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The Undertale Conundrum
10 years ago
So uh...last Wednesday I beat Undertale.
Just so you know, the following contains SPOILERS for UNDERTALE. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you have played through the game prior to reading this.
I was first exposed to Undertale when I played the demo for it probably some two or three years ago, thought it was a neat concept and I looked forward to the final release but I was a little skeptical of quite how well they'd make the in-game formula last. Fast forward, the game comes out for a couple of weeks, and my social circle, at least within this community, explodes with near-unanimous praise. Praise to a degree that I found to be kind of unbelievable. I've seen multiple people say that they completed the game and immediately tout it as their favorite game of all time, even seen people say that the experience they had with Undertale changed their lives. All of the enthusiasm, frankly, gave me pause, with my hipster-instincts kicking in I inherently doubted that an unassuming little indie-RPG could really be that powerful, that worthy of the mantle being placed upon it. I didn't doubt that it was good, but life-changing? It turned me off of it for a couple of weeks, honestly. But, still, I liked the demo, and I assumed it would at least be worth playing, if only to see just what sort of emotion and humanity I really have in me.
So, for a few hours each Wednesday on the weekly stream, I plowed through Undertale in five episodes. Not really planning to at the outset, I wound up taking the pacifist route (I'd heard it offered the best section of the story), taking it through the "neutral" ending and doing the additional stuff and getting to the so-called "true" ending. As far as the game itself goes, I'd say it certainly earned my ten dollars. Not without its flaws, but worth playing even just on the merits and uniqueness of the system itself. The shmup-style dodges go a long way in setting it apart from other RPGs, not just for its own novelty but because it allows each enemy encounter to feel particularly distinct not just in how you choose to resolve a fight, but by giving every encounter something unique that you've never quite seen before. I do wish that the equipment and inventory management had been handled better, and there were a couple of odd cases of incorrect grammar or pronunciation, but both of these are pretty forgivable sins considering the game's strengths. One of those biggest strengths has been the praise heaped on the game's characters, and while I found most of them likable enough in some form or another, I did feel at times like their depths is perhaps a bit oversold. I wound up being pleasantly surprised by Toriel and Alphys in particular by the end of the pacifist run, but others like Papyrus and Asgore felt pretty shallow in comparison. Asriel's story has plenty of twist to it, but at the same time I personally felt like the final encounter with him lacked something. You're made to sympathize with him by the end but I'm not sure you ever get quite enough of him to really sway that opinion and drive the point home by the time his final attacks roll through. Part of me kind of wishes that his "final form" were presented differently in general. The "save" mechanic was cool, but from a gameplay perspective it had already been somewhat handled better in the True Lab, where you have to parse out each piece of the amalgamations and recall the proper actions to take. The boss-saves in comparison came away feeling a bit less impactful, though I appreciate Toby's motivations in wanting the player to call back to their own experiences with those characters through the course of the game. I'm not entirely sure how it could have been handled better, but the "everyone is here to support you taking down the bad guy!" trope winds up returning a few too many times throughout the course of the ending(s) (at least three or four times I can recall off the top of my head) and while sometimes that sort of repetition can be used to drive a point home, here it just sort of felt like they couldn't come up with another theme to work in alongside the existing themes of friendship and determination. Ultimately I liked the characters and the plot, but I never really hit the emotional renaissance like so many others seem to have gone through.
Anyway, with all of that being said it may sound like my overall feelings on the game are kind of lukewarm, and that isn't true. I do believe it's a great game, but it never fully hit me in the heart like I halfway hoped it would. Ordinarily this, too, might not bother me much, but there's one other problem...
For the fact that I say it didn't quite hit me emotionally, I can't seem to get the damn thing out of my head.
Perhaps the fact that I'm writing a long-winded journal about it a week after the last time I played it was already evidence enough of this. Various parts of the soundtrack regularly find themselves floating through my head, and typically it doesn't take long for their associated parts of the game to mentally replay themselves to me. Certain lines have stuck with me to the point that I've looked back at my own stream and others' playthroughs to remind myself of the exact wording. Thinking about games is nothing new for me, but this odd magnetism toward recalling Undertale has reached highly unusual levels. Hell I've even made fanart for it, and that's something that basically never happens. During the course of two to three days, that one fanart idea grew to five or six. As a result, I've been trying to introspect a bit and figure out just why this particular game has had that staying power, but it's extremely hard to pinpoint.
As best I can figure so far, the biggest deal with Undertale to me isn't so much that it gripped me emotionally, and more that the game is just chock-filled with extremely memorable moments. But that being said, it's not like other RPGs don't have plenty of memorable moments of their own, so what is it about the way this game is written that lends itself so well to burying itself into your mind? I still don't know entirely. I have some loose theories about it, but perhaps those will be saved for a different time, given how long this journal is becoming already.
I suppose what I'd really like is to hear from some of the people for whom Undertale really has had a massive impact on. Why have these characters stuck with you compared to other, similar characters? Most of Undertale's cast tend to fit into decently common existing archetypes, albeit with the quirk-factor kicked up, but for whatever reason this group has proven to be ridiculously endearing anyway. Is it the fact that it's a "moral choice" game that actually calls you out for acting like a sadistic ass for no actual reason other than because you can? This entry is long enough already, but I may come back to this another time and touch on my thoughts some more, including the importance of music, and what I believe to be a unique way to "artificially" enhance the game's impact on the player in a subtle but brilliant way. Has a game ever really been important simply because it says it is? Curious.
Stay determined, har har.
