They’ve got the sauce!

It’s not enough of the sauce, and it takes a little while before they actually start doling the sauce out, but by God, they’ve got the sauce! Undertale Yellow actually gets it, and what a triumph that is. It manages to avoid a lot of the pitfalls which plague fangames and have resulted in them getting such a broadly negative perception as being lesser forms of media, and it does so with an impressive amount of finesse. There are more than a couple of misfires here, and it can’t manage to be something that meets nor succeeds the original Undertale, but they’ve got the sauce. It’s a very big swing to take, and just about as big a hit.

What I appreciate most about Undertale Yellow is the sheer amount of restraint that the developers showcase. You only see Toriel for a grand total of about two minutes before she’s out of the game for good, and Mettaton, Alphys, and Asgore are mentioned a few times; apart from that, the only returning character who actually sticks around for most of the runtime is Flowey, and he acts differently enough that a large part of the narrative is trying to figure out what angle he’s playing at. There’s no Sans. He doesn’t even get namedropped! What? Can you imagine releasing an Undertale fangame and not bringing up Sans? When I got to the Snowdin Town bridge and released that Sans wasn’t going to show his face, I got pumped. It’s brave. A group far less confident in themselves would have just made this a second lap through the extant Underground, going on a little adventure to essentially experience Undertale all over again in a world where you could just play Undertale again if that was what you wanted to do.

The first impressions when the game starts branching off of Undertale aren’t especially strong. The first original NPC that you meet in the Ruins — Darv or Darm or Darl, whatever his name is — very much looks like someone’s Adventure Time self-insert that they drew to be Marceline the Vampire Queen’s boyfriend. Picture me retching as I type this. His character isn’t particularly good, mostly just muttering about some betrayal from long past and talking about how he wants to be left alone, and the game seems to agree with me in this respect; he drops off the face of the earth for the remainder of the runtime, only showing up again at the very end to make sure that the player hasn’t forgotten about him. The other new characters are significantly better: Martlet is a strong and obvious standout among the rest of the cast, North Star and his posse aren’t as consistent in their designs nor personalities but are still good, and Ceroba seems a lot like someone’s fursona but not in an especially bad way. I ended up liking more of the principle cast than I didn’t, so they’re definitely doing something right on the design and writing front.

The average enemy encounter is fine; there’s nothing especially interesting about most of them, though some do offer a couple of interesting gimmicks. Making the “floor slippery” so that the soul glides around or the music enemies blasting you with waveforms that you need to dodge are cute. Most of the boss fights don’t offer anything especially interesting, though. While Pacifist Ceroba does manage to get a few interesting gimmicks going in the form of giving the player the Big Shot, the overwhelming majority of the boss fights are just clicking Spare over and over and over again; your ACT commands often do nothing besides give the same line of flavor text every time you select them, which is a fairly boring way to handle these big encounters. I found the Guardener to be the best fight simply because it required you to hack away at vines blocking your options which then led into an ACT chain, giving you some freedom in the form of selecting which of your options you want to be available to you first. El Bailador is fine, turning the game into a rhythm section for a few minutes, but it doesn’t do much for me. So many of these fights are just about dodging bullets and slamming Mercy over and over again, and that’s never really been the draw of Undertale.

Similarly ranging from alright to forgettable are the music tracks. There’s nothing truly offensive here, and there are a couple that I like, but it's important for us to remember that Toby Fox was a composer long before he was a game designer. I can still hum the melodies to just about every track from Undertale, but I don’t think I could do the same for a single song from Undertale Yellow — at least, not from the ones that don’t lift one of Toby’s leitmotifs. While I do admire the developers’ willingness to get out from under the Undertale narrative trappings of returning characters walking in like sitcom guest stars for the audience to whoop and applaud to, I can’t extend the same praise to their composing. Ceroba’s fight plays a remix of Hopes and Dreams that the game absolutely hasn’t earned, and it took me right out of a battle that I was digging up until then. There are quite a few instances of obvious musical recycling in places where they don’t belong, and the songs that are wholly original don’t interest me much. They're far from anything terrible, but they feel a bit lazy in a game where there isn’t much else that does.

Undertale Yellow is ultimately a good fangame, and that is perhaps deserving of more celebration than anything else. It is very clearly made by a team of passionate and creative people, and I don’t think that their time spent on this would have been better spent on an original IP, instead. With that said, I would prefer for the next thing that this team releases to be something entirely of their own design; with all of the eyes that they’ve got on them now, I’m sure they’ve cultivated an audience that would be glad to see more.

And the sprites look too good. It’s all wrong. Part of the appeal of Undertale is that it looks like hot shit.

It's nice seeing this game release after like 7 years, i've known of this fan project for maybe 3 years and while I wasnt that interested in it, decided to kill some time and give it a try. Without harping on it too much or getting overly negative, i'll cut to the chase and say this is definitely something Undertale fans should play, even for one playthrough. It's got same type of dialogue, quirky events and designs with remixes of Undertale's music. Some notable things i feel like I should mention on my end is that the spritework and animations impressed me, the bounciness in and out of battle gave the majority of the characters more life and personality. The battles themselves I found easier than I expected but some boss attack patterns were unnecessarily tricky to get through without taking damage, or just wiping from that single attack. The game itself ended just as it was picking up for me, but on the other hand I dont think they could have gone crazy with it without over shining Undertales main story. I'm sure more involved and dedicated fans will praise this game to high hell and personally im all for it. And a massive props to the devs for finally releasing this!

it's only been like two weeks since my first review so i'm just here to say everything i already said but again, except take out that last little portion at the end. i really only wanted to replay genocide route because i felt like a piece o' shit for cheating the very last boss of the game and wanted to do it legitimately this time

I did what I set out to do, actually grew to enjoy the fight a lot more, this game is peak. I won't hold it against anyone that can't make it through though lmao

