Alright, let’s see if we can crank out a few smaller reviews before 2023 draws to a close. A week ago I covered Undertale. I knew about the game since it was released back in 2015, but never got the opportunity to actually play it myself. Watched a playthrough online, based my opinion off of others, and just went from there. It’s my holiday break right now and so I decided to take this as a chance to catch up on some games. Undertale is truly magical. It’s an experience that’s easy to understand why players love, but hard to actually replicate. The characters, witty humor, nailing of jokes, and moment to moment gameplay is what makes Undertale and every playthrough of it as long as you keep them varied so unique. There’s a phrase called, “Lightning in a bottle,” and I say Undertale is one of the few games out there that fit this phrase. There have been attempts to replicate what makes Undertale great. One good example is Everhood, a game that makes it very obvious it’s drawing influence. However, what made Everhood stand out was that it eventually formed a personality for itself and focused on existentialism. Being able to accept death when it finally arrives and what possibly comes afterwards. Still a fantastic game, but a somewhat far cry from what Undertale does. There’s also been a handful of fangames, but none of them have ever come close to matching Undertale. That was up until recently.
Back in 2016, there was a group of Undertale fans who wanted to develop a project as big if not bigger than Undertale. Their game would take place within the same universe, stay faithful to the lore, and push the gameplay mechanics to their limit. They went to Toby Fox himself to confirm their fan project, and surprisingly he gave them a big green thumb. As long as they don’t go too overboard with the project and they credit him and Temmie for inspiring their work. That doesn’t sound like a bad agreement. I mean crediting people and not stealing/plagiarizing their work is the bare minimum a person can do. Cough cough. Anyways, a demo was released back the same year they started production and reception for it was extremely positive. The developers kicked it into full gear and have been cracking away for the last seven years. Wanting this fangame to be the best it could be and pay respect to whom they were inspired by. The fangame we are talking about is Undertale Yellow, which out of my awareness finally came out and has been available for free for almost three weeks. Word of its release started to go around and eventually tons of old Undertale fans gave it a shot. Critical reception has been utterly splendid. Fans praised the game and the new narrative it had to tell. The characters, mechanical tweaks, and all that made it feel like a new exciting game. It’s a fangame with a ton of love, care, and respect put into it.
Originally I wasn’t planning on covering Undertale Yellow. Usually I like to cover games that are sellable products, and criticizing a fangame is a bit unfair as you have to remember these people don’t have as much experience with game development as the actual developers. After hearing everything about Undertale Yellow and the amount of content it was packed with I decided it was worth giving a look. Finished the game today and let me just say that I am thoroughly impressed. This game for the most part understands what made Undertale so brilliant. It has the charm, the wit, and tiny little details that make every encounter and interaction so engaging. That does make it as good if not better than the source material? Well that really depends on how you see it. I’ve seen a couple of players say they like this game more. That it manages to improve on what made Undertale lacking and offer a more challenging time. On the other hand we have players who do not like it as much and can point out what Undertale did better than Undertale Yellow. I am one of the players who fall into the latter category. I think there’s a couple problems that hold this a bit back for me and it goes a little too over the top at times, but that is not to say the devs messed up. They made a great game and honestly deserve a pat on the back for what they made. Today we're talking about Undertale Yellow and why it deserves your attention.
Story
Hundreds of years ago humans and monsters lived together in peace. The humans lived on the surface where the sun shined brilliantly, and the monsters lived underground in a complex system of caves. All was well until a great war broke out. The humans became the victor of this grand war and the monsters were forced underground. To prevent a war like this from happening again and monsters terrorizing those on the surface in future, the humans casted a magical barrier. This magical barrier allowed only humans to cross between the underground and surface, but not the monsters. A majority of monsters can’t age, so they would remain trapped there for centuries. If you played Undertale you might know some of the lore, which is required to understand much of the story. The underground is tucked dozens of feet below Mount Ebott. Five humans journeyed to Mount Ebott hoping to uncover proof of this legendary tale, but none of them have returned. You are Clover, the sixth individual to venture to the mountain. You find a missing poster about the five humans who disappeared, and decide to investigate the situation. You gear up, load up a trusty revolver, and jump down a hole leading deep into the depths of the underground.
