Undertale - No need to kill things, even if they try kill you

[root]

I'm not sure I understand what you're driving at.  Are you trying to logically disprove my tastes?  And anyway the art in that one screenshot is not at all representative of where the bar is set for most of the game, which is single-color sprites on a black background.  I'm allowed to not dig that!

[Gaizokubanou]

Yeah game comes off very well overall but I don't like the visuals at all either.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Yeah I thought the art mostly just did the job to be honest. I like pixel art but this style wasn't a key part of my love for the game.

[root]

The number of times I have been defeated at the end has completely erased my interest in trying to finish this fucking game and I think I'm just gonna watch all the endings on youtube. So, hooray for that, I guess.

 

Edit: Okay after a very frustrating hour and a half I finished with the neutral ending.

 

I didn't realize when I fought Toriel that it was possible to kill her, and wound up killing her accidentally, but didn't kill anything else after that, including sparing Asgore and Flowey.  But the fact that I'd killed Toriel made a lot of the game incredibly, hugely sad. Carrying around a cellphone with only her number in it for a while, the lectures I got from Sans about the promises he made to her and the way she never answered anymore when he knocked on the door to the ruins - and of course the moment I roll up on Asgore's castle I'm a fucking wreck. Oh god and basically NOBODY KNOWS except for Flowey that I killed her, right on up to after extending mercy to Asgore he's like 'hey cool, you and me and my wife can all live together as a family!' and it's the goddamned worst.

 

Other non-spoiler thoughts: I would have liked to have the Temmies be a more significant portion of the main story, and Mettatron much less.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Yeah, the game is actually really quite hard if you're avoiding fights. To beat the boss I actually had to stock up on healing stuff after ignoring it all game.

 

Oh... that is so good. I hope this doesn't ruin it for you, but a lot of that is mirrored even if you spare her because she's heartbroken that you left.

 

She tells you to go on ahead but never return. She seals the door and stops talking to sans. She wont answer the phone either. She does reappear as part of the 'True' ending but otherwise she was just as absent in my playthrough. I love that it fits in both contexts even if it's a bit of a narrative cheat.

 

I recommend watching other endings if you don't intend to replay. There's some good meat on those other bones.

 

Also I never even found the temmie village, but I agree Metaton's section dragged on. Much as I liked the character you spent a long chunk of time in that section and they're a lot of specialist games that are less thrilling, like the cooking show, the news section and the multiple fights against him. It doesn't help to realise

 

That it's all pointless and destined to be beaten by you since Metaton's not against you for most of it.

[root]

A friend linked this mashup of the Tem Shop music on twitter and I can't stop listening.  I love the huge amount of fanart and creative response that this game is generating.

[Tanukitsune]

Speaking of Undertale mashups... This is kinda perfect?

[SuperBiasedMan]

God damn that mixes three fantastic songs.

[Tanukitsune]

Oh my GOD!

 

I'm watching a video of the difference between a normal and Genocide Run and.... Flowey KNOWS!
He comments about how some would be too cowardly to do the killing themselves and just watch others do it....
*shivers*

[SuperBiasedMan]

Oh my GOD!

 

I'm watching a video of the difference between a normal and Genocide Run and.... Flowey KNOWS!

He comments about how some would be too cowardly to do the killing themselves and just watch others do it....

*shivers*

 

Same.

 

Also

Look up some stuff about sans's old friend for more of that meta awareness.

[Synnah]

I'm most of the way through my second playthrough of this, and it's pretty much my GOTY so far. I'm going full pacifist this time, having killed most of the bosses first time. If never even occurred to me to look for ways to not kill them! 

The scene in Undyne's house when you don't kill her is amazing. Up to this point there hadn't been much difference in my playthrough, because Toriel doesn't speak to you if you spare her, but this scene alone justified playing through a second time.

 

I'm also being a lot more thorough this time; Papyrus has dialogue for pretty much every room in the game if you phone him

and a lot of them have different dialogue once Undyne joins him,

so I'm taking those in. This game is full of wonderful incidental details.

