The Lion's Den - undertale

A Brief Review of Undertale

By Joshua Alexander Breneiser, Staff Writer

September 12th, 2023

Undertale is one of the most influential and complex indie RPGs (role-playing games) of recent years, but does it still hold up 8 years after its initial release?

Undertale was created by Toby Fox on September 15th, 2015, and became a huge success, selling over one million copies and earning awards and nominations. It tells the story of a child named Frisk who falls into a mountain and faces many monsters, both friendly and aggressive. The player has to control Frisk and interact with these monsters in order to escape the underground and make it back home to the surface. While the game has received praise ever since its release years ago, it’s nice to analyze the many different parts of Undertale to see whether or not it still holds up in the modern age and what made it successful. Every game has its own strengths and weaknesses, and with a successful game like Undertale, there are no exceptions.

One of the many positives of Undertale is how it allows the player to control the story however they want. Each interaction and monster that you kill in the game causes a massive impact on both the overall story and the ending. For example, killing every monster gives you the genocide route where you become a remorseless murderer, while sparing every monster gives you the pacifist route, where the monsters all leave the underground together to finally live life on the surface. This helps the reader get more invested in the gameplay. Another part of the game that makes it special is the amount of places and secrets that the player can explore to learn more about the story or interact with their favorite characters more.

One of the most popular aspects of the game is the soundtrack, which was composed by the creator of the game, Toby Fox. The music portrays each part of the game beautifully and fits the mood well with some of the most popular pieces including “Megalovania,” “Death By “Glamour,” and “Spider Dance.” The characters also have their own songs, with each of them going along nicely with their unique designs. The characters also have very complex stories along with lovable personalities, making the game more enjoyable and allowing the player to be more attached to them through interactions.

Even though many good things can be said about Undertale, some negative aspects of the game can be noted as well. First of all, most of the game involves walking and dialogue, and for some players, that can be boring or make the experience less entertaining. Even though there are fights that occur as the player walks around the underground, they happen very frequently and could be more of an annoyance than anything else. However, these are common occurrences when it comes to the RPG genre of games, so whether they are negative or positive heavily depends on the player and if they personally enjoy it. Secondly, the game relies heavily on its dialogue and story, and if the player doesn’t care about either, then playing through everything would not be as enjoyable since that’s one of the game’s biggest strong suits.

The biggest negative about the game that I’ve experienced is how confusing or tedious the game’s ending routes can be. Neutral route is the easiest route to get through since you just have to play normally and you can kill and spare whoever you want, however, pacifist and genocide are more complex. In the pacifist route, you can’t kill a single monster, and finding a way to spare some of the monsters and bosses can be confusing since it involves doing the correct actions. The biggest example of this is Toriel, the tutorial boss, where you have to press the “Spare” button a multiple amount of times until she gives up. However, there is no hint of this being the solution and most players would give up after trying the option once or twice. The genocide route is the most tedious since you have to kill every single monster, which can take a large amount of time since some are either very difficult or lengthy to find.

Overall, Undertale is a creative and well-crafted game from the story to the gameplay. Even though there are a few aspects that the game can improve on, the positives mostly outweigh the negatives. However, that completely depends on each player and their own specific tastes. In order to review this game effectively, I’ll give a number rating to the game from 0-10, 0 being the worst and 10 being the best. Out of 10, this game heavily deserves a 9 for its unique story and wonderful cast that makes the game truly special.