Undertale · 7:37am Oct 2nd, 2015
So. This game. I hesitate to even call it a game, and that is not meant in any sort of bad way! On the contrary, if we're going to be judging this...THING as a game, I still give it very high scores! The design is reminiscent of old-school games from many a gamer's childhood, the humor is stellar and the game is very much self-aware. That isn't what drew me in however.
What drew me in was this vague, dark undertone that slowly becomes more apparent the further you get in the game. It all started with Flowey. Oh sweet Celestia...Flowey. There are so many things to be said about him despite how little he actually appears in the game and how small of a role he plays (until certain events occur through your own actions), but that will be saved for spoilers.
The story itself seems simple enough at first. Humans and monsters used to live in peace, then some stuff happened, humans waged war on the monsters and won, and sealed the monsters underground behind an impassable barrier. Every once in a while, human children (for some reason ONLY human children) wind up falling into the ruins deep underground, and you are the next in line to fill in that role, probably through no one's fault but your own. Simple, right?
Wrong. This game seems so lighthearted depending on how you play it, and that's one of the big features of the gameplay that can make this game become two entirely different kinds of games. You could play it straight, fighting monsters and gaining experience, but you could also get through the game without killing anyone, or even hurting anyone, ever. You can play through this game as a complete pacifist and the game will allow it, and even mold the storyline around that fact. You can beat the game without ever gaining a single level. Just the same, you can go through the game killing everyone and everything, and the game will change accordingly. I have yet to experience this for...very emotional reasons.
The characters are superb and very likeable. Even befriending normal enemies you run across in random encounters pays off, in some small or potentially large way depending on which 'normal' enemies you mess with. Every character big and small is so charming and so amusing that you will want to be their friend. You know, unless you're being a genocidal maniac.
Above all else, the raw self-awareness this game possesses can really draw you in. There are a lot of examples of this, but basically, this game remembers everything you do. Even if you reset your game, it remembers what you did last time. If you quit the game without saving and then restart it because, say, you killed someone that you feel guilty about killing, or you did it on accident, the game will remember. It will confront you about it and rub it in, make you remember what you did, and how regardless of how much you reset the game, it will never change the fact that you did that thing. It doesn't matter if your progress reflects it or not. The game knows. You know what you did, you monster.
Even character dialogue can change based on these choices, and even if you try to reset to correct your choices. They may be small or big changes, but they'll be there, and you either will or will not notice them. It entirely depends on how observant you are and how well you remember your previous run through the game. That shouldn't be difficult, because this game isn't particularly long for an RPG, clocking in at anywhere between six and ten hours of play time for me.
Keep in mind that I haven't experienced everything this game has to offer, and that short play time is because the game is actually meant to be played multiple times. This is actually a part of the game's story, just as much as dying and reloading to try again can become a part of the story as well. There will even be characters commenting about your nigh-unstoppable, God-like power of Save and Load! It all hints at a sinister undertone that...no one really seems to be aware of in-game, with the exception of just two characters that I will avoid mentioning for now. Even then, you have to make certain events happen for them to ever mention it.
Combat is handled one of two ways: fighting enemies and killing them, or using the ACT command to talk things out with them. Doing it this way treats the enemy like an in-battle puzzle that you need to figure out in order to make them back down so you can spare their lives. This doesn't net you any XP, but you do still get Gold, so it's still worth it in some way. Some enemies even have things you have to do during their attacks to make them back down, such as when you fight the Tsunderplane (a tsundere airplane). You use ACT, choose Approach to get close (but not too close!) to the Tsunderplane, and then when the Tsunderplane attacks, there will be a green aura around the airplanes that come flying at the icon that represents your SOUL. You drift that icon into that aura without actually touching the plane and, after doing it enough times, you rile up the Tsunderplane enough that she becomes flustered and unwilling to fight you, and you can spare her.
