UNDERTALE
* Ahhh UNDERTALE, where on earth do I even begin with this behemoth of a story?
* Whether you love it or not, you cannot deny the impact and chokehold this game and it’s successor have on the internet as a whole.
* If you’ve been online since the 2010s, chances are, you probably know what UNDERTALE is. If you don’t, then... I dunno just.. play the game or watch a playthrough or don’t im not your parent
* Soooo, to celebrate the game’s 10 year anniversary, and my birthdayyy*. I figured it’s time to revisit the place I once called home...
* or well... convince my creator to finally play the game for the first time...
* -V
(Artist’s note: Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any game screenshots to accompany the page, instead artistic representations will have to do.)
This is not going to be a beat for beat retelling of the story, but might feature some spoilers and obscure for the game. This also contain some information that originates from the 10th anniversary Fangamer streams so do watch or play them if you can.
Although I already seen a ton of videos about it (the most prominent one being the newscapepros series on it), I’ve been meaning to experience the game on my own, so when a friend of mine gifted the game, I knew I had the chance to play it..
which I immediately put off untill september, because I felt like it’d be fitting to play it on the release month and not because I... procrastinated uh...
If you didn’t know already, UNDERTALE is an RPG there you don’t have to fight anyone! It’s created by Toby Fox (with addtional art by Temmie Chang), and was released in the 15th of September.
It’s known for it’s witty humor, introspectiveness, unique fighting mechanics, and charming cast of characters! Not to mention it’s use of fourth-wall breaking.
So after about 10 years of it being released, here are my thoughts after playing it for the first time, along with a couple of anecdotes about Vera.
The Game
UNDERTALE was an absolute delight to play, I adored everything about it and wish that I had played the game sooner.
It truly shows what someone with enough time, passion, audacity, and a boat load of if() statements could do.
I love the character interactions, both with each other and the player character. It gives them so much life and breath even when they’re off screen. Very appropriate for a game that’s about knowing the monsters you meet and the choices you make throughout.
And because of the nature of the game, I decided to only go through The (Mandatory) Neutral run and The True Pacifist run for my first playthrough*
I haven’t played many bullet hell games, so a lot of the fights were pretty tough, though surpisingly I got far enough that my first death was with Dogamy and Dogaressa, and the rest were around the CORE area. A Yippee for me!
If you are wondering, The toughest fights I had were with Mettaton EX and ASRIEL DREEMURR
In addition to only doing a pacifist run, I also had two self imposed challenges. A major one, which was finding all of the items of the Six fallen children (plus Chara), and one minor one, which was taking the snowman piece up to the surface.
I’ve manage to complete the first one... kinda... I was only capable of finding all of the defensive items. The offensive items I’ve manage to keep were the Stick (Doesn’t count), Tough Glove, Torn Notebook, and the Ballet shoes.
There were various reasons for why I didn’t get the other ones, but hey! Atleast I managed to bring the snowman piece to the surface.
So what are my favorite things from the game?
Character
I love the main characters equally, but one character I found myself enjoying, and admittedly relating to a bit, was Dr. Alphys, The adorkable nervous wreck, wrecked with tremendous amounts of guilt.
You would expect from someone who had a skeleton “Fan character”, and an entire A3 paper filled with skeleton puns to have their favorite character be Sans and uh..... you’d technically be right but I’ll explain that later.
Her genuine enthusiasm for things, her resourcefulness, her willingness to help those around her, even if it can come of as clingy, but also her embarassment infront of others, her lies and avoidance, her anxiousness, It all feels so palpably human.
Maybe it’s my fondess for Bunny-ear lawyers, or absolute dorks or characters having to live with a fucked up secret or maybe a combination of the three. Whichever it was, i found her bits of dialogue/messages to be absolutely delightful, even if it can get quite annoying*.
Music
Similarly to the main characters, I couldn’t decide between the songs the OST is just that good to the point where I could listen to them regularly in my free time. The way that the songs are interwoven with each other through leitmotifs while managing to fit in it’s context is nothing short of remarkable.
