I... Hm. This is tricky. I haven't 100% finished the game yet, but here goes. First, though, let me make a point:

[i]Undertale is not my favorite game, nor my favorite Indie game. I only think it's a good game, not a super great game.[/i] If you want to know of a great 4X (sort of) card/survival game with good story and interesting lore (real-world Baltic folklore turned fantasy), you should look up Thea: The Awakening. THAT is a great game in my opinion. Undertale is not as great as that...

But Undertale is still a good game, and I'm happy I played it. Here's why:

It's got good storytelling. That's what it comes down to. Undertale's actual mechanics are really subpar, and the graphics style isn't something I dig, even though I did play a lot of SNES games - including, yes, a little Earthbound. But the story is fun, and it toys with player expectations.

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When I accidentally killed the first "boss" - you know, the lady you can call Mom - I was mortified. I was only doing around 50 damage a hit, and I wanted to get her really low in HP so I could talk her down, but then my character dealt a whopping 200 or 300 damage hit and she DIED ON ME. So, yeah, of COURSE I loaded the game. I didn't want her to die, and I'm not playing RPGs for an Ironman-mode experience.

The worst part about having her die that first time was that [i]she herself warned me about that,[/i] and I was actively calculating my damage so I could get her as low as I could before talking her down, assuming that's what you were supposed to do. The game threw a curveball at me, though.

And the game referenced that. The game shoved the fact that I did that in my face. And then it beat the horse dead, but in a way that actually just played with my heartstrings more. I didn't feel offended by that. I thought it was a fun approach, even though I've been exposed to games breaking the fourth wall before. It worked.
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[quote]How is anything in Undertale a "meme"?[/quote]

Okay. I can answer this one really easily:

Doge.

Dear God, I was actually really sick of dogs by the time I got through the snowy region. I mean it. You fight two different dogs that were specifically designed to look like Doge (who is a shiba), and THAT is an obvious meme that the developer ran with. Yeah, the game has at least one meme, and it pops up pretty early on, and it isn't all that funny.

EDIT: Two dogs that look like doge doesn't sound like much, but you also fight three other dogs in that region as minor bosses, and I had someone tell me about the whole making-his-neck-grow-infinitely-long joke with the Lesser Dog. That took a while. I was bored of them fast.

Again: the game is still a good game, and I'm happy I played it, but it has at least one meme, and I'm sure I missed others. And yes, that meme existed BEFORE the game did.

I'll also say this: if someone doesn't like the game after a few hours of play, they shouldn't be told to keep playing so they can get to the fun part. I can see why people wouldn't have fun with the game because of the gameplay. Bullet hells just aren't that interesting to me, the RPG elements are really just a flimsy Christmas present wrapping you're supposed to yank off before you get to the present inside (the story), and the art style / graphics are what I'd describe as "Indie 8-bit." Indie 8-bit is the lazier cousin of SNES 8-bit. It could be way better.

(But at least the characters aren't literally 1 pixel wide stick figures like some Indie games. Those games upset me on a deep level.)

I'll also say that my purchase/playthrough of Undertale was really delayed because it DOES have a lot of really lazy design on the surface. Again: graphics style = high-middle end Indie 8-bit. Not saying much. The combat was really boring to watch (a little more fun to play). The story's premise actually bothered me before I picked up the game ("So, I'm playing a little girl trapped in the underworld, I'm trying to escape, monsters are trying to kill me, and I'm supposed to feel bad for fighting back?"). It... Yeah, it's easy to start playing with a frown on your face.

Again, though: turned out to have a good story with subpar gameplay. It was worth the purchase. I enjoyed it. It made me think a little. I can't say much more than that.

EDIT: And I'm gonna reiterate that there are other Indie games out there I'd sooner suggest throwing money at than Undertale. I personally have poured a bunch of hours into Battle Brothers (which is like Panzer General but as a medieval mercenary RPG), and I think Thea is a really fun one, too. There's a few others of similar quality worth mentioning, but I think I've gotten my point across.