Undertale (PC): This Game Broke my Soul

So I had heard a little bit about this game when it came out at the end of last year. I saw a lot of let's players playing it and glanced it a few times when FunHaus' Lawrence Sonntag streamed it, or when it Ross and Barry played it on Steam Train. Then Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame quickly did a review of it so he could squeeze it into his top and bottom games of the year.

It looked OK from a retro standpoint. I dig JRPGs and I heard a number of comparisons to the SNES game Earthbound (or Mother 2 for your elitist types). But it wasn't until I tried to watch MatPat's new Game Theory about it, and at the start of the video he straight up said "Pause this video, go buy and play the game, I promise you it will be worth it". Game Theory has been a staple of my youtube watching lately, so that was the last push I needed. I fired up steam, downloaded, and started.....

UNDERTALE (PC)

Let me start with a disclosure that will spoil my entire review: If you were thinking of, even considering in a passing thought of playing this game? Close my review immediately and do so. Its one of those games that give you the best experience the less you know about it. Seriously. Stop reading and play it. You will thank me. For the rest of you, I will TRY to keep it as spoiler free as possible.

Undertale begins with a short cut scene explaining that at some point long ago, humans and monsters used to live together on the surface as equals. But as is with all things in human history, war eventually broke out between the humans and monsters. The monsters were eventually pushed back and forced down underground. The humans then banished the monsters there and sealed them in a barrier. But the barrier was imperfect, as the cut scene continues to see a small child climbing Mt. Ebott. The child trips on a vine and plummets through an open pit down to the ruins underground. 

When the child comes to, they are greeted by a Flower called Flowey. Flowey explains that when you encounter monsters, you can strengthen your Soul (a heart) by raising your LV (or Love) by gaining EXP. He offers to share his love with "Friendship Pellets." He tells you to move your heart to collect them, but if you miss Flowey starts to grow hostile. Exclaiming you are only doing this to hurt his feelings. If you continue to avoid them, he becomes unhinged, violent, and threatens to kill you.

Just before he makes his attempt, he is punted off by a motherly monster called Toriel. She expresses regret for the flower's actions, and offers to guide you through the ruins explaining how puzzles were set up to stop  humans from entering and guides you to her home. She prepares a room for the child's protection and tells them they can be happy here together. Eventually though despite her good intentions, the child wishes to leave and go home.

Undertale can best be described as a JRPG at its core, since a number of the big JRPG core mechanics are in place. However, its not a traditional JRPG in the vein of say a Final Fantasy or a Dragon Quest.  It tends to be more of a hybrid of a turn based style of RPG with a mix of action based sequences for the battles. Its actually pretty interesting and different or at least uncommon.

If you chose to fight, you are presented with a quick time event where you need to press the button when a line passes through a target area. If you have played any kind of arcade style golf game like Hot Shots it should feel familiar. Or an another example would be Squall's Renzokuken from Final Fantasy 8. It will catch you off guard once but after that its breeze if you have decent timing.

When they attempt to make an attack at you, the game turns into a bullet hell minigame. Like a tiny Gradius or Ikaruga. Your little heart will be in a play area and you will have to move it around like you did against Flowey to avoid getting it hit. Every single monster has a different method of doing this and bosses sometimes have multiple ways of doing it. If you are up against more than one enemy, you have to deal with more than one of these at the same time, making it a lot harder to avoid projectiles.

It's pretty much impossible to not-love Toriel from the get go.

But the beauty of Undertale is that you don't have to fight. Some monsters don't want to. There are ways to show compassion during the fight sequences were you can reason with your opponents, compliments, cheer them, flirt and so on. You will still have to avoid attacks, but they might lighten up, or give projectiles that heal you. If you pick the right combination of actions, you can show mercy and spare them. You get no EXP and won't gain LVs, but you still earn gold. It is a pretty interesting mechanic and really gives Undertale an originality to it.

