Note: I know Undertale has been out for a few months now and it's been hyped like crazy, but I still wanted any plot discussion in this review to remain vague in order to appease those who want to avoid spoilers. The element of surprise is one of Undertale's greatest strengths, and it really is worth playing the game to experience it's many surprises.
A couple years ago, I wrote a blog on ScrewAttack entitled “Games are not ‘games’ anymore,” in which I lamented the emphasis on cinema and story over fun game design in many modern games. I’ve become more tolerant to this phenomenon since then, but I still think too many games try to present a passive, movie-like experience and too few games play to the interactive strengths of the medium. Very rarely do I encounter games that tell an effective and emotional story without sacrificing good game design. Fortunately, Undertale is just that.
Admittedly, that harmonious combination of gameplay and story is not immediately visible in screenshots and trailers of the game. On the surface, Undertale is a quirky, subversive, retro-inspired indie RPG, and you can use those terms to describe countless other games. But Undertale is so much more than its derivative exterior. Undertale puts a wonderful twist on the genre by using familiar tools of the RPG trade, but it uses those tools in fun, unexpected ways that often tug at the heart strings. It’s an emotional and enjoyable journey that cannot be missed.
This journey has quite a simple setup: Long ago, humans and monsters ruled over Earth as equals, until one day a war broke out between the two in which the humans reigned victorious. The monsters were driven underground and sealed away by a powerful barrier. You play as a young human who stumbles into this mysterious Underground world, and thus begins your bizarre adventure back to the surface. Twists and turns abound, as you’ll encounter a breadth of creatures, all with varying moods and motives. Some are eager to hunt you down and fight, some are eager to be friends with you, and others just want to share some witty banter.
It’s no coincidence that Undertale’s character interactions and overall atmosphere exude a similar quirkiness to the cult-classic Earthbound. Undertale creator Toby Fox cites Nintendo’s Mother series as a major influence, and that fact is evident in the game’s audiovisual presentation. Colorful and sometimes crude 8-bit character sprites populate the underground, while chiptune-esque music of both the calm and creepy variety accompany your exploration through this nostalgic world. At a glance, it’s the sort of presentation you would expect from an NES or SNES-era JRPG. The game frequently goes beyond this retro aesthetic, however. Character portraits have more detail and expressive animations particularly during combat scenarios, and the music often features real instrumentations, spanning a variety of styles including jazz, classical, and heavy metal. I’ll admit that the varied nature of the graphics and sound borders on becoming an inconsistent mess at times, but all these presentational elements manage to tie together to make for a charming, intense, or scary atmosphere when necessary.
Once you enter your first battle, the game really starts to break away from its Earthbound-inspired motif. The offense part of the fight involves a simple timing-based mechanic in which you have to attack as a line moves horizontally across the bottom of the screen. The closer the line is to the center, the more powerful your attack will be. However, the real meat and potatoes of the combat lies in the defense. During your opponent’s attacks, you take control of a cute little heart in an enclosed square, and you must move your heart around the square to avoid the various attacks the monsters throw at you. For instance, a frog monster might attack with a small frog that bounces around the square, or a sad ghost might rain tears down to the bottom of the screen. Some monsters will change the abilities of your heart and how it controls, which turns their attacks into almost WarioWare-like minigames that take inspiration from bullet-hell shoot-em-ups, platformers, dating sims, and rhythm games, just to name a few. This unique battle system makes every encounter feel fresh and unpredictable, while also avoiding the typical RPG grind that makes other games in this genre feel repetitive.
Undertale may not have the strategic depth of other turn-based RPGs (only one attack type, limited selection of items, no special attacks, no skill trees, etc.), but the mechanics it does use are still rewarding and challenging. Indeed, the difficulty of the game’s bosses was a pleasant surprise and a large part of what really sold me on the battle system. The bullet hell-esque attacks that bosses throw at you don't quite stack up to Ikaruga or other masochistic shoot-em-ups, but they are just tough enough to make the threat of death feel very real. I never wanted to give up at any point, though. Even after numerous failed attempts to defeat a boss, Undertale’s recurring theme of “determination” was effective in compelling me to stay in the fight.
