Undertale - Review
Review by:
David Strickland
Finding an Indie game these days can be easy, but sometimes the really good ones are
hard to come by. In September of 2015, the critically acclaimed indie-title by Toby Fox known as "Undertale" was launched. Though I never really heard anything about it except from friends and some information here and there on the Internet. I gave it a shot and found myself not liking it immediately. After some thinking about what made the game so special, I ended up giving it another shot and really enjoying myself in the end.
Stunning Soundtrack & Classic Art
To start off, I'd like to say that this game’s soundtrack is truly a masterpiece, I find myself listening to it even while playing other games, or doing side activities. It fits the game perfectly, there isn’t one instance where I thought to myself while playing "This song doesn't sound right for this part..". An example would be a place in the game called “Waterfall” a real dark, but yet beautiful, and mysterious place, as the music was playing it was almost as if you could close your eyes and imagine yourself actually being there, listening to the pleasant sound of water flowing down the creek. Each track Fox composed for this game truly gave the areas an atmosphere and truly filled it with life. It also gives a great sense of tone for those various areas. The art on the other hand, may not look like most triple A games, but hey! That doesn't mean it's a bad game, the little details make it more impressive. Subtle animations for cutscenes, and battles is really all it takes to give life to something that looks as if it doesn't quite fit right in the area you found it. With that being said I have to say that I truly do love the soundtrack and the art of this game, they bring a smile to my face whenever I look at it, and just a little bit of nostalgia as it lives up to almost recreating the feeling of a classic RPG.
Gameplay & Battle System
The game from what I’ve heard was inspired by many great RPGs. Just to name a few, Nintendo's Mario & Luigi series and the Mother series just to name a couple[1]. The game controls in the overworld are simple enough to learn, nothing too different with the exception of no annoying side-quests. Which I personally enjoyed, not having to go from point A to point B and then back to point A just to receive some item that might become obsolete within the next hour or two of playing the game. As for the battle system, I feel this is where the game gets credit for being probably one of the most entertaining Indie RPG's you'll ever get your hands on. I enjoyed it a lot and found that this is where the game really starts to get interesting. As for many RPG's encountering a monster your first reaction is to fight it right? Of course! You've got to fight it and gain those experience points so you can level up and become powerful enough to take down the evil demon king who's trying to take over the entire world, that's RPG basics 101.
Finding an Indie game these days can be easy, but sometimes the really good ones are
hard to come by. In September of 2015, the critically acclaimed indie-title by Toby Fox known as "Undertale" was launched. Though I never really heard anything about it except from friends and some information here and there on the Internet. I gave it a shot and found myself not liking it immediately. After some thinking about what made the game so special, I ended up giving it another shot and really enjoying myself in the end.
Stunning Soundtrack & Classic Art
To start off, I'd like to say that this game’s soundtrack is truly a masterpiece, I find myself listening to it even while playing other games, or doing side activities. It fits the game perfectly, there isn’t one instance where I thought to myself while playing "This song doesn't sound right for this part..". An example would be a place in the game called “Waterfall” a real dark, but yet beautiful, and mysterious place, as the music was playing it was almost as if you could close your eyes and imagine yourself actually being there, listening to the pleasant sound of water flowing down the creek. Each track Fox composed for this game truly gave the areas an atmosphere and truly filled it with life. It also gives a great sense of tone for those various areas. The art on the other hand, may not look like most triple A games, but hey! That doesn't mean it's a bad game, the little details make it more impressive. Subtle animations for cutscenes, and battles is really all it takes to give life to something that looks as if it doesn't quite fit right in the area you found it. With that being said I have to say that I truly do love the soundtrack and the art of this game, they bring a smile to my face whenever I look at it, and just a little bit of nostalgia as it lives up to almost recreating the feeling of a classic RPG.
