Undertale is a very interesting combination of ideas and genres. Sometimes, seemingly conflicting ones, even. For example – it’s a jRPG (of Earthbound-like variety) at the first glance, but focuses more on things more associated with adventure and visual novel games in both overworld and battle mode, bullet hell dodging, Resident Evil: Gaiden-like fighting and even platforming. It goes very meta about RPG mechanics, yet usually doesn’t leave it’s own fiction to be fourth wall breaking to the point of losing immersion. And most surprisingly of all – it manages to be much more of an actual “roleplaying game” than a lot of RPGs. You can be an adventurer, you can be a hero or you can be an actual proper world threatening villain. And game goes to incredible lengths to acknowledge what you do and how you do it.
This game will make you laugh and smile every few moments. And it will make you worry for it’s characters. And it can make you sad. And it can make you care about what you do in the game. It treats it’s own fiction with enormous care, using tricks more associated with romhacks and “haunted game”-like games to make world of Undertale, the game itself, seem like a real window to some other world, and does it well. At least, most of the time.
“It’s not without issues, yeah. Sometimes the writing or the tone goes a bit too off, going very black and white or just of quality more associated with fanfics and amateurish work. Sometimes jokes are not let go earlier than they should be. Sometimes the battle-associated mechanics are insanely frustrating, especially if you’re actually trying to not hurt anyone on your first go only to be forced to use “Fight” command in the very late game, something you probably don’t even know how to do, for a fight that lasts longer than it should. In fact, sometimes game just feels to try and be “challenging” just for the sake of the idea that “all games should be challenging”, despite all other parts of Undertale making the game fantastic without any need for “challenge”.
But these issues are noticeable just because how contrasting they are to everything else. Just because they unexpectedly hit you in the middle of you having a blast in a great game. Maybe, those little things will be tweaked later on and the game will become even better. But even now it’s a game that I can highly recommend for, well, anyone. Great game, great soundtrack, it’s an unforgettable and fun experience.