UNDERTALE REVIEW: 10 YEARS LATER

WTF IS UNDERTALE + SPOILER WARNING

I think everyone and their mom knows what UNDERTALE is at this point but if you aren't aware, UNDERTALE is an indie RPG that flips the RPG genre on its head; "the friendly RPG where no-one has to die"! Before I go ANY further, I want to say that UNDERTALE is best experienced as blind as possible. Even if you already know some of the jokes or whatever via its massive cultural impact, I highly recommend dropping $10 on Steam and playing through it yourself. Some spoilers ahead!! You have been warned!!

A BIT OF HISTORY

We're a bit late to the party on this one as UNDERTALE's 10 year anniversary was actually on 9/15/2025, but I assure you I've been the life of it since around its inital release date. I can confidently say that I am one of Toby Fox's biggest fans and you can expect to see more reviews surrounding Toby Fox's works. All the way back in middle school, I was watching comic dubs on YouTube, roleplaying on Amino as the human Justice soul (no I was not groomed), playing the crap out of fangames, and later obessing over Game Theory's UNDERTALE videos (crazy how MatPat was basically right about Sans). I even participated in the 10 year anniversary event as seen in my 'memory' message pictured below using Asgore's face. All of that to say--I know what I'm talking about. I don't want to completely gush about how much of a fan I am in the meat and potatoes of this review so I had to get that out of my system. Without further adeiu, let me break down on an objective level why UNDERTALE is a near perfect game.

THE ACTUAL REVIEW - CRITIQUE

If it's not clear by this point, I and many others before me consider UNDERTALE a masterpiece; but after taking off my rose-tinted glasses I've come to notice some glaring issues that make UNDERTALE an 'almost perfect' game instead of a perfect 10/10. We'll start with the bad stuff.

The first of these issues may be my most controversial take, but oh my god I get second-hand embarassment from some of the dated jokes and humor. Like, don't get me wrong I understand Toby Fox's background and in 2015 things like 'petting a hecking doggo' were a real riot. That's the thing though, that was ten freaking years ago. I still consider this a valid critique as part of this review is based off of UNDERTALE's timelessness.

Another big issue with UNDERTALE is the character development of Chara and Flowey/Asriel Dreemur (I will call him Asriel henceforth). Chara to a lesser extent as my main gripe is moreso that I think UNDERTALE holds its cards way too close to its chest regarding Chara, whereas in my honest opinion Asriel is both poorly presented AND poorly developed. Asriel in his flower form was presented as an extremely sinister character during the Ruins section and then only appears to screw you out of your happy ending by presenting himself again as an evil little shit. You don't learn anything about him all the way until the New Home section before the fight with Asgore Dreemur where out of nowhere the game hits you with a poorly paced exposition dump about characters (if memory serves me right) you literally have never heard of until that point. Why should I care about the King's children? Sure it humanizes Asgore and monsterkind as a whole but I feel like there was a much better way to present this story (like not stopping me and forcing me into a battle for three lines of dialouge every 10 seconds). The True Lab section is far better at handling this kind of exposition and just goes to show that the New Home section is just bad. This all results into the game randomly expecting you to feel bad for Asriel at the last moment instead of letting him be built as a character THROUGHOUT the game rather than the very last portion.

Moving on to my last big critique of UNDERTALE, I feel that the ACT system is pretty rough compared to its evolved DELTARUNE form. What I mean is, in DELTARUNE there are no random encounters; each enemy is intentionally placed somewhere and there are so many set enemies to encounter (provided you don't re-tread in certain rooms over and over). This eliminates both enemy fatique while also letting the player get familiar enough with an enemy type so that they can confidently learn and avoid their bullet patterns/learn what ACT options make them docile. In UNDERTALE however, outside of very specific moments like the Core and True Lab, enemy encounters are random and only have a set amount in the Genocide run. This means that you WILL encounter the same enemy too many times and instantly know what to do the next fifteen times you randomly get into battle with them. Not only that, but UNDERTALE's ACT options are way less intuitive than DELTARUNE it reminds me of Fallout 4's dialouge tree in some aspects. In some fights I had more difficulty finding out what the heck they wanted from me versus the actual bullet hell sections. On some level it's cute reading the extra flavor text even if it's not the right one, but at the same time it doesn't feel like I'm solving the 'puzzle' of the fight, I feel like I'm just trying to guess whatever silly answer Toby Fox felt like putting in for the hell of it.

THE ACTUAL REVIEW - WHAT IT DOES RIGHT

I mean what's there to say that hasn't already been said, right? I'll try to keep this section more brief compared to my critique section even though if I wanted to I could worship this game for pages upon pages. If I had to point out one thing that deserves the highest praise, it is undoubtedly the wonderful cast of characters that fill the Underground. Hand on the Bible, I seriously have not witnessed anyone play this game and dislike characters like Toriel and Papyrus, or even the one-off bits from common enemies.

I also still find most of the bullet hell fights really fun! Omega Flowey to me is one of the coolest fights in both UNDERTALE and DELTARUNE (although I was talking to my best chum recently and he said after watching me play both UNDERTALE and DELTARUNE, UNDERTALE's battles look primitive in comparison lol).

Another big plus in UNDERTALE's book and arguably it's biggest hook is the replay value caused by near-total player agency and 4th wall breaking. I won't dive deep into the Fun Value system and things like that as I strongly believe those are best experienced firsthand, but you could play UNDERTALE three times over and get wildly different experiences on each subsequent run. Want to make friends and save the Underground? Have your happy ending. Want to murder every monster just to see what happens? You can totally do that. Want to spare every monster except Papyrus just to mess with Sans? Also well within your means; all with a fitting meta narrative to go hand in hand with whatever actions you decide to take.

To end off on one more postive about UNDERTALE, I need to mention the amazing soundtrack at least once. Seriously. What a killer OST from Toby Fox, even a decade later and I still have some of these tracks in my playlist. Jokes aside I genuinely like Megalovania as a song, although my favorite track is probably Hopes and Dreams followed closely by Fallen Down (Reprise), I always thought the latter had the most Mother/Earthbound vibe out of the whole OST.

"LOVE, too, is an acronym. It stands for 'Level of Violence.' A way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt. The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others. But you, you never gained any LOVE. 'Course, that doesn't mean you're completely innocent or naive. Just that you kept a certain tenderness in your heart. No matter the struggles or hardships you faced... you strived to do the right thing. You refused to hurt anyone. Even when you ran away, you did it with a smile. You never gained LOVE, but you gained love." -- Sans

CONCLUSION

A must-play for anyone who loves the very concept of video games and a masterclass example of how to make a successful indie game.