Re: Undertale's RPGness: Nah, can't buy it. I know RPG is a loose definition, and you all are getting consumed by Record "Autobattle" Keeper, but still. RPGs, even Dragon Warrior, tend to have you make a few decisions about how to fight encounters, and have stats and equipment be important ish. Undertale, even in Genocide Mode, does not. Every encounter is "Press Fight for X turns, maybe heal when your HP is low" and that's it. Not just figuratively it, like an easy RPG, but literally it, there is nothing else. No other battle commands that matter when Fighting, no other PCs, no usable items except healing, maybe one equipment choice ever, no stats but HP/attack/defense and nothing you do really alters them. The only actual gameplay to be had is shmup-style dodging for survival. We're not talking "Tales of is sort of like a fighting game" here, there is not any RPG to be had at all, at least in my mental book.
Anyway tonight I also fired up...
We Know The DevilHail Satan.
Before talking about the game, I have to talk about the site, because you have to deal with the site before playing the game. Paying over 5 dollars for an online only VN on a sketchy looking website is a tough sell. I make poor life decisions in the name of media, especially when friends hype things at me really hard, but I almost didn't in this case and can't say I would expect anyone else around here to do so. That sucks a lot, because this game is really good and I'd love to hear reactions to it from people who aren't already heavily invested in the "online queer literature" culture. But those people (and nuts like me) are likely the only ones who are going to be willing to get their credit card info stolen in order to play this. Oh well.
So the premise here is we have three teens at a religious summer camp. They're friends, or something like that, or at least they're grouped together for the time being and engage in interactions with each other. Venus is a shy, quiet boy who apologizes for everything and appears incredibly nice and gullible. Jupiter is The Good Girl at the top of all the charts for sports and activities and leadership and generally being role model ish. And Neptune is there to provide the requisite doses of dour, biting sarcasm and flipping the bird to the rules and the man. They interact with each other, but, as is the way of most human interaction, in a group of three, two are closer and a third is left out. The player gets to choose the exact dynamics of the three over the course of the evening.
So there are some humorous camp antics, some Truth or Dare... and then it turns out that in this setting, God exists, not just as a theological concept but constantly speaking to His followers on the almighty Radio at 109.8 FM. And the Devil likewise exists, tempting the darkness in people's hearts. And this summer camp is a nicely controlled environment for kids who weren't judged righteous enough to be with their normal peers, with barbed wire and sirens for everyone's safety. As they say, "the price two friends must pay is the third." Someone's getting possessed tonight (hint: you already know the devil, it's whoever you left out the most) and there'll be a bit of a party, maybe a nice game of Splattergories or Cranium 2: Extraction.
The game sinks or swims on the back of the trio's character writing. I have to be a little vague because there isn't a good way to talk about the characters without spoiling huge chunks of development, but my verdict is that it swims, and swims very well at that. All three are extremely interesting and deeply developed, even in the game's short timeframe. It's beautiful to me as a writer to see how well and how quickly a few precise sentences in each scene convey such emotional depth.
Now, as a timely interjection, Undertale did something similar to this with economy of characterization. But not the same. Undertale is more of a surreal, lighthearted fantasy world where everyone is nice and more or less gets along. There's no real conflict at hand, except for a couple of the the final boss characters. We Know The Devil goes in the extreme opposite direction - these teens are MADE of conflict, brimming with it just under their smiling facades. They hate the world, each other, and themselves, and have plenty of reasons for each. Not only that, they have the very literal specter of religion looming over them, and the absolutely certain knowledge that tonight, one of them will face final judgment as A Bad Person and won't be coming back to breakfast (or worse, maybe with a side helping of killing their former friends.) And each one of them is wondering, the whole time, "
is it me?"
As usual for psychological horror type stuff, it's not going to hit home for everyone, no matter how great the characters are. But wow, does it ever hit me. I grew up on a strict activity diet of Church Stuff and Boy Scouts, including lots of summer camp, and the trueness to life here is just incredible. The earnest but inept bonfire captain with his awful guitar and self-serving platitudes! 420 noscope sicknasty burns like "Don't you even read Lewis?"! The cabins that fall apart if you touch them but nobody cares! The only thing that doesn't ring completely true is that the characters have brain cells. I can only wish there were people half as interesting as these three at any camp I ever went to.
Oh, yeah, also the issues and character dynamics. Those are pretty real too, at least for certain facets of each character, and they do a very good job of explaining the ones that aren't personally relatable. This is the real meat of the game, and yet I can't say too much about it except deeply sympathizing with all three when all's said and done. I thought Venus would be left out on my first run, but it wound up being Jupiter, because I had ignored her one too many times thinking she was fine on her own... which is exactly the point, isn't it? Oops. Venus' devil ending did turn out to be the least compelling to me, though. It's a little one-note and hard to link to the rest of his character.
After seeing the individual endings, you can unlock a fourth ending where you juggle all three characters (take notes...) and go full Hail Satan. It feels cathartic, but less individually intense than the other endings, a bit too creepy-saccharine and predictable for me even though its existence is thematically important. Really a blend of everything would be best.
I wish everything I read had writing this good. And, heck, friends like this in the real world wouldn't be that bad either. Could do without God Radio, though. The music there is not nearly as good as the awesome WKTD soundtrack. Maximum Hail Satan!
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back to Undertale stuff in new posts since writing that took a while. Less Alphys =/= more awesome! ] : (
You are a player, a metabeing who exists in a different universe. Seems like you did get the message, Djinn? Agreement on the two unique fights as "what ifs" being the useful part of that mode.
