Challenging The Status Quo Fills You With Determination (Undertale & The GameFAQs Best Game Ever Poll)

(So, this post is about Undertale. There are probably going to be Undertale spoilers in here at some point. If you don't care about that, read on. If you would like to experience Undertale, it's only 10 bucks on Steam. Right here. There's even a demo you can try to see if it's for you. Please, give it a go. I know the Internet at large hasn't shut up about it since its release [and I'm guilty as charged, although I make sure to tag all my Undertale stuff on Tumblr] but it deserves the fairest shake you can give it. Right then. On with the show.)

So, every year over on Socks Make People Sexy, I post a Games I Played In 201X list. I keep tabs on what things I beat over the year in a little Notepad file, and come the last week of December I write words about which ones I liked. There isn't really a ranking, but something does get a "Game Of The Year" nod; usually because they make me feel something. 2013's was Ducktales Remastered, because it was the first time since Mega Man 9 where a retro throwback platformer made me feel genuine joy. 2014's was Dangan Ronpa 2, because I felt emotion upon my favorite characters either being murdered, or revealed as murderers or traitors. There's still two weeks left to the year, but here's your advance spoiler, straight from River Song: Undertale is my Game Of The Year for 2015. It made me feel genuine emotion, and I feel it's brilliant. It takes all the instincts and natural assumptions of old-school RPG play and throws the implications and morals of them right back at you. In something like Dragon Quest, you just go out into the wild and bludgeon Slimes with a stick. Why? For gold, yes, but also for the experience. Doing that makes you stronger. This is accepted standard in every other RPG out there, but Undertale holds a mirror up to it and moralizes this for what it really is: the mass murder of living things in the nebulous name of "progress" and "experience". Undertale, like Doctor Who before it, takes you by the hand and says "Throw down your weapons. There's another way.". You can run about destroying everything in your path, but the game's characters will pass judgement on you for doing so. As they well should; you're destroying not just random enemies, but denizens of a world! The bosses aren't just named NPCs, but their friends! You can turn back from this path at just about any time you like; the point of no return for being a violent murderer is surprisingly late. I took the path of pacifism, of complimenting and giving mercy to the creatures I found. It can be difficult to keep on that path, and eventually mercy only goes so far... but for the most part, I was the Androgynous Child Who Never Would. The ending of the True Pacifist run is a thing of beauty, in which you reach out to a lost soul, a soul who's caused you so much pain and grief... and forgive them. It's the Zygon Inversion speech in game form, how can I not love this? I'm not alone in that assumption, either. Undertale has exploded over social media. 93 Metacritic score. It legitimately seems to be one of the best games released this year... and it's a pixel art indie RPG which wears Earthbound inspiration on its sleeve, that takes like 7 hours to beat. Brevity! God, I love brevity! Undertale is beautiful, and wonderful, and a whole bunch of people agreed that it was one of the best games ever.

Which made what was to come all the more interesting.

For many years running, GameFAQS.com has run yearly Character Battle contests, in which people vote on who the best video game character ever is. Invariably, given that these contests were often held in the 2000's, the voting came down to the most popular characters. Link, Cloud, Mario. We of course know why that is; they're the three who navigated the transition from 2D to 3D with flying colors. Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, and Ocarina of Time were massively influential, For a generation who were teens in the 2000's, these games would have been touchstones of their childhood. To badly quote Patrick Roesle, everyone who played FF7 for the first time in 1997 pissed themselves at least once during the game's opening. They were revolutionary, and ushered in new epochs of video game history... and thus have garnered much love from their fans. Not, it should be noted, undeserved love. I get it, I really do. I wasn't there for any of these games upon their release; I didn't get an N64 or a PS1 until 2005, but I know the feeling. In 1995, Donkey Kong Country 2 blew my fucking mind and it was God's gift to action platforming. In 2000, in a basement in Grand Bank, Newfoundland, I saw the opening to Final Fantasy VI and was utterly hooked on the concept of the JRPG. Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Mario RPG soon followed. We remember these games for a reason; because they affected us positively. Nostalgia can be a tool of good... but of course, there's always the dark mirror. The characters always won the polls. But why? Link and Mario have no real depth as characters; they're simply timeless heroes who fight for what is right. Admirable, yes, but not an in-depth character. Cloud at least has a little more weight going for him (ignoring his godawful loner phase in the Compilation media, but that's hardly the fault of 1997) but is he really the best game character ever? I would argue not... but he is the most popular. At the heart of it all, that is what the character battles are; a popularity contest. The games themselves battled for Game Of The Decade, and the final inevitably came down to FF7 vs. OoT... but the character battle itself was only upheaved twice in history. Once many moons ago when the joke vote of the L-Block from Tetris somehow managed to overtake all the others and win, and then again when the Internet rallied for Draven from League of Legends. So, rules exist to be broken. Many had a good laugh at that. What the hell's this got to do with Undertale? Oh. That comes now.

