I walked through a few doors, until I stumbled upon a cute little flower named Flowey. The game opened with my character waking from sleep. Of course, the player takes on the role of a human who 's someone found themself in the monster 's realm. The monsters resettled in their new home, though many still hold onto dreams of once again returning to the land above. The humans won, and using magic they banished all of the monsters to live underground. That all ended when the two groups went to war with one another. Many years ago, humans and monsters lived and ruled together. On the surface, Undertale 's backstory is pretty simple. So I bought myself a copy of Undertale and started on my pacifist run. I knew I had to get my hands on the game myself, and I absolutely didn 't want any more spoilers to guide how I 'd play the game. When I discovered that Undertale would be hitting the Nintendo Switch (the platform I 'd prefer to play almost every game on) I stopped watching the streams. More than once, I watched players despair after accidentally killing an opponent, and that guilt would crop up again later in the game at a point that character might have shown up if they were still alive. I also discovered that one of the key elements of Undertale is that you always have the option to be kind and spare your opponent, rather than to defeat them. By watching them, I was introduced to the game 's core combat mechanic, in which players control a red, heart-shaped Soul and drive it around a black box to avoid enemy attacks. I had only seen screenshots of the game, and while I enjoyed some of the character designs, overall it didn 't seem particularly inspiring.īut this year, my curiosity was piqued when some of my favorite streamers started playing the game on their channels.

Since it was first released in 2014, indie RPG Undertale has achieved cult status as an innovative, as well as poignant and touching, game.įrom an outsider 's perspective, it was tough to see what all the hubbub was about.

Undertale pacifist first run