Happy Birthday, Undertale

Holy shit, it's been a year.

 

It was September when i first heard about Undertale. Everyone I knew that was into games was talking about it. I only caught brief glimpses of it, and was honestly very confused. For the next few months, it was everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. After months of hype, I decided to see what this game was all about.

Best damn gaming decision I've ever made.

A year on, Undertale still stands as my favourite game ever. It's an experience I'm never going to forget, and one that will undoubtedly impact anyone that's played it. So, one year later, this is why Undertale remains #1 on my list of video games.

Oh, and spoilers. Why haven't you played Undertale yet?

Let's start at the beginning

I went into Undertale 99% blind. I saw a bit of the sans fight, the ruins, and a brief colourful glimpse I didn't realize was the Asriel fight. That's important, because Undertale starts out so unassuming, so small, so basic. It has a lot of personality, but nothing much else at that point.

Then Toriel showed up, and punched me in the gut. I love it when a game turns all your expectations around in once moment, and Toriel does just that. The game tells you that some monsters may need to have their health reduced. It shows itself as a simple RPG. It stays faithful to the retro aesthetic. It's not very serious.

The game does all this to fool you into thinking that it is indeed nothing more than it seems. Then, BAM, Toriel is dead, my knowledge about sparing monsters seemed wrong, and it's not just a goofy retro RPG anymore. There's death. There's emotion. There's tragedy. The first hour of the game sounds dreadfully boring, but it's so important for building up your expectations. Everything I knew was wrong, and now I had to travel into an unknown world that I knew nothing about. That is when Undertale had me interested.

Let's talk emotions

Undertale's got em'. This has been talked about to death by almost everyone, but I wanted to talk about what Undertale did for me. Undertale, more than anything else, was genuine at a time I needed it.

2015 was a rough year for my optimism in the games industry. I saw publishers try to squeeze money out of everyone in every way, I saw Nintendo starting to go down the same route after I supported them, and from my perspective (A misguided one now that I look back), the whole thing just cared about money.

So a game that just wanted to be a good game was just what I needed at the time. Undertale's quirky humour and random dialogue felt like a breath of fresh air. The battle system felt like something new and fresh. And this willingness to get into something new played a large part in how much the game pulled me in.

The game does have genuine emotion, I'm not discounting that. Papyrus is hilarious, Undyne and Alphys are adorable, Metatton is......

Flowey is legit terrifying, and the fight with Asgore is one of the few times I will use the word “epic” to describe something. What I am saying is that Undertale resonated with me because it just does what it wants. It's not restrained by doing what it thinks the audience wants, nor is it trying to do the “current” thing. The emotion isn't a list of check marks. It's genuine.

Undertunes

I remember the exact moment I knew I was gonna love Undertale. I had just arrived in Snowdin, and went to fight Papyrus because I wanted more of his dialogue. The fight started. I flirted with him (If you don't get it you need to get out because you haven't played it), and he activated his special blue attack!

Then Bonetrousle kicked in.

This was when I first thought “Holy cow, this is some amazing music!” It perfectly fit the scenario, character, battle, and raised it from a great fight to a fantastic fight with some sweet tunes.

And it just went uphill from there. From Spear of Justice to Dummy! to CORE, every single song is not only nice on its own, it also lifts every scene and scenario up to amazingly emotional levels.

When I traversed the waterfall, the music made me feel sorrowful and introspective, like this area held the ideals of freedom and wildness once held by the monsters.

When I fought Undyne, her theme was menacing. Here was an opponent actually trying to kill me for the first time, and the entirety of monsterkind would back her in this quest.

When I fought Omega Flowey, this theme instilled a level of panic in me the scenario by itself could never do. It felt like I was trapped in the madness for hours.

When I listened to the title theme, it was a retro jingle, one I'd heard many times over. After I finished the game, it was an opener to an amazingly realized and full experience.

When I fought ASGORE, this song was chilling, sorrowful, terrifying, awe-inspiring, regretful, epic, and final. This song embodied so many things, but more than anything else, it embodies the end of a journey, with all the mixed up emotions that come with it. It is one of the most emotional songs I have ever heard, and truly makes the battle against Asgore one of gaming's greatest. Undertale's soundtrack is legendary.

My emotions

Finally, I want to end off with something very personal to me. It was the moment Undertale connected with me in a deep way unlike most other games and media in general.

This song, and the walk you take with it, is burned into my head. It let me just think about everything that had led up to this point. Toriel, mosterkind's fate, Flowey, Asgore....

It let me think about loss.

Loss is something I am terrified of. Loss is something I worry about daily. What will happen to my friends after high school? Will my family still be here tomorrow? Is there anything I can do?

Undertale just gave me a scenario, a story, a song, and let me think. Those 6 minutes are precious to me. I thought about loss in the game. I thought about the loss I have faced and will inevitably have to face. I thought about the loss that occurs every day, by many people. I just stared at the screen even after the song was done, and just thought.

I couldn't sleep that night. No other game since Mother 3 has done that to me. The next day, I got up, and fought Asgore.

I cried. I cried tears of all kinds. I cried tears of sorrow, loss, and sadness, but also happiness, laughter, and appreciation. Undertale is the only game, no, time that I have ever, ever, experienced tears of joy.

This is why Undertale is my favourite game of all time. I could talk about how objectively good it is. But truly, it came at the perfect time. 7 months later, I lost a relative close to me. It is experiences like this that help me to understand, cope, and get through all sorts of things in this crazy experience called life. This is my personal connection to this small game called Undertale.

I truly and deeply thank you for reading.