[ewokskick]

I spent the entire game not killing anyone and then I hit the final boss and it is going to make me fight him. Am I missing something? If not, I hate that design decision so much. It feels like my entire game has be invalidated.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I spent the entire game not killing anyone and then I hit the final boss and it is going to make me fight him. Am I missing something? If not, I hate that design decision so much. It feels like my entire game has be invalidated.

 

It is and it isn't. If you want to get spoiled I'll nest my super spoiler.

 

You must attack him to end the fight, you bring his health to zero and then you decide whether or not to give him mercy. I agree that this breaks with the game, and it threw me for a loop. I died to him so many times just trying to survive, but he just wasn't responding or even engaging with me I eventually knew I had no choice. I liked how desperately I was trying to keep it going.

It's definitely a gameplay screw. I think it's quite narratively justified, though I'm sure I'm extra forgiving just cause I love the game.

[ewokskick]

I literally don't even know how to fight in this game and now it is going to make me do it with like 20hp?  Did the people who like this game do the "non-violent" (but apparently not) route?  I hate games that let you think you can play a certain way then randomly decide you can't.  It's very very annoying and completely ruins my play-through experience.  It's like the game built in an entire system, that was its selling point for me just to lay a big old turd on it at the end.  I honestly don't even want to finish.  Ugh.

[graddy]

Finally gave into the barrage of hype. Made it through the first area. The writing has already made me smile a half dozen times.

Going for a mix of fighting and talking. Really like the bullet hell patterns for defending, even though the sensitivity feel just a little bit off from time to time.

[root]

I literally don't even know how to fight in this game and now it is going to make me do it with like 20hp?  Did the people who like this game do the "non-violent" (but apparently not) route?  I hate games that let you think you can play a certain way then randomly decide you can't.  It's very very annoying and completely ruins my play-through experience.  It's like the game built in an entire system, that was its selling point for me just to lay a big old turd on it at the end.  I honestly don't even want to finish.  Ugh.

 

This was also my experience at the end - it seemed really strange to me that there was SO MUCH EMPHASIS placed on the importance of player choice and having the game being so calm and story-driven, only to seemingly randomly require you to suddenly be really good at a completely different kind of game right at the very very end.  I spent an hour and a half restarting the fucking Asgore battle and it took me completely out of the narrative of the game and I was in the same situation you are, where I was ready to just throw my hands up and watch all the endings on Youtube.

 

I did eventually beat him, though, but it required a bit of cheating and soliciting friends for help on how to progress past that point without deviating from the narrative path I was trying to remain on.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I'm surprised people found it this hard. I definitely found it hard but it didn't bother me at all. I don't know if it's that I did well on it or what. The fighting didn't feel that different really, but I guess I didn't have trouble hitting the timing for the hits.

 

I'm bummed it's been souring the experience for some people, because it sat perfectly fine for me. The whole game slowly got harder because of the pacificism and never gaining a level, and that rings true thematically for taking the difficult pacifist path.

[ewokskick]

I went ahead and got over it and beat asgore.  Then, there was another boss that was....   Well it just became a weird bullet hell game for a bit.  I don't know.  It's better than what I thought the first ending was going to be, but still kind of a bad ending.  It basically said "the ending is that you should play the game again."  WTF is that?

[SuperBiasedMan]

That's part of the True ending. You can load your save and just go back to Alphys' lab. There's another level there with more story stuff.

[Tanukitsune]

To be more precise, you need to have had the date with Papyrus and the cooking lesson with Undyne to get the Alyphs lab section.

[aoanla]

So: I tried the demo of Undertale and... pretty much bounced off of it. I don't think it's Undertale's fault - there's obvious intent there, and it's mostly that the humour isn't really clicking that much with me, along with the bullet-hell sequences being surprisingly difficult at points (plus I don't get on with JRPG style "random encounters" while I'm trying to solve a puzzle, however simple that puzzle is). 

