In Undertale, you’re a girl who fell from the human world into the monster world. I talked a lot about Renowned Explorers being “important” to gaming as a medium and I think Undertale easily deserves that adjective as well for many of the same reasons…and many, many more. Hell, it subverts video games in general. It subverts your expectations constantly. Beneath the surface lies one of the most genuinely emotional, unsettling, and subversive experiences of the year, if not the decade. But be warned, while I avoided specific spoilers in that article as well, there are some vague ones and one potentially-major spoiler discussed, so read at your own risk.Īnyways, for those of you who aren’t in the know, Undertale is a quirky JRPG-type game in the vein of the old Final Fantasy or – to be more accurate to the game’s off-beat tone – Earthbound. But that’s just on the surface. However, if you want a more in-depth look at some of what makes the game so brilliant – as well as, unfortunately, one of its major flaws…it’s not perfect, but what is? – you can check out my companion article, which will be published in the next couple days.
I have avoided spoilers in this review, though it can be difficult to capture how brilliant this game is without them. Beneath its almost-shoddy visuals (let’s be honest here, the screenshots make it look like something someone threw together on RPG Maker) lies a game with incredible narrative and even mechanical depth and like I said, I have a strong feeling I will be putting this game forward for just about every single “best of 2015” category I can as we near the end of the year, including Game of the Year. Undertale is, for lack of a better word, phenomenal. It’s that attitude that is, in my opinion, ruining gaming, and I’m sad to say I succumbed to it. I wholly plan on berating myself in an editorial for this in the coming months because no game should be judged solely by its visuals, particularly one that has received almost universal praise. It’s been on my watchlist for some time, but…well, I’m sad to say I overlooked this one.īut what an absolute and disastrous mistake that was. But thankfully, I gave it a play before OSP’s end of the year awards…because I have a feeling it’ll be getting more than a few.Įven given the wide-spread praise it’s received (it currently has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam with 98% of over 15,500 reviews being positive), every time I thought about playing it, I’m sad to say I looked at the retro, almost-dull visuals and thought of something else I had better to do (and to spend my $10 on). The game came out in mid-September and, to be perfectly honest, it’s one of those indie titles that’s unfortunately easy to overlook. We haven’t reviewed Undertale here at OSP yet, which pretty much borders on criminal.
So, In that sense, The Witcher 3 is pretty realistic.Publisher: Toby Fox | Developer: Toby Fox | Platforms: PC
Other times, you’ll get paid, kiss a pretty girl, and maybe win some free trading cards.
The Witcher 3 is a game where you sometimes piss off your friends, hurt who you’re trying to help, and walk away feeling like a bad guy. Even the most paragon of Geralt’s choices can lead to totally renegade outcomes. The realm of Temeria is a fantastic, magical setting mired in realistically complex issues, to which there aren’t always simple solutions or happy endings. While good storytelling is rooted in conflict, video games rely on player involvement, so it’s rare for a piece of interactive media to strike that balance between pandering wish-fulfillment and ruthless emotional abuse of the player.