Undertale Yellow is so impressive not as just a fan game but as a game itself. I think an important way I go about understanding it is that it is not just undertale 2 or something like that, its trying to tell its own story and narrative that does tie into undertale lore but really is not that crucial to it. And the story it does tell I loved. The characters were amazing and I loved the questions concerning what justice is inside pacifist and genocide. I know some people complain about the bosses, but I loved every fight. Where they tough as nails? For sure, but the satisfaction that follows a win will always be remembered. Also every route has a awesome final boss, its crazy all 3 were bangers. I dont want to say much spoiler wise, so please just play. All routes is longer than base undertale but its all fun. Just try to think of it as its own product

This game spends a lot of time meandering in a way that Undertale probably also does, but without Toby Fox's writing and Compositions. Trying to emulate those facets of Toby Fox's work may just not be possible and I really started to feel the weight of the constant text and repetitive enemies. Characters don't really gain any attachment early on so it really doesn't feel all that interesting for a while. Luckily I felt the story picks up by the end and it left a good final impression. I got the Pacifist ending and I think it slotted in next to the story of Undertale (uh oh) nicely.

There are some character designs that aren't bad but feel out of place to me. I don't think they're super far fetched but their presence in combination with the fact that it's a fan game makes it more noticeable. I hope some others will understand what I mean.

I'll likely try some extra endings.

Update: Did all endings. Genocide final boss was borderline impossible before the 1.1 patch so I had to update specifically for it. I had to manipulate my save because there's a point in the last area of genocide where if you cross into a room you can no longer kill everything. Really lame.

Non-pacifist routes didn't really change my opinion of the game overall. The Flowey fight was interesting but wasn't as cool as Omega Flowey, but to be fair it shouldn't be.

I can’t believe this exists. The ending floored me so much that I was in shock for the next 5 minutes and at a loss for words. Better than undertale and (maybe) Deltarune. Just WOW

Areas ranked:
Ruins - 6/10
Snowdin - 7/10
Wild West - 9/10
Steam works - 8/10
New home - 10/10

This was... surprisingly refreshing!

It has been a while since I last interacted with anything related to Undertale, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out about the recent release of Undertale Yellow. I have seen the demo some years back and never expected it to be finished - but here we are, and the wait paid off!

The developers did a really good job at imitating the charm and characters of Toby Fox - of course it doesn't feel the exact same, but I've still grown to like the characters here in their own ways. The fights and music of Yellow are also pretty unique; a highlight were the respective final bosses of each route, which all surpass their Undertale counterparts (in terms of their fights) for me. However, I'd like to add that as of the time of writing (I played Version 1.1), the final boss of the Genocide Route still feels too difficult with the optimal equipment, to the point where it can get really frustrating. Skill issue? Maybe, whatever. I just think it's really demoralizing for the average player.

A thing I really like about Yellow is that it serves as a prequel to Undertale and is not set in an alternate universe like many other fan projects. It doesn't conflict with the original lore and adds more depth to it instead - very nice! Can't say much more about this aspect since it's a spoiler-free review, but let's just say the writing of Yellow definitely made me enjoy the universe of Undertale a lot more.

Overall, I consider Undertale Yellow to be a must-play for every fan of the original game out there. Just don't play it before Undertale (if you somehow intended to do that). That's all for today. See you.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: This review contains spoilers for the pacifist run, which is the experience I'll focus the most on this write up. I'll mention the other two, both neutral and no mercy, but yeah, if you haven't played the game or done the pacifist route beforehand and are interested... I'd really recommend you to do it before checking this review out]

Ah, what a beautiful day, such a perfect opportunity to finally try out Undertale Yellow! I can’t wait to have a fun, relaxing time playing this little fan project, and I’m sure nothing out of the ordinary will happen while I d- Dra-DRACULA????!!!!

Realizing that Undertale released almost 9 years ago is the equivalent to being shot a cannonball straight to the face, more so than realizing that other games I and so many others played are as old or released even earlier, because unlike practically every single one of those games I can think of, Undertale’s memory feels.. recent. I mean, it’s easy to say for me, I replayed it just a little over two years ago and that probably helps — it’s also the first game I ever logged and ‘’reviewed’’ on here, tho the latter is debatable since the one sentence I dedicated to it is more than a cope-out than a write-up, but I digress—, but even if that wasn’t the case and my only playthrough was the on I did back in 2016, I think that wouldn’t have changed a thing, and I don’t think I’m the only one that shares that notion.

More than a ‘’funny skeleton game’’, hell, more than an inspiring work of art, Undertale was a fucking phenomenon. Its impact on the web being that of a fucking nuke, and its expansive wave hit millions on top of millions of people (and it also left a bit of a toxic waste on some places but that’s not a story for today, nor any other day, we are here to be positive, dammit!), and truly left a mark in countless artists. I swear to god, if you were mildly into the game it was impossible to not see at least of couple dozen things related to it; artworks, comics, remixes and covers, and even reinterpretations or expansions of this world and characters that sometimes even led to fan-games, some of them were certainly silly when looking back upon, but it seems fitting for such a beautifully silly game. So it says a lot when, at the time the tides were at their highest and ideas and projects featuring sans undertale™ were made by the hundreds, the original demo of Undertale Yellow caught so many eyes, including mine. It wasn’t much, if memory serves me right it ended up just after the Ruin’s final boss, but it was clear that so much effort and talent went into it, and that alone made it a charm time to watch or play.

For many fan games, especially one with such ambition, that’s where the story would end, and understandably so; the amount of time, work and sweat that has to be put into even the most (seemingly) simple of ideas is monumental, and for whichever the reason, be it a lack of organization or time itself, many projects never get past that ‘’first demo’’ point. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if that same fate would catch up to Undertale Yellow at some of point or another…

…but it refused

When a project that originates as a tribute or is heavily inspired by another is in development for seven years, you better believe the people behind it felt a burning passion for what they were doing, and it shows so much it’s blinding. It’s like returning to a home you never wanted to leave in the first place; the quality of sprite work, animations the OST reminisces of that not-so-far long past, but while they hit the ‘’vibe’’ right on the spot, there’s a uniqueness to it I don’t really know how to exactly pinpoint, but it’s there. This is not just a mere mirror of Toby’s work on the original game, nor is it a direct subversion, it’s in this middle ground in which the charisma and quality feels entirely of its own, but I also wouldn’t have bat an eye if you told me if this was all completely official if I didn’t know better. The sprites of characters feel like critters that existed in the original game we never got the chance to see, but some sport some jaw-dropping animations and details that I don’t associate with the likes of Guard Dog or Monster Kid, and yet it doesn’t feel like they’d clash if they sat side by side.

