This review contains spoilers
"If this game is in your top 10 you don't deserve human rights"
Is what my original review of this game read. While I stand by that assertion, I thought it wise to further elaborate rather than leaving people to interpret some dumb joke. After all, it would be wise to soothe any potential future employers who both love Undertale and spend an unhealthy amount of time reading video game reviews by strangers on the internet.
In my opinion, Undertale is the Frozen (2013) of video games. It's not bad by any stretch of the word: it's pretty, the music is great, it's pretty funny and the characters are mostly likeable. It did not, however, deserve to become a worldwide phenomenon, especially when Tangled (2011) is a much better movie.
Undertale attempts to deconstruct a tried-and-true formula: the turn-based JRPG. Everyone and their [Hochi Mama] knows how the game works, so I'll simply turn my attention to the game's infamous genocide route. This part of the game, more than any other, emphasizes what I consider to be Undertale's key metatextual themes: grinding and completionism. The genocide route requires hours of tedious grinding to reach an unsatisfying completion reward, indicating the game's dislike of such design choices. This is a good idea on paper, and the themes' relevance only increases as more AAA games incorporate needless RPG elements and experience bars for the sake of padding out a runtime. What should games be, after all, if not fun?
The problem, in my eyes, is that Undertale fails to spread its core message, largely because it is not fun. The concept of dodging the enemies' bullets is less an innovation and more a gimmick that far overstays its welcome. Wow, you can dodge in a turn-based game. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga did that 12 years prior, but Fawful has yet to earn his well-deserved status of "sexiest man alive". In a similar vein, the puzzles fail to maintain any semblance of intrigue because the ones that aren't already solved are little more than simple annoyances.
I'll fully admit that I can never take an unbiased look at Undertale; Its fanatics killed too much of my sanity for me to truly spare it. But on that note, I want to end my review by asking, was Undertale's message really a necessary one? In concept, turn-based combat sounds boring and the concept of levels seems a poor surrogate for player skill. But I've played many turn-based JRPG's with combat and customization far more intriguing than a red heart dodging white dots. I've learned far more about game design and player psychology from Persona 5's by-the-book story and standard gameplay experience than I have from Undertale's metatextual subversions. Undertale has a lot of potentially novel things to say about how and why we play video games, but it rings hollow for me when so many other games say so much more just by existing.
Is what my original review of this game read. While I stand by that assertion, I thought it wise to further elaborate rather than leaving people to interpret some dumb joke. After all, it would be wise to soothe any potential future employers who both love Undertale and spend an unhealthy amount of time reading video game reviews by strangers on the internet.
In my opinion, Undertale is the Frozen (2013) of video games. It's not bad by any stretch of the word: it's pretty, the music is great, it's pretty funny and the characters are mostly likeable. It did not, however, deserve to become a worldwide phenomenon, especially when Tangled (2011) is a much better movie.
Undertale attempts to deconstruct a tried-and-true formula: the turn-based JRPG. Everyone and their [Hochi Mama] knows how the game works, so I'll simply turn my attention to the game's infamous genocide route. This part of the game, more than any other, emphasizes what I consider to be Undertale's key metatextual themes: grinding and completionism. The genocide route requires hours of tedious grinding to reach an unsatisfying completion reward, indicating the game's dislike of such design choices. This is a good idea on paper, and the themes' relevance only increases as more AAA games incorporate needless RPG elements and experience bars for the sake of padding out a runtime. What should games be, after all, if not fun?
The problem, in my eyes, is that Undertale fails to spread its core message, largely because it is not fun. The concept of dodging the enemies' bullets is less an innovation and more a gimmick that far overstays its welcome. Wow, you can dodge in a turn-based game. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga did that 12 years prior, but Fawful has yet to earn his well-deserved status of "sexiest man alive". In a similar vein, the puzzles fail to maintain any semblance of intrigue because the ones that aren't already solved are little more than simple annoyances.
I'll fully admit that I can never take an unbiased look at Undertale; Its fanatics killed too much of my sanity for me to truly spare it. But on that note, I want to end my review by asking, was Undertale's message really a necessary one? In concept, turn-based combat sounds boring and the concept of levels seems a poor surrogate for player skill. But I've played many turn-based JRPG's with combat and customization far more intriguing than a red heart dodging white dots. I've learned far more about game design and player psychology from Persona 5's by-the-book story and standard gameplay experience than I have from Undertale's metatextual subversions. Undertale has a lot of potentially novel things to say about how and why we play video games, but it rings hollow for me when so many other games say so much more just by existing.