Toby Fox
Undertale

When we play a video game every now and then, we like to play the part of the villain. After all, we have saved the world countless times, it would be fun to destroy it just once, right? Who could ever judge us? In recent years, several video games have been released that try to give the player the option to choose what to do. Vast open-worlds like Skyrim or Fallout, RPGs whose plots can lead to different endings like Final Fantasy XIII-2 or Dragon's Dogma, or video games that draw a line between good and evil, allowing you to choose which side to be on like Infamous or Demon's Souls.

Well, all these video games lack realism. Not graphic realism, which we can no longer complain about when we look around, but moral realism. How can our character not be wanted by the police after launching missiles around in the last quarter of an hour if we've been hiding a little? Or have the maximum positive karma if we kill a bunch of innocent pedestrians with a thundering leap but then capture the two criminals we targeted?

In short, the system by which video games choose whether you are good or bad appears a bit deficient, or at least it seems so to some of us, if during the same period games like Bioshock or The Stanley Parable, which show us how little control the player actually has over the story, have also been released.

That said, let's talk about Undertale, or, as it is presented on Steam "The Friendly RPG Where No One Has To Die". Forgive me if I talk about it like a novelty, but I bought it last November when it was, and unfortunately, I found the time to play it just a few weeks ago.
Undertale is a two-dimensional RPG, created mainly by a single person with an amateur Game Engine, with graphics that calling pixelated would be a great compliment, lasting about four hours, vaguely reminiscent of DragonQuest and Earthbound. In Undertale, you can choose to attack enemies or try to convince them to leave peacefully. The subtitle is indicative of the way it should be played, that is, trying to kill as little as possible, trying to make everyone survive, an act that does not always prove easy or possible.

What is really impressive about Undertale is how well it manages the player's choices. By playing Undertale, you quickly understand that every single choice you make in a game is crucial. Killing a main character has significant repercussions on the rest of the game, profoundly changing subsequent dialogues. Even killing individual enemies that spawn while you walk will determine some detail of the final outcome of the game.
Undertale also boasts a cast of charismatic characters and, above all, impressive storytelling. It is truly impressive how this game manages to make you really feel like a murderer when you kill an NPC, and only a few minutes after making you feel like a lonely and scared child running away from a lynching. Undertale succeeds in entertaining and moving you with things you would never have thought could have this effect.

Except for the date with the skeleton. That was extremely embarrassing exactly as I thought it would be.

The game is designed to be played multiple times, so its duration is much longer than the roughly four hours of a single playthrough. After completing the first game (with a surprise ending that still makes me tremble just thinking about it), the player will be able to continue playing to try to achieve the best possible result. And this is where Undertale surpasses itself and much of the previously mentioned video games. When the player approaches one of the two more difficult endings (called "True Pacifist" and "Genocide" respectively, guess how they are obtained), the game becomes a reflection on the player's choice. Is it possible to choose? Do our choices matter? Why do we choose to behave wickedly, even in a simple video game? And it does so without boring you or being excessively cerebral.

It would be practically impossible to say what outcomes are reached without spoiling part of the plot, and I don't want to do it as the first playthrough would be better played in the dark. And the second one. And the third. Seriously, the spoilers for this game never end. But suffice it to know that after Undertale, all other games that talk about choice will seem ready for the trash bin.

Moreover, the soundtrack is so beautiful that you will download it compulsively. Even before you have turned on the game.