NOTE! This is an honest spoiler free review, I will be making comments on the quality of the game’s story and characters but will not explicitly say anything that could be considered a spoiler. (also at the time of writing this review I have not played Deltarune (this is because they are separate in terms of the setting so it is not necessary)).

NOTE 2! I am not a game reviewer and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I am not qualified for that role whatsoever. Think of me as a guy who played the game for 23.5 hours and is now simply telling you what I thought about it.

Undertale is a great single player story game with amazing story lines, fun gameplay, and in depth lore. It keeps you interested with a great story and unique combat mechanics. Although it can be a not so fun game at times, the amount of fun and enjoyment of both the story and gameplay outweighs the negative. In this review I will be going over the game’s pro’s and con’s, and what it could improve on.

First there is the story, Undertale’s story is probably the biggest reason I have played through the game more than once, and will continue to play many times in the future. With a total of 93 possible endings to the story I will be coming back many times to do something different to see what changes. The characters are phenomenal, with most of them being very memorable and having unique personalities. My biggest problem is that for most of the characters you don’t really have a route you can go on that causes you to hate them, depending on your choices they treat you differently but you never get a reason to not like them. And I think that is a waste because it would be really cool if we became best friends with a character in one playthrough but then in the next it would be painful to be around them. Missed opportunity but not that big of a deal. There are also a couple of interactions or “dates” that you can go on with many of the characters, these are always very funny to read through even though they do not do anything much in terms of gameplay. Although they do not really need to do much for gameplay, it is nice that the story feels separate from the core gameplay mechanics, they blend at times but they have a perfect separation.

A major problem I do have with the story is the lack of wider usage of a specific character, who is hyped up for a large portion of the second half of the game, and after that hype we get an amazing boss fight witch in my opinion is the best in the game, but after that fight we get practically nothing. The character's friend takes all the attention and it feels like we are being told to forget about them for the rest of the playthrough (unless you know where to look) but it is sad to see my favorite character unappreciated and made to feel useless in most all outcomes of the game.

Now let’s move on to the gameplay, one of the most unique combat systems I have ever seen. The system works with your heart or “soul” in a box (this box will change sizes depending on what attack you are up against) and you must move your soul around to dodge the attacks. That is the simplest way I can think of to explain it to you. (If you can do it better leave a comment) But this combat system is very mechanically skill based, with there being a way to dodge even the most seemingly unbeatable attacks. It is all about trying new things until you figure out what to do to dodge it. Learning these strategies is also very fun and rewarding, it is fun to not hit every attack for a boss that took you 10 attempts on your first playthrough. I had that experience with a few bosses on my second playthrough.

The learning curve for your first time fighting bosses can be severe however. With most of the boss fights having a special trick you need to perform in order to progress, the only way I managed to learn these tricks when I did was because I got a tip from a friend. But I know many people will not feel comfortable asking for help which is fine but note that you will probably struggle for a bit, for one boss I threw myself at it for 10 attempts and got nowhere, the only reason I am not still fighting it is because I got a small tip from a friend. To this day I wonder how long it would have taken before I figured it out, I have no idea how people figured it out on their own as quickly as they say they did. Yes it is a challenging game on your first playthrough but after that it gets very fun, you feel more like the protagonist than a throw your head against the wall toddler in the first playthrough.

Now we get into my biggest problem with the game: The world itself

This might seem dumb but I don’t really care. The world that the protagonist falls into is called the Underground (not a spoiler it is established almost immediately) The underground is practically a mini civilization but underground. They have a functional economy, district system, and law enforcement. But the map we are able to explore quickly feels linear if you know it well enough (especially in the second section of the game) the world just does not feel like a working civilization. It does work surprisingly well for the story system the game has. But I want to know how the monsters adapted to the underground world. And the map we can explore doesn't give us this at all.

WOW!! Almost forgot about the OST? Ok I am dumb. All you need to know is that it is just as good as everyone says it is.

And finally, press esc to quit the game and fn+f4 to go to full screen (control+command=f on mac)

Thank you for reading if you read all of that. Mostly just a big rant but I hope you enjoyed it or thought it was helpful. Feel free to leave a comment if you think I missed something important, or to prove one of my points wrong. Ether way, thank you!