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.

Some Unique Mechanics

Game mechanics. Oh, the wonders of game mechanics. I love em', you love em', they're what make games tick. So, I figured, why not take the time to appreciate the more unique ones out there? So, I have 3 games lined up here, 3 games that do some different and unique stuff with their mechanics. Without further ado:

Splatoon

Okay, I have issues with this game. BIG issues. But I cannot ignore just how good the core mechanics of the game are, because I have no idea how the devs at Nintendo came up with this. So, for those not up to speed with the game, you do 2 basic things in the game: spray ink with a variety of weapons, and then swim through that same ink in a squid form. You can only swim through your own ink, and the objective of the game is to cover the most ground with ink (In the main mode, anyway).

Not only is this really novel and a great spin on the typical shooter formula, but it is a perfect example of 2 separate mechanics working perfectly in harmony. You shoot ink to swim in, but you have a limited supply, and the way you refill it is to swim in the ink. But you need more ground to swim in, so you spray more ink, which means you need to refill by swimming, and so on and so forth. One mechanic simply cannot exist without the other, and you constantly combine the 2 in interesting ways while you play. Whether that be cutting an enemy's route off with your ink, or spraying a small patch to hide and refill in undetected, these 2 simple ideas; shoot and swim; form the cornerstone for one of the most colourful, explosive, and special shooter games that have ever come out.

And I really can't stress how special indeed this is. Think to all the shooter games out there, how many truly put a spin on the typical shooter formula? Barely any deviate, and the only example I can think of that kind of fits this is Tribes: Ascend. The point here is how unique this is, and how badly this genre needs a mechanics shakeup more than anything else around it. Hopefully Splatoon's success is a good start.

Undertale

You may or may not be screaming in your head “Undertaleohgodwhypleasenomore”, but fear not! This shall not be me going on a ramble about the amazingness of this game. I want to talk about something seldom mentioned, the actual gameplay. More specifically, the bullet hell like mechanics you use to dodge attacks.

Genre mashing is something I wish we saw more of. I have my issues with how the word “genre” is used, but overall it's a handy sorting tool in many circumstances, and a good jumping off point if you're unsure how to describe a game. Genre mashing is the process of taking 2 genres and things from them, like, say, a first person shooter and an RTS, and putting them together into one game. It's a risky move, but I still think it's a shame how segued and cut off the different types of games often are in the industry.

So Undertale is a great reminder how good this practice can turn out. It mashes together the menu and general feel of a standard RPG, while having you dodge attacks through a bullet hell minigame a la Touhou (It's not THAT crazy though). It really lends the game a different feel, as most of your skill involved comes from mastery of this minigame and not the RPG aspects. Those are mainly just a way to interact with the world and choose what to do. It's so simple and elegant, you wonder how nobody thought of this before.

So while Undertale is most certainly not the first game to mash genres, it's a good reminder in this often oversaturated market how there are still many, many untapped ideas and mechanics out there. I'm excited to see them.

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Ok, this game is very story heavy and I'm loath to spoil it. I'll be talking about the mechanics and the scenario, so if you consider those spoilers, stop here. No plot beyond that, however.

So VLR (How I'll be abbreviating Virtue's Last Reward) does one thing for mechanics that is truly unique. It takes an age old psychological problem and turns it into a gameplay mechanic. And it is brilliant.

So said problem is the Prisoner's Dilemma. For the uninitiated it goes such: 2 prisoners are brought in on a minor crime, and the police think they did a large one. So they separate the 2 and give them 2 options: rat the other out or stay silent. If they both stay silent, they each get 1 year in jail. If one rats but the other stays silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent one gets 4 years. If they both rat the other out they each get 3 years. It's a system designed to logically designed to make both betray, as if there is even the slightest chance the other will betray you should too, or else you get screwed. In reality when mockups have been made it's not so cut and dry, with prior relationships and the implications of betrayal beyond the jailtime playing a large role. And VLR plays this beautifully.

The game runs off this. The 9 players are trapped in a facility and forced to play a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma. They each have a watch with a point value on it, and every “round” they have to play the Dilemma with another person, and choose ally or betray. If both ally, they each get 2 points. If both betray, no points are gained or lost. If one betrays and one allies, the betrayer gets 3 points and the victim loses 2. If your points hit 0, you die. The goal is to escape through the #9 door after your points hit 9. The catch is that the #9 door can only be opened once.

So VLR locks you in with 8 other people and forces you to choose: Ally, or Betray? It's not just a simple cooperation situation, as the stakes are constantly rising and nobody is quite sure what lies ahead. So if one person decides to be a lone wolf and choose betray, they could get out and screw everyone else over, ensuring their own safety. But if everyone thinks this and chooses betray, nobody gets anywhere.

But points aren't everything, no sir. VLR makes damn well sure you know what betrayal means outside of this point system. Characters will react appropriately if you're a cooperative saint or a betraying jerk. For example, if you try to game the system and get as many points as possible by betraying, the group will turn on you very quickly. If a character confides in you how much they trust you and you stab them in the back, your relationship fractures. It will affect the story and ending you get, big time.

And finally, this retooling of the Prisoner Dilemma works very well in tandem with the multiple endings and routes. You'll start to pick things up and notice character traits that apply in every route. You'll learn stuff that you can apply in the future, and predict how characters will vote and how they'll react to your vote. For a single example, Dio's a dick, big time (apparently Dio is a name that inspires such behavior in media), and you have to take that into account when voting against him.

This perfect blend of high stakes, a psychological question, characters, and the game mechanic of multiple routes makes an amazing experience. The voting in VLR is one of the tensest experiences in gaming simply because of all this. I have spent a full hour agonizing over my choice because there is never a right answer with all these factors at play. It's an assault on your morals and a test of your trust with these fictional characters, and heartbreaking decisions will surely lie ahead.

So, to recap that crazy ramble, this is just so unique because of how it retools an age old question, and how it interacts with the usual visual novel mechanic of multiple routes. But the sheer idea behind it is what impresses me the most. Would you have thought of a game relying on the prisoner's dilemma like this? Most likely not, and we need more ideas out of left field like it. It makes for more interesting games, stories, and experiences. And play the Zero Escape series if you haven't. It's literally one of the best stories in gaming.

So, I hope you enjoyed this small trek through the more inventive side of gaming. I certainly love checking the odd and different areas of it out, and I hope you give some of these games a try, they're all very much worth your time. Thank you for reading, and have a great day.