Still a hood classic man god damn. Undertale somehow manages to be masterfully subversive but still completely genuine at the same time. Replaying it I thought that mentioning your save file and previous playthroughs would be cliche and not age super well, but it still manages to pull it off in a way I haven’t really seen anywhere else. Breaking the 4th wall in any other game pretty much amounts to an npc saying “HEHEH WOULDNT IT BE CRAZY IF I WAS A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER RIGHT NOW!!???”, but Undertale manages to hint at it with a good level of subtlety.

The characters can be a bit overbearing at times but behind the cheesy overly friendly dialogue are multifaceted, dark and even mysterious implications. In a way they often come across as more complex than some triple A game characters trying too hard to be “dark” and “edgy.” It isn’t trying too hard to make you feel anything, it’s just a genuinely good-hearted emotional story. Yeah, the graphics do look like shit sometimes but in a way it almost baits you into thinking it’s some boring, budget indie game by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, only for it to be the complete opposite. The bullet hell battle system really was a stroke of genius gameplay wise, there’s been a couple of games trying to do a similar thing only with wario ware style minigames but Undertale for me is still the best freedom and control-wise.

I don’t think I need to even mention the music, just listen to it. This shit slaps.

I would say though that I wish there was a little bit more to do in the early game when replaying for a true pacifist run after the neutral run. This is generally seen as the best way to play but there isn’t much different to do when you restart the game, save for a few memorable bits of dialogue.

Many people are finding the “quirky earthbound inspired rpg” to be getting a bit long in the tooth and cliched now. But these copycats are here for a reason, not just because UT got lucky and was a big success but because… it actually is a pretty damn good game.