This Week In Retro: UNDERTALE (Patreon)

September 15, 2015: Despite Everything, It's Still You

by Diamond Feit

Dear readers, this is a safe space: Can we admit that the medium of video games has an inherent violence problem? Save for a few early sports sims, from the moment people started making games they have asked players to destroy, explode, or kill something on the screen. Many somethings, even, possibly an infinite number. I'm not suggesting this makes people violent as that is a silly and demonstrably false statement, but we've all thought about the basic brutality of our favorite pastime, right?

Right?

When we talk about video game violence we probably think of shooters first and foremost on account of all the guns and grenades and rockets and chainsaws. Maybe fighting games come to mind since they only exist to lock two human-shaped combatants into an arena until one winner emerges or they both lose via double K.O. Either way, players cannot hope to end a bout of Street Fighter or Tekken by amicably agreeing to stop punching each other and talk it out.

Yet in my mind, role-playing games represent the ultimate example of this issue. The name of the genre sounds so innocent, as if you take control of a thespian playing some small part in a land of make believe. In reality, RPGs equate body count with character growth so you spend anywhere from 30 to 200 hours killing anything that moves in order to get strong enough to kill the real evil lurking inside a hidden dungeon or sinister castle.

Back in 1997, so-called "anti-RPG" Moon commented directly on this phenomenon by having the player start off controlling a prototypical RPG hero only to reassign them as a helpless citizen of said RPG's world. When you're not the guy who slays every creature he meets, takes whatever he wants from people's homes, and generally lives his life like he's the only one who matters, the hero suddenly looks a lot less benevolent.

Moon spent more than two decades as a Japanese-only PlayStation game before a long-overdue 2020 re-release on Steam and consoles finally added an English language localization. Despite this obscurity or possibly in part due to its unusual nature, Moon managed to directly inform and inspire one of the most popular and beloved indie games on the planet, one that celebrates its own 10th anniversary this week. Indeed, even if you know nothing about Moon, I bet you've heard of UNDERTALE.

Like a fairy tale, UNDERTALE opens with talk of the distant past, back when humans and monsters "ruled over Earth." Their era of cooperation came to an end when "war broke out between the two races." The introduction doesn't tell us who drew first blood, but apparently the humans ended up on top. Humanity then turned that idiom into reality by sealing the surviving monsters underground.

An unspecified number of years later—the screen says it's 201X—we see a small child hiking on Mt. Ebott. The child wanders into a cave and discovers a gaping chasm with no visible bottom. Approaching the edge to take a closer look, they trip on a vine and fall into the abyss, landing safely in the Ruins of the monsters' realm deep beneath the Earth's crust. This leads to a dramatic title drop, inviting players to press start and learn firsthand about their fate.

Despite informing us up front that monsters expelled from the surface live in these depths, the first being players meet in UNDERTALE is a happy flower named Flowey. Flowey can tell right away that this kid has no idea what's going on and volunteers to explain the situation: In this place a human Soul can grow strong "if you gain a lot of [Love]." Flowey even volunteers to share some love via "friendliness pellets."

Whether or not the player accepts this dubious gift Flowey will drop the veil immediately and declare "in this world, it's kill or BE killed." The less-than-adorable vegetation tries to do just that before a stranger slides into view and makes the save. This larger, goat-like being introduces herself as Toriel and says she works as the caretaker of the Ruins. She tells us that she regularly patrols these parts "to see if anyone has fallen down," letting us know that this child is not the first to accidentally tumble into monster territory.

Toriel escorts the kid past various puzzles—often holding them by the hand—and welcomes them into her abode. With a crackling fireplace, a pie cooling in the kitchen, and a fully-furnished child's bedroom waiting inside, it's a near-idyllic setting given the circumstances. There's just one catch: If other children fell into the Ruins and stayed with Toriel, where are they now? She's reluctant to say, and asking about a way home will prompt her to insist that "this IS your home now."

Throughout this stretch of time spent in the Ruins, players get plenty of opportunities to learn how combat functions in UNDERTALE. Flowey tries to take advantage of a child's naïveté but ultimately he does explain the fundamentals. When battle starts, the player assumes control of the child's Soul as represented by a classic red heart icon. Players can move the heart inside a clearly defined battlezone, avoiding any enemy intrusions else they take damage. Taking too many hits results in heartbreak and a Game Over.

In keeping with RPG traditions, the player gets to take their turn at bat after a monster attacks. UNDERTALE offers four options by default: Fight, Act, Item, and Mercy. Should players wish to fight back, they can choose Fight and trigger a timed button-pressing minigame to deal damage. Item opens their inventory so they might restore health mid-battle.

Act and Mercy are where UNDERTALE veers away from tradition. Pressing Act opens a second menu with a variety of new, non-combat possibilities. Typically the first choice, Check, lets you observe a monster and learn something about it. The rest can be almost anything tied to whatever specific monster stands on the screen at the moment. Talk to them, tell a joke, threaten them, or try to steal their hat; the best tactics regarding each creature will differ.

Once the player finds the right combination of actions, they can select Mercy and let the monster run away. This counts as a victory and the player usually gets a reward in the form of gold. Mercy also includes an option to flee from the encounter but that nets no bonuses at all. The only way to gain XP and strengthen your character is by means of violence but through proper use of Act and Mercy, players can make their way to the very end of the game without harming anyone.

Many games around this time sold themselves with the words "your choices matter" but only by way of periodic coinflips like "kill or save these defenseless little girls" or "do you wanna play good cop or bad cop." Even a stellar example like The Walking Dead still funnels every player onto a set path that puts them in the same place at the same time regardless of their in-game actions.