Recently, GameFAQs hosted a new poll: the Best Game Ever poll. People voted in what they thought were the best games ever, and a bracket of 128 was formed from those choices. So, the 128 best games ever. What sort of games have we got? As EJR Tairne pointed out on Twitter, not a whole lot of diversity here. 8 Final Fantasy games, 2 Kingdom Hearts, 3 Resident Evils, all five Metal Gear Solids, 5 Zeldas, 6 Mario games... there really isn't a lot of diversity here, huh? The only two games on the bracket to be released before 1990 were... Super Mario Bros. 3 and Tetris. So, you know, as an esoteric Nintendo game blog that leaves reason for alarm. Tetris, which probably does have a claim for Best Game Ever because it's actually timeless and can be played on like... every computer system ever made, lost to Pokemon. Generation 1 Pokemon. An important game, and a nostalgic one for me... but better than Tetris? I don't know about that. Well, because it was popular and still fresh in the minds of many at the time, Undertale got a slot in this bracket. Hey, you know, maybe it'll get pretty far, but we all knew how this was going to turn out; how it always turns out. The Status Quo was set in stone. FF7 and OoT were Quite Possibly The Greatest Games Ever Made. It would inevitably come down to them again, as it so often does. Undertale might get far, but then it would come up against a nostalgic classic and lose. Life moves on, the Status Quo of video games remains unchallenged, and we keep loving Undertale for what it did for us this year.

And then that didn't happen at all.

Undertale defeated Mass Effect 3. Which... well, okay, I guess. A lot of people were still sore that the ending of that series didn't stick the landing. Next match, Fallout 3. Undertale defeated that, too. Well... I don't know, maybe that was a weak entry in that series. Ah, here it is. Undertale vs. Super Mario World. You can't challenge a Mario game and win. Super Mario World is the start of the SNES era. This, according by Nintendo Project rules, is where the Great Golden Age began. Even Undertale, with its Earthbound homage aesthetic, holds some fealty to this kingdom. Here, then, is the great secret: I beat Super Mario World this week. It is a very good Mario game. It was, as herald of the SNES era, influential in what was to come. It is not quite one of the best games ever, but it is still very good. And so, Undertale fans from all over came together and made their claim. No. You do not get to win by birthright, or by mere influence. You started a Great Golden Age, but the world has moved on. You brought great nostalgia, but we believe that Undertale has affected us more; that it is better. Undertale fought Super Mario World, and won. What an upset! Next match. Undertale vs. Pokemon, Generation 1. The Tetris killer. The game that made the Game Boy relevant, and launched a billion-dollar franchise for first-party Nintendo. I thought for sure that this was it. Pokemon is just too popular to be defeated. Again, Undertale fans banded together. We said no. Pokemon was defeated, and Undertale was in the quarterfinals... up against Super Mario 64. Oh, there's no fucking way it's making it out of this one alive. Super Mario 64 ushered in an entirely new way to play games, adding an entire third dimension to the world and revolutionizing things. It was the vanguard of the 3D age, a cultural touchstone. Did you not hear Undertale? IT. SAID. NO. Super Mario 64 was defeated. The semi-finals. Undertale vs Super Smash Brothers Melee. At one point, Smash Bros was on top. I thought for absolute certain that was the end of it. The little game that could was all rallied out, and the Status Quo was coming back on top. Smash Bros. Melee, the breakout hit for the Gamecube. Still a competitive hit today, its sequels rejected in favor of the nostalgic favorite with its tournament-level play exploits. At this point, Undertale has smashed through two of the royal princes of Nintendo's first-party consoles. What's a third? It came back, and defeated Smash Bros. Melee. Final match. Undertale vs. Ocarina of Time, one of the Three Who Rule. One of their number was smashed by Smash (in a move that really surprised me), and the other stomped by Undertale. The final battle was set, and by now it seemed that the Status Quo had no fight left in it. Ocarina never gained on Undertale. Undertale won the Best Game Ever poll.

