Over the nine years of Awkward Mixture, I continue to ponder games past. Memory twists and transforms, forcing us to question the past. We ask ourselves if books, events, or games deserve the condemnation or acclaim we awarded them in the past. But, with so little time, there is no chance to revisit even a fraction of them.
In the second year of Awkward Mixture I didn't recognize a second or third place, only a best of award. In that year of 2017 I chose SUPERHOT, over Undertale. Since then, I retroactively awarded Undertale second place, and Paper's Please, third, but the nearly decade long distance makes judging a desperate juggling act.
Undertale remained a formidable force in my mind, because I bought it when I purchased the Switch for my kids. They tried it, but at their age they don't finish anything. Instead, my wife and I played through, switching at save points or when one of us perished in battle.
Falling into Undertale, the protagonist encounters Flowey the flower first. He encourages the player to enact violence. The motherly Toriel preaches peace. The result; most players kill enemies early on, but transition to a peaceful approach as they come to understand the Underground. Though I avoided killing foes, I tried not to impact my wife's decisions. Initially she killed every inhabitant she encountered, a normal reaction on a first playthrough. Unfortunately I couldn't prevent myself from reacting when she considered killing Toriel. Though we completed a nearly pacifist playthrough, our initial murders prohibited the pacifist ending. When I first played Undertale, I earned a normal ending, and tried a second game with a pacifist aim. It wasn't difficult, but I didn't finish, because I don't enjoy playing a game twice in a row.
My memory of Undertale is one of ease. I'm certain I died, but I have no recollections of an insurmountable challenge. In 2024 we encountered bosses I wasn't sure we would defeat. Particularly tough was Muffet (I wish we hadn't eaten the treat from her bake sale) and Mettaton EX. The Switch controller seemed less responsive to movement during the bullet hell, dodging the attacks of the enemies. I remember movement on the PC as quick and deft. This could be a mistaken recollection.
Undertale does forgive struggling players at some locations. I was watching my son fight Papyrus early on. Before each attempt Papyrus delivers a different speech. After my son failed three times, Papyrus said, “YOU'RE BACK AGAIN?!?! … I'M GETTING REALLY TIRED OF CAPTURING YOU! SO WHAT DO YOU SAY? (Fight Papyrus?). Silly enough, the player can answer [No], to which Papyrus says, “I GUESS I'LL ACCEPT MY FAILURE...” and lets the protagonist pass. While this overlooks the player's weakness, Undertale offers fewer free passes as it proceeds.
What is the easiest method of play? It seems as though killing enemies, but not enough to earn the Genocide ending, is the easiest path. Killing enemies earns the player EXP (Execution Points), which increases the protagonist's LV, later displayed as LOVE, and much later revealed as Level Of ViolencE. While secretly acronyms for malicious intent, both EXP and LV function similar to a normal game. They empower the protagonist by increasing their Health, Attack Damage, and Defense. By killing too few enemies the player denies themselves the pacifist ending, but also makes the neutral path much harder.
While I remembered the generalities ofUndertale, nine years erased less specific elements. For example, I was surprised by the vast amount of screen time of Mettaton, a humorous, human murdering robot, and its creator, awkward Alphys. Initially engaging, they feel overworked by the time the player vanquishes them.
Other elements of Undertale seem less impressive with age. The final final boss is easy, because the player can't lose. The player's invulnerability eliminates the tension. And yet the battle is overly drawn out. I remember a witty boss with an engaging meta manipulation, but this thing felt cliched and tiresome.
While broadly impressive, the humor fails at some points. Multiple characters want to date the protagonist. Undertale explores solid naive, teenage jokes in the dialogue, but sometimes stumbles into cringy, creepy, awkward attempts that border on mildly gross. There are a few places where random characters say something absurd, and it was more than I expected.
In Conclusion,
Do I regret placing SUPERHOT above Undertale in 2017? No. Undertale is a game I remembered more fondly than it deserved. It's still a solid game, with memorable characters like Sans the skeleton. The bullet hell combat innovated enjoyably on boring RPG turn taking. But while I was never a stan to begin with, the real thing can't compare to the fervor of 2015, and the controversy of beating Ocarina of Time.
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