Undertale is an RPG that gripped me from the start for its ability to toy with conventions and expectations. It starts off extremely cliché with the opening cinematic: Monsters and humans lived in peace, war broke out, monsters were banished. You, a human, stumbled across the place where they have been banished for thousands of years. What happens immediately after the opening is what showed me this game is special; it's a bit difficult to talk about without going into a lot of spoilers.

Combat is turn based, but far from boring; to dodge enemy attacks you need to navigate around the projectiles the enemies throw at you, similar to top-down arcade shooters. It gets quite difficult near the end, as attack patterns gradually become longer and more complex as you progress. Attacking uses a basic QTE system where you press the button when a bar reaches the center of the screen, to determine your damage. Many key battles vary the formula, to keep things fresh.

But, the real meat of the combat comes from the system's capacity for mercy; if you beat a monster within an inch of its life or show it some compassion, you have the option to spare its life when it doesn't want to fight any more. To show compassion, there are several non-violent actions you can choose to perform on your turn, and the effect they have varies by monster. Some monsters will like being complimented, others will think you are being insincere. In this way, you don't have to kill anything.

This usage of mercy (or lack of) will drastically shift monsters' reactions towards you. If you kill literally everyone in your way, the first town you reach will be deserted - everyone will have evacuated before you got there, and you can plunder the shops. Likewise, if you try to befriend everyone, you will get to date a skeleton.

I wouldn't say the game has a moral choice system - very few choices are morally ambiguous, but your choices have real weight. Choices will have long-running effects on how characters feel about you, not just give an extra line of dialogue. Oh, and the characters will remember EVERYTHING. I mean everything. Remembrance and recollection of your actions gives this game a huge amount of replay value. Once I'm done writing this I will go play it again to make different choices.

Characters in this game are definitely right up my alley - most are putting up a tough façade when they really just want a friend. I have never been so emotionally invested in a game's characters or giggled so much at silly dialog. This game made me cry, and I can't remember the last time a game did that. But it's more than just silly or sad, later on it gives horror games a run for their money. You will not be ready when it does. I nope'd out of it to go to bed, and I didn't sleep that night. Not even Earthbound can compare, step aside Giygas.

The ending is extremely satisfying. I feel most good games cut short or rush their ending, leaving me feeling a little disappointed once everything is fixed. This game averts that, it has about an hour of gameplay left after the ending and the world is saved, you really get to see the fruits of your labor as opposed to just a static image saying "THE END".

Please buy this game. It is an experience only video games can provide. The moments it breaks the fourth wall are that much more powerful because you are the one controlling the character.

This game gets a Tem out of Tem. Game of the year, and a game that will be revisited years from now by many people.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/