Review: Five Nights at Freddy's and Undertale

 Sometimes, I deliberately avoid games. The more the internet keeps telling me that I have to play them, it seems the more I am willing to avoid them. This isn't a flaw on the game's part, more of a personal flaw and bias (maybe the fault of the fanbase, but I'm not going to get into that at all). So, to make an effort to be more open to new experiences, I went on Steam and bought Five Nights at Freddy's and Undertale; two of indie gaming's sweet hearts.

   

There's not much connectivity between these two games in terms of themes, or gameplay, but both games have massive cult followings and utilize retro looking graphics to create their worlds. I played Five Nights at Freddy's first so, I would like to talk about it first. There's also other reasons why I would want to talk about FnaF first, but more on that later.

You play as a night security guard at a pizza parlor similar to Chuck E Cheeses. After the business closes for the night, the animatronic animals roam around, looking for employees out of costume. If they reach you, they'll stuff you in an animatronic animal costume. In reality, when they reach you, you're treated to a brief jump scare as the screen fades to static and you're forced to start the night all over again. The main goal of the game is to survive five nights without being jump-scared to death. The story is given to the player though brief messages left on the answering machine by the owner of the pizza parlor. He gives you some tips and a little backstory about the animals being driven mad by singing the same songs day in and day out.

The entire game is controlled by the mouse. You have two ways to defend against the animatronic killers: security cameras and a highly illogical security door system. You track the movements of the animatronic killers by watching the security cameras. Whenever they get close to your room, you can close the door (there's two doors on either side) and wait until they go away. However, you can't keep the doors closed for very long, because it takes battery power to keep them closed. Watching the security cameras also takes power, forcing you to take quick looks at the rooms, before putting the camera away. This system of looking for your killers, and strategically closing and opening the doors at certain times organically builds tension. Once you hear something thumping around the kitchen area of your security office, several questions run through your mind: Should you close the door now, or wait? Is checking the room next to the security office worth using some of the precious little battery power you have left? Once the battery power runs out, your only choice is not to touch the mouse and hope you can live out the last few moments of the night by playing dead. The core mechanic is solid, and the graphics fit the tone of the game perfectly.

The game's graphics are composed mostly of still images. The lo-fi gritty textures actually make the animatronic monsters look genuinely creepy (this effect is also enhanced by the characters themselves looking to be in various states of disrepair). Aside from the Fox animatronic and the jump scares at the end, you don't actually see any of them moving; they'll be there, but once you look away they'll be on the move, similar to the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. With that said, there's a few solid problems that kept me from playing the game all the way through night five.

For a while, I was stuck on night four. At that point the owner met his end by jump scare off screen and his last message cuts off abruptly. After being jump-scared to death four or five times, the novelty of it wore off and I just became frustrated. As you play further into the game, the monster's patterns become more erratic and complex as they go all out to get to your room, however jump scares, by nature, are only tense and scary for the first few times. I also started to ponder the logic of the whole situation. Why do doors need energy to stay closed? If Freddy's is full of killer animatronic monsters, why do they need a night security guard? If someone were to break into the place, wouldn't they immediately be stuffed into a costume and killed? They don't seem to be interested in property damage, so you're not protecting the place from the monsters, and even if they were, the game gives you no other way to fight back against them. I've been a fan of horror films and media all my life and I know that it is sometimes fruitless to question the logic of horror. The genre works best when it is not over-explained, but I kept asking myself why am I here in the first place. If I were the owner, I wouldn't have a security guard and just let Freddy and his buddies have run of the place until it opens at 6 am. Perhaps I'm just overthinking it, and the grand question would have been answered if I stuck it out through the game's ending, but the mechanics wore thin on me fairly quickly. However, the entire situation has a surreal nightmare logic to it that is pretty interesting; nothing really makes sense at all, but no one seems to notice except for the player if left alone to his thoughts long enough.