Yet UNDERTALE changes dramatically depending on how players decide to approach its ruleset. The bold outlines never change—the child takes the same route and sees the same faces whether they shed blood or not—but the monsters notice the player's behavior and treat them accordingly. UNDERTALE likewise has multiple endings, including diametrically opposing outcomes depending on whether the player spares every foe they face or makes it their business to exterminate all the monsters. UNDERTALE even keeps track of past performance should the player start a new game and this too can affect the finale.

I can hear myself straying too far into marketing speak so let's take a step back: I love UNDERTALE not for its features or its internal flowcharts but for its characters and emotional content. From second one, every single monster you meet in this video game feels like they could star in their own animated series. I challenge you to show me a more iconic anthropomorphic flower than Flowey with his emotive array of facial expressions.

Another point in UNDERTALE's favor is the sense of self-awareness that permeates the entire affair. As a fan of meta-textual works I always appreciate when a piece of media knows it's fictional and uses that knowledge not to wink at the audience but to defy their expectations. Take that encounter with Flowey mentioned above: If the player avoids his "friendliness pellets" it will annoy him but he'll keep at it. Should you defy him enough times he will stop and—as if addressing the player directly—say "You know what's going on here, don't you?"

Thanks to the Act option in combat, even the grunts you only face in battle have more personality than some video game protagonists. My favorite example is Tsunderplane, a mostly-realistic jet airliner wearing a hat and ribbons on its "head." Named as a portmanteau of tsundere & airplane, Tsunderplane launches bombs and representations of itself towards the player's Soul. Should you Approach Tsunderplane and get close to these attacks—but not too close—it will visibly blush because you showed it affection while simultaneously respecting its personal space.

If the small frys you push past when playing UNDERTALE have staying power, the bosses resonate five times harder in the hearts of the audience. Just like regular foes, you can Spare them instead of killing them which leads them to realize you're not their enemy after all. This opens the door to later, friendlier meetups, casual hangouts, phone calls, and even dating. Look up UNDERTALE merchandise online and the odds are high that the artwork will feature the child and any number of the game's bosses having fun together rather than at each other's throats.

Adding to this air of uniqueness and endearment are the distinct musical themes associated with every UNDERTALE boss which will burn their way into your brain and never leave. These songs escaped containment within months of release and you can hear them in the background of countless YouTube videos today; my personal favorite is a mash-up of "Megalovania" and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable (warning: spoilers!). Frankly, the entire soundtrack overflows with bangers; I can recall playing the game for the very first time in 2015 and instantly regretting that I did not purchase a bundle that included all the tunes.

UNDERTALE arrived ten years ago with a significant cult following already in tow. The project began life as a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 which included a playable demo; backers turned up by the thousands and pledged more than 10 times the initial fundraising goal. An estimated release date of 2014 came and went but this only increased the anticipation for the full game when it dropped on the 15th of September.

UNDERTALE launched during Tokyo Game Show week that year so I was understandably busy but Twitter users responded with nothing less than hyperbolic praise, catching my attention. I thought I would come home ready to tinker with Super Mario Maker but my curiosity demanded I find out why an indie game had people gushing with enthusiasm online. As mentioned above, it only took a single playsession to convince me that the wisdom of crowds got this one right.

Critics at large also approved and awarded UNDERTALE an impressive 92 on Metacritic where it tied Bloodborne as the second-best-reviewed game of 2015. UNDERTALE also made the rounds on many Game of the Year lists including over at Wired Game|Life where I wrote "credit the writing, the art, or the phenomenal music, but I’ve never seen a more lovable cast of characters in a game like this before." I also placed UNDERTALE at the top of my personal Game of the Year list which I don't think affected its Metacritic ranking but it certainly didn't hurt.

Yet that's still not a fair assessment of UNDERTALE's impact on video game audiences. In November 2015, GameFAQs held a special tournament-style user poll for the site's 20th anniversary to determine the Best Game Ever; Final Fantasy VII and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had won previous such polls and remained heavy favorites. That UNDERTALE even competed in the tournament shows how quickly it won over the masses, not just Kickstarter backers.

In the first round, UNDERTALE competed against Mass Effect 3 and defied the odds by edging out the epic space RPG. Subsequent rounds pit UNDERTALE against gaming mainstays like Fallout 3, Super Mario 64, and even Super Smash Bros. Melee but it kept winning. In the end it took down past champ Ocarina of Time, an outcome predicted by fewer than 1% of users at the start of the tournament.

I know that Metacritic and online polls are highly subjective metrics masquerading as hard data, but I cite them to offer evidence that UNDERTALE truly shocked the gaming world a decade ago. Many Game of the Year lists later, it continues to impress old and new fans alike. Just six months ago UNDERTALE actually had its highest-ever recorded number of simultaneous players on Steam with 11,071—a figure which excludes users on the many other platforms where UNDERTALE can be enjoyed.

Playing UNDERTALE again for this column and reflecting on all the time I've had to sit with it, I still consider it a one-of-a-kind experience. Creator Toby Fox has spoken openly about his influences in writing and directing the game, and we'll never have the means to count however many developers took inspiration from UNDERTALE in their own work. I don't know that we'll see an original title unrelated to any existing franchise achieve these kinds of results again, but I'm convinced that the ongoing success of UNDERTALE proves that the audience for non-violent games endures.

Earlier this year my daughter took a break from her Splatoon habit and asked me if she could play UNDERTALE; I installed a copy on my PlayStation 5 and handed her the controller. She cleared the game twice over and only stopped in her third playthrough once the difficulty and the demands of her schoolwork combined to overwhelm her. If a decade-old narrative-driven pixel-art RPG can steal a teenager away from the technicolor overstimulus of a squad-based online shooter, that's a win worth celebrating. 

Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but xer work and opinions exist across the internet.