Of course, you don’t have to fight your way out of monster confrontations. Indeed, one of Undertale’s selling points is its non-lethal solutions to combat. In between dodging their attacks, you can attempt to use your skills of negotiation and kindness to comfort the monsters so you may spare them or flee from battle. You can try to pet an overly playful dog to calm him down, or laugh at an aspiring monster-comedian’s dumb jokes to raise his spirits, or flirt with a sentient airplane (trust me, it gets even weirder than this). Absurd examples aside, these pacifist actions add even more variety to the “combat” and force players to think about the lives and motives of their “enemies” on a personal level.
That’s what makes Undertale’s battle system so unique: it’s the main decision-making catalyst that will determine your protagonist’s alignment. Who you decide to kill or allow to live can dramatically change the interactions and fights you encounter in the future. In that regard, Undertale perhaps takes its genre’s namesake more literally than other RPGs: you commit to a role, and you work through obstacles/gameplay mechanics to maintain that role. I don’t use the word “commit” lightly there; once you’re fully engrossed in the emotional rollercoaster that is Undertale’s narrative, sticking to a role will feel like more than just a tacked-on karma system. The game does an excellent job of getting players emotionally invested in every facet of its characters and its world, which makes your choices feel significant. With that in mind, seeing everything Undertale has to offer may involve making some very tough decisions. Being a saint means you have to sacrifice gaining EXP and building your stats, which makes defending yourself much more difficult, and being a total jerk means you have to murder otherwise friendly monsters, which… probably makes you feel like a total jerk. Personally, I still can’t bring myself to do the much-loathed “genocide” run, which involves killing every monster you encounter.
Undertale was so successful in making me care about its world and its people mainly because of the aforementioned relationship between gameplay and narrative. Simply put, playing through the story is fun because you always feel like an active agent in how that story plays out. Sure, you’ll encounter most of the same basic characters and places in every playthrough, but your choices can lead to a multitude of distinct endings, as well as a ton of hidden challenges and easter eggs along the way. Toby Fox clearly anticipated and wanted to reward players’ clever tricks, which leads to some staggering attention to detail. For instance, consuming specific healing items during certain boss battles may afford advantages in combat, or calling characters on your cellphone in specific locations may lead to bonus dialogue. I hate to be so vague here, but it really is worth going through the effort to discover these gameplay nuances and see how it all contributes to the fiction.
I’ll admit that it may initially be hard to find the motivation to put in that effort, as first couple hours of Undertale are pretty slow and boring. That might be partially deliberate given the game’s meta nature; the first portion of the game is sort of a parody of annoying tutorial levels, after all. Unfortunately, it’s the sort of thing that could drive players away from an otherwise awesome experience. If you are feeling bored by the early goings of Undertale, just know that your patience will be rewarded.
Final Verdict
I found myself coming back to Undertale so frequently because it’s a game that clearly loves its players. On one hand, it’s a love letter to narrative-heavy JRPGs of yesteryear, a product of shared nostalgia; yet on the other hand, Toby Fox’s rejection of that old school design pays off in ways that players can still enjoy. Undertale doesn’t just take you along for a ride, it lets you steer the ride and experiment with new paths along the way. It uses the interactive elements of the videogames medium in really cool ways that wouldn’t otherwise be possible in a book or a movie. It’s difficult to explain why and how Undertale tackles the concept of “choice” so much better than other games beyond what I’ve already said, but hopefully your own experience with the game will speak for itself.
As someone who doesn’t even like most turn-based RPGs, I wholeheartedly recommend Undertale. I know the game’s crazy fanbase may be a turn-off for some, but Undertale has had a more positive impact on its players than any goofy Tumblr fanart or controversial GameFAQs polls would have you believe. It may be best to wait until the current hype has simmered a little so you can appreciate this game on its own merits. If nothing else, it’s worth the $10 just to see what one guy with a copy of GameMaker Studio is capable of.