Undertale came out of nowhere and turned RPGs upside-down with its deft mix of emotions, dogs, emotions and more dogs. It’s become one of the biggest games on Steam.
Undertale currently has nearly 30,000 Steam reviews, a whopping 97 per cent of which are positive. As I discussed in my own review, this is a game that lodged itself in people’s hearts and minds, planted a seed of something sweet — or perhaps something sinister. Many of its Steam reviews feel like they were written in the heat of the moment, right after people finished the game. They seem almost overwhelmed by their feelings. Corny as that might sound, it’s cool to get a snapshot of somebody’s thoughts after they have experienced something that affected them so much.
On the flipside, there are a handful (read: hundreds) of negative reviews, and most either a) don’t get the appeal of the game or b) see what it was going for, but don’t think it’s all that revolutionary. Despite not being part of the game, the divisive fandom also creeps in as an issue.
You can find more Undertale reviews here, or you can go here to check out other instalments of our “As Told By Steam Reviews” series.
Comments
9 responses to “Undertale, As Told By Steam Reviews”
I love story based games, but not if the gameplay annoys me and sucks away that enjoyment. I don’t like JRPGs, Turn Based Combat, Random encounters or retro 2D graphics. From what I hear, Undertale combines all of these. These things all turn me off the game, which is a shame because I’m curious what all the hype is about.
I hated every JRPG I ever tried, got destroyed by every bullet hell game I ever tried and although I like the aesthetic of the game it didn’t hold any special appeal to me. I expected to like the game despite this because I legitimately can’t kill people if I’m given the choice not too and the fact that it advertised itself as a game where you could avoid killing anyone appealed to me greatly.
I didn’t just like it, I loved it.
I think it’s my all time favourite game now. It’s not going to be for everyone, but if you can give it a bit more of a look without spoiling it for yourself it’s definitely worth considering. Maybe look up a video review (I found I agreed with everything Jim Sterling said in his video review, might be a good place to start) that might give a better idea of what the game is like and if you’d be into it.
Man, it’s so sad to see the fandom putting people off. I agree that some of it is a bit over the top, but god damn if I didn’t love this game.
Played it through once (neutral) then ended up watching the other endings on YT, so I knew what happened each way, but I got the niggle to play it again (pacifist) over the weekend… Holy shit, it still was a surprise (true lab (!)) and that god damn ending had me choking up. If you are into this game and haven’t already done it, after the pacifist run right at the end before you finish the game, go all the way back through and talk to the NPCs. Everyone has multiple things to say. Also, make sure you make it ALL the way back to the beginning before leaving the game.
If you’re still not sure about it… Highly recommend playing it all the way through. I kinda liked it until literally the last boss fight, where I fell in love. This game is so good!
This game is something else at the end of the true pacifist route.
There were a lot of small moments that made me fall in love with the game,
the confrontation with Toriel at the end of the ruins sucked me straight in, that Snowman who wanted to travel at the beginning was amazingly touching for a single line of dialogue, the conveniently shaped lamp was hilarious, Undyne’s music is a feature in and of itself even disregarding her wonderful character, the conversation of the echo flowers was again amazingly touching, lying down and feeling dreadful with Napstablook was both sad and funny in the best of ways and all that was before I really fell in love with the game in the later stages (Hotland, core, true laboratory especially). Goddamn, this game was special. Kinda hard not to be one of those disgustingly over the top fans of the game when it affected me as much as it did.I know right! I feel like you can look back at any screenshot of this game and instantly have fond memories of that particular section. The sheer personality!
Man, when I hit Toriel for the first time… I accidentally killed her. I thought the idea was to whittle down health and then you could spare her. I literally stopped and stared at the screen for ages after that happened, I was so cut. That was just the beginning! I know I was in for something special.God damn I love this game.
I knew I could go in without killing anything so I tried hitting her after spamming the spare option repeatedly and felt awful about it so I kept sparing her until it eventually worked; hell, I was halfway to tears when she was deliberately missing her attacks. wonderfully realised balance with the temptation to fight and the effort required not too.I haven’t played this game yet (I intend to) but judging by the actions and reactions of apologists and haters, it seems to me that this game was lovingly crafted for a new generation of gamers and it speaks to them, and perhaps, exclusively to them.
This is their Final Fantasy VI/Chrono Trigger, friends. Do you remember? Remember loving them so very much and being so sure there was nothing better in the world? It is their time now.
I like it.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/12/30/early-onset-coot-disease
Might be a good comic to add to these other reviews 🙂