The returning areas, while with considerably less interesting lay-outs and with less to hide than the such of the original Hotland or Snowdin, are places that visually wise stand completely unflinchingly with its official brethren. The returning areas and extensions of them, such as the Old Ruins or the UG Apartments, feel like natural side tracks that breath a new perspective into zones I know like the palm of my hand in case of the former, and that offer a interesting look at how these locations operated in the past —getting to what will become Mettaton’s almost impossible color tile puzzle and seeing it used to be a dancing zone was probably one of the most obvious yet funny jokes they could have ever done and I’m so glad they went for it—,and that’s not even getting to the new areas which believe you me… we’ll get into…

But even more than its visuals, the question that plagued my mind was just how they would attempt to create an Undertale inspired OST without feeling derivative of Toby’s work; let’s just say I’m a big fucking nerd for everything the funny dog man does music related wise, and Undertale’s soundtrack in particular is easily one of my favorites of that time. Does Undertale Yellow’s top it? I don’t know about that… what I do now, is that it certainly looks it to the eye. It’s like being filled with sounds of peace, goofiness, sorrow and determination all over again. It’s so bizarre to hear the work of people whose previous songs I’ve listened so many times (mainly MasterSwordRemix, which also just so happens to be the director of the project) accompanied with real gameplay in a real-ass game, but I’m even more surprised at the fact I can’t genuinely think of a single thing about the soundtrack I think lesser of, both as a direct comparison to Undertale’s and as its own. What they lose in ‘’easy to hum’’ charisma, they make it up with far more complex tunes, motifs to call their own and amazing callbacks past ones. I’m honestly scared which ones I’m sharing on this write up and being extremely picky about because they manage to say so much that sharing some of them at moments they don’t fit would make them a huge disservice.

And I don’t think I will ever be able to stress just how difficult that is, to evade the usual traps that many fan-works fall into , of that deep reverence that ends in a misunderstanding of what really works and what it doesn’t, of just feeling remotely in line with what the original story was trying to tell, how challenging is to achieve all that, let alone in relation to Undertale. There’s nothing like Undertale out there, really, so when your objective is pretty much being placed on the same canon as that game, feeling close would have already neted Yellow a massive home run. And I mean, it already had it difficult enough; being a pre-quel is the route many project like this take, but in this case it was pretty much the only option to take, you can’t really follow up where we once left ‘cause it’ll probably be a unique experience for most players, so this time around the main choice in setting was deciding which color of the soul would be cooler. So Yellow achieving to be ‘’Undertale before Undertale’’ would make it… well, Undertale by again, and it doesn’t matter how much I love that game and how many times I repeat its name (sorry about that) being a past retelling we already lived would have made Clover’s tale… redundant. We know how this will end, we know the beats it will follow, how do you make it more than a palette and character swap?

How do you become more than what you once were?..

Clover’s story begins with purpose. We never get to learn why Frisk went to Mount Ebott that day, nor if they were even searching for something. But this time is different: 5 people have gone missing in that place, and Clover’s gonna find them. From them the usual dance seems to start off. You fall, are welcomed to the Underground, and are taught a bit of the ropes by Toriel, but even after that’s interrupted by yet another fall (I’m fighting the urge to use the clip from that song real badly) and you reach the old ruins, it still doesn’t seem nothing too much out of the ordinary from what you’ve already seen when playing as the seventh fallen human, a pattern that keeps on going when travelling Snowdin… and yet, something feels a bit different.

It could be very much the battle system; Yellow’s combat is a direct continuation of the original work, and what an excellent continuation it is. Everything said about the spritework and music applies once more; all the new faces feel much more lively, with unique animations for movement and when you get to find out how to interact with them, which is still as funny and lovely as it was once. Enemie’s patterns at first can seem familiar, but it doesn’t take awfully long before they go fucko mode: Scrolls that shoot Kamehamehas and robot duck that spice up the music, you choose your favorite, this is a free underground after all! I honestly wished there were more combo battles because the creativity in problem solving and evading is so fun that getting to see more variations of it would be bliss, this game reminded me why I loved this style of rpging so much and gave me even more reasons to love it. Or you know, you could also attack with the different minigames for each weapon and see how the dialogue and sprites of the enemies changes to reflect it.. what? You think I did it? Oh no, I actually watched it after beating the game ‘cause I refuse to damage any single monster. That’s right fellas!

No-mercy run. Not playing. I refuse.

Yeah, all that is incredibly fun and amazing but… I don’t think it’s what feels different. Maybe it’s the more complex puzzles which area ctually pretty damn fun and break away from the usual ‘’tile-set’’ structure of the original. Maybe is the script, which even early on is excellent and the amount of jokes that land and interactions that I find adorable exceed what my poor handle. Maybe it’s How the battle music changes depending of which area you are on. Maybe is Dalv’s prodound melancholy and yearn that also hints at something we never got to know in the outside world. Or maybe is Martlet being the coolest bird I’ve ever met (seriously tho I love her so much and she’s awesome across the entire game and I’m so glad they are a recurrent character oh my GOD she’s amazing). Or… or maybe is a combination of them all, these little things that pile up, little unexpected additions and changes on a path that I’ve already walked. Things that hit at something more than a simple ‘’mix-up’’… and then we fall from the raft.

And that song hits you like a steam powered train at full speed.

