After Lucas announced the existence of Undertale,
regular players didn't really think much of it yet—they just felt like things were heating up.
This wasn't just trash talk anymore, it was an all-out fight!
But for the more experienced gaming media, their reaction was basically: what the hell just happened.
They had thought it was just a young guy getting fired up and talking back.
Turns out it was all a carefully planned move to grab attention.
But even knowing that, they weren't about to miss out on this big trending topic.
With all kinds of media coverage, the hype around Undertale and Blossom quickly took off.
And among the more old-school outlets, Bell was starting to get seriously annoyed.
Now, the two games were completely tied together.
And the reason their popularity shot up so fast wasn't just because of the back-and-forth between Lucas and Bell on social media.
The bigger reason was that Bell had spent quite a lot of money promoting his game.
But now?
All that buzz was basically feeding Undertale instead.
...
On July 15th, Undertale officially launched on the main game store platform.
Compared to Blossom, which was being handled by Bell's side, Undertale came out three days earlier.
A solid head start.
Many game devs and players were watching closely to see how Undertale would perform.
After all, this wasn't another gentleman game like Mirror.
Even though Mirror did really well, it was still an 18+ game at the end of the day.
Now, everyone was curious—what kind of quality would this Undertale game from Lucas really have?
At a gaming media company called GameSpace, a new editor named William was sitting at his desk, getting ready to write a review of Undertale.
Even though it was just a small indie game, the hype was hard to ignore.
The only thing bothering William was that it happened to be Sunday.
Which meant… overtime.
"Well, whatever. At least there's overtime pay," he sighed as he glanced at the clock.
He remembered what his editor-in-chief had told him: "We pay good overtime—just bear with it."
After tidying up the mess on his desk, William opened up the game called Undertale.
It started with a simple logo, a black starry sky background, with the words "Nebula Games" in big letters and a line of English text below.
After a quick black screen, an old-looking picture appeared. It showed a little girl holding a spear, her face unclear.
Next to her was a faceless animal—it looked kind of like a rabbit, a dog, or maybe a goat?
William stared at the image, trying to guess.
Then, like a comic book, the opening cutscene started flipping pages.
"Guess they didn't have the budget for CG animation, so they went with a comic-style intro instead… actually, not bad," William thought.
Just from this intro alone, he already had a good first impression of Undertale.
At least, this overtime shift probably wasn't going to be painful.
The picture started flipping…
The background music started playing—simple notes, but it had a nice vibe to it.
"A long, long time ago, the Earth was ruled by two races—humans and monsters."
"One day, a war broke out between the two."
"After a long fight, humans won, and they sealed the monsters underground."
"And now, many years have passed…"
"Mount Ebott—201X. They say anyone who climbs this mountain… never comes back."
A simple backstory, nothing too fancy.
After naming the game's main character, you see them waking up on a patch of grass covered in golden flower petals.
Following the earlier game controls, William moved the character forward.
At what looked like the entrance to a castle, a small sunflower appeared.
"Hello!"
"I'm Flowey!"
"Hee hee hee!"
"You must be new to the underground, huh?"
"Gosh, you must be so confused."
"Looks like someone's gotta teach you how things work around here."
"Flowey has no choice but to do it herself—ready? Let's begin!"
What a weird little character.
William couldn't help thinking as he looked at the sunflower-like face in front of him.
"LV makes you stronger… shouldn't that stand for level? What's this 'love' thing?"
Looking at Flowey's dialogue, William was a bit confused.
Trying to sound deep?
And what are "friendship pellets" supposed to be?
Something about this flower doesn't sit right.
William had his doubts—and the game quickly confirmed them.
With a creepy laugh, the once-friendly-looking flower suddenly changed its face.
After saying LV goes up by collecting friendship pellets, it showed its real colors.
The moment William touched the white pellets, his HP dropped to 1.
"You idiot! In this world, it's kill or be killed! Who would pass up a chance like this?!"
"DIE!"
As expected, someone was probably going to show up to save the day.
A classic RPG-style scripted scene.
William stared at the heart icon now surrounded by dozens of white pellets—his face didn't change at all.
The battle part of the game? He already figured it out. It played kind of like a rhythm game where you dodge incoming attacks.
But the story setup… kind of basic. Just your standard old-school RPG.
Sure enough, right as the white bullets were about to hit him, his HP suddenly shot back up to full, and all the bullets vanished.
The flower looked completely dumbfounded. After a few dramatic expressions, it got blasted away by a fireball.
Then a woman with ram-like horns appeared and saved the main character.
"What a cruel creature, hurting such a weak and helpless child."
"Don't be afraid, my child. I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins."
"I come here every day to see if anyone's fallen down. It's been a long time since a human last showed up."
"Come, let me guide you through this underground cemetery."
"Come this way."
After a brief conversation, the goat woman named Toriel led William down the path ahead.
She explained how to solve puzzles and use mechanisms.
She also told him that when he runs into enemies, fighting isn't the only option—he could try talking to them instead.
The puzzles were super simple—just pushing stones, pulling levers, or stepping carefully to avoid the leaves.
"This isn't a painful journey or anything, but it's just so boring. Honestly, even the match-3 game in Mirror was more fun than this."
William let out a sigh. When he ran into a monster, he didn't bother with talking or showing mercy.
He went straight into battle.
So far, the only parts he found even slightly interesting…
were the Flowey's exaggerated expressions at the start, and the combat system.
Even though it was like playing dodgeball, different monsters had their own styles of fighting.
For example, the frog would just hop around in a little box during its turn.
You could say the fighting style really fit the monster's look.
"Please don't let this game drag on forever. I just want to finish it and clock out early," William muttered with a sigh, shaking his head.
(End of Chapter)
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