This is amazing. The Status Quo is fucking sacred. How in the world did this even happen? There were accusations. We'll get to that in a second, but I'm taking this as mostly genuine. Yeah, Undertale fandom on Tumblr and Reddit and whatnot were spreading the poll around and saying HEY GUYS, VOTE! That's just campaigning. There were accusations of botting and vote rallying and outright cheating on Undertale's part. They were thoroughly debunked by the admin. Undertale won, and its only claim to illegitimately winning is that it rallied for outside help. Which, the Smash Bros. community also attempted. So. It's time to have fun, and talk about the salt. The GameFAQs contest board was filled with utter fury and contempt at Undertale's rampant success and smashing the Status Quo. Part of this was probably that some part of the contest was an actual contest, with cash prizes to be won. Therefore, an underdog coming in and taking away the victory from the well-known Best Games Ever ruined a shitload of brackets and made for a bunch of losers. Oddly enough, that isn't quite the level of complaint I saw in my brief browsings of the contest board. No, I saw a much different kind of tactic presented; one very familiar to me. Why? Because it's been used against me there before, during the Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures fiasco. This, friends, is victory ad hominem. The logic dance goes as such: Melee and OoT are the Best Games Ever. They lost to Undertale. Undertale is not better than Melee and OoT. Therefore, if one can't beat Undertale in a vote contest, one must discredit it somehow. Then the victory is invalid, Melee/OoT are still the Best, and the Status Quo remains. Look, the exact same thing happened to me. I was an Irate Gamer fanboy/a 30,000 word vomiter/terrible at video games, so my 3/10 was invalid and AVGNA was still a really fun accurate nostalgic game that referenced videos people liked. Exactly the same thing happened with Undertale. So, let's review. I've been bookmarking choice threads over the past few days, in preparation for this writeup. In the next bit, I will present some of the invalidations folks have attempted to make, "supposedly" in the name of protecting the Status Quo.

Well, first off, Undertale isn't actually a video game. The thread I found where a "true gamer" stated the same has been deleted, so we'll have to settle with this declaration. If it isn't a game, it can't beat another game in a game contest, now can it? Undertale's only 5 hours long! You can't be the best if you're too short! Or if you're made in MS Paint, for that matter! This next thread is close to a reasonable opinion about how Undertale isn't as good as games that came out this year, but then calls people who relate to its characters "pasty overweight teenaged girls". So, in light of what killed the Nintendo Project, that cuts a bit deep. This one says Undertale voters either like crappy RPGs or are too young to appreciate OoT. Arguably the best game ever made. We are going to unpack that one we're out of Ad Hominemville, trust me. Hey, the Undertale fans rallying in support? Anti-Nintendo fanboys, with bots! Hell, I bet half of them haven't even played the game! Undertale is just a meme game. The pejorative "Undermeme" has been spread around the boards a lot. That post gets at one of the other big ad hominems: that Undertale is just a flash in the pan fan and nobody will remember it in a year, whereas stuff like Melee and OoT are timeless and will never be forgotten. Well, first off, someone's psychic. Second, I won't forget. I wrote it down so I would never forget. Now, for one of my favorites: Changing the rules to protect the Status Quo. Undertale "won", but OoT really won you guys! No. OoT lost the poll. It did not win this contest. Despite all the denial to the contrary. The real fun of this came immediately after Undertale won it all. The sudden classic Internet about face of not really caring. Because Bayonetta is coming to Smash, so now we don't care! Why, OoT didn't even try! You didn't win because it didn't bother to compete! After Undertale WON, there were some final bonus polls put up. The usual stuff you'd expect to see. Melee vs. Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger vs. FF6, Pokemon vs. Mario 64... and yes, FF7 vs. OoT. So, in a sense, the people who really did want it to come down to that now get the chance to vote for their favorite and have their non-Undertale vote. That's very gracious of the admins. Of course, it also leads people to gloat that this is the real final match and that Undertale lost and you can't do anything about it ha ha ha ha ha. REAL games in the finals! Like, good god. The pettiness and the desperation to attempt to discredit an indie game from being Best Game Ever is strong. That's not even taking into account the stuff like "Undertale winning is a crime against humanity" or "I'm quitting if Undertale wins over OoT". Maybe there's another explanation. There has to be some pathos besides these childish attempts to get your way and maintain the Status Quo.