Once you make a soft impact atop a bed of flowers you begin venturing onward. Running into a creature known as a Froggit and preparing for a fight. Suddenly a goat figure named Toriel then appears and saves you before things can escalate further. She’s the guardian of the Ruins and she wishes to protect you from anyone that wants to harm you. Seeing how you are nothing but a lil human child. She guides you through the Ruins and teaches you how to solve the various puzzles scattered about. However, upon interacting with a certain switch the floor you are standing upon crumbles Tumbling you down into a deeper and much darker part of the Ruins. Toriel tells you to remain there so you stay safe, but being the adventurous lad that you are you decide to continue onward. Running into a talking flower named Flowey. He’s really friendly towards you. Liking how compared to most humans who came before you seem better equipped and stronger. He gives you a short lesson on how to defend and together you two navigate the abandoned section of the Ruins Fighting monsters, dealing with them in whatever way you want, and eventually reaching other sections and townships of the underground. You’ll encounter numerous monsters throughout your journey, and you may even find yourself in a complicated endeavor. Good luck.
Gameplay
Much like the original, Undertale Yellow follows a core gameplay loop of exploration, fighting a handful of monsters, and trying to get closer to your goal. Exploration is fairly simple especially with how compact and linearly designed the world is. You'll occasionally be rewarded with items or something for checking certain spots, and if not you can buy them from shops using gold you may obtain from battles. There’s also a bunch of puzzles dotted about and you’ll have to learn the mechanics of them to move on further. The main focus of the gameplay though is the combat and the choices you have when dealing with enemies. You have four options: fight, act, item, and mercy. [Fight] is pretty explanatory. Choose an enemy you want to attack and then time your button presses correctly to deal more damage. [Item] allows you to use any consumables in your pockets, but what about the other two options? [Act] allows you to check the stats of enemies as well as do certain things. Whether that’s cheering the monster, intimidating them, or whatever crazy shenanigans. You see Undertale gives you two options when dealing with monsters. You can kill them like in an ordinary RPG or you can spare them. You won’t gain experience points to level up, but sparing monsters may unlock two or three endings depending on how many you decide to spare. If you decide to spare mainly monsters then fights turn more into puzzles. You have to figure out what will please or calm down the monster. Do that and you can spare them. Select the [Mercy] command and you can spare the monster(s).
When a monster decides to attack you’ll be thrown into this bullet hell minigame. If you get hit by any of the projectiles flying around on screen you take damage. You can win a fight without taking any damage, but that’s if you are really good at the bullet hell minigame. Some fights will just spray a load of projectiles on screen, so get good if you want to survive. Boss fights lie at the end of every area and they are an ultimate test of your skill. Often having numeral attack types, phases, or throwing in a mechanic you’ll have to wrap yourself around. For example, you may have to use a shield to block and deflect incoming projectiles, or you may be latched tight onto a lasso. Restricting your movement, so you have to figure out how to break free. Last long enough in a boss fight or kill them and you’ll be able to move on. Besides that there’s nothing much else to say about the gameplay. It’s pretty simple, but it’s executed so well that what more could you want? Hopefully you can survive the journey and make way to the surface.
Thoughts
Alright, time for my actual criticisms with Undertale Yellow. This is a good game. I would go as far to say that this is a great game and that I happily recommend it. This is the closest someone has gotten to understanding Toby Fox’s work and I wouldn’t be surprised if Toby Fox decided to hire or gain the help of some of the folks who worked on Undertale Yellow. The developers have proven how well they can utilize the Undertale universe and despite how wacky the story can be at times they stay really faithful to the lore. How so you may ask? By dumping you into zones that aren’t very close to the ones you’ve been to, but still are somehow connected. I will say the first area may not leave a good impression to some, because it’s basically the Ruins if it was more of an actual video game tutorial. You’re treading through territory you are familiar with and you go into the snow zone afterward. After that though is when the zones start to become a little bit more original. Whether that’s navigating the desert, mining tunnels, a steampowered facility, and the capital at the end. A lot of the puzzles in Undertale Yellow are much harder than that of the original game, and some of them were really brain twisters for me. However, I found them to be very manageable and I’d get them knocked down within a few minutes. The story for the most part is great and I found it to be engaging up until the end. There’s a lot of fun characters to meet along your journey and all of them have unique personalities and character designs that easily make them distinguishable from each other. The music is also really good with bosses having a lot of boppin tracks. This game feels like Undertale, plays like Undertale, and you’ll feel right at home with it. It’s more Undertale but new,.
