3/5 ★ – sirreldar's review of Undertale.

Undertale is a faux-retro RPG designed to break RPG tropes and subvert stereotypical expectations. In that regard, it does what it says on the box, and does it quite well. Even when “expecting the unexpected”, the game still surprised me at many turns. The story was interesting, even if a bit contrived, and I felt compelled to see it through to completion. The music, pixel art, and world-building all come together to build a truly unique game, worthy of at least some interest. The gimmick of the game is that it is meant to surprise you. While many games (especially RPGs) are content with rinsing and repeating tired old ideas, mechanics, and characters, Undertale makes every effort to resist them. Many times I felt myself subconsciously having some expectation, learned by decades of video games, only to have that expectation thrown out the window and receiving something unexpected or truly unique instead. I really enjoyed this experience. My only complaint is that sometimes the game crossed the line from “quirky, unique, and unexpected” to “downright nonsensical”. Perhaps the game was making pop cultural references that I didn’t pick up on, but there were a few moments that I was left feeling like the game was just trying too hard and essentially became a meme of itself. The enemy encounters were also interesting. Combat was very bare bones, with a simple turn based system. Player attacks are a “stop the bar in the right zone for the most damage”, and defense consists of a plethora of mini-games to avoid taking damage. The minigames were mostly variations of “move around to avoid stuff”, but there was enough variety and interesting patterns that it never felt tedious or boring, but they did become uninteresting at times. The encounters become truly unique when experimenting with avoiding combat altogether. Most enemies can be “defeated” by some pacifist method, such as petting a dog instead of attacking it, or having a heart-to-heart conversation with a skeleton instead of fighting it. This was really interesting, but sometimes a bit frustrating using trial and error to figure out how to avoid fighting some creatures. The characters in Undertale were mostly interesting. Besides the idea of rejecting stereotypes, characters were engaging, unique, and well-written. Most of the dialog had at least a sprinkling (if not a full scoop or two) of comedic relief and typically it was well-placed and felt natural. But it occasionally felt a bit shoehorned and contrived. As for art, the pixel graphics and UI were well done and felt very true to the DOS era of games, but otherwise mostly not notable. They did their job and did it well, but there is nothing much worth specifically mentioning. However the artistic side of the game shines with its music. Each track fit the scene nicely, and the wide variety of music kept it interesting. One major complaint I have is that many portions of the game require very convoluted or obscure steps to be followed in order to experience them. While I certainly love the idea of well-hidden secrets, and I can appreciate that this is part of the game’s charm, there are MANY things that will go completely missed, simply because of the laundry list of to-do items that they require. Choices sometimes have very unexpected consequences or lock you out of some parts of the game. In-game hints or some other organic way to discover these things for yourself would seriously diminish this complaint, but a vast majority of them require luck, guides, or discussion with others to discover. This, coupled with some of the over-the-top nonsensical parts, keeps this game in the “pretty good” category for me, and prevents it from being “really great”. Overall, Undertale does what it set out to do. It was enjoyable for the most part, despite some parts feeling too self-aware. I would recommend it for anyone that is familiar with RPGs and their tropes, but certainly not for someone new to video games or new to RPGs. I hope to revisit it to experience additional endings, but it will definitely be with a guide or walkthrough, due to the number of small and obscure steps that are required. The game is short… maybe 10 hours, so definitely worth a playthrough if you have any interest.