Undertale Game Analysis: How to tell a story through mechanics

This post I would like to talk about specials mechanics in games, and today, i'm going to be looking at a game mechanic that manages to add alot to it's game. The game in question is the recent Indie RPG Undertale.

Undertale is an RPG made in the same kind of mold as the Mother/Earthbound series. Being a somewhat minimalist game visually, but having a very unique kind of tone. In this case, being a quirky one, where inanimate objects have personalities, weird things have casual conversations with you, and there's a big focus on themes of bonds and family. Undertale is focused on the former, and it's all about making friends with people. However, that's not the focus for this discussion. This discussion will be about how enemies attack you.

When you are attacked in Undertale, you control your soul, represented by a heart icon that you move around in a space. Enemies will launch projectiles at your that do damage. It's supposed to invoke a Bullet Hell game, where you control a small object trying to dodge massive swarms of bullets,

Where this system becomes brilliant is how each enemy has a fairly different attack pattern to each other, and they reflect the enemy not just visually, but emotionally as well. You can change the moods of enemies using Act commands, and doing certain actions will change their attack patterns as well.

For battles created using static, black and white sprites, this is an amazing way to convey to the player what enemies are feeling while you're still in gameplay, and having a challenge. It gives every enemy character a personality while fighting them, and helps you get more involved, even motivating you to make friends with them and spare them. Which of course, is the whole theme of the game. They go one step further with this system, and make the U.I get involved as well.

The defining moment of this system I feel, is during a boss fight I will not spoil. Without going into context, the boss starts out doing complex patterns (Compared to everything you've seen up to that point)...

 ... But when you get damaged to a point where another hit will kill you, the boss only uses one pattern. A pattern where the shots actively avoid your heart.

Even without the context, it's a spectacular way to tell a story. The person your fighting can't bare to kill you. When you see this, there's a real tragedy to the experience, and one that really makes you want to find another way to end the fight.

This is all from the demo. The game itself takes the idea even further, expanding it in new directions that utilise player expectations and the fourth wall more and more. I'm hesitant to spoil it though. It's an experience that deserves to be played in it's own way.

That's all for now. I may come back to Undertale in the future for a more spoiler focused post, but not for today.