game is being self aware of it being a second playthough.
The genocide route being rather underwhelming, with a lack of content too, with a majority of the bosses dying in one hit aside a few who serve as harder versions of the regular bosses, yet you having to grind every area until you kill a certain amount of enemies just to progress without an interesting boss fight to make it worth it in most areas. That and there being a lot of special events that randomly get assigned to a random value upon creating a save file meaning the three playthroughs would still not get you to see all of the content.

Yume Nikki is literally nothing like earthbound or mother, apart from the FC area, which is directly inspired by Mother

For the record Yume Nikki is like my all time favourite game.

[sage2001]

Turn-based RPGs are boring.

[Vaxen]

Earthbound, Undertale is overrated trash.

[🅷🅴🆇🅴🅽]

Undertale is a disgrace in terms of graphics and gameplay. Childish humor and a cesspool of a fanbase

Get Earthbound.