Yoko Taro And Toby Fox Have A Pleasant Chat About Playing Undertale And NieR: Automata

NieR: Automata creator Yoko Taro and Undertale maker Toby Fox are both developers who won the hearts of fans across the West and East, and they recently sat together for a pleasant chat in this week’s Famitsu.

Here’s a part from the Yoko Taro and Toby Fox feature where they talk about playing each other’s games:

Toby Fox: When did you first find out about Undertale, Yoko-san?

Yoko Taro: I found it from an overseas fan who suggested it around the time it was only available as a demo, saying “There’s this game that I think Yoko would really like.” So when I actually played the demo, I was like, “Oh, I… think this is fun, but it’s the kind of game I can’t truly enjoy without understanding the English details,” so I decided to wait for it to get localized.

Toby Fox: So how was it when you got to play it? Did you like it?

Yoko Taro: I thought it was very amusing.

Toby Fox: Good! I really enjoyed playing NieR: Automata, but I was wondering if you enjoyed my game as well.

Yoko Taro: It was very enjoyable.

Toby Fox: I put in about 22 hours into NieR: Automata, saw all the main endings, but the rest seem like they might take a while, so I didn’t see those… [laughs].

Yoko Taro: It’s really not necessary to watch all the endings.

Toby Fox: How many hours did it take you to beat Undertale?

Yoko Taro: I thought “this is the kind of game that would go great with alcohol” so I played while drinking, so after throwing in some naps in there I racked up about 50 hours. The actual gameplay time was probably around 10 hours. I recall seeing left on in the mornings after waking up.

Toby Fox: We should’ve probably put a note on the Japanese version saying “Play time 50 hours (Only if you get drunk and sleep in the middle of it)” [laughs]. So, Yoko-san, do you play a lot of games in general?

Yoko Taro: I do play, but lately I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to play anything. The folks at Square Enix send me software samples, so my backlog of games keeps increasing… What about you, Toby-san?

Toby Fox: I haven’t been able to play any games… Especially around the time I was making Undertale, I didn’t play any at all. I still haven’t been able to play much. I only play games that I really want to play. NieR: Automata was one of the games and I played it thoroughly to the end. So I don’t have much of a backlog. Whenever I hear about a game taking 100 hours of play time, I end up thinking “Nevermind.” If I had 100 hours to put into a game, I’d probably rather put it into reading 20 books… although I’ve been spending way too much time on Twitter instead of reading books [laughs].

NieR: Automata is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Undertale is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, and PC.