This post will contain spoilers for Undertale.
After the urging of many of my friends, I played Undertale. It’s not my usual type of game and I didn’t enjoy it very much at first. In my opinion it had quite a slow start and I had trouble getting into it. With a lot of encouragement however, I finally got through it.
It looks and seems like a very simple game at first. To me, it was very reminiscent of Pokemon Blue version. You can only walk around very slowly and run into monsters every once in a while. The thing is, I was told not to fight anything, both by the game and by my friends. It was all about trying to find ways around fighting. At first that got quite annoying, but once I figured out how to avoid fighting certain monsters I could get away from them faster.
There were also a lot of puzzles to figure out, including ice puzzles that once again reminded me of Pokemon. I didn’t particularly enjoy the game mechanics.
What really made the game for me, was the characters. There really are some great ones, and I understand now why I see so much fanart and cosplay of characters from it. I really can’t choose a favorite.
While the game mechanics are not what I’m used to or what I enjoy, the story and the characters were great once I got into it. The graphics weren’t what I’m used to either, very pixelated, but they were charming. The soundtrack was amazing too. I would recommend this game, but be warned that there are specific ways to do things that make it a lot easier. You can’t know though unless you look things up or have already played once.
One of my other favorite things about the game is it knows what you’ve done before. References might be made to having fought or been killed by a character before. It really makes you think about choices you make. It can get really tricky too. There are times where it makes you think the game crashed or it will close on its own! The first time it happened I had just completed a difficult battle, and was really upset. Then I opened it back up, ready to go through it again, only to find that it was supposed to happen!
Like I mentioned, I played without killing anything. This is called the Pacifist route. There were times though that just got so frustrating I was ready to give up. What I ended up doing was giving it a try 3-5 times, then taking a break and trying again at least a couple of hours later. I finally made it through every time.
There’s also the Genocide route, in which you kill everything. I considered doing one, but I just couldn’t. I’m too attached to the characters.
Despite the slow start, stay determined and get through it for great characters and an interesting story!