-- Snowe
Just so you know, the following contains SPOILERS for UNDERTALE. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you have played through the game prior to reading this.
I was first exposed to Undertale when I played the demo for it probably some two or three years ago, thought it was a neat concept and I looked forward to the final release but I was a little skeptical of quite how well they'd make the in-game formula last. Fast forward, the game comes out for a couple of weeks, and my social circle, at least within this community, explodes with near-unanimous praise. Praise to a degree that I found to be kind of unbelievable. I've seen multiple people say that they completed the game and immediately tout it as their favorite game of all time, even seen people say that the experience they had with Undertale changed their lives. All of the enthusiasm, frankly, gave me pause, with my hipster-instincts kicking in I inherently doubted that an unassuming little indie-RPG could really be that powerful, that worthy of the mantle being placed upon it. I didn't doubt that it was good, but life-changing? It turned me off of it for a couple of weeks, honestly. But, still, I liked the demo, and I assumed it would at least be worth playing, if only to see just what sort of emotion and humanity I really have in me.
So, for a few hours each Wednesday on the weekly stream, I plowed through Undertale in five episodes. Not really planning to at the outset, I wound up taking the pacifist route (I'd heard it offered the best section of the story), taking it through the "neutral" ending and doing the additional stuff and getting to the so-called "true" ending. As far as the game itself goes, I'd say it certainly earned my ten dollars. Not without its flaws, but worth playing even just on the merits and uniqueness of the system itself. The shmup-style dodges go a long way in setting it apart from other RPGs, not just for its own novelty but because it allows each enemy encounter to feel particularly distinct not just in how you choose to resolve a fight, but by giving every encounter something unique that you've never quite seen before. I do wish that the equipment and inventory management had been handled better, and there were a couple of odd cases of incorrect grammar or pronunciation, but both of these are pretty forgivable sins considering the game's strengths. One of those biggest strengths has been the praise heaped on the game's characters, and while I found most of them likable enough in some form or another, I did feel at times like their depths is perhaps a bit oversold. I wound up being pleasantly surprised by Toriel and Alphys in particular by the end of the pacifist run, but others like Papyrus and Asgore felt pretty shallow in comparison. Asriel's story has plenty of twist to it, but at the same time I personally felt like the final encounter with him lacked something. You're made to sympathize with him by the end but I'm not sure you ever get quite enough of him to really sway that opinion and drive the point home by the time his final attacks roll through. Part of me kind of wishes that his "final form" were presented differently in general. The "save" mechanic was cool, but from a gameplay perspective it had already been somewhat handled better in the True Lab, where you have to parse out each piece of the amalgamations and recall the proper actions to take. The boss-saves in comparison came away feeling a bit less impactful, though I appreciate Toby's motivations in wanting the player to call back to their own experiences with those characters through the course of the game. I'm not entirely sure how it could have been handled better, but the "everyone is here to support you taking down the bad guy!" trope winds up returning a few too many times throughout the course of the ending(s) (at least three or four times I can recall off the top of my head) and while sometimes that sort of repetition can be used to drive a point home, here it just sort of felt like they couldn't come up with another theme to work in alongside the existing themes of friendship and determination. Ultimately I liked the characters and the plot, but I never really hit the emotional renaissance like so many others seem to have gone through.
Anyway, with all of that being said it may sound like my overall feelings on the game are kind of lukewarm, and that isn't true. I do believe it's a great game, but it never fully hit me in the heart like I halfway hoped it would. Ordinarily this, too, might not bother me much, but there's one other problem...
For the fact that I say it didn't quite hit me emotionally, I can't seem to get the damn thing out of my head.
Perhaps the fact that I'm writing a long-winded journal about it a week after the last time I played it was already evidence enough of this. Various parts of the soundtrack regularly find themselves floating through my head, and typically it doesn't take long for their associated parts of the game to mentally replay themselves to me. Certain lines have stuck with me to the point that I've looked back at my own stream and others' playthroughs to remind myself of the exact wording. Thinking about games is nothing new for me, but this odd magnetism toward recalling Undertale has reached highly unusual levels. Hell I've even made fanart for it, and that's something that basically never happens. During the course of two to three days, that one fanart idea grew to five or six. As a result, I've been trying to introspect a bit and figure out just why this particular game has had that staying power, but it's extremely hard to pinpoint.
As best I can figure so far, the biggest deal with Undertale to me isn't so much that it gripped me emotionally, and more that the game is just chock-filled with extremely memorable moments. But that being said, it's not like other RPGs don't have plenty of memorable moments of their own, so what is it about the way this game is written that lends itself so well to burying itself into your mind? I still don't know entirely. I have some loose theories about it, but perhaps those will be saved for a different time, given how long this journal is becoming already.
I suppose what I'd really like is to hear from some of the people for whom Undertale really has had a massive impact on. Why have these characters stuck with you compared to other, similar characters? Most of Undertale's cast tend to fit into decently common existing archetypes, albeit with the quirk-factor kicked up, but for whatever reason this group has proven to be ridiculously endearing anyway. Is it the fact that it's a "moral choice" game that actually calls you out for acting like a sadistic ass for no actual reason other than because you can? This entry is long enough already, but I may come back to this another time and touch on my thoughts some more, including the importance of music, and what I believe to be a unique way to "artificially" enhance the game's impact on the player in a subtle but brilliant way. Has a game ever really been important simply because it says it is? Curious.
Stay determined, har har.
-- Snowe
The writing is absolutely top notch as well. The comedy was great, AND went without the use of pop culture references.