I finished my first playthrough of Undertale in stunned silence. My journey had begun with dumb puns and silly puzzles, but the end affected me in a way I never expected. That’s kind of Undertale’s specialty — playing with our expectations of what an RPG should be, subverting them, and using them to drive a story unique to what games can do. Its strong writing, integration of gameplay with storytelling, and acute understanding of its audience all build to something that surprises at every turn. As a lone human fallen into an underground world that serves as a prison for monsters, I had my journey laid out for me, as most RPG protagonists do. For my first playthrough I took a pacifist approach, being as kind and merciful as possible as I searched for a way back to the surface. But I made a mistake: I accidentally killed a monster in the beginning. So I restarted without saving, as I would in any other game when I needed a do-over. Except… things were different this time. Dialogue had changed to reflect that I’d seen her die. Undertale expected me to have played RPGs before and played with those conventions in unexpected ways. That first berating from Flowey shaped the rest of my experience — I learned I couldn’t bank on a soft reset, so I had to tread carefully. Everything I did mattered. That clever manipulation of gameplay mechanics adds weight to a story that couldn’t have been told in any other way or medium. It's hard to express just how much I adore Undertale without spoiling anything significant, but that's what I love about it. It tells its story in such a dynamic way, and with such a great understanding of the RPG player’s mindset, that it couldn’t have been told in any other way. It's a masterfully crafted experience that I won't forget any time soon.