SS Reviews: Undertale · 11:05pm Oct 28th, 2015
So that marks an entire week. I've been completely unproductive in any of my endeavors for a full week. 
Why you may ask? Well for the first few days since last Thursday I've been playing the new Tales of Zesteria game, which is a fantasy JRPG and part of the 'Tales of' series. Then starting Sunday I've been engulfed completely in Undertale. You may have heard of this one recently, it's a recent indie game released over on Steam. Now, this is a very interesting game and I really want to spread the game around. Therefor, here's my review of the game.
Like I said, Undertale, created by Tobyfox, and Temmie Chang is in interesting game to say the very least. At first glance it's an unassuming small scale RPG about a human who's accidentally fallen down into an underground civilization of monsters who have been sealed away several hundred years prior. It works, again, in very basic description, like a morality based story where you can either choose to kill enemies or spare them. The game changes depending on your battle choices. This may seem like it's nothing new, but what's amazing and different is that the game itself, every facet of the it: the music, the enemies, the dialogue, and even the atmosphere all alter themselves drastically, completely changing to fit how you choose to play.
Gameplay wise, Undertale takes a lot of inspiration from other indie titles. Most notably, the Touhou series and Earthbound, and the way the fight mechanic works reflects that. For those who don't know, Touhou is a 2D/3D bullet hell series where the main point of the game is to dodge an obscene amount of attacks from the enemies while still shooting back at them. I often joke that if you can master any Touhou game in the impossible difficulty, you can effectively dodge rain if you were challenged to. Undertale takes a small spin on this style. The gameplay in it is turn based. While each fight uses a different style, the chief objective is to outlast your opponents attacks in order to take your turn to attack or try to convince the enemy to leave peacefully. There is no defend option. The reason for this is that there's no need for one. There's is always some other option to take.
Outside of battle, the game takes a lot of inspiration from games like Earthbound and Cave Story. All of the characters are in an 8-bit style design.
As for the story, it's a very basic set up and slightly linear at first glance. The human wants to get home and therefore they traverses the underground world to meet the king. However, that's truly only scratching the surface of what this game truly covers. Like any full scale RPG, there's a myriad of side quests character arcs and alternate dialogues in regards to different choices. All of which in my opinion are worth doing as they all expand on the vast story of this game.
There are a few anime influences spread throughout it as well. Both in certain enemy designs and dialogue. Like, for example there's a monster called Tsunderplane who is, well, tsundere.
As for the story, what may seem like a linear plot at first glance is really an incredibly powerful and in depth story about two races trying to find equilibrium. Another major theme as well is dealing with the consequences of past choices. And by past choices I mean your save data. Yes, the game knows about your save data and even if you restart the game without saving some characters still know what you did. That is also a mechanic in affecting the dialogue and ending. For once every choice, from the moment you download the game, counts entirely. It's really meta like that, but in an awesome way. But explaining further would be more of a spoiler and a warning.
The game is full of twists and turns that you can't easily predict. The dialogue messes with you and the story can purposely mislead you to make a different conclusion depending how you play. Nothing is as it seems in the first play though. But once you have the true ending everything becomes clear and you find how beautiful it really is. There are three kinds of endings. Neutral endings, pacifist endings where you spare everything, and genocide endings where you kill everything.
Now onto the golden parts. The characters. Every single character whom you have dialogue with is fully fleshed out, well designed, well dialogues, and a joy to meet and a joy to fight. Whether you're making friends of them or turning them into bosses you'll never not having fun when you encounter them. The main characters are the main monsters you meet, The puzzle loving Skeleton brothers who can be your friends, Toriel the mama goat who is essentially your guide at the beginning, the King whom you are trying to meet, Undyne the fishwoman tsundere guard and Alphy the shy and reclusive scientist and your guide at the end. (Please take into the account that these descriptions are accurate if you are going the friends route.)