The two opening areas are already great on their own, but it’s in the Wild West were the true colors of the game show. While still very linear in nature, the would feel more connected, more expansive; the new and improved mail and transport system, while still not perfect and pretty annoying at times, is a much more natural and easily accessible than something like a mobile phone or the boat sailor, but this feeling isn’t limited to gameplay.

Characters move from place to place and feel like far more active players of the story, so while the cast of major characters isn’t that big and the time we spent with each of them individually isn’t long, it doesn’t matter, ‘cause once they arrive, they are here to stay, which is awesome ‘cause the moment I realized that I’ve be seeing Martlet, North Star and Cebora more I audibly celebrated. Hell, even Dalv ,who isn’t much of a big player after the Ruins, is still there and you are able to visit him, such as with every single enemy of a certain area once you progress. You are constantly getting callbacks to old locations or future ones, as well as heads-ups for new faces you’ll get to see, which is something that was already present in the original Undertale, but here it feels far more direct, and plays much, MUCH more into the narrative.

A narrative so full of wonderful faces that I’m afraid I’ll forget some; I already gushed about Martlet but everyone here is as lovable as ever; I’m obsessed with Starlo and his posse of goofballs, hell, scratch that, I just adore everything and everyone related to Wild East! Probably the funniest section in the entire game and the most creative, never in my life I’ve been so happy to be kidnapped by a band of bandits! The shenanigans with Praxis also crack me up to no end, and you know a game is good when it has a character named ‘’El Bailador’’… probably the first time I ever voiced a character outloud despite being alone, I just couldn’t resist giving him the most exaggerated Spanish accent I could and translating random words, peak character and peak battle I tell you, PEAK!!!!

Which kinda reminds me how great the boss battles are! I’m a bit disappointed that most of them at the beginning are moreso endurance tests than actual fights, tho thankfully changes from the Steamworks onward, but considering how crazy they can get, I think that adding some sort of original solution like in Undyne’s fight more often would have been exciting to see.

Still, they are amazing fights, simply outstanding encounters that made me smile each and everytime, and no matter which ending you are going for, they are something else (I’ve seen the Neutral’s ending final boss and holy hell duse, everything about it is next level, just as the Pacifist’s ending one), but honestly… I’d be hardpressed to think of anything that didn’t make me smile about Yellow’s world and cast. There is an insane of care put into it, the same consideration to the decisions you can make is amazing as always, and seeing other outcomes to me run makes me as happy as it does sad, and hell, they even went and did an ending that couldn’t be canon by any circumstances, and you know what? It was an amazing choice.

But as I finished my adventure and after sitting through the credits… it’s hard to not think of this as what everything should play out, as how things should be. Frisk, despite having a name, it still was very much a vessel for the player, for its decisions and questions… Clover feels different. You still are in control of them in the sense you… well, control them, but they also feel especially distinguished, many times they only have one possible thing to say, what they are thing to say, a even tho no word is spoken outside of dialogue options and responses, the expressions and animations it displays and says much, about who they are, where they come from… what their purpose is.

Undertale Yellow is yet another tale about determination, about monsters and humans, about how the war has driven them to an unjust eternal prison some find impossible to accept, about justice and friendship… but it’s also about purpose. Each character seems muffled with this idea, be it a lack of it or one so massive and seemingly inescapable that it’s suffocating: Starlo’s self imposed title as a false sheriff that is eating him from the inside, Praxi’s and the Gardener’s final orders given before everything went sour, Cebora’s regret and desire to continue something left unfinished by its loved one. Hell, in a way , even Clover is fighting against Flowey’s constant nagging towards a selfish objective… and against his initial objective. This theme was already palpable in many of the characters from the original game, but here it seems to be brought to the forefront; this undertale is about these monsters, how the chains they willingly carry affect them deeply, and how they ultimately defy them not out of cowardness, but because it’s the right thing to do…

… the right thing to do

It’s been a while since a game’s finale has gotten me this badly. In a way, is kinda funny, the only time I wasn’t smiling, I was criying… Undertale Yellow’s bittersweet pacifist ending is the best thing I could have asked for as a send off, it may have hurt, yes, but the fact it did knowing full well in what way this strory had to end… that, that makes it more. It says so much, it celebrates so many, like, this game has Red! RED! If you know, you know, and I knew, and I was sooo happy! And even a moment so cool but transitory such as that one still made me reminisce… of how far passion can go for, years will go by, but Undertale’s memory, those moments, will stick, in the good and the bad, and now Yellow is not only a mere footnote or passing experience… it’s more.

To put into more blunt words. Undertale Yellow is probably the best fan work I’ve ever played, and even tho it seems silly to say when barely two months ago I played another fan game I praised with a similar phrase and when I still don’t consider it without its flaws, I have never meant it more… it’s a tale with purpose, full not of LOVE, but love.

…huh, now that I think of it, Chujin’s pursue was to truly leave a mark on the Underground, to change it for the better…

…and yet, even if it was not the earth shattering impact he and ultimately Cebora were expecting… he and her did nonetheless, maybe in the smallest of ways, but in the most impactful.

You hear a call for help

You answer it

I haven’t actually heard of Undertale Yellow until it released this week, but finding out something like this was made over 7 whole years made me really curious. And since it’s free figured why not

It’s honestly very impressive, to start it emulates the original game really closely but very much tries to stand on its own. Aside for Flowey and Toriel (she’s only in for like 5 minutes), Yellow has entirely different characters and you explore both existing areas of the Underground like Snowdin and new places like a desert or western town. The music has a mix of remixes from Undertale and new songs, and the quality is really good too especially for the boss tracks. The art/sprite animations are actually nice too. Despite being a fan project, you can tell a lot of effort was poured into it as not much even gives an impression that it’s unofficial

