The whole point of PS!Outertale was to be a game that remains faithful to Undertale. That's been the idea since day one, and it's not going to change. Even changing the battle sprites alone wasn't a decision I made lightly, and I had to think on it for a long time wondering if I would indeed put the game too far away from Undertale's style. In the end, I determined that it would not.

But first, let me tell you what's NOT changing: Intro panel format/style, text blip SFX, any SFX to be honest, the main menu design, the way save files work, the overworld system, the overworld character sprites, the sidebar menu, the item menu, the way items work, the way monster battles function, the design layout of the battle screen, the way in which I try to fashion the cutscenes to match Undertale's vibe and comedic timing, the way I structure pauses in speech to the same effect, the pixel-perfect accuracy of the menus and other screens, the painstaking effort to match the position of objects in some cutscene-heavy areas, the way shops work, the shopkeeper sprites themselves, and the music mostly being the same at the same points in the story. There is probably more, but I can't memorize it all because the only thing that IS changing is battle sprites.

Now, as for why? There are a few reasons. One is, Toby has made statements about fangames and does not want a game to re-create an Undertale route from beginning to end, and if I didn't change something, I feel that the game's pacifist route would be way too close to the same route from UT.

Second, in my experience showing the game to others, they'll wish there was something more custom about the game, and get bored of playing because the character designs in battles are totally unchanged and uninteresting. Now, with how nostalgic I am about UT, I can enjoy a game with the same sprites forever, but that's not everyone. It's not a lot of people. And so I made a compromise in that regard.

Third, and this is related to the second, not changing any sprites would make it hard for this game to be taken seriously by anyone. This game is for you as much as it is for me, and I don't want to create something that didn't at least try to put some effort somewhere to create an original design.

Fourth, and most importantly, the custom battle sprites have really brought people in the community around this project, and given everyone something to work towards, and through that I have met countless amazing artists, and even brought some unknown ones into the limelight. If my project can do that, then it's worth changing a few sprites.

All in all though, I remain as faithful as ever to Undertale, it's the reason I started this whole thing, after all. Even saying that, the new sprites are pretty similar to Undertale's, you can ask the artist major_memestar or firedupmoose, or anyone else, about how difficult of a game owner I must be to work with because of how much I insist on sticking to the Undertale look- I've had so many disagreements with people because I have fought tooth and nail to keep this thing faithful to UT as much as it is.

Anyway, if you decided to read this whole thing, I appreciate it. And I hope it helps explain this whole thing.