Is Undertale the greatest game of all time? Hell no. Is it perfect? No. But I'll say the premise and setting it gives itself makes it almost faultless or immune to most criticism. Did I love it? Totally. Did I enjoy it more than Invisible Inc. (Fuck you Invisible Inc., btw)? Not at all. Invisible Inc. is a well polished, beautiful to look at, and immensely addictive and competent game that is right up my alley with its turn-based and grid-based combat. Undertale is some weird shit that made me cry, twice, while playing a video game - something I've never experienced before. If anything Undertale is different, it's that game you have never played before, it's the game you never have to play again after you are done with it, but it is also the game you may never forget.
There is no way to discuss Undertale without spoilers. So there won't be a disclaimer but I'll state it because I want to.
Like almost everyone, I went into the demo knowing nothing and wrecked shit up pretty badly. I killed Toriel, killed some other monsters, stole all the candies and did some other stupid shit. By the time I bought the real game I knew I wanted to try the Pacifist run, but at the same time, I told myself to just be myself. When the game started I noticed that Toriel actually tells you not to whack the Dummy, something I didn't realise in my first playthrough. I realised one of the frogs told you to use mercy even if names didn't turn yellow, and it turned out to be the key to sparing Toriel. I love Papers, Please, I love details, and once I notice them I'll follow them. And upon exiting the ruins it was not really about playing a Pacifist run anymore, it was about learning the weird ways you could end a battle non-violently because honestly the Fight mechanics is pretty lame. I knew about Undertale, but it didn't bore me to play the run to get a True ending, with all the little hints and the cooler mechanics in the Act option, it almost felt like that was Toby Fox's intention, and the proper way to play the game.
In the ruins I (me, the person playing, and not the playable character) bonded with a small monster called Migosp. Migosp only attacks you because his friends are there and he doesn't want to feel like a loser beside his friends. When all his friends are 'defeated', Migosp stops being aggressive. For the most part, I am Migosp, I try to do things to impress people all the time, and frankly speaking it is when people are not around and I don't have to pretend and entertain others, I'll feel really at ease. That's part of the reason why I write on this blog that no one reads and no one judges - Migosp is not a monster, in fact none of the monsters are monsters, they are just like us - and the only monster is, well, you, you who True Reset-ed the game and started a Genocide run. You, that Papyrus and Sans couldn't identify as a human.
I fell for the whole build up to Papyrus' Blue Attack. And when it came, I couldn't stop laughing for whatever reason and quickly texted my friends who dropped the game to quickly pick it up again. The new mechanics introduced with Undyne, Mettaton and Muffet were all really fun, and may I just point out how smart Toby Fox is when he fucks with rpg standards yet again. In other games, some bosses have attack you can dodge and block, which makes no sense, if I'm a boss I'll polish my skills so hard to ensure I hit 100% of the time and kills shit. That's why Photoshop Flowey's attack hit so hard and are mostly undodgable, and you win because the other 6 humans interfere in the battle. For the rest of the game, NOBODY is trying to kill you unless you are on Genocide run (cue Undyne battle) and that is why their attacks are full of holes. Think about the Asgore fight, it wasn't hard at all.
In the end, Papyrus remains my favourite Undertale character, but everyone who has played Genocide will quickly fall in love with Undyne too. Too many stories these days are driven by the sole fact that characters have IQ of 0; none of the mediums - movies, dramas, animes and games - are spared from this form of poor writing and narrative these days, and that is why I strongly believe that writing needs to begin with writing characters. This is where Toby Fox really got it right, from Flowey to Toriel to Sans, hell even Vegetoid, Aaron, Temmie and all the monsters I still can name despite them being so irrelevant to the main plot, all of these characters are unique with agenda. I'm currently watching this cartoon called Adventure Time and up till this point it is just being weird for weird's sake - if any character is even half as interesting as Snowdrake, Ice hat or The bird that carries you over an disproportionate distance, it would be a better show - but writers these days don't seem to understand having majestic plotlines and shocking twists is boring as hell without characters consistent to the world and plot to play out the story. I believe I've talked about this before in a previous post, needless to say, I think Undertale really nailed it with the character driven narrative here.
At the end of the long journey on the Pacifist route, Sans congratulates you for enduring all the pain believing that this was the right path despite it being so tough. This was the first moment I broke, and I honestly don't know how to explain why. To some extent it felt like Sans was talking to me about my life, and the rest of it was how the bullet hell boss levels were really damn tricky and made you want to give up and just whack the shit out of the opponent. When the Asgore boss fight started and he broke the Mercy option, my heart broke. I didn't cry, but seeing him hold his head down to not face the player, and trying to force himself to kill the player is really painful to watch. The ending boss fight of the True Pacifist run was fun and at the same time such a satisfying end to the game, learning that Flowey kept you in because he just wanted you to keep playing. "Let me win", cries Asriel, and tears flowed down my face a second time, as I lifted my hand from the keyboard to take Asriel's hit. But the world refused to give up.
Too many good things have been written about Undertale, and this piece is probably an unnecessary and poorly written piece compared to all the amazing articles on the internet documenting this amazing feat. But Undertale was something special that clicked with me on an emotional level, and really shows how narrative in gaming is so, so reliant on mechanics, and how narrative in general needs to take into consideration of writing good characters. I'm officially adding Undertale onto my List of games that I'll force my friends to buy and refund them if they didn't like it, alongside Papers, Please. And to this date, no one has asked me for a refund for these 2 games.
Just one last point, Spider Dance = tune of the year.