The only gripe really is this uses the same combat system as Undertale but the addition of new mechanics to it sometimes felt janky. It’s also more difficult, so if you weren’t good at dodging before then oof. But honestly this is just coming from Deltarune which made more welcome changes on it as is (somehow Chapter 2 is already over 2 years old… 😭)

competently made, but never manages more than to replicate some of the surface level charm of undertale. narratively it's a fairly ill-considered sequel, sort of at odds with the original's specific flavor of metafictional logic and fails to contribute anything beyond extraneous detail. the concept of flowey controlling your saves is initially intriguing, but the execution is confused and half-baked. more than anything it really put into perspective for me what a creative and interesting sequel deltarune is.

the game is still worth checking out if you liked undertale's bullet hell combat, though. the genocide run has some fun and very tough bosses - i made it to the last one but got my ass kicked and didn't really care enough to see it through to the end.

below is my long thoughts on undertale yellow while i drink alcohol at 1 am on my 24th birthday. cool
SUMMARY: has some amazing art and animation but the storytelling/pacing is very underwhelming and almost nonsensical (and not in the funny undertale way, in the bad writing way).

the cast is where the problems lie the most— the amount of characters that interrupt your adventure to block your path or become important named npcs feels really overbloated and they become more like intrusions than characters i can come to like. undertale’s central cast is pretty small (I would say this is toriel, sans, papyrus, undyne, alphys, and maybe asgore. essentially all the characters onscreen in the true pacifist end) and you spend a good time with each of them, with some optional moments to make even more of a bond with them (dating sidequests) sprinkled over the game. yellow’s cast isn’t nearly as cohesive and they just keep introducing characters back to back that it’s hard to tell who you should be caring about and it gets… frustrating? in snowdin you have nearly back to back introductions for martlet, the ice pops guy, the usps whale, and the cupgame guys, the latter three just popping up right in the middle of your way and disrupting your gameplay almost back to back. compared that to snowdin with sans and papyrus who are the main characters you speak with/have fun moments with until it crescendos into the papyrus fight (there are some bosses but theyre bosses, vs sans and papyrus who appear frequently enough that you know they will be essential characters).

i think what also doesn’t help this lack of cohesion with the cast is lack of cohesion in motive. ex in undertale:
-toriel (does not want to let you go because she is scared about asgore)
- sans/papyrus (papyrus wants to be royal guard. wants to send you to asgore)
- undyne (royal guard. killing you for asgore)
- mettaton (under alphys’s command who serves asgore. killing you (to make alphys look cool but also) to take your soul for asgore)
along the way you also fight various knight characters who you can assume serve undyne/asgore and would take your soul to him/you to him if you lose. on top of enemies with just personal grievances (like muffet for being mean to spiders). they’re all united around the idea that youre a human, you are the seventh soul, you are going to die.
in yellow, i really feel like they forgot clover was a human a LOT and just threw random fights together because it was cool. dalv’s story was vaguely written and as a result not compelling or interesting (you can maybe guess that the human he saw was related to clover?? but he never appears again so it does not fuckin matter), martlet acknowledges you’re a human but they’re bumbling over themself so hard i can’t even tell what their motive is, the rhythm game guy came out of nowhere to do rhythm game things and just left, the people in the wild east sort of acknowledge you’re human but dont make any interesting commentary on how their king wants your soul (from what i remember???).

more spoilery thoughts:

clover’s keyword being “justice” (vs frisk’s “determination”) also feels flawed to me. on paper it’s an interesting idea, especially the idea of a child purposely falling down because other children have gone missing— the opening and item description for the missing child poster makes it seem like clover has the intent to find these children (or in the poster desc., i think the flavor text says “there must be justice” or something). but this motive of clover’s… is never expanded on?? it feels like they forgot about it, that they forgot about the whole ”looking for missing children” motive in favor of gushing about their ocs the whole runtime. really this game’s main issue is it feels like a game where you need to already know the ocs beforehand through lore you read in a google doc from a friend, THEN you play it.

“justice” feels forgotten about with the exception of the genocide route which honestly makes the most sense for me. but this isn’t really good. frisk’s “determination” can go both ways (determination to kill everyone, determination to save everyone. it’s about your mindset). the idea of “justice” feels firmly rooted in a negative kind of emotion for the person who is on the receiving end. i can’t imagine a time where justice was served where both sides of the situation both had positive experiences. especially so because clover is a cowboy— if you think of a cowboy who wants to get justice, you are going to think of a cowboy killing those that have wronged them. wild west style. But it’s an undertale fangame so you don’t WANT your motif to be something so outright negative. but then the motif is in full swing only in the genocide run. this feels very counterproductive.

(clover deliberately falls down to get justice for the five missing children but then in true pacifist comes to the conclusion to willingly give up their soul?? to the society that took the five children’s lives???? where is the “justice” here? and i think this could work if clover got blackpilled on the relations between monsters and humans like, if they went throughs some truly harrowing shit and found out it was all the humans’ fault, and the humans who fell down were evil, so then they give up their soul to aid the monsters as “justice” on the side of the monsters. the true pacifist ending just makes nooooooo sense to me when you try to tie it into anything we know about clover)

flower inclusion is also a bit… weird. his gambit is he wants to get you over to asgore’s asap so he can steal the human souls. i do not get the logistics of this to be honest. in undertale flowey’s choice to wait until six souls are gathered (and to use them to get frisk’s soul, so seven total) seems to be on purpose because that amount of souls will make him the Most Powerful. if flowey wanted power so bad, why would he drag clover all the way to asgore’s… flowey steals the souls offscreen in the undertale true pacifist ending so this implies he can just Do That If He Wants. why wouldn’t he just steal the souls and then smack clover upside the head to get their soul with his newfound power? is any of this making sense? i feel like they just needed a really contrived reason to get flowey to show up so much (compared to frisk being the last human needed (plot relevant) and frisk reminding flowey of chara (character relevant).
flowey talking at every save point is slightly grating because you know that flowey is not actually a good person so you’re waiting for the eventual betrayal reveal and thus all the “gee whiz! you’re the bestest friend ever!” text he has feels pointless to read.

the flowey boss fight w clay is cool. the everything else looks like sonic.exe

i think that’s every thought i had. the art and animation is great i just wish they had as many talented writers as they did talented artists. maybe i just “didn’t get it” but this failed to capture what made undertale’s story so great.

