What’s up boys and girls, this is your GamerGirl Jessi. Welcome to Before You Play!
If you want to play a game but not sure if it’s worth playing or if you want to buy a game but you’re not sure if it’s worth your money or if you want to download it but you’re not sure if it’s worth your storage space, or if you would even like it at all. No worries, I am here for you. I will be discussing a game in separate categories from story to graphics and sound to controls, and fight system, etc.
At the end of this blog, you can therefore decide whether you want the game or not want the game. Simple. Let’s get started.
This is Before You Play Undertale.
Summary
So what is the game about? It is a role-playing game where you have the choice to kill everyone or not kill anyone. Your every decision in this game makes a difference. You play as the unnamed human who fell in the ruins and meets the monsters that lives in the ruins. Your goal is to leave the ruins but is it really going to be that easy?
The core mechanic of the game is to travel across the ruins to leave and get back to your world. But there’s a barrier. But there’s a king. But there are monsters. All the buts are obstacles that keep you from attaining your goal.
Genre
This is a role-playing story-rich adventure puzzle indie game with 2D pixel graphics that is only playable in singleplayer mode. It has a great soundtrack, which we can talk about later. This is a choices matter type of game, with I guess a little bit of cute and a little bit of dark -ish vibes if it were not pixels.
Story
Is it clear who you’re playing as and what your goal is? Absolutely! Like I said earlier, you will be playing as the human who falls into the ruins where monsters live. You will be given a chance to fight and kill monsters or flee and spare them after the battle. It may sound like your typical humans vs monsters story but this is actually more than, pixel graphics aside, this one lives up to its genre of ‘story rich’. What they probably forgot to add is the emotional, heartbreaking, heartwarming and comical relief part of this game! There won’t be any spoilers for this game, but take note of these keywords once you get to play it.
Characters
The characters in this game are well-written! My first impression of basically most of the characters is a positive one. For the "bad guys" that you are going to fight against, are not exactly bad guys as well. Your point of view of them will change as you get to see more of them on-screen. I can’t really discuss much without spoiling anything, but all I can say is that, while the story is really good, they also complimented them with adorable and lovable characters. Yes, even if they are skeletons or a fish or a robot. You’re gonna love them. Trust me.
Dialogue
There are no cursing or cussing, this is safe for kids. There are no loud voice overs, just you reading the text. The dialogue are not just empty words forced into the story, while reading them, if you read aloud too, you will feel it’s alive and perhaps you can even relate to it and laugh at the jokes. The different personalities of the characters are also really strong, like you can determine it and feel it from outside the screen regardless of the lack of voice acting. The sound effects and the art compensate for it.
Objective
We have already discussed this in story and summary. What about the side quests? Hmm, there isn’t really a tab for the quests, we just go with the flow of the story. If you are an achievement hunter or the type to replay a game again to check multiple endings or choice consequences, then take that as your side quest. We will discuss replayability later and as well as multiple endings.
Pacing
How is the pacing of the game? Not too slow, not too fast. By far one of the best games I’ve played that has pixel graphics. I played a total of 16.9 hours to play the Neutral Ending.
Ending
Now here we will discuss replayability and multiple endings. This game has a replay value of 10 out of 10 for sure. First reason, because it has multiple endings. Second reason, because of the epic soundtrack, trust me, you will have replayed the track more than the game. Third reason, you just love the characters.
SPOILER ALERT.
Please note from this point onwards, a little bit of spoiler is mentioned.
Now what are the different types of ending? There are 3 types of ending. Neutral Ending, Pacifist Ending and Genocide Ending. Neutral Ending that EVERYONE gets after their FIRST playthrough of the game. Neutral, so it means it’s not bad or good. Because they will explain to you that you have the power to shape the game’s NEXT ending after this.
I played a total of 16.9 hours to play the Neutral Ending, but if you speed run I think you can do faster than this. I just took my time to explore and do puzzles.
The Pacifist Ending is where you decide to NOT kill any of the characters in the game. You should have figured out by now that you can spare them but you have to figure out how to spare them.
The Genocide Ending is where you decide to basically massacre the characters you encounter.
SPOILER END
Controls
How is the control mapping? I haven’t checked if it’s customizable but by far I don’t think you will have issues with this since the controls is basically just like Gameboy’s A and B buttons with the arrow keys. I think that is pretty easy enough.
Tutorial
Is there a tutorial? Yes. As long as you read the text well and try to understand it, you will not have any problems with it. I fast-read it on my own playthrough and I missed the part where we learn to spare monsters, that if their name turns yellow, now you can spare them. If it doesn’t, sparing will not work. Just make sure to read well so you don’t miss out on the important details.
