More than just a simple game, UNDERTALE is a role-playing game, or RPG for short, that tests your morality. It was created by American indie developer Toby Fox. The player controls a human child that has fallen into “the underground”, traveling through and encountering the monsters that inhabit the cave in order to return home. In this review, we will cover various aspects of the game, including, but not limited to, gameplay, story, audio and visuals, and overall enjoyment of the game.
The gameplay of UNDERTALE is quite simple and easy to understand. The keys to move are the arrow keys, to open inventory is the C key, Z to interact with items, and X to cancel or close. UNDERTALE also has an interesting battle system, in which it is turn-based and has a bullet-hell component where the player moves around a red heart with the arrow keys to avoid the projectiles. To select an action, for example, sparing, you use the arrows and select using Z. With few keys to use throughout the game and an easy-to-learn battle system, players can relax and focus on the emotional weight of their actions and dodging the bullet-hell combat without the worry of pressing several keys or figuring out how to progress in battle. This makes the game enjoyable for many players.
UNDERTALE displays a well-crafted and meaningful story. The story of the game is that you play as a human child who has fallen into “The Underground”, a place that monsters have been banished to for several decades. Your goal is to travel through this underground world and return home to the surface; however, you can choose to ally with the monsters and spare them or fight them. This choice can lead to a story of love and compassion or a story of despair and horror. No matter what choices you make, the story plays out smoothly, displaying characters with varying personalities, such as loving puns and being lazy or being nervous and hiding away, creating emotional depth by putting the fate of these characters into the players’ hands, and weaving together a beautifully crafted plot. The story keeps its players engaged with it and drives them to learn more about the characters and lore of its world.
UNDERTALE has a wide selection of audio within the game, each piece being different regarding the area you’re currently in. Toby Fox composed all the music for UNDERTALE and even uses leitmotifs, which are recurring musical themes, to elevate the emotional impact of key moments or battles. The visuals are pixelated and give the game a sort of retro and charming feeling while still managing to be effective in conveying character emotions.
UNDERTALE is well-optimized and can run smoothly on most devices, with bugs being rare during a playthrough. Two bugs/exploits that can be performed, however, are the punch-card exploit and the vibrating glitch. This game performs extremely well, and most of the time, a player can play through the game without any bugs.
UNDERTALE is a game that thrives off being replayed. The game’s ending can be different every time as long as you do something different each playthrough. There are 3 main endings, which are: neutral, pacifist, and genocide, though neutral and pacifist have a few differing versions, which are based on actions. Through replaying the game, you can also encounter many different secret dialogues and a secret room. This makes the game much more intriguing and enjoyable for players as they can replay it and get different interactions and endings.
In summary, UNDERTALE is a game with easy controls, an iconic soundtrack, charming and effective visuals, and a well put-together story with varying characters. If I were to recommend this game to any players, I’d recommend it to players who enjoy pixelated RPG games and a story that revolves around player actions.