Now to cite some of the nicer posts. First, this one.  OoT was very good, but is it really Best Game Ever? The call for change in the industry here is particularly important. Then we have this breakdown, which is very smart. OoT was a formative part of many people's video game experiences! It was amazing and incredible, and how in the hell could some indie game that came out just a few months ago possibly measure up without breaking the rules? It doesn't add up, and therefore the excuses come. So, the ad hominems come from a place of love. Love for the warm nostalgia of OoT. Weaponized nostalgia, the Dread Beast snarling its claws at anything daring to attempt to usurp the throne. Sorry, kids. The kingdom was toppled. In this one corner of the World Wide Web, the Status Quo was taken down for but one moment, and Undertale won. Now it's important to unpack just what this contest meant. There are two readings to it. It is either one big popularity contest to see which games the Internet and GameFAQs thinks are the best, or an objective attempt to rank the most impactful video game of all time. With that first reading, all of the salt appears to boil down to anger that the things GameFAQs thinks are the most popular games of all time aren't the hottest; a popularity contest where the thing you like isn't the most popular. I've got news for you. We're old. Entirely new generations of people are playing games and loving games. Sure, the classics of the 80's and 90's are getting remakes. OoT and Majora's Mask are on 3DS. Final Fantasy 7 is getting a big bombastic remake for a new crowd. Popularity comes and goes, and something can become more popular. No, it's the second reading that creates a more disturbing picture. There's a quote from Stephen King I read somewhere and really wish I could source, but it goes a little something like so. One of his most popular books is The Stand, published early in his career in 1978 (and getting an expanded edition in 1990). Many fans consider it to be the best book he's ever written, and I suppose a great deal must have expressed that to him at book signings or conventions or whatnot. Anyway, his quote is a mild lament that, despite continually putting out new stories and books, his fandom at large thinks he hasn't written anything as good as the thing he wrote in 1978. That line of thinking can be applied to the contest, and those mad at Undertale's win. They wanted a traditional bout, it seems. They wanted OoT to be crowned the Best Game Ever. That game came out 17 years ago. The Status Quo would have us believe that, in 17 years of video games, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of game releases, an infinite number of fresh creative ideas and new spins on old favorites... after all that, we haven't made a video game as good as the Zelda game from 1998? That is honestly a disturbing and depressing thought. Our hobby has been stagnant for that long? Is that the future you're suggesting? If so, then I want no part of it.

Instead, I'll be over here with the Undertale fandom. The passionate furries and robophiles (>:3c) and SJWs who, for a period of time between 5 and 12 hours, entered a world of monsters and fell in love with the characters down below. Who decided to spare everyone, or murder everyone, or somewhere in between. The people who finished the game and decided that it was the best thing they'd played this year. Who then voted on an Internet poll to affirm that love, and rallied others together to show that love by winning a symbolic poll. By shattering the Status Quo that video games have just been marking time since the Clinton years, and that hopes and dreams can reign eternal. It's December 16th, 2015. Nostalgia still has a power over us all, and games like FF7 and OoT will still be well-regarded as classics. The original releases, and their enhanced remakes, will be played and loved and played all over again by many... but so will Undertale. It will not be forgotten as a flash in the pan. It will endure. It has transcended, and the masses have banded together in a form of revolution that would make Patrick Troughton proud.

Undertale is the Best Game Ever.