Hi there, long-time fan of both Undertale and Deltarune, figured I'd write this down now that I'm done playing this.

This review (if you can call it that, it's kind of rambly) contains minor spoilers. It's also pretty damn long, hope you don't mind reading!

As of the time of writing this is probably the best Undertale fangame that I've played so far. It's been a long while a game made me hyperfixate as much as this one did, the last one I can only recall being either releases of Deltarune.

I want to preface this as someone who has spent many years looking at fan projects of this series and consuming them in a similar fashion as Homer Simpson consuming donuts in the depths of hell. I have seen so much mud. So much slop. Pure unfiltered chum. This game despite all its hang-ups stays as far and away from that as it can.

Stupid jokes and analogies aside, this is not a perfect game by any means. There are a few very telling problems. I'll start with them because I overall have mostly have positive things to say about the game. The main reason I'm even writing this review is because I really liked playing this despite all the hiccups.

The first two areas (Ruins and Snowdin) feel very much underbaked. It's not until the third area of the game where everything picks up like a freight train. Snowdin compared to its Undertale counterpart feels like taking a quiet stroll as opposed to having two idiots bother you every now and then.

The major characters associated with both of these areas also barely do anything in them. Dalv in the Ruins is especially egregious as he has almost nothing to do with the actual plot of the game. Also the fact that he looks, weirdly out of place graphically compared to everyone else in the game lmao. It's really jarring when he's placed next to everybody else.

As for Martlet, her issue is moreso just not having as many good character moments as everyone else. I wouldn't call her very strong character-wise either but I will much rather take someone who is fine than someone who is actively annoying and a detriment.

As for the major characters as a whole... While I understand the desire to not just copy the formula Undertale has, I think having dedicated "hangouts" for the major characters similarly to Undertale would help a lot with fleshing them out.

I've had no real issue with the general NPCs other than more of a desire to see them interact with one-another more. Mo for example would be very amusing to see around being a minor annoyance to other people. Of course, seeing more of the general NPCs would be a net positive as well.

The feeling of "disjointed-ness" the game sometimes has in its first half is at its worst when it comes to one of the special enemy encounters in the first half of the third area. Not only does that fight and character come out of literal nowhere, its main gimmick is also very very unwieldly. It is by far the most egregiously clunky and sloppy fight in the entire game. It would be much better if something like that was either in Snowdin or in a much better spot that isn't entirely random, like around the third area.

I originally was going to mention it was a bit sad that the game doesn't have as much of a sense of humour as Undertale, but I've learned to kind of appreciate that due to well, the inherent tragedy of this entire story, and the implications of what is going to be Clover's fate. Plus, spaghetti westerns are often overly dramatic and broody.

The main issue I had that doesn't have to do with the game's writing was the design decisions when it came to some of the bosses. This mainly applies to the final boss of the Pacifist route and most of the bosses of the No Mercy route, it is very easy to get stuck in these fights if you don't have enough items, as the game also doesn't let you go back and restock if you're too far in. I had to more or less restart the final pacifist boss fight as I ran out of items in the final phase.

Rest is just minor gripes, really. Like the lack of a skip button like Deltarune has. I won't mention things like Clover not being able to save on their own or the timeline situation as that doesn't really bother me much at all. I find it a bit silly to just focus on that aspect of the game anyway.

Still reading? I promise I'm gonna talk about the good stuff now lol.

Despite everything I just said this I really do think the game managed to stick the landing at the end of it. This has by far the best art out of any project related to this series, from the backgrounds to all of the different animations. It's almost jarring to see the actual backgrounds used in Undertale and its characters in this game, because every other background and character is very lovingly illustrated. I'd say most of them look better than what can be seen in Deltarune currently, lmao.

It's only honestly kind of dizzying to think just how much damn work went into this entire thing. The final bosses of all three routes are also incredible spectacles, with actual difficulty put to them as well. This isn't to diss any of the final bosses Undertale has, mind you, this is mostly to state that I like these fights because they're not only incredible in visuals, but actually difficult too (the No Mercy Final Boss on a lesser extend, that fight I had to cheat to actually complete, and in general felt a bit odd).

The actual endings of all the routes I think are great too. I will not spoil any of them, but I highly suggest you do all three of them. Hell, make a backup of your save too so you can go back to them, too.

If you're wondering how the music is, while I would not call it better than Toby Fox's own compositions, it is very very high up there. The game similarly with its art iterates on what Undertale previously established, and the music ends up sounding not just really damn good, but also familiar yet different at the same time.

In general, the decision to stick to what Undertale established without delving too much into what Deltarune added in is also a very nice touch, and helps give the game more of the feeling that it's meant to be a prequel to the game. Whether or not I consider it one is something I can't really answer in this review. Maybe once it shimmers.

When it comes to fanworks there can never truly be one "truth". It's almost always something different, shaped different, acting different. This game is no exception.

The ultimate pro I can give this game at the end of the day is that it feels like the most "professional" out of all the fangames that have come out as of recently. If you told me this thing was on Steam I would not bat an eye.

I don't believe there will ever be an Undertale/Deltarune related fan project that will make me have a similar experience as the official games. To me that feels like an impossible standard to achieve.

Undertale Yellow, however, has gotten pretty damn close.

A lot of these fangames die out before they can be properly finished. I never doubted that this would release, but seeing it actually come out is a feeling that's very difficult to describe in words. The moment it released I wasted zero time booting it up. I beat the entire thing in just two sittings.

This is not a perfect game. In an ideal timeline, everything I've mentioned ends up reworked one way or another. Obviously this is not something I'm going to hope on, though. After seven entire years in development, I cannot blame any of these devs for wanting to finally move on.

Hell, seven years, that by itself also feels unbelievable.

I could go on, but this silly excuse of a review is already longer than it needs to be.

