So over Winter Break, incredibly late to the party, I finally bought and started playing the hyped up game of the year, Undertale by Toby Fox.
Plot:
The game begins with you, the player character, falling down a hole, into the Underground, a land of monsters. Now, the game gives you multiple options to go about playing the game. Its catch phrase is “The RPG where you don’t have to kill anyone.” The two main paths players generally take though are referred to as Pacifist and Genocide. In the first path, you don’t kill anyone in the game, having to find other methods of disengaging them from battle, whereas in Genocide you kill everyone in the game, which obviously gives you two very different endings. One of the coolest parts of the game is the way it works against tropes of traditional RPGs, regardless of whether you play the Pacifist or Genocide route.
Characters:
My absolute favorite part of the game would have to be its characters. The player character is interesting in themself, as more is revealed about them as the game continues. But the monster companions are where the real fun is at. From the first terrifying encounter with FLOWEY, the flower, to the kind, guiding goat mother, Toriel, to two quirky skeletons named after fonts, PAPYRUS and SANS, to a fish guard and lizard scientist, UNDYNE and ALPHYS, to an entertaining robot, METTATON, to a goat king, ASGORE, and tons more who play smaller parts. Each character has tons of personality, which the Pacifist route allows you to explore by befriending them. It makes the Genocide route all the more heart-breaking as you have all the understanding about the characters, and still choose to hurt them (I haven’t personally done the Genocide route, because WHY WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO HURT THESE CHARACTERS????)
Gameplay:
Undertale definitely harkens back to the NES style of game, like Super Mario Bros. and the original Legend of Zelda. The pixel graphics somehow create beautiful backgrounds that leave you stunned, and player characters simple walk graphic becomes rather endearing. The actual battles operate in a similar fashion to Pokemon, where your opponent is featured on the top half the screen, while the bottom half contains the player’s options: Fight, Act, Item, and Mercy. Combat involves little mini games where you must dodge attacks, a lot like Galaga. Undertale has a lot of nostalgia in its gameplay, but it still throws you twists every now and then to keep you on your toes. The chip-tune music also manages to portray a variety of emotions, whether slow and gentle like Waterfall’s music, or the more upbeat battle music. It’s nice to listen to, especially for background noise while studying. If you can’t checkout the game, the OST is also worth taking a look at.
So yeah, please go out and buy this game. It’s only $10. Seriously, it’s worth it.
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