Hello everybody, and welcome to my review of, Undertale. This game came out for PC a couple of years ago, and every review I saw gave it a 9 or 10. People seemed to love this game and I felt like I was missing out on something great, since I don't play games on the computer. Recently Undertale was ported to the PS4, so I finally had my chance to give it a try. I really didn't know much about Undertale, so I went in with no expectations of what it should be like. From the screenshots I saw it looked really strange and I wasn't sure I would like it, but I'm a big fan of retro games and you can't always judge a game by what it looks like, so I went for it.
As you can see from the screenshots, this game looks like it came out for the original Nintendo. It's an homage to the classic adventure rpg games from back in the day. Undertale begins with a short explanation of the backstory. Long ago the world was ruled by two races, the humans, and the monsters. They lived peacefully with each other for many years. Then one day, a war broke out between the two sides. The humans were victorious and they banished the monsters underground and sealed them in there with a magic barrier. Many years later, a little girl goes climbing up Mt. Ebott, and when she reaches the top she finds a huge opening that leads into the mountain. She accidentally slips and falls into the hole, trapped inside the mountain with no way out. This is where your journey begins.
You play as the little kid who has fallen into the mountain, and you now find yourself trapped in the underground world where the monsters reside. I know all of this sounds cliche, but Undertale is anything but. As the game starts, you take control of the little kid, and the first creature you encounter is a friendly flower. He greets you and seems like a nice character, but then the menacing music starts playing, and your new friend calls you an idiot, and attacks you, starting your first battle. All throughout the game you will meet characters like this, who seem one way on the surface, but may actually have a hidden agenda. I would say that is definitely the strong suit of Undertale, the interesting characters, and the weird dialog. I had a lot of fun meeting all the new monsters in each new area, and getting to know what they were all about.
My two favorite monsters were the two skeleton brothers, Sans and Papyrus. One brother is a slacker, he follows you around for awhile, telling you jokes and making friends with you. Everyone down there is shocked to see a human, some want to just be your friend, and some are on a mission to kill you. San's brother, Papyrus, works for the Monster King, and it's his duty to kill any humans that come into the Underworld. Fortunately for you Papyrus is completely incompetent and you can outsmart him at every turn. And actually if you choose the right dialog options, you don't have to fight and kill him, you can befriend any monster in this game, if you want, and don't have to kill anyone at all. Which is something I didn't know until I was almost finished with the game.
The battle system in Undertale is turned based, like an old school RPG game. You have various choices you can make when it's your turn, then you have to stop and wait for your opponent to retaliate with their attack. In most games of this nature, when it's your opponents turn, all you can do is sit there and watch. Whatever damage is done, is based on some roll of the virtual dice, or a predetermined number. In Undertale though, you have the ability to take less damage based on your skill and reflexes. When you opponent attacks, you take control of a little heart, inside a box at the bottom of the screen. As the attack comes at you, you can move the heart around dodging as much as you can. Sometimes taking no damage at all. This was a very fun mechanic that kept the battles interesting.
Something else to keep in mind though is the other unique mechanic of Undertale's battle system. You don't have to attack your enemy at all if you don't want to. In fact one of the possible endings is only achievable if you go the whole game without killing anybody. One of your options in the battle screen is ACT, this is an alternative to fighting. If you choose ACT, you then get a number of different options, talk, joke, pet, hug. If you choose correctly, you can make any monster like you, and ultimately spare their life. At one point in the game you enter a bar called, Grillby's, depending on who you killed or spared on your way there, there will be different characters hanging out in there.
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Depending on your actions throughout the game, you can end up with one of three major ending. You can go the whole game without killing anyone to receive the pacifist ending. You can kill literally every monster possible to receive the genocide ending. Or you can choose a little bit of both for the neutral ending. Since this is a relatively short game, about five or six hours, these variations give you some replay value. Undertale is at the same time, something that is familiar, yet unique. It peppers in enough new elements to the old adventure RPG style, to make it feel fresh, and interesting. The characters you meet along the way are memorable, but I did find some of them annoying. I can't say this game is for everyone, there will definitely be some people who have no interest in this. But I found this to be a solid experience, and had a lot of fun playing it for the most part. I give Undertale a score of..........
85
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed it!