I wouldn't consider Undertale to be a very difficult game but I did play with an analog controller which makes the bullet hell sequences easier to control. I didn't get through the entirety of the game without dying, so I wouldn't say it was a breeze either. I guess its difficulty is based more along the lines of your tendency to play video games. My only real advice for this game is if you can afford to buy healing items, do so. Healing save points appear often, but it's always good to have a few items on you for hairier fights.   

Graphically, it hearkens back to the retro roots of old. Much of the battles and conversations are delivered in a monochromatic style featuring just black and white. The world maps are all done in a simple color pallet in a classic 8 bit style. Everything about Undertale's design choices make it feel like it was designed to be on home an original NES. That said, many of the sprites are very well designed and somehow show an incredible level of detail to the characters while at the same time feel incredibly minimalist. Simply put: World maps are on NES, Fights and Conversations are on Game Boy.

Undertale is engaging because of the duality of its complexity. On the surface of the game, everything for the most part seems straight forward. Go through the maps, complete the puzzles, deal with fights and progress to the end. But a lot of games brag about every choice you make in the game matters but what that really means are you good or evil. Undertale feels like it actually does matter with every little decision you make, because choosing to fight or spare certain things does effect battles later on.

Most of the maps have some kind of puzzle you need to do to unlock the next room and proceed along. Most of these are not truly mind bending, so you won't need an advanced degree to get through them. I wouldn't consider them too easy, but they won't bring your game to stop either. Some of them can be completed in a hilarious fashion. It does just enough to keep each room interesting without it needing to resort to a JRPG random encounter grindfest. On top of that there area handful of hidden and missable areas so its not a linear slog forward either.

Just one of Undertale's may puzzles just breaking my brain.

The music in this game is absolutely exceptional. As you would expect from its visual style, the music features and an impressive arrangement of chiptune style retro music. Each of them clearly designed for their specific locations and characters. I've rambled about this before but one of the best selling experiences for me is a well executed musical score, and not a single song in this whole game feels out of place.

I honestly cant think of an RPG I've played where every single boss got their own specific boss fight music, but that happens in Undertale and the game is better off for it. Each one of them makes each boss fight feel special. Each location's song feels appropriate for the setting and scene its being presented. It all just feels... I dunno, right? I would love to go into it more, but to be fair to you I really shouldn't. I will just say that the music completely nails it on all fronts from introduction to final boss.

Even better is on top of the soundtrack being exceptionally good, people have wasted no time at all picking up their instruments and making equally good covers of the Undertale soundtrack. I would like to give special mention of Youtuber RichaadEB. I recently discovered him for his amazing metal covers of songs from Chrono Trigger and around this time, he was producing a number of covers from Undertale. Which ultimately got produced in collaboration album with Ace Waters in an Undertale cover album called Determination. It's a fantastic album and has been on loop in my car for days.

I fucking love these characters. Almost every single one of them has some hilarious trait that makes them a fantastic character. Toriel paints herself as a sweet motherly type right from the onset. Papyrus is such an innocently goofy tryhard its impossible not to laugh when he talks. Alphys really hits close to home as a socially awkward anime loving shut in. I can go on. Even all of the monsters have a unique charm to them which is what makes actions you take in fights so much more satisfying.

But its strongest selling point, is Undertale's storytelling. Literally from the very first fight of the game, its already got you emotionally invested. From the moment Flowey starts to lose his cool to your initial conversations with Toriel, you become attached. It paints a clear picture that this is character that wants to care for you, wants you to be safe, and happy. I would be lying if I said I didn't hesitate leaving, even though it's what has to happen for the game to progress.

And the game doesn't throw that option to not fight in there for no reason. They couldn't have. So when I started the game I opted to see if I could get through the game without actually fighting. This is certainly not an easy thing to do, and it is kinda cheeky and funny for all the random battles you come across. Some of the reactions of the monsters are downright silly.

You and me both, Moldbugg.

But then there are boss fights. A lot of these characters make multiple appearances as you play through the game. And as you progress through the story you learn about some of their dreams, their conflicts, and how you as a human relate to the story. And as the fights shake out many of them will try to rationalize why you have to fight, and become confused and distraught about having to do so. It's these moments in the game where the game really shines.

