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.

The best fighting game?

Rivals of Aether is the best damn fighting game you can spend money on right now.

I say this as someone who is absolutely terrible at fighting games. I know I'll never even remotely approach great levels of play, I routinely get stomped online, and advanced combos and techniques are a mere pipe dream for me. And despite all that, it's so good, you guys. It's never going to be the game I'll spend the most hours on. It's never going to be a scene I passionately follow. And yet, I see the genius in it, the passion of the creator and community, and my honest assessment is that if you're looking for a new fighter, this is the one you should be at the very least be paying attention to.

So, uh, what is it?

Good question! Rivals is a fighting game unquestionably inspired by Super Smash Brothers. If know anything about it, you'll know how this game works. Damage percentage goes up, and you try to knock your opponent off the stage. It's stuff that's been done before, but don't think it's just a clone. It's merely using the framework of Smash, nothing more.

The art style, as you can see, is pixel art, a hallmark of the indie scene. It as of now contains 8 characters, a kickass soundtrack, and a small but dedicated community. This is definitely an indie fighting game.

It's sooooo fun

I'm just gonna cut to the chase. Rivals is a ton of competitive, fluid, satisfying fun. Again, it plays very much like Smash Bros., but with some key differences. Rivals of Aether makes it much easier to pull combos off, so chaining attacks is much easier. There are no shields, but rather a parry move. Dodging isn't as effective, but recovery is made a bit easier since every character can wall cling. What I'm getting at here is that it's a much faster, more fluid, and very, very exciting. In an average match you'll be parrying, combing, and edge guarding at a frantic rate that I find fantastic. If you find Smash Bros. too slow, you'll be right at home here.

The stages are much appreciated as well. Most fighting games either have flat stages or wildly unbalanced stages. Rivals has the unbalanced stages for party fun, but you can also turn basic mode on and remove the crazy stage hazards, and leave only basic platforms for serious fighting. It's a great addition, and much better than nothing but flat stages coughforglorycough.

And as of right now, it's super easy to understand. Only 8 characters sounds limited, but honestly it's a great boon. You don't have to learn crazy amounts of matchups and learn 50 characters, just the 8. This makes the game click a lot faster, which lowers the barrier of at least understanding.

Finally, at least on the gameplay front, the game's got a lot of really unique ideas I haven't seen anywhere else. Zetterburn can get extra launching power by setting you on fire. Forsburn can gain a strong move by inhaling smokescreens. Orcane has puddles he can detonate or teleport to. Wrastor can't perform smash attacks on the ground. Every character has something unique about them, and that gives this game a very nice style and identity. It's quite impressive how balanced this game is as well. Even characters considered lower tier by the community can still be very competetive. I'm not even going to get into the advanced stuff, mainly because that's all really over my head. I'm not very good at the game. But I see all this, and absolutely love it.

Basically, it's really F-ing fun.

It's not all gameplay

Rivals of Aether isn't all great gameplay, however. I also want to draw attention to the visuals and music, because those are excellently done. The animations are very well done, fluid and appealing. They're also not flashy, fast, and don't hold your attention, the best kind for a fighting game. Sure, flashy visuals are nice to watch, but they also distract from actually, y'know, playing the game. Basic stuff, maybe, but I see so many fighting games stumble here, so it's a nice thing to have.

The backgrounds also follow this mantra. While they are nice to look at if you stand still, they don't really move and again, don't distract from the gameplay. (I AM LOOKING SQUARELY AT YOU, SMASH. WHY WOULD YOU HAVE CRAZY MOVING BACKROUNDS IN YOUR SERIOUS COMPETETIVE MODE ONLINE)

In all seriousness...

Ok, but for real, I don't want to compare this game to Smash Bros. much. I'm only doing so because it's a near universal example everyone will understand and it's a great jumping off point. But I want the comparisons to stop there, because it doesn't do this game justice. It is very much it's own thing, and if you play it for even a few minutes, it feels nothing like Smash.

I don't want this game to forever be “That indie smash title” because it's really not. It deserves to be so much more. And the community! How could I forget about the community! It's full of nice, passionate people who glady assist newcomers, pitch ideas, and turn this game into a real treat to discuss. It's a fun, fast, beautiful, competitive, community driven, amazing fighting game.

And it's not even officially out.

The game is still in early access, with so much more to come. I could literally go on for ages about the current game, how it came about, what it could become, and how you should all be running (er, clicking/button mashing) over to Steam/Xbox One and downloading it right now. But really, there's one big fact that excites me more than anything else.

I love the style of Smash Bros. I love the percentages and how you don't drain a life bar. But to me, the community and competitive aspects always felt like they managed in spite of how Nintendo handles it. Rivals of Aether feels like a game that will manage with the help of the developer. And that single fact is truly what makes me run out and shout about this game, more than anything else.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go work on my Orcane game. #OrcaneForBestRival