In Stars and Time

" A turn-based RPG that follows a group of adventurers at the end of their journey to defeat a king who is slowly freezing the land in time.

Now available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Nintendo Switch! "

In Stars and Time, and it's prequel START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue, are a pair of games that absolutely have just kind of been sitting there in my brain for a while because they are great.

Major spoiler discussions to be abound here.

These games are about time looping, and I find them fascinating to rotate in my head because it feels kind of opposite to how the whole thing gets handled in Undertale.

In undertale the ability to reset and within text time travel back to the save point is something that's narratively used to drive the character progression of the characters around your protagonist, and many people have gone at length about it's use as a narrative tool there.

In these two games, it's used in a different way that I find fascinating due to the key differences in Siffrin vs Frisk/The Fallen Child/You!.

Siffrin's character is wholly developed and then further developed by putting them through the wringer there. In Undertale it's contrasted because the Player character is deliberately left vague of characterization unless you go for either Genocide or True Pacifist, and those routes have much to say about you the player and how you engage with the game. This is distinct from Siffrin since Siffrin's their own person and not a vessel for you. As a result, the developer gets to have a lot more fun in digging around into what a timeloop would do to a person if left inside one too long.