That's the other aspect of the combat system: every enemy attack is akin to playing a bullet-hell game, especially as you get further in the game. This is the great equalizer that makes getting through the game as a pacifist possible in the first place. If this were a traditional RPG, relying on your stats and high numbers to get you through the onslaught of enemies, the game would be impossible on a pacifist run through it. But with this combat system, all you need to do is learn enemy attack patterns, and get good at dodging them. This gets much harder than it sounds, trust me. I like it because it keeps me actively engaged in the game, rather than just scrolling through menus and selecting my attacks as fast as possible. That's fun, don't get me wrong, but it's refreshing to actually feel drawn in these days.
The music is especially fantastic. With different music for every boss, a catchy battle theme and tons of atmospheric and quirky music for different situations and parts of the game (such as the silly dog-barking theme when you're fighting the dog characters near the 1/4th point), this game has a fantastic soundtrack to it that's worth listening to.
All of that, however? All of that pales in comparison to how much this game will attack you right in your feels, especially on a pacifist run.
*---------WARNING!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!----------*
This game is not gentle with your emotional state. My first run through, I was vaguely suspicious of Toriel's motives, but she did save me from that psychopathic Flowey, so I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I got to know Toriel as she guided me through the ruins, explaining how to deal with monsters without killing them, getting me past traps, showing me how to work switches...she was like a doting Mother that had taken on the role for my sake, because she assumed I was helpless. Given I was just a little child, she had good reason to assume that.
I bought a spider donut for eight bucks from a spider-run bake sale (which, incidentally, actually influenced a boss fight MUCH further down the line. Just buying a single donut. Yeah.) and spoke to some froggits that were helpful enough to give me some tutorial tips. One of them clearly stated that some enemies would need to be weakened before they back down. I found out soon enough that this was a blatant lie. It only comes into play for one boss fight (as far as I know), and even then that weakening is SCRIPTED.
In any case, I continued to avoid killing anything until we got to Toriel's little house in the ruins, and it was here when things began to sink in for me just what kind of situation she was in. She took me into her home, gave me a spare room that strangely already had lots of children's toys, clothes, shoes and the like, even a child's bed in it. No way she'd had time to set that up before I arrived, since we separated for a time in the ruins earlier on so she could go tidy up her home in preparation for my arrival. Not to mention, where would she get it all from?
She gave me a pat on the head, ruffled my hair, and told me to get some rest since I was probably tired. Earlier, she asked me what flavor I preferred, butterscotch or cinnamon, and I said cinnamon. So when I woke up, the pie she'd started cooking for me was done, and she'd left me a slice of it on a plate in my room. So nice of her! Didn't eat it right away though. Healing item that I didn't need to use just yet.
I went looking for her in her room, but she wasn't there...so of course, I snooped. I found a really bad pun written in her journal. No big deal. Then I went searching for her through the rest of her house and found her in her living area, reading a book in her chair by the fireplace. I checked out the kitchen real quick, didn't find anything significant, then went back to talk to her. I immediately asked her when I'd be able to go home. She tried to divert the subject to her book. I asked how to get out of the ruins. She tried again, and I continued to ask how to get out of the ruins. Then she told me she had to go do something, and left the living area.
Yeah, I was being really rude, but can you blame me for wanting to progress? I wasn't exactly sure where she went, but I eventually went down the stairs in the main foyer and into the basement area. She was there, and she told me that it was the way out of the ruins, and she was going to destroy the door. That way, no one else would be able to leave. I continued to follow her, and she told me not to try to stop her. She told me of Asgore, the King of all monsters, who would take my soul and use it to break the barrier keeping them all sealed underground.
I persisted, and followed her all the way to the door. She told me I was just like all the others, always leaving, and always dying. It began to dawn on me just how alone she was. How many had come through before me? Still...I couldn't back down. I needed to leave the ruins. I couldn't just stay there forever with her!