During the earlier moments of the game you get into a conflict with a character. They insist that you have to fight to prove you are ready, but if you continue to abstain they being to plead with you about how it isn't the right course of action, begging you to stop making things so difficult. It was heart wrenching and the game had barely started yet.

Some characters know they have to fight you, but have come to find out that they'd rather be your friend, so as you battle them they continue to monologue their conflict about their relationship with you vs the dream they aspire to have, and with each line they spout they just affirm to me that they really aren't bad or evil at all. Which just makes me want to figure out the correct pattern to spare them.

The game can shift from cheeky fun to intense in a flash.

By the end of the game, when all the stakes were at their highest, I was playing the game on a livestream with a couple of very cool random people. And they watched me, trying to laugh off the incredible tense situation of two people very much not wanting to fight one another, and not so subtly wiping tears forming in the corners of my eyes. It was utterly soul cleaving and amazing at the same time. I was constantly being twisted and pulled, and it took real effort to commit to the path I chosen to take.

I don't like to use this Tumblr-esq term that a few people in my chat used, but this is a game that is designed to make you experience "the feels". I did. BOY did I. For nearly 6 hours I streamed that game, unable to put it down. Shifting from hysterical laughter to near open weeping sadness. Playing Undertale was easily the hands down most emotionally exhausting experiences I have ever had playing a video game, and I honestly mean that. I usually reserve that for the endings of big stories like the tragic ending of Final Fantasy X or the satisfyingly happy ending of Infinite Undiscovery. MatPat from Game Theory was right. It is just something you have to experience for yourself.

But if there is anything to seal my opinion on this game its this: when I do a review, just before I close out with my final thoughts I go over the aspects of the game that I didn't like. As I have said a million times, there is no such thing as a perfect game.. But after wracking over it for days, I am incredibly hard pressed to find any major faults with this game. Hell, the best I can do are nitpicks at best.

I didn't care for the sprite of the main character. Striped shirt and bobbed hair looks goofy in 8 bit format, sadly this was the main factor for me taking so long to try it and that is hypocritical of me because I tend to be a huge advocate that graphics don't make a game. As I said above, outside of the main character sprite, I pretty much love the design of everything else.

Perhaps maybe the game length, but I played it for almost 12 hours and I know that there is are two major endings and a bunch of neutral endings to get. It's only 10 dollars AND I got it on sale, so I can't complain about the price to time difference. Maybe there are too few fight encounters, but honestly it felt like the right amount to me for the length of the story. It never felt like a grind.

And maybe some more efficient fast travel system in the game would have been nice, but ultimately unnecessary since the only time I needed to was at the end of the game where you have the option backtrack.

That's it. That is quite literally all I can think of to possibly gripe about with Undertale. It is a practically flawless gaming experience, and that is not something I say lightly. Even the games I froth over ravenously like Dark Souls, Persona 4, or Disgaea I still have no shortage of complaints to make. Undertale just doesn't have them. I went into Undertale not knowing what to expect, and got completely and utterly rocked in the process.

I don't know what else I can say about it. It quite literally delivered to me on any front of gaming critique I could possible make. After 12 hours of play I laughed hysterically, got angry, cried (yes, cried. Fuck you.), was shocked, stunned, and as I've said before was left completely emotionally exhausted yet satisfied. If I had reviewed Undertale closer to when the game came out, I would be hard pressed to not give it the award for game of the year. It was that good.

If you don't like to game on PC? Sack up and fucking deal with it. Download steam, make an account, purchase Undertale for 10 bucks or less, clear some time and play Undertale. It  has the full force of the hype machine completely around it and it deserves every bit of it. If you enjoy video games in any capacity at all, you fucking OWE IT TO YOURSELF to play Undertale. It is absolutely an experience that you shouldn't pass up. You will not regret it. Trust me.

And when you finish it, you can be sure to let me know how right I was.

Undyne, you were killing me at the end of the game.