Gameplay & Battle System
The game from what I’ve heard was inspired by many great RPGs. Just to name a few, Nintendo's Mario & Luigi series and the Mother series just to name a couple[1]. The game controls in the overworld are simple enough to learn, nothing too different with the exception of no annoying side-quests. Which I personally enjoyed, not having to go from point A to point B and then back to point A just to receive some item that might become obsolete within the next hour or two of playing the game. As for the battle system, I feel this is where the game gets credit for being probably one of the most entertaining Indie RPG's you'll ever get your hands on. I enjoyed it a lot and found that this is where the game really starts to get interesting. As for many RPG's encountering a monster your first reaction is to fight it right? Of course! You've got to fight it and gain those experience points so you can level up and become powerful enough to take down the evil demon king who's trying to take over the entire world, that's RPG basics 101.
As for this game, the usual conventions aren’t your only method of resolving the conflict. Encountering a monster/enemy in this game gives you more than the usual option of “destroy everything in site”. In “Undertale” you can either kill your foes and go on your way or, have a chance to actually spare it. Sparing a monster is really the tricky part of battle, because instead of fighting it, you find yourself trying to find the right things to say to the monster/enemy so that it feels less threatened by you. I found this to be a very cool feature and really enjoyed playing around with it, it made me chuckle at some of the responses the monster would give, as well as challenge me to figure out whether I’m going to say the right thing. Saying the right or wrong thing affects how strong or weak the monster/enemies attacks will be, an example would be one of the many, bosses in the game requires you to pay a certain amount of debt to avoid strong attacks for that turn, but keep an eye out on your money, because the price rises the more you use that option. This mechanic was inspired by Shin Megami Tensei series[2] in which when you encounter a monster or demon in the game you can talk your way out of the battle. The second part of this battle system is the attacking phase of the monster. Each monster you encounter will have a unique kind of attack which the player must dodge in a Bullet Hell styled segment. These two pieces mixed together leaves you with one of the most fun experiences I've ever had while playing an RPG.
Alternate Paths
One thing that I was well aware of before playing the game in its entirety was that there were three different endings plus a sort of secret ending that triggers if the player somehow hacked/glitched themselves out of certain areas and completely skipped segments of the game. But other than that, each endings are pretty much based on what the player chooses to do, these three paths are Normal, True Pacifist, and Genocide.
So right off the bat you can already guess, that obviously in order to get True Pacifist you have to go through the entire game without killing anyone. That means you can’t kill the main cast of the game, or the common foes. That leaves the Genocide ending which is achieved by killing absolutely everyone, and the Normal ending which is the result of killing a few monsters throughout your adventure.
Each of the endings are unique in it's own way, and really is a blast to try and see how it all plays out. As for me, I did the True Pacifist ending, and I have to say I was on the verge of tears, really the first game to ever get me to the point where I almost cried, doing the this path, really allowed me to connect with each character and explore the multiple personalities each character had, given it being a brave heroic character who stands strong and fights for what they think is right, to a laid-back, cool character who just likes to take things slow.
Conclusion
Over all, the main theme of the game is pretty much said from the start, it's all about staying determined and fighting for what you know is right. As odd as it may sound from a game where you're exploring a world full of weird creatures/monsters who are surprisingly really great at telling puns, Fox made a very great and heavy detailed story. He made it feel as if you were a part of the universe you're playing in, being able to talk to monsters and realize that not only are they probably really scary creatures who for whatever reason hate humans, and can scare you, you learn that there's more to than just looking scary and that the monsters are actually living life just like you, but are a little bit cautious of you, and very startled.
Fox touched my heart with this game, and remember when I first saw this game and played it back in 2015 I wasn't all that excited for it, and now that I've played it and experienced what the game "Undertale" was and still is, it's an amazing tale, and I can for sure tell you that I don't regret one minute of time I sat and played it. A game fully packed with a little of almost everything, fun battle systems, challenging but, yet obvious puzzles to solve along the way. It's very rare to find such an amazing game such as “Undertale”, and I recommend that you most certainly try and pick it up for yourself when it launches on PS4 and PS Vita on August 15th. I promise you won't regret one bit of such an amazing game that includes everything a game should include.
Bibliography:
[2] - Undertale Dev: “Every Monster Should Feel Like an Individual”
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