But one song in particular that stuck out to me was It's raining somewhere else .
It’s calming and somewhat melancholic. Even though the melody is often use when the lazybones is being his lazybones self, the use of it here gives the song and him so much more depth, showing that he's much more than what we see on the surface. Appropriate for the conversation you have with Sans at the resort. It's a nostalgic track for me
Location
My favorite area of the game would have to be between Waterfall and Snowdin
Waterfall has a beautiful and calming atmosphere; the way the water, echoflowers, and mushrooms appear to glow in contrast of the dark surroundings, the instruments in the soundtrack echoing in the distance, No wonder why younger me wanted Vera to live there*
I also appreciate the Waterfall for it’s additional bits of worldbuilding it provides to us in the form of signage, echoflowers, and Gerson’s dialogue.
The art (both official and fan made) capture the place so well. I naturally I plan to recreate this in this page
A fun fact, I have found the renowned abandoned quiche... which I dropped and eaten way too early...
I had big plans for that quiche, I wanted to save that for one of the big battles...
Snowdin, meanwhile, Is very quaint and warm, ironic for how cold it was. I used to be obsessed with the snowy taiga biome in Minecraft for a while and wanted to build stuff there and I believe the Snowdin Forest might have contributed to that
The village is fluffing adorable, the NPCs there are charming and make the place really feel like a community through their bits of dialogue and locations like the Librarby and Grillby’s, the latter of which may have kickstarted my interest for Bars and bartenders*.
I appreciate how Toby expanded the areas for the 10th anniversary stream, Sometimes you forget how big the underground truly is due to how small and linear the game is.
Additionally, Gearson’s epilogue dialogue about the Human-Monster war is VERY unexpected, and mournful to say the least. We’ve mostly seen the monster’s side of the war, but knowing that said sides aren’t as clear as we believe them to be and that there were relationships of all kinds between them that were destroyed in the heat of battle.
Speaking of exclusive/secret things that add to the game’s lore/worldbuilding:
Secrets and Easter eggs
I unfortunately didn’t randomly encounter anything that would be considered as either! If you don’t count temmie’s egg
I’m not sure if it was because I was unlucky with my FUN value, or encounter, either way it was dissapointing as someone who OBSESSED over W.D. Gaster secrets during its Hayday in 2016.
But I knew that the chances of seeing at least one of the goners are very low, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise. Still a bummer nonetheless.
Speaking of... them, There was moment in time where Vera was written to be a sort of experiment/adoptive child of The Doctor, similar to the majority of Fanon’s interpretation of the Sans and Papyrus’s familial relation to him. I honestly still find that idea interesting and wish to continue implementing that in someway, but so far all I’ve managed is to give her a familiar sounding middle name,
Anyway, I digress.
Another fun fact about my time in the Waterfall: Although I knew that there was the Obligatory-Secret-Under-The-Fountaintm where you can get the tutu, I spent an unecessary amount of time looking for a secret room behind one of the other waterfalls because my wires got crossed with content from an UNDERTALE fan game... So yeah, probably should remember to destinguish canon from fanon.
Conclusion
To finish off this page I’d like to talk about the message of the game
UNDERTALE serves as a lesson in understanding others, it reminds that when even if they are different than us, no matter how eccentric, intimidating, emotional, or closed off they are, they are still people in the end.
It gives so much importance to DETERMINATION, HOPE, and DREAMS, which, especially in this day and age, we really need to have right now.
Even if everything in the world right now is soul crushing and exhausting 24/7, it’s important to surround yourself with good things, the people you care about, and remember despite everything beating you down for being different,
You’re still you...
I absolutely adore the game to it’s very CORE, and if you can, you SHOULD play it at least once. Especially if you are planning to play deltarune at a laterdate.
Now, this would be the part where I talk about my time in the community, but I fear I have to seperate it into a different page to keep this page brief.
Till a new one sprouts folks!