Undertale – Impressive Combat

I like to keep up to date with all the biggest gaming trends and crazes. So today let’s take a look at the biggest indie game… of 2015.

Undertale has a bit of an intense fanbase and ironically that intensity ended up turning me off the game for a long time. I finally picked up a while ago but a friend who isn’t normally into this kind of game talked about how much they enjoyed it and that was the final push I needed to give it a go. I’m only a couple of hours in and I’m already so impressed that I get why it drew so much attention and I just had to write about it. There’s been a lot of praise thrown out there for it around areas like it’s humour, story and long term choices, instead what I want to talk about is how well it handles its unique combat mechanics.

At its core Undertale seems to be a turn based RPG but one unique part is what happens when you are attacked, you don’t just take damage instead you play a twin stick shooter section without the second stick or the shooting, essentially you move around a box (with you represented by a heart) dodging attacks that could come from anywhere. They can come from anywhere because what is really interesting is that very enemy has their own unique attacks, with the different patterns and modifications keeping the battles feeling fresh.

With most battle systems the best execution and experience comes from the boss battles, and Undertale’s first proper boss fight was no exception so let’s break down the Papyrus fight. Prior to this point Papyrus has been an unthreatening joke so his first attacks are just a few bones moving across the lower part of the box that you can easily avoid by staying put where you start. His next attack is far more complicated with bones of heights coming across the top and bottom moving at different speeds, except these are all light blue and previous fights have taught us that by not moving these attacks don’t damage you, so again is totally unthreatening and you do nothing. But something weird happens at the end of this attack, your heart turns blue and falls to the bottom of the box.

This battles twist is that gravity is applied to you making these previously unthreatening attacks a danger. Now you have to jump over his attacks instead. From here on the attacks start developing new complexities every attack, first the bones vary in height, then some come from the top that you utilise the gravity effect to dodge, next it adds back in the blue bones and attacks coming from both directions. It then throws in attacks that come from the top and bottom at the same time as well as strings of bones together making you consider your height and positioning during you jump more. From here it iterates on these mechanics by utilising them in varying and more complicated patterns, though it will still throw in another curve ball during these with bones that change height as they move to make sure you aren’t getting too complacent.

What I love about this is how it introduces the basic setup for attacks, then preemptively shows you several of the complications to come all within a safe environment. It then changes up the mechanics especially for this fight, introducing new complications throughout the fight that work with his new mechanic and develop how you utilise it. You see many games where their mechanics stagnate over their play time and don’t develop, but Undertale pulls it off within a single battle and this is so genuinely impressive.

Given that I’m very early into Undertale and felt compelled to write about it, I’m really looking forward to what the rest of the game has to offer, maybe I’ll have to rebrand this as an Undertale blog.