man, i will never get sick of rpgmaker games.

this game has an absolutely insane atmosphere, thanks to the awesome pixel-art and amazing ost. the characters are great, and its insane how quickly the game manages to make you care. the story is simple but works so, so well. The gameplay/puzzles are fun and simple. And, the gimmick? i won't spoil it but MAN, the gimmick is awesome and adds a whole new layer of uniqueness to this game. if i had to critique anything, i'd say that i wish the last couple puzzles were a bit easier to figure out, although maybe thats just me being an idiot. Overall, i loved my time with this game, and would definitely say its a must play.

edit: went back and did solstice.

this game is so peak, only 7 hours total play time and I know i'm gonna miss these characters and this world

OneShot is a really unique game that has great characters and an interesting story. I really like all of the meta/fourth wall elements in this game. It never really feels all that forced. It just fits. The puzzles and clues that the game uses your own computer for are just neat and, I really enjoyed how they kept elevating the idea as the game went on
Like I said, I really liked the characters, and I built a connection to Niko which made me feel really great about the journey we were going on. For a zoomer game, the dialogue is done really well. I don't remember any cringe lines at all and there were actually some pretty funny lines in there from time to time.
My main issues with the game revolve around the the the world and parts of the solstice ending. The world itself at times is visually uninteresting. I know it is an RPG-maker game but based on the games I have played like it this one probably stacks up the worst as far as how the world looks. I know at times in the game the point is for the world to look barren, I feel it could have done better in the style department. The character designs are decent though. In conclusion, I am a zoomer who likes Undertale and Omori, and, therefore, I enjoyed this game. There is just something about going on the journey with Niko, especially during the main story, that was really enjoyable for me.

I've heard a lot of people have faults with this game. Some of the characters are poorly written, the story doesn't make much sense, the gameplay can get repetitive, the fanbase, so on and so forth. But, all these people have forgotten a very, very important fact:

I am a lonely, gay furry.

Front-to-back, this game is literally flawless to me. To the point where it's not worth listing off all the reasons why. Music, characters, gameplay, art style, messages, story, everything. All perfect. My favorite game of all time, and one that I can confidently say changed my life.

This is currently my favorite game of all time, so making this review was an inevitability, but I found it hard to word myself for the longest time. This entire review will most definitely contain elements of spoilers.

I would I guess, like to preface that it isn't perfect. Much of the known Genocide Route and Pacifist Route is a rough draft in terms of narrative design, pacing is kind of thrown to the road in both of them in terms of how events are revealed, specifically the tapes in the True Lab come to mind, or how it unceremoniously saves all of the genuine good storytelling in Genocide to the latter bits.

It's also quite limiting on a gameplay front, to an extent. I think the bullet hell combat is genuinely good, and by nature of how it's designed, better than most other rpgs. Dancing between bullet patterns as they combine on top of other enemies is a core part of any decent bullet hell philosophy, and seamlessly tying that to its rpg core and narrative is something to be praised and serves far more an execution test than most rpg's knowledge test design where ultimately optimal strategy is a once and done affair for most encounters. It is still limiting however, since only about 1/3 of the encounters actually make use of patterns building atop of each other, and the game saves its strongest bullet hell tests to the Genocide run, and the hard mode is literally an intentional joke.

That being said, and god that last paragraph wasn't even too negative, I'd say UNDERTALE is absolutely brilliant. It's the finest execution of the ensuing theme of "determination" I've ever seen in a work of art, surpassing general examples like Gurren Lagann by supplying its theme at an individual character level and wrapping it around an excellent metanarrative to boot (that you don't even have to be aware of to enjoy).

UNDERTALE works off clear character ideas, humanizing its characters around the world it sets up in extremely well written ways. Alphys is my leading example, which is weird that it's people's least favorite. She's built up as a stingy incredibly annoying type, a character who is increasingly irritating to deal with. She stops you at every point, wanting attention, to be something like the shows and remnants of otaku cultures she was able to consume. She ultimately gets betrayed by her own work, and ends up pushing back her own war crimes she's committed. She's not a justified person in what she's done, but she is sympathetic to understand. Her actions are communicated exceptionally for people to understand what kind of person she is, and the arc she gets is fitting and she learns what it really means to be determined and what she actually needs to do to be loved.

This reflects on every character not just her, and on top of this, is how flawed each of these characters are as people really works back to how honest they truly feel, and they’re all fleshed out personality wise to a point where tobyfox can publish them talking about whatever topic and I could hear their fonts come off the page and imagine them emoting in real time. They're very humanized people.

I'd also like to talk about how UNDERTALE ties its metanarrative elements well. The game in short, is a living breathing game world that operates on world mechanics riffed from a general audience understanding of how rpgs work, using a morality system that is defined on a character to character level rather than strict moral good/bad. You're allowed to kill in self defense, you're encouraged to be pacifist but the game doesn't vilify you for kills, it asks you to reflect on them. The monsters' world is as much a world to them as your own world is to you. And the only basis to understand them is to take them as living people where act of murder or self defense is a last resort. Especially when you yourself have the power to save and reload, so death is never truly an end for you, so death until you SPARE them is a legitimate option that only costs you time.

Even if you don't care for the meta elements, even if the characters aren't someone you jive with, even if the gameplay isn't particularly your own thing, it still has its own comedic writing to back on, and one of the best vidya soundtracks I've had the pleasure to listen to. It's also an excellently paced journey, gameplay and narrative-wise. But I would still be surprised personally, if there wasn't a single character or emotional moment that resonated with you.

I think UNDERTALE stands above all other games I've played in my lifetime so far, and it certainly has had a huge impact on my life going forward that I can't give it any less than my 10/10.

Oops, I meant to rate and review this earlier but I wanted to watch the bonus boss and the secret route first because I’m either bad at video games or too much of a weenie to be mean to fictional characters respectively. Also it feels like everything that can be said about this game has been, pretty much, but it probably actually hasn’t, since I tried to avoid the spoiler reviews.

Anyway, Toby Fox remains funny as heck. I found myself snort giggling pretty much constantly throughout the playthrough, and it’s great that the comedy is balanced by some unsettling stuff lurking under the surface. It’s more present in the secret route, of course, which almost feels like a creepypasta at times, but even in the more lighthearted standard route, there’s a lot… off. Dysfunctional family dynamics, familiar characters used in new ways… the protagonist themselves is a mystery in their own right, even. And of course there’s Spamton, whatever the fuck is going on with him!

Speaking of, god, I can’t believe there’s a weird little freak in this game who’s somehow weirdly tragic, unsettling, and hilarious with a banger theme song who’s based on spam email. What the heck.

Anyway, the gameplay’s really creative and interesting! It’s pretty cool to see the fundamentals established in Undertale expanded upon in new ways. I kind of hope to see the party system tweaked a little bit more in each chapter, because it’s fun to see it evolve and give you access to more strategies and options for how you play the game. I’m admittedly pretty bad at dodging the bullets and grazing, but I appreciate it for being different! I’m excited to see where this game goes in its next installments, no matter how long it takes. No matter what happens the soundtrack will be great. Even if everything else was actually bad instead of good, I would feel compelled to give this four stars for the inclusion of a sound test at the end of the game.