In the midst of the many 100-plus hour new games that sucked my time and life force away in 2017, I found time to finally experience an older, shorter title that I’d had my eye on for some time. Undertale seemingly came out of nowhere in 2015 and inspired a lot of LOVE from critics and a diehard community of fans drawn to its quirky charms. In 2017 it finally was pried from the clutches of the PC gaming intelligentsia and released for PlayStation 4 and Vita, giving non-elite console gamers the world over (such as myself) the chance to experience firsthand what all the fuss was about.

I was immediately drawn to Undertale due to the fervent discussion surrounding it. Though I always try to avoid spoilers, in this case I was aware that it was at least somewhat inspired by the Mother series (immediate +1) and takes a sort of deconstructionist approach to games, particularly JRPGs (another +1).

But this knowledge didn’t prepare me for the tour de force nature of Undertale’s zany humor, surprisingly touching pathos, and brilliant combat/non-combat system. It didn’t prepare me for the way so many battle encounters function as bespoke experiences, a delightfully unexpected design choice given the game’s clear JRPG inspirations. It didn’t prepare me for the superbly sublime soundtrack.

Ultimately I was afraid I knew too much about the game going into it for it to surprise me. I thought that perhaps the game’s success was due to how it blindsided players, and since I knew it was “meta” from the get-go I’d be unimpressed. I was so wrong, and that makes me happy. It turns out this game is awesome and well-deserving of the fervor it inspired.

And it was mostly created by one dude! One imaginative dude going out of his way to make a game that meets the standards of its classic forebears while playing masterfully against the expectations they inspire in players. Undertale truly is an impressive game regardless of how deeply you read into it. I’m glad they released it from its PC prison so that I could finally fall under its spell, and I look forward to whatever developer Toby Fox has up his sleeve next.