Undertale's Anniversary and Its Impact
Ah Undertale. Easily one of the biggest shocks to grace everyone's gaming pallet of last year. It dared to do some things simply, differently, and exponentially. Undertale just had this magnetic draw to it with everything that it did in writing and character creation that had us all latching on to it when it released.
And who could really blame you for doing so? A game that gave you the option to kill everyone or not a single entity. A game with a Dog Knight that stretched all over the screen and had one of the most memorizing songs I've ever heard in gaming. A game with two brothers that aren't Mario and Luigi but made themselves just as iconic through silly puns and bone-dry humor. (I'm so sorry, how could you not make that joke?)
Undertale was truly special for a number of reasons, but I think the word that truly describes what made it phenomenal is what I've echoed so many times already in this writing. Simplicity.
Undertale dared to show us that simplicity at its finest can make a game fantastic. Undertale was by no means graphically intensive and it was obviously inspired by so many other games to make it what it turned out to be. But what it turned out to be was a rock-solid story driven experience that played with your emotions, played at your humor, played with your mind and made you question every decision.
The impact Undertale had last year made a small little indie title a colossal titan in name. Every gaming outlet had it on its GOTY battles or were writing pieces on it. The Undertale fandom took the game and ran with it as far as they could, much to the ire of the rest of the internet. Even within our own community there was a clear divide between the ones that made the game their everything and those that couldn't handle the intensity of the fandom.
Despite what you might think of it, many of us today stand by the greatness of Undertale and what it delivered. You can read our official review here, see our heated Game of The Year discussion here, and find the official steam page for the game here.
Undertale pushed boundaries and became a big name for itself by doing what games are supposed to do better than what newer games were doing around it.
Entertain you.
And that's why we celebrate its release a whole year later, and celebrate the power of the indie community. Because in the end, we all just want experiences we can enjoy. And boy do we enjoy Undertale.