The tutorial is part of the game, not a separate scene or a readable part of the menu.
Atmosphere & Immersion
Environment
The human travels from place to place to find a way out of the ruins and face King Asgore who is said to be the only one who can open the barrier for the human to leave. So there are new places for us to explore on our travel. From a forest-vibe to hot and lava vibe to snow and ice vibe and spaceship techno vibe. The best part about this is that there is an awesome track matching each location. Yes, there are so many tracks that you will learn to love from this game.
I am personally not a fan of pixel graphics so I don’t want to say anything other than this is artistically a job well done art. There are not really much elements you can interact that results to anything other than a dialogue from the main protagonist. The interaction helps us learn more about the location, the NPC’s or probably the lore of the game. I did not delve much into it but I read them.
Map
The route is simple. It is not an open world kind of location. You can find the next venue without a problem. There are blocked or dead end pathways that will give you items and puzzled doorways. Not everything is easy to open, I think I only opened one of the puzzled doors.
HP
You can earn HP points by eating food items that you earned from the store or picked up within the map. Your maximum HP can increase every time you level up. You level up by killing.
Weapon & Items
There are available weapons, armor and items within the game, there are stats on each item but personally I did not care much about it. There really is no grinding in this game, but the stats help you raise your defenses and your attack. But other than that, it did not feel very much like a part of the game that I will pay much focus on. Although, it may be a bit relevant when you choose endings to take.
Checkpoint
There are star-shaped figures throughout the map of the game and it is accessible for you to go back to anytime. You can save your progress whenever you go to one of these save points.
Difficulty
The game is not very difficult and not very easy at the same time. The puzzles are not so hard to figure out except the mysterious doors and quote unquote meant-to-be hard puzzles to challenge you.
How is the fight system? They have a unique fight system. For pixel graphics, it is common for us to see tactical style of battle like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy or maybe the chances style like the Pokemon franchise. But this one is different. You are a little heart that has to dodge obstacles coming your way. It is kind of hard to explain, but I hope that made sense.
This is a “taking turns” kind of system. If it is your turn, you can choose to fight, interact with the monster, use an item or attempt to spare or flee. Whatever choice you choose it will count as one turn and then afterwards, the monster will take it’s turn and perform their own attack unless their personality is not made to attack. Just like Pokemon, they sometimes just sleep or flirt, again, depending on their personality. What is interesting about this is that, you get to learn about them and you have to figure out how to spare them – IF you plan to spare them.
How about the difficulty in boss fights? This part is really difficult for me. Every time I face off with the boss, this is the only time I experience dying in the game. Because they literally blow all sorts of obstacles at you which is somehow impossible to dodge and if you are a person who is short-tempered, you might wanna buy a back-up keyboard to rage on.
Price
No, this is not for free. It is currently at $9.99 in Steam. I bought it for a cheaper price at some point in one of their sales. If you want to buy the game PLUS the soundtrack bundle, it is a total of $17.99. What was that? The soundtrack is too expensive? Oh my friend, it seems that you don’t know much about the beauty of music. The Undertale soundtrack set IS. EPIC. AND. LIT. If you listen to it without playing the game, it may or may not catch your attention but if YOU PLAYED THE GAME, I guarantee that you will fall in love with it.
If sale hits again, you might want to buy it. Or if you can’t wait, I am pretty sure it is worth its price. IF you are into pixel games like this.
Graphics
2D pixels as you can see. Need I say more?
Sound
I will just replay what I previously said about this. The Undertale soundtrack set IS. EPIC. AND. LIT. If you listen to it without playing the game, it may or may not catch your attention but if YOU PLAYED THE GAME, I guarantee that you will fall in love with it.
Platform
According to my research, it is playable in Windows, Mac OS, Linux, PS4, PS Vita and Nintendo Switch.
Gameplay Preview
Is Undyne's Death Not Enough? - Undertale Episode 3/4
You really are... an IDIOT - Undertale Episode 4/4
Overall Thoughts
I love the game. I never realized that I would Overall Thoughts
I love the game. I never realized that I would end up loving a pixel game that is not Pokemon. This game is story-RICH and no doubt about it. The characters all have their charms, their own spotlight of when you are going to learn and love them. So if you guys want to play this game, make sure to add it in your wishlist and purchase it when sale hits! Or you can buy it on its original price. It’s worth the penny.
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For similar games that you may want to discover, check these out and see if you would love them as well.
See video version below.
I love how there is a video version of this