The graphics are fitting for the game's tone, and the central mechanic is interesting, but I couldn't recommend the game fully because it only has one gimmick, which will wear off eventually, leaving you frustrated with nothing left to do but repeat it over and over again. There seems to be an underlying brilliance to this that perhaps I'm missing, but I couldn't feel compelled to finish the game. Eventually, I can see myself coming back to it to finish it, but it's not going to be a priority. For 4.99 on Steam it's pretty cheap, so try it out. However, from a quick look at the internet, you've probably already tried it out, beat it and mastered night 6 and 7 as well, so perhaps I'm just shouting into the void. Next game.

This game is hard to review, but not because I don't know if I like it or not. I do like Undertale, I think it's wonderful, but it's a journey that should be taken by someone who knows as little about it as possible. I made the mistake of listening to podcasts and reading articles that gave away bits and pieces of the mechanics and I feel like I shouldn't have. However I still want to write a bit about it, so if you have an interest in playing Undertale, stop reading now (this is why I included the FnaF review first, so at least you would have something to read), but if you have no interest in ever playing it, or have already played it, go ahead and read on to see what I thought about it.

Undertale is a turn based RPG stylized as a retro era game. You travel around talking to interesting characters and visiting interesting places. The main gimmick of Undertale is the battle system. You can go throughout the entire game without killing anyone. Every battle can be resolved in a non-violent way by telling jokes, not picking on someone, or petting a dog. With that in mind there is still a skill element involved. After you take your turn, you have to fend off the enemy's attack by moving a red heart around a box, dodging projectiles. Sometimes this is actually very hard and requires some fast reflexes. Think of Shin Megami Tensei combined with Touhou, with the graphical style of Earthbound.

While the premise is fairly unique, the game thrives through its writing. Having the choice to not kill anyone wouldn't really mean anything if the game couldn't get the player to care about the characters, and invested in, well, not killing them. There's some genuinely funny moments throughout, however some jokes probably go on longer than they should (the dating mini-game comes to mind). When the game mentions, at the start, that it's possible to not kill anyone, it raises a red flag in my mind. When the tutorial character (who is much more than just a tutorial character) praises you and says she is proud of you that you chose a non-violent path, it immediately tells me this: Undertale has two endings; a 'good' ending and a 'bastard' ending. Once you learn this, you start to play a the game in a certain way, with the promise of the best ending waiting on the horizon. It seems to program you like many other games with moral choice systems do. I usually think this is pretty cheap, however, Undertale endears itself to you with having likable characters.

When I finished the righteous path and saved the world, etc. I thought about doing the other ending. It was actually pretty clever to subtly let the player know that there was a bastard ending from the start. There are many characters that you spare that become NPCs you can interact with later on, or have extended dialog with, and play mini-games with. I tried to imagine those places and events without the characters and it actually made me sad. I didn't want to do anything bad to this world, so I didn't attempt the bad, a.k.a 'Genocide' run. Not completing the other run probably means that I won't see all of the content that the game has to offer, but screw it, I don't want to kill my friends.

Undertale has some flaws. Like I said, sometimes, the game has a hard time figuring out when it should just let a joke go. Most of the time, the game is pretty clear on what actions to take to end a fight in a non-violent way, other times, it's not so clear. After choosing to not fight anyone throughout the entire game, one of the last boss fights requires you to fight no matter which ending you want to get. Being at level one and not bothering to upgrade my weapons at all, this was very hard fight. Having the knowledge that there is a good ending and a bad ending led me to second guessing even minor choices throughout the game, causing me a lot of anxiety. Again, this could have been the intended effect, but it drew me out of the game at some points. I suddenly realized that I was playing a video game, if that makes any sense. However, this could also be intended as well, as you near the end of the game, it becomes very meta, commenting on the very nature of RPGs and video games themselves.

 Overall, I think this game is excellent and lives and dies on its writing. It's interesting to see a artfully done game with a message, that actually has a skill element as well. You will actually come to care about the characters and they'll start to care about you as well. Give this game a try, it's very well worth it for $9.99.