(Warning: Lots of general spoilers ahead. If you've somehow gone this long without getting spoiled, please don't read this LOL)

(Written Oct 15th 2023)

For as much of a meme this game has become, this review is written in complete sincerity.

While it may not be my favorite ”game” of all time, it's without a doubt my favorite ”experience” of all time.

Undertale left such an impact on me unlike any other game before or since, in a way that was absolutely influenced by the time of my life it came out- as well as the date I got to experience it.

A friend at the time had gifted me a copy right on release. I watched one trailer, and from there went in completely blind, and I'm so thankful that I could. Separate from the ravenous fandom that quickly formed who would form some p r e t t y overbearing opinions of how exactly you should or shouldn't play the game to get the bESt experience from it, or else you're doing it wrong.

I wound up putting 26 hours total into the game over my first (and still only) time playing it back in October 2015. I'd done one neutral route, and then another pacifist route in full.

My first time through, I had killed Toriel- with the misunderstanding at the time of feeling completely positive that it was a scripted event. That she'd come back later in the game. That she was the one monster you haD to kill to show how much impact on the world doing that to any others would have. So I continued that blind route with this pretense, never resetting once, and going all the way up to the ending where Flowey called me out for how exactly I could've done things differently.

So then I went through again, seeing all the eerie quirks and changes that left a mark on this world from my past playthrough. From Toriel remembering what flavor pie I preferred, to characters having a hint of deja vu from seeing me again, to finally experiencing the true ending after going start to finish.

I'd not once experienced a game quite like this before- and I'm so thankful that this was the way I got to play it. If I had known from the outset Toriel could have been spared, I would've potentially reset right there and then, and lost out on so much of my own personal experience wiTh the game. If I was in the throughs of the fandom having them burn me at the stake for not doing the true pacifist route blindly from the get-go, it's no wonder people who may have never played the game now could feel such a sourness towards it.

Undertale is a game that genuinely needs to be experienced on your own terms, through your own choices, and your own time. With how many routes and variants there is tO be seen, it's genuinely silly to think there is a ”right” and ”wrong” way to play it, there's only the way that YOU play it.

In the years since my time with the game too, seeing the impact its had on gaming as a whole has been surreal to watch. From being nearly at the ground floor of its release, to being in the depths of the tumblr fandom from roleplay ask blogs and that really weird drama of claiming Steven Universe stole a song from the game to put in the show because of a fan animation done with Undertale characters tO that SU song, to being long outside the fandom now and watching Sans appear in Smash Brothers or Toby composing on Pokemon games. It's just insane lol.

I also met one of my closest lifelong friend's from being part of the same fandom, which ironically enough this would be the last "fandom" both of us would actively dig into in the way we really had. Both of us making just a shitload of different comics and artwork and bouncing ideas an collabs off one another. It's also thanks to this game that I made my first- and still only- fully finished like... not 'comic' exactly but illustration project? Visual novel? I don't know what to call it but it was an ask blog with an ongoing plot and custom illustrations/animations and all that jazz, and I actually followed it through start to finish. I've never made another project before or since that's been quite that scale, so that alone is something I'll always cherish.

(Here's a couple of previews from that! If want to see all the illustrations + old story attached in order I decided to unlock the old archived blog for it to link here~)

No idea if this'll end up being the longest review I add onto the site or not, but it's a lot more of a rambly reflection on my time with the game rather than a general critique for why you should play it or not. xD

I originally wanted to include a segment on Deltarune here too, but that's just as well left for its own page haha.

I've debated re-buying the game on switch to experience there again, since I don't have it in me to truly reset from scratch the file I have on PC, even all these umpteen years later. I love all the memes and seeing how far this series has come since it'd come out, and if the Sans sweater I've got on right now is any indication, it'll always, always, still keep a special place in my heart.~