Hats off to everyone who helped make this game. I will be thinking about it for years to come for sure.

"Let justice be done."

Ceroba darling I think I love you more than my wife but I've been married for 26 years and unfortunately marriage is just a bond that cannot be broken. Please oh please come on down to Bobs Burgers it is my restaurant and you will love it I will make a special burger of the day just for you... we can call it the Yellow burger not that in context you would ever really understand what that means but I'd lovee it because the video gaem is called Undertale Yellow. Ceroba you're in fucking Undertale. I think my male pattern baldness is starting to worsen

I have never seen another Undertale fanwork that so intimately understands what made the original work so well. This could easily have been a low-effort nostalgia-trip, but the sheer dedication to making this project a worthy successor to Undertale's cannot be overstated. Everything from the sprite quality to the music to the boss mechanics go so above and beyond what was required of them, to the point where I would almost believe this was a Toby Fox creation if I knew nothing about it beforehand.

Undertale Yellow spends a lot more time with its characters than the original, tending to have them stick around even after finishing their area rather than just disappearing into the background. You really are given so much more time to understand their personalities, and characters like Martlett and North Star are just as full of life and charm as any of the characters in the original game. This game is so overflowing with charm and personality that it barely even knows where to put it all.

The game also looks gorgeous, with more detailed backgrounds and far more sprite animation than the original had. Importantly, though, it doesn't look too good. A problem I have with a lot of undertale fanworks is that they don't understand that Undertale kind of needs to have a low-budget, homemade charm to it to maintain its atmosphere. All the dumb sprite inconsistencies in the original game are so near and dear to my heart, and Undertale Yellow captures that same aesthetic while still being noticeably easier on the eyes.

One thing I have to give this game immense credit for is using almost zero established characters or map layouts from Undertale. It would have been so easy for Clover to bump into the same cast of characters that Frisk ran into back in 2015, but the developer shows a shocking level of restraint in how they approach this established world. Focusing on new parts of the Underground makes it feel so much more like a real place, and the worldbuilding is such a natural extension of everything we already know about the place. While it does bear the Undertale name and world, it focuses so much of itself on new, original content, that it feels almost entirely new.

I don't want to get into heavy spoilers here, but I also appreciate that this game isn't going for the same sense of spectacle that the later encounters in Undertale do. It's a much more personal story, which makes sense considering breaking the Barrier is never in question at this point in time. While I do find the endings slightly less impactful because of this, they're aiming for such a different kind of emotional response that they mostly succeed in.

This review might be long and rambly, but I just finished the game and had so many thoughts I had to put down. I adore Undertale Yellow. It means so much to me that a group of fans were able to so distinctly understand what made Undertale great and use that to make something almost completely new within its world. I cannot recommend it more as both a companion piece to the original, and a fantastic indie RPG in its own right.

i never thought i would be playing an undertale fangame in 2024, but here we are. i think with a fangame, the best way i can assess it is to compare it to its source material, undertale (a game which i gave 5/5 btw), so this review will mostly do that.

they absolutely did a great job nailing the aesthetic and tone of the original game, and i really enjoyed it overall. lots of characters were quite charming and enjoyable, though i think there was more charm on average in the characters in the original game. the music is great when it's remixes (because undertale music is pretty great) and the music remains great when it moves into more original territory.

i went for a "neutral" route on this first playthrough killing some and saving others. early game was fun, early-mid was good, mid was great, but then getting into mid-late/late game, the game stumbles a lot. there stops being charming characters (or any characters at times) to interact with to keep the fun going, and you end up just kinda walking around an only mildly interesting area before the finale.

fights: they're,,, okay?
i love the concepts of a lot of these boss battles, and theres some pretty cool gimmicks to some of them. however, there are a lot of attacks that just kinda feel completely undodgable. granted, i wasn't ever really at threat of dying, because the damage being dealt by the unavoidable attacks was suuuper minor. it still just doesn't really feel good to have undodgable attacks, though.

the final boss for this was so fucking cool tho like holy shit. i thought that the final bosses in undertale were cool and good but they took the concept of one of those and escalated it to an insane degree.

i will most probably go for another route in the future, but likely after i play something else in between to keep it fresh and untainted by "redoing" a lot of stuff.

Wow who knew that actually having good gear would make an insanely difficult boss such a pushover lmfao

Anyways, now that I’ve finally this game’s true ending, I can safely say that this is legitimately a perfect fangame. One that I can safely say is actually on par with its original predecessor, which is such an inconceivable feat for a game like this that I’m shocked it happened at all. Everything about it from the gameplay to the characters to the writing to the goddamn amazing visuals are just as amazing as they were in Undertale. It manages to stand on its own as an amazing experience, but it also works so perfectly as a prequel to Undertale that I’m shocked it isn’t just a straight up Toby Fox game. That ending especially was so bittersweet and incredible and was genuinely the best way you could’ve possibly tied this game back to Undertale. I don’t wanna spoil anything about it, or this game in general so I’ll just leave it at this: play this game right now, it’s free and it’s a legit masterpiece (if you’ve played Undertale already obviously). I don’t think it’s better than Undertale but the fact that it comes even close really goes to show how good it is.

After finishing all possible routes, I have to say it's a really cool fangame, but it's in a superposition of also being just a really alright fangame and maybe an okay video game. Incredibly minor non-spoiler systematic spoilers ahead.

I will stay my hand from making a huge overanalysis because it's been a while since I've really played and beaten a game, but to boot, there's a lot this game does right. The game system is fully faithful to Undertale, and there is a lot going on that made this game feel entirely official. I saw a startup for this game back in 2016 and didn't think it would actually get anything but abandoned as fangames tend to go, but I like the result. There are also some wonderful additions and QoL that I could go through, like big battles having MOTHER-inspired backgrounds (lovely!) - but my favourite personal thing is how there's a new effect upon sparing a major enemy - a wonderful piping sound effect with the box borders glowing yellow. It is simply a wonderful addition and I can't get enough of it, but sadly it is underutilized and I was hoping later on that there would be moments where the effect would sink in and hit different especially after some struggle.

