Inside The Score - Undertale - Undertale

Undertale

This is Undertale. And this is the end.

Greetings to consumers all across the globe. Thanks for the support and love the blog has received throughout its run —no, this is not goodbye even though this track would be a perfect fit for that!

And don’t ask for the full Undertale though, stop trying to make Undertale happen! Great soundtrack but the MIDI tracks need to be generated from scratch with advanced methods—basically just listening to it a lot.

For now I leave you with some thoughts about the longest track from the already iconic Undertale soundtrack. Since this is pretty much a mixture of already known Undertale tracks, we will get to its proper components later.

Musical Analysis

There is a reason this one is named Undertale, just like the game. Since it is at this moment when those indie games do the emotional gut punch of revealing the full scope of their story. A nostalgic ostinato with a folksy instrument and vibe of a track the player has already heard—and in this case actually played on a piano themselves—is a must; although it failed the indie test of having it played on a banjo. It also failed the indie test of having its story end up being a metaphor for depression (Ok, it is actually a depressing scenario for the characters). This is the moment where you see what is the full deal with the monsters of the underworld and what some important characters were going through.

Unlike other compositions from the soundtrack this one actually uses a recorded performance of a slightly detuned acoustic guitar to which the other instruments join as a crescendo, Ravel’s Bolero style, with even the standard key change up for the final punch. The key change up might be a cliche but its undeniable power can still be deployed from time to time. This is the moment where the game allows itself to let go of its subversive, random humour nature and become as emotional as indie games are required by law. So what will you do with the final boss after learning all this? That Is the question posed by Toby Fox.

Also, finally, the delay effect to the piano notes is an actual delay as opposed to artificially having to create it by doubling notes. Welcome to modern gaming! Some contrabass notes are so low that they barely appear on the visualization. Plus, you have the proper violin section instruments as opposed to generic string pads—even though they are still here—with the violin specifically having many articulations like detache.

Since the score for Undertale is heavily based around reused leitmotifs all across in order to make a classic cohesive experience, it is not surprising that this one uses what will become the Asriel theme, already heard as an ostinato by the player during the adventure, including a pointless puzzle trying to get the legendary artifact; it is mixed with the opening cue of the game, also its main theme, Once upon a Time to close the cycle.

I will eventually go more in-depth into Undertale (both song and game); you can check more tracks and an introduction here. Thanks to Majora4Prez as a Pareon supporter for aid in discussions about the track and pointing out to the proper instruments used. It is nice that the Undertale fans have already made instrument sheets of almost everything that Toby Fox used on his soundtrack! Check for example over here.