She called me naive, and told me to prove I was strong enough, and soon, we were fighting. I felt awful. I immediately tried to avoid hurting her any more than I already was by talking to her, but she wasn't having any of it. So with great reluctance, I attacked her. She attacked me. We kept going back and forth, and I ran away from the fight twice because I was sure there had to be a way past her, I just wasn't seeing it. I investigated the house, searched for items that maybe I could use to get through to her, but there was nothing.
I returned to her a third time. We fought again. I tried one last time to talk to her, and figure her out, but still, she didn't listen. Once more, I began attacking her. I had used up my monster candy and my spider donut, I had no way of healing myself, and her patterns are surprisingly difficult to avoid sometimes, so she was quickly wearing me down. She got me down to one HP, and then just...stopped trying to hurt me at all.
Her fire magic began actively avoiding hitting me. They flowed around me, distancing themselves from me whenever she attacked. She didn't want to kill me. She just wanted me to understand that she knew what was best for me. I pressed on, against my better judgement. The tip the froggit had given me about weakening my enemy enough to get them to back off came back to me, and I continued wearing her down. Even her boss music sounded horribly melancholy and sorrowful.
Then, out of nowhere, I did a massive amount of damage and took the last quarter of her health bar off, and she stared at me with her eyes wide in shock. I hadn't expected it at all since every attack I'd done before that had only done around 30 damage. That jump in damage was intentionally put into the game's design. She fell to one knee and, even mortally wounded, continued to give me information. She told me to follow the hallway, and warned me once more about Asgore. She warned me to not let him take my soul, because his plan could not be allowed to succeed.
Then she told me to be good, and her body crumbled away. I watched her soul snap in half and shatter right in front of me. I felt fucking abysmal, but I pressed forward.
Then Flowey appeared in the next room at the end of the hall. He asked me if I was happy with my decision, and called her an old hag. He mocked her because she tried to break the rules of their world. It's kill or be killed down here. She dared to have compassion for the humans that fell down here. She tried to save them. In the end though, she couldn't even save herself. Fuck you Flowey.
That was just one boss encounter, one major character in the game. I can only imagine the kind of horrible heart-breaking scenarios that may come up if you try to kill the others, reluctantly or willingly.
*------------Spoilers Done!------------*
Because of my attachment to the characters from doing a neutral and pacifist run through the game, I'm actually very hesitant to try to go through it killing them because I know I'd feel just awful about it. The pacifist run's endgame actually made me cry. A game hasn't managed to make me feel anything that intensely since before I hit my teen years. This game drew me in in a way even modern, gigantic RPGs haven't managed to do.
Undertale actively engages you, the player, not just your character. It makes you make moral choices big and small, makes them make a difference, and judges you for each one in the process, and those choices are everywhere, even if you don't realize they're there.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an RPG. Final Fantasy games are RPGs. Undertale is a deep, engaging emotional experience based around the choices you make that just happens to feel like an RPG.
Do I recommend Undertale as a game? Yes. Do I recommend it as an experience that you need to have? Yes doesn't quite cut it. I need a word beyond just 'yes'.
Soooo much text!
3437827
I had just beaten the true pacifist run earlier. Had to get it out of my system.
3437843
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Understandable. I looked up the game you were talking about, and then went on to scroll down, scroll down, and then scroll down some more, to see if there were any comments, hence the "soooo much text!" comment
For the record: the game looks pretty fun.
I'm playing a copy of the game, and spoiled the game pretty much entirely, so i'm going for a genocide run first, then true pacifist just so I can see
bothall of the the endings3474425
Ah...fair warning, if you do that successfully, the genocide run I mean, you will permanently lock out the pacifist ending of the game. Just sayin'.
3474874
Oh, I know, but it: 1. checks for a deletable file, and 2. just changes the ending slightly.
3475435
Eh, true, but going and deleting the very hidden file feels like cheating. Also, it changes the ending to the point of not really making it the same, from what I understand.
3475556
If you go with Toriel, you get a small scare where your eyes turn into chara's/the fallen human's, if you don't the picture with your friends in it has all but your face crossed out. That's literally all it does.