I was feeling quite tired at the time, so it's possible that I was just in the wrong mental state to really appreciate things, and I'm definitely going to try to give it another go when I have a bit more attention to give it.

 

However: is the demo an accurate reflection of the theme/design of the full game, or does the full version significantly develop from what the demo does in new ways?

 

[it's all a bit ironic, given that I actually really got into Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey on my DS, enough that I actually couldn't bring myself to finish either of the non-Neutral endings, because you end up being too much of a sociopath to people.]

[SuperBiasedMan]

The demo is pretty accurate. It's (as far as I remember) exactly just the first level of the game. There's more actual interacting with others and story, and the fights get more interesting. But if you found it hard it will only get worse (depending on how you play),  unfortunately you may want to skip it.

 

As a more general point. it's interesting that a lot of people praise the humour. I definitely found it funny but that's one of the least important aspects of the game. I found the humour better for just the game's general charm and endearing me to the characters.

[Synnah]

So I finished my second playthrough, a full pacifist run. Major spoilers ahead:

 

I don't really know why yet, but the end of the game left me slightly cold. I think it was specifically the final boss; slightly annoying attacks, but that wasn't really a problem as much as his dialogue. I just didn't really buy Asriel as a character. I have a theory as to why: Toby Fox is part of the team that works on the webcomic Homestuck, as a musician. Undertale's highest Kickstarter reward tier was to have your fan-troll be part of the game's canon.

 

If you're not familiar with Homestuck, it's probably sufficient to say that it inspires fan-characters in roughly the same way as Sonic the Hedgehog does. Given the naming convention for Homestuck's Trolls, I'm almost positive that Asriel Dreemurr was the fan-troll that made it into the game, and he really does feel like an OC. I think that's part of the reason why he left me cold. It's weird, because I was obsessed with the game right up until that point. And a lot of the stuff in the Pacifist run is amazing; the Papyrus date, cooking with Undyne, the date with Alphys, and Alphys' true lab were all fantastic. But Asriel broke the spell for me. Maybe it's also because everything up to that point felt distinctly human and relatable, whereas the Asriel fight just feels like a bunch of Anime tropes.

 

I was planning on doing a genocide run, but now I probably won't. And certainly the game does its best to make you not want to, after completing a pacifist run. So maybe I'll just YouTube it.

 

All that said, Undertale is still a good contender for my Game of the Year.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I wasn't big on Asriel as a character. Flowy is an adequate foil for the character in a true pacifist run, but the weird amalgamation of Flowy and Asriel's 'real self' is weird. Some speculation I've read since has made me think a little better of it but not enough to think he was good.

 

Though your theory is entirely wrong. The two fan trolls are optional boss fights. Toby Fox intentionally sequestered them from having any impact on the story. I think it's just that Asriel as a character was made to fill a plot need, and that need involves having him take two extremes of a situation in a way that really doesn't mesh so it never rings true for him to be a real character. I would've preferred if Flowey was just Flowey and he was resolved as a character somehow. I think Fox wanted to press the idea that there's good in anyone and value in extending empathy to them, but I think that would've been better done by having Flowey able to change without making it that Asriel was hidden in him.

[ewokskick]

I wasn't big on Asriel as a character. Flowy is an adequate foil for the character in a true pacifist run, but the weird amalgamation of Flowy and Asriel's 'real self' is weird. Some speculation I've read since has made me think a little better of it but not enough to think he was good.

 

Though your theory is entirely wrong. The two fan trolls are optional boss fights. Toby Fox intentionally sequestered them from having any impact on the story. I think it's just that Asriel as a character was made to fill a plot need, and that need involves having him take two extremes of a situation in a way that really doesn't mesh so it never rings true for him to be a real character. I would've preferred if Flowey was just Flowey and he was resolved as a character somehow. I think Fox wanted to press the idea that there's good in anyone and value in extending empathy to them, but I think that would've been better done by having Flowey able to change without making it that Asriel was hidden in him.

I finally bit the bullet and beat the game and then reloaded to get the "real ending." So