Undertale

 

After the reviews skyrocketed for this indie RPG developed by 1 guy using Game Maker, I was unable to ignore it.

Beating and seeing the Neutral ending, one of three possible outcomes, I can easily say that the hype surrounding it was exaggerated, and that I prefer Lisa the Painful, another recent and admired indie RPG.

Undertale lets you play as a child of ambiguous ethnicity and gender in a world or underworld of monsters who are locked away by humanity because of a barrier. With a recognizable and likable OST, and a simple mood resembling Earthbound, it was easy to get drawn into it.

There are two notable features to mention. First is the way how you are able to avoid enemy attacks. This is done in a Touhou like kind of way, and if you don't know what Touhou is, it's basically a brand at this point which are so called bullet hell shooters where you are required to dodge many bullets in order to survive.

The same can be said is happening over here in Undertale as well, except that it is now implemented inside an RPG system. The other notable feature is the ability to play through the whole game by being a pacifist, instead of using violence or killing enemies.

By using the mercy button, you are able to spare enemies and let them flee. This was featured most of all because the developer felt that all RPG's which feature soul less attacking and the defeat of monsters made it feel tedious and void. While I certainly do not agree entirely on his point by generalizing, I can appreciate what he did here as an alternative.

Aside from these 2 features, the graphics are especially noteworthy, when you see how enemies are portrayed, and the NPC's all have their own unique appearance as well, sometimes in the forms of animals, sometimes in plain quirky ways.

For most of the game, it's a standard RPG adventure, and it's not until the very end with the final boss that Undertale really starts to do some 4th wall breaking, by ending the application itself and upon restarting it, even attempting to erase your save file at one point. Other than the final boss battle and the 2 notable features, there's not much else which really impressed me.

I am aware that the Genocidal and Pacifist runs feature different boss battles and more story dialogue, but for now, I can conclude that I cannot explain the large hype surrounding Undertale, and yet I was satisfied with what I found.

Coined as the "Holy Trinity of Indie RPG's" of recent years, it is alongside Lisa the Painful and OFF, a French indie RPG, part of that statement, and should definitely be checked out by those craving a twist on traditional role playing.

Rating: 7.4