You’ve played RPGs before haven’t you? Have you ever been fighting a boss, only to realize it’s a “supposed to lose” fight? Y’know, one of those fights only there to emphasize how strong the opponent is and how hopeless your efforts are, and how much you have to grow to defeat him. Or, have you ever defeated a boss, only to have him stand up like nothing happened and declare “YOU’RE STRONGER THAN I THOUGHT, UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN, HERO!” then proceed to fly off into the distance? What if when you kill a boss, they actually stay dead? What would it look like if your choices actually mattered? That is one of the many questions Undertale seeks to answer.

If you’ve looked up other Undertale reviews, you may have noticed almost all of them have a common theme. They all say “Now, before you read/watch on, go play Undertale first.” That’s strange, isn’t it? You’re trying to find out from reviews whether you want to buy the game or not, and all of them say “stop reading this and play the game!” before telling you anything. So, before I go on, I’ll follow suit, as per tradition. If you haven’t played Undertale, you should play it first before reading any further. If you find out too much about it, more than any other game, you’ll miss out on some of the experience. In fact, just by reading that last statement, you’ve actually spoiled part of it for yourself because now you know that knowing things about the game can ruin part of the experience. JUST STOP BEFORE IT’S TOOOO LAAAAAAAAAATEEEEEE!!!!

Okay, now the people reading this should consist of those who have already played the game, and the people who operate under “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO” philosophy. Excellent. Regardless, I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as I can. Anyway, Undertale.

Undertale is one of those games that takes your expectations and throws them out the window. Then, when new expectations form, it throws those expectations out the window too. Then it attaches your expectations to a rocket and launches the rocket all the way to the moon where your expectations throw a party in the moon village known as “Wtf Just Happened Town.” The first part of this paragraph took a really unexpected twist, didn’t it? Well that twist is still tame compared to some of Undertale’s twists.

But Undertale doesn’t just have shock value. It’s also clever. There are little things all over Undertale that make you point at the screen, smirk, and say “Ooo I see what you did there Undertale!” For example, if you ask the shopkeep in one of the areas to let you sell things to her, she’ll scoff and tell you she’d go out of business if she bought random crap. Two of the characters are skeletons, and they’re named after fonts. Yep, you guessed it, all their dialogue text is in that font. Some of the monsters you come across during the game are dogs. The first weapon you have is a stick, and if you throw it to one of them, he’ll surrender.

There are many many little easter eggs like those in Undertale. They’re practically hidden around every corner. There’s even a character that you can only find out more about by digging into the game’s code/files. Not even joking.

But enough about the story, what about the gameplay? This is a game, is it not?

Fights in Undertale, like many other RPGs, are turn based. On your turn, you’re presented with a menu of four buttons, labeled “FIGHT,” “ACT,” “ITEM,” AND “MERCY.” FIGHT is for attacking, obviously. The ACT menu options change based on who you’re fighting. At various times, you’ll have the option to flirt, do a magic trick, hum, etc etc. Using this menu, you can get your enemies not want to fight you anymore and allow you to spare them. It’s like a mini-game. ITEM and MERCY are self explanatory.

On their turn, your “SOUL,” the heart that represents you in combat, is put into a small box where you need to dodge attacks monsters hurl at you. The attacks vary based on the personality of the monster. Some throw bones at you, some utilize axes, and some flex at you really hard (no really). As per usual, you can upgrade your stats like health and attack by killing monsters for exp.

Did I mention the soundtrack? Let’s just mention that real quick. The soundtrack is awesome. Alright, mention done.

This game is so many things. It’s an adventure, it’s a horror game, it’s a thriller, it’s a comedy, it’s an action game, it’s a dating sim, and many other things.

At this point, I’m just rambling like a drunkard talking about how good the beer he just drank is. So, go play Undertale, guy. Here’s the website: http://undertale.net/

Oh whoops no don’t click that, this is the real website: http://undertale.com/

I promise, you won’t be disappointed.