This review contains spoilers
I'll start this review by saying I don't really care for fangames normally. For the most part they're pretty mediocre to straight up terrible. But every few years there comes out one that transcends the term and sort of becomes an unofficial part of the franchise to the community, Pokemon Uranium, AM2R, and now Undertale Yellow. And I'm shocked that fucking UNDERTALE is one of the games that had one of these, the same fandom that has like 20 different Sans OCs and 3 different takes on edgy Papyrus. I wasn't going to check it out, but I had nothing better going on and heard the game was pretty short so I said fuck it. And I learned that Yellow really understands what makes Undertale special and really does it's best to emulate and enhance on the original experience.
Like everyone I did Pacifist first, The game starts as I saw the froggit and Toriel and rolled by eyes. But a minute in and I realize this is the exact reaction the game WANTS me to have as it snatches that blanket of nostalgia away. And for the most part this game is VERY restrained in terms of using characters from the OG game and I respect the hell out of it for that. Aside from Flowey who I think is utilized differently enough to be justified as a major character, especially when if you really think about it, he's barley in the original game. But the rest get a scene at best like Asgore while others like Papyrus and surprisingly Sans aren't even mentioned at all.
The new characters that do replace them like Ceroba, Martlet, and Starlo are fun in their own right, I don't think they're AS memorable as the OG cast but they're well developed and work well within the game's setting. I will say some of them felt like they really didn't get enough screentime, especially poor Dalv who after the ruins shows up in the epilogue and that's it.
The gameplay is a pretty contentious topic in the community from what I've seen but I'm ngl I think the difficulty is overblown. It's harder than OG Undertale overall for sure but, and I say this who hasn't played a single Undertale fangame before this, my only interactions with this gameplay systems were the games made by Toby, it's really not that bad. Pacifist Ceroba's not that bad if you're decently prepared which is easy to do since you can backtrack almost anywhere in pacifist. And the game gives you checkpoints after every phase. A majority of the genocide fights were about on par with undyne the undying which i think is fair. Martlet is the only one I'd consider bullshit hard, not refreshing your items between phases is brutal especially since you can't save after phase 1 so if you fuck up you have to start all over. However this was before the patch, post patch I honestly think she's fairly easy compared to Sans, being able to heal phase 2 makes a massive difference and I was able to beat her in 50 minutes.
The writing is on point, they feel very Undertale. Stuff like Flowey getting mad at you for not saving, or Toriel actually coming to save you if you wait long enough are such nice little touches. On top of stuff like the secret froggit fight, the pole man sidequest, etc, I think this game touches on the little things so well. The serious moments also hit, giving proper tone and set ups to a lot of the tragedy especially in pacifist and the extensions on the lore, and the way it connects with canon are fun. I get they don't make wholly sense but I think the changes that are made are for the better, like yeah Clover doesn't really meet Toriel despite her saying that she saw all the humans leave her safety, but we really didn't need a reenactment of the ruins from the base game.
Finally I really like the whole theming of JUSTICE in this game, from Pacifist ending either in Clover giving their soul in a bid of self sacrifice for the justice of monsterkind, to alt pacifist where Clover views their killing Ceroba as just due to it being a mercy kill and respecting her wishes. To Genocide where Clover goes on the killing spree for the justice of the 5 dead kids, it's a really nice way of differentiating it thematically from the base game despite it's similarities.
The soundtrack is also really solid, it's not as good as the base game, but it's toby fucking fox, they were never gonna top it. But what is here is pretty awesome, from the cool remixes like the enemy theme and snowdin, to the new areas like steamworks, to the bloodpumping battle themes like pacifist ceroba and genocide martlet. This game has a ton to offer in terms of music.
Overall I'd suggest any Undertale fan old or new play this game. It's an increadibly fun experience and more importantly, in a world where Undertale is the punchline to a lot of jokes because of it's reputation, Yellow made me look back on the game in it's hayday and reminded me why I loved it in the first place.
Like everyone I did Pacifist first, The game starts as I saw the froggit and Toriel and rolled by eyes. But a minute in and I realize this is the exact reaction the game WANTS me to have as it snatches that blanket of nostalgia away. And for the most part this game is VERY restrained in terms of using characters from the OG game and I respect the hell out of it for that. Aside from Flowey who I think is utilized differently enough to be justified as a major character, especially when if you really think about it, he's barley in the original game. But the rest get a scene at best like Asgore while others like Papyrus and surprisingly Sans aren't even mentioned at all.
The new characters that do replace them like Ceroba, Martlet, and Starlo are fun in their own right, I don't think they're AS memorable as the OG cast but they're well developed and work well within the game's setting. I will say some of them felt like they really didn't get enough screentime, especially poor Dalv who after the ruins shows up in the epilogue and that's it.
The gameplay is a pretty contentious topic in the community from what I've seen but I'm ngl I think the difficulty is overblown. It's harder than OG Undertale overall for sure but, and I say this who hasn't played a single Undertale fangame before this, my only interactions with this gameplay systems were the games made by Toby, it's really not that bad. Pacifist Ceroba's not that bad if you're decently prepared which is easy to do since you can backtrack almost anywhere in pacifist. And the game gives you checkpoints after every phase. A majority of the genocide fights were about on par with undyne the undying which i think is fair. Martlet is the only one I'd consider bullshit hard, not refreshing your items between phases is brutal especially since you can't save after phase 1 so if you fuck up you have to start all over. However this was before the patch, post patch I honestly think she's fairly easy compared to Sans, being able to heal phase 2 makes a massive difference and I was able to beat her in 50 minutes.
The writing is on point, they feel very Undertale. Stuff like Flowey getting mad at you for not saving, or Toriel actually coming to save you if you wait long enough are such nice little touches. On top of stuff like the secret froggit fight, the pole man sidequest, etc, I think this game touches on the little things so well. The serious moments also hit, giving proper tone and set ups to a lot of the tragedy especially in pacifist and the extensions on the lore, and the way it connects with canon are fun. I get they don't make wholly sense but I think the changes that are made are for the better, like yeah Clover doesn't really meet Toriel despite her saying that she saw all the humans leave her safety, but we really didn't need a reenactment of the ruins from the base game.
Finally I really like the whole theming of JUSTICE in this game, from Pacifist ending either in Clover giving their soul in a bid of self sacrifice for the justice of monsterkind, to alt pacifist where Clover views their killing Ceroba as just due to it being a mercy kill and respecting her wishes. To Genocide where Clover goes on the killing spree for the justice of the 5 dead kids, it's a really nice way of differentiating it thematically from the base game despite it's similarities.
The soundtrack is also really solid, it's not as good as the base game, but it's toby fucking fox, they were never gonna top it. But what is here is pretty awesome, from the cool remixes like the enemy theme and snowdin, to the new areas like steamworks, to the bloodpumping battle themes like pacifist ceroba and genocide martlet. This game has a ton to offer in terms of music.
Overall I'd suggest any Undertale fan old or new play this game. It's an increadibly fun experience and more importantly, in a world where Undertale is the punchline to a lot of jokes because of it's reputation, Yellow made me look back on the game in it's hayday and reminded me why I loved it in the first place.