The music is however, is the shining beacon of the game. Every track in every route is like an orgasm in your ears. Soft melodies in the towns. The adventurous and exciting battle themes, the 8-bit soundtracks in certain areas. The remixes for later enemies. All of them are a joy to listen to. It was honestly the first time I could say "I like this theme" in every area I've been to. However, not only that, but like I said earlier, the tracks change in pitch, tone and even speed depending on how you chose to play the game. Some area tracks become more ominous and foreboding if you kill everything while being more joyful and upbeat if you befriend everything. It gives the sense that the songs are judging you for your actions.
Real talk guys. I know it may seem like I'm just singing this game's praises. But it really is that good. It's funny and a bit silly at times but knows just when to turn serious. Rather than breaking the forth wall outright, it goes for meta jokes instead. Like I said, certain characters know about your save data and saving in general is ingeniously worked into the story. Others will even acknowledge it if you die to them and reload your game.
If I were to say anything negative about this game is that it's greatest strength is it's definite weakness. In creating such an amazingly complex and touching story, complete with what I think is over a dozen possible ending and countless alternate sets of dialogue and tracks, the game itself can intentionally trip people up and can possible ruin someones intentions. It's hard to explain without spoiling, but certain actions taken have a permanent effect on the outcome, regardless if you delete the save or start over. It gets to the point where people might end up looking for a guide, which is fine, but then they end up spoiling what is meant to be a mindblowing revelation.
EDIT: I suppose it's also true that going in completely blind to the game is also bad because if you play it like a regular rpg you end up with an unfulfilling Neutral ending, which may confuse someone greatly. However this is lopsided when you consider that part of the point of this game is to flip stereotypical RPG stereotypes like killing for exp and selling things back to venders.
The only other thing I can say is that the game does nothing to prepare you for the amount of feels you will have.
In any case. I don't often recommend games to people, given the whole console PC preference everyone has. But I genuinely believe that Undertale is an amazing game that anyone, console lover or no, should play. It has a better and more complex story than FNAF, better music tracks than most other games, and the comedy in this game is better than it has been in most games that've come out the past few years. It's touching and feels are abundant towards the end. The characters are amazing and easy to relate to, the tracks are a joy and the fights in this game are challenging and rewarding.
Finally I would honestly recommend playing this game alongside someone who's already played it. Just so they can guide you through without spoiling anything for you. Regardless of all the combinations there is a correct-way to play through each run to get every ending.
I'm gonna try out this game.
3503571 Have fun and be careful. Tell me how you do.
3503578 Alrighty
I'll totally check it out in a couple months when I finally get a PC. My friends have all been singing it's praises lately, and you make it sound pretty awesome.
There are three primary endings to Undertale - the two extremes, and "Neutral" which encompasses everything in between. (If you kill any monsters at all, but not all of them, you'll be getting a neutral ending.)
However, at the end of a Neutral run, there is a phone call you receive - the contents of this call vary widely based on exactly what you did and did not do. There is a PDF with a flowchart detailing which actions lead to which outcomes that I'm not going to link here, but just let it be said the number of possible combinations is quite large.
Frisk actually isnt a boy. Thoughout rhe game, they are referred to as they and them by everyone else. The playable character was made this way to better immerse yourself into the game. I think toby himself also said the kid isnt either gender.
3564300 Woops. Fixed. The Main character is ambiguous, though most like to think of them as a she. Personally my preferred gender depends on the context.
3503578 I beat Undertale's pacifist ending. Holy f*ck I love that game!
3565279
Now do what you would normally do in a video game and kill everything. It gets its own unique story for that too. Also sad to watch if you watch youtube vids of it.
3565810 I don't think I can bring myself to do that. Papyrus is too sweet.
3565958 Not many people can
3565958
Cryotic has a genocide playthrough with a guy named Russ. It's mostly full of Cry and Russ being sad as they kill the friends they had previously made in their neutral playthrough. Its also funny as well, so still enjoyable.
3566122 I'll be sure to check it out.