Undertale Yellow is a great game, but I do have a handful of complaints. I know this is a fangame and comparing it to the original is unfair, but there are some things I felt Undertale Yellow didn’t not handle quite as well as the original Undertale. For one the combat and how Yellow attempts to be Undertale but harder. Now before anyone tells me I have a skill issue or to get good let me tell you right now I am a sucker for challenging games. I’ve played and covered a lot of them on this site, and have a full written essay defending games with a single difficulty setting. I beat all of the Soulsborne games and continue to replay them. I’ve one hundred percented Hollow Knight twice, acquired the true ending to Octopath Traveler 2, and so on. Undertale Yellow just felt too hard at times. Undertale took a ton of inspiration from the Touhou series when it came to bullet hell sections. Let’s just say when it comes to these fangames they go overboard, and it feels real prevalent here in Undertale Yellow. Like if you play the original and jump over to Yellow shortly afterward, which is what I did, you’ll notice it. Dozens of projectiles and attacks clogging up the screen, very little indication when and where an attack will happen, and how little time you have to recover when getting hit. There is very little room for error as getting hit a couple of times will drain your health bar quickly. Bosses especially push difficulty limit for me.
Much like the original, a lot of Undertale Yellow bosses have weird gimmicks and mechanics. I don’t think I like a lot of the gimmicks the bosses circle around. One boss fight is quite literally a rhythm game, and even though you only have three rows to manage, projectiles will speed up with time and come in bigger numbers. It’s a fight where you are bound to get hit at some point, and is probably impossible for anybody who has poor timing and rhythm. Another fight has you play what is literally ping-pong. You block projectiles and lasers with a shield, but sometimes the boss will place you on this circle. You rotate around it, but instead of controls being directional you instead move along it. He throws projectiles at you from all directions, and what makes this fight even harder is when it starts throwing in colored lasers. The ones where you either have to stand still or move through. It’s hard to do all of this at once. I need to position myself in specific spots so I can block attacks, but if I don’t keep moving or stay still the lasers hurt me. The final boss for the pacifist route, which is what I did, is relentless. It has numerous attacks that clutter the screen and seeing how you only have twenty hit points you’ll most likely die in four hits. The game is hard for the sake of being hard, and after a while I lost the motivation to master bosses. While the original Undertale was hard at times at least the bosses felt manageable, because the gimmicks were simple and they didn’t last too long. The game was so hard that the devs had to release a patch a week after release. This patch came with an easy mode that allowed you to take more hits during bosses as well as auto timer for the rhythm boss, so the devs had the courtesy to listen to player feedback.
However, I and many others don’t play Undertale for combat. A lot of people play Undertale for the story and characters. I know a few moments ago I said the story and characters were good. A lot of the characters you meet in Undertale Yellow have cool designs, great personalities, and contribute to the plot. However, I just don’t think the story is as good as the original. It starts off strong, but near the end it kind starts to lose balance. It manages to stick to the landing so that’s good. I say the main reason why I don’t think the story is as good is because it seems like Undertale Yellow struggles with what type of story it wants to tell. What made Undertale work is that it was ultimately a tale about learning to love and care for others no matter where they came from. Undertale Yellow does that for the most part. It does so right away with having the first boss be a closed off introvert, but upon getting to know and help him you get him to go out and meet new people. After the desert level which is a good halfway through it just forgets. It wants to be this game about a conspiracy, some woman’s complex past, and you helping her with whatever trauma she’s facing. In fact, this is also the point where the game just drones on with its conversations.
I also feel like the game forgets certain characters at times. The first boss is thrown out the window and does not show up again outside of a mail letter and end scene. Final complaint is that even though character designs are great and the pixelart/animation is splendid it feels too exotic. I like the characters because they had simple and iconic designs. Here it feels like they took whatever chance they could to shove in a furry OC, which isn’t bad but you get the picture. I wouldn’t say Undertale Yellow is disappointing or overrated. Again, this fangame managed to impress me and if it weren't for these problems I would have given it a higher score and stronger recommendation. For me it’s a good game, but you should still give it a try and support the work these guys have made. I give Undertale Yellow an 8.5/10 for being pretty good.
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