But that's where the nitpicks come in. Essentially, a lot of these major encounters feel weak. On a usual playthrough, to spare these characters usually require just stalling out the game instead of using the Act mechanic, and a few of these battles also end automatically without the spare button. Alongside that, a lot of these characters end up never appearing again, such as the very first one despite some story implications that would make him a stand-in Toriel. I get confused at some of the other ones who do quite the same or feel like they don't have an outstanding part to play. I love the dance fight boss but he just always fades to nothing after the fact.

Part of this must be due to how short the game and story is in comparison to Undertale, in which I have to give it leeway for that reason. But unfortunately, the usage of time and resources have left myself and some other players with a lot to be desired. When it comes to variation in the Neutral and No Mercy routes, there isn't too much of it in the story, so if you abort a Genocide run, you're really only doing it to see how characters react in the very current scene - if it's the other end around, the deaths of some characters seem really inconsequential. It's not something to do a full run over. There's little in the way of re-doing sections too, as cutscenes don't get mildly changed as they do in Undertale, and route changes only affect the heat of the moment. But another thing is that No Mercy should be very emotionally powerful for the other characters, but some incredibly sad missed opportunities passed us and characters that would become more interesting or fun in that route end up being sidelined, partially because it brings us to the next big problem...

Ceroba. She is a character that has a presence upon all the routes, and a bit too much so - while Undyne in Undertale was a prominent boss in all the routes, she didn't do so as a behest to other characters. She was fought within the zone she was introduced in and later was seen again later when it was called for and the player's exploration. Ceroba is a character that doesn't belong to any particular "zone" in Yellow, is introduced early, and basically takes up the entirety of the game's plot and gameplay starting from the halfway point (if we consider all routes put together, with a mix of it if individually speaking [in which in No Mercy, my qualms are with her receiving a fight instead of another character even if it would be tough to rationalize it]). In pacifist, the player soon realizes this entire game is pretty much about her backstory, sidelining most of the other characters and finally having so much more exposure and resources dedicated to her (well, I'm not sure it's a contest with the other routes' final bosses, but let's just say pacifist felt the longest and slowest). Ceroba tended to slow down the story quite a bit, partially due to the Steamworks area feeling slow and breaking the pacing on its own. On an aside note, the Dunes area also felt like one big slog, especially on replays with the mining area. I don't know what it exactly accomplished when you don't meet anyone. Ceroba also really broke my immersion for me, considering she is a kitsune miko with her story arc and everything else really going hard with the Japanese theming when the rest of the game rides strongly on the Wild West flair. In complete honesty, she feels like an OC that was made before, not for Yellow, and shoehorned in by a creator that really really liked her and just wanted to present her story in an Undertale setting, similar to the early days of people putting their OCs in Unitale. I'm not alone in feeling that she gives several signs of this favouritism - because either way, she takes up like a third of the screen time and it doesn't leave the other already-barren characters with much. Her characterization also is hard for me to like, and I feel like the game is trying to make you sympathize over an incredibly selfish character as time goes on, making her plight seem worthless. The "gunfight" fight was the one I was expecting to be the best in the game, but it sadly didn't amount to much - I thought it was weak. Which is sad because Starlo in retrospect is a bit of a butthead and kind of gets casually excused for it, in which we don't actually SEE him redeem anything. Given this game had a reference to RED, I was hoping some pointers would have been taken on having a point to some fights.

Which is why I can't say much about the remaining major characters. I do like them in general. Quite a few of them seem to be something that could be an official character. I positively enjoy a select few. There were some narration punchlines and puns that made me laugh out loud. But some of the writing in this game seems to get quite a bit quirky and based off overly-online interactions that took me really out of the immersion of the Underground's setting. More often than not, this kind of thing was something that Undertale reserved for only a few cases, and even then, it was something mundane like anime which the monsters could very well know given the rest of their technology. Sadly, Yellow was enough to make me cringe at least twice with examples that I will pass on. Aside from that, I'm mixed on one character because she is very Papyrus-like in role but with fifty layers of uncertainty. I think she could've been more interesting, but her fights at least really made up for it to me. Another thing that I find is that I feel like there's less intent on making the NPCs more monstrous and creative and gave a lot more characters more animal designs but this could be a moot point as I don't remember a lot of Undertale NPCs by face so ignore me.

If it wasn't clear, my major problems with the game was the story and characterization, and I do kinda wish we got to a real final Asgore fight even if it was hopeless, but all this aside, I do not dislike the game, I just think it is flawed. The music is really good - not as good as Undertale's, and I personally think some of the endgame battle themes are quite underwhelming and all over the place in composition, but it is still good and there are some themes I wouldn't mind listening to on loop. Many of the monsters are designed wonderfully, attack patterns are fun (I didn't have a problem with the endgame ones everyone has been complaining about cuz uhh touhou), animated sequences are really nice, and I have to commend the efforts made nonetheless as reusing assets and music was done as little as possible in comparison to all the original content this game has. And it's a free fangame, of course. But I really do wish the story wasn't compromised some bit.

I did say I wouldn't overanalyze it but it's more like I just said a bit too much on my main complaints - I'm sure someone more attentive and hardcore than me could rip the issues to shreds and rate the plausibility of the story compared to Undertale and yadda yadda, but I do recommend this game to anyone who's beat Undertale. Yellow simply isn't the best thing ever, and while I applaud its efforts lots, it couldn't avoid characterization pitfalls and I am simply disappointed of whoever blindly says it is better than the original.

A fan game that truly captures the essence of the original. Undertale Yellow could very well be an official prequel to Undertale it references things that we know will happen while also introducing a bunch of new stuff!

The whole game is full of new enemies and bosses plenty of silly NPCs that fit right in. The new major characters are all great and I found myself really invested in the story.

I’d highly recommend this to anyone who’s played Undertale and if you haven’t played Undertale then go play it then come play this trust me it’s great!