It's Undertale! No, wait, it's Paper Mario! No, wait, it's a creepypasta! No wait, it's a metaphor for toxic relationships!

Impressively enough, Buddy Simulator manages to fumble all of these things individually, and rather than fumble the job of blending them together, it doesn't bother. The elements don't mesh, nor do they clash. They're just sort of there. It does one thing it's seen before, and then it does another, like a monkey imitating a man with no real understanding of why he does the things he does.

In fact the entire game can be described as a series of monkey see, monkey do moments. Undertale had irreverent NPC dialogue and creepy tonal shifts, so we can do that too. Paper Mario had quirky side kicks and action commands, so we can do that too. All of these elements are used once and then discarded because there's no overarching thought to how they contribute to the whole, either in terms of gameplay loop or thematic resonance. The narrator is clingy and annoying and that's supposed to be scary. Surprise! Your computer is haunted, and it's possessed by a discord sadboy.

Stunning to learn that Daniel Mullins didn't make this game because it really does have his stink all over it.