Undertale

Undertale

Switch - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Toby Fox Publisher Toby Fox Published 2015-09-15 Platforms Linux, Macintosh, PlayStation 4, PS Vita, Windows Genres Bullet hell, Exploration, Role-playing game Themes Cartoon, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Surreal Series Ultima Distribution Commercial

Undertale is a 2-D role-playing video game developed and published by Toby Fox for Macintosh and Windows on 2015-09-15. The game was made in GameMaker Studio. Rather than traditional RPG combat sequences, the game uses bullet-hell sequences. It has a very cute, though often dark, story line. It reminds me a lot of Earthbound, only more enjoyable.

Personal

Own?	Yes. On Steam.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	Neutral ending: 2016-06-28 / True pacifist ending: 2016-10-09.

While at MAGFest a lot of people were talking about how great this game was, and one person I was sharing a room with, who was cosplaying as Sans, let me play the game on his laptop. I put about an hour into the game and enjoyed it enough to buy it later. I played through it once getting a neutral ending, then, a couple months later, got the true pacifist ending.

Review

9	8	8	10	10

Best Version: Windows

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The writing is really good. It really makes you feel the feels.
• The game is attractive with a mock 8-bit feel. Both the graphics and sound feel 8-bit or 16-bit, but various tells make it obvious that it's 32-bit.
• A lot of nice small touches were put into the game so you're often rewarded for taking a different approach to the game.
• Most of the game's characters are charming without becoming annoying.
• I actually felt bad that I killed Toriel, and tried calling her on the cell afterward, and was saddened that she didn't answer. That I could feel that way after only a few minutes of game play is pretty impressive!
• The various mini-games used for combat are really cool.
• A lot of the monsters are clever puns.
• The idea of making the "hero" out to be the bad guy in the game is quite clever, even more so, the more evil you become, the harder the game gets.
• The various bosses are really impressive.
• The game remembers your previous play-through choices when you replay it and includes them in the dialog, which is really clever. So, even though the main story is short, there is still a lot to do.
• Toby Fox's music is phenomenal.

Bad

• Some of the sections in the game are quite dull. You often walk down plain corridors consisting of nothing but flat colors. I'm assuming this was added for ambiance, but it just slows down the game.
• Sometimes, the next step of the game isn't obvious, and you wander around for a while, which is dull.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Steam title card.

• 

  Switch.

Fan Art

• 

  The game's various characters and the title logo.

• 

  A nice cartoon set of the characters.

• 

  A beautiful color set of the characters by ViceDrawsThings.

Videos

Review - PushingUpRoses.

Honest Trailers.

Undertale Facts.

Did You Know Gaming? - Indie Games.

Leadhead - Hidden content.

Boundary Break - Hidden content.

Longplay - True pacifist.

Longplay - Genocide.

Representation

Strong female character?	Pass	Most of the women have their own lives in the story including Toriel, Undyne, Alphys,
Bechdel test?	Fail	Bratty and Catty kind of speak to each other, but they're addressing the player.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Frisk kind of looks like a person of color, but race is never mentioned.
Queer character?	Pass	Alphys, Undyne, and the royal guards are queer, and possibly Frisk, Mettaton, and Napstablook.

Links