>Protagonist just does things because there are things that the protagonist should and can do in order for the protagonist to be in an Undertale clone
>I'm not fucking exaggerating
>Combat is WarioWare minigames that awkwardly swap between mouse and keyboard controls
>There's dialogue that displays during combat, except this isn't Paper Mario where you have turn-based gameplay between your action gameplay, so the game has to rely on the WarioWare minigames being so easy that the player can read through the text while playing
>Choosing between good/bad actions feels completely unnatural, absolutely no thematic purpose behind any of it
>Protagonist is way too blank, we know nothing about them or how they've been dealing with/processing their shit home life and abusive parents, impossible to care about them
>Difference between good/bad actions are DeviantArt tier
>The concepts of "nuance" and "subtlety" are constantly confused for the concept of "filibuster because the writer has absolutely nothing planned and zero experience in expressing such things"
>God I fucking hate that intro choice where you can fill the dog's bowl with garbage instead of dog food
>I could rant for hours about how fucking much that one choice already undermines the ENTIRE shitty fucking plot and any themes it could have had, jesus FUCK
>Why even bother saving the dog if you hate it so much you'll completely break from your friendly characterization and make him fuck off with inedible garbage?
>Why even bother making the player replay the game just to undo the garbage food choice when you can just NOT let them brick their playthrough?
>The characters will act like they've gone through a ton of emotional buildup and payoff, except you've only had a maximum of like five minutes with them
>You could even ALMOST see some form of interdependence between the human and his dog by the time you leave the house, but you might as well be discerning the future through pig intestine divinations with how much you have to just infer
>Unfunny jokes at inopportune times, completely killing any serious vibes that should have been there
>There's a scavenger hunt item with comedic text - an extrinsic motivation - in the room dedicated to dark introspection, thus completely undermining both tones
>Undertale never runs into this sort of issue because Toby Fox paces everything better than that by separating such extrinsic/intrinsic motivations into their own map sections
>Undertale even silently activates a "Serious Mode" feature that downplays goofy item/equipment text so that you don't scoff at some dumb pun or lengthy gag in the middle of a serious battle
>No such care given in Heartbound
>Moment-to-moment gameplay is entirely babby's first puzzles, fetch quests, talking, talking, talking, and talking, yet ultimately nothing being said
>Tedium bites at your ankles every step of the way
>Art is almost good, but it somehow lands in an uncanny valley (reminds me of YIIK in that respect)
>Every character portrait is unnecessarily round and bouncy, completely kills any serious tones
>Furries are included, yet no flamethrower, cheese grater, or woodchipper. Curious!
>Not even furries care enough about the characters to make ONE piece of smut about them, no exaggeration
>Okay listen furries will make shittons of erotic smut about Undertale's fat ugly shitty lying manipulative yellow lizard nerd bitch and her hideous butch fish girlfriend
>Yet they've made absolutely NOTHING for Heartbound, like actually literally zero porn of the furries on either e621 or rule34.xxx, there is ZERO emotional connection here, it really is THAT BAD
>The pooner artist put so much disgusting fucking fetishistic detail into the paw swipe attacks for the stupid cat furry battle, yet knot a SINGLE gooner either noticed or cared, they were baiting SO HARD yet got NOTHING
>Whole game was clearly written and directed by a skinwalker
>The music probably doesn't deserve to be associated with the game or Jason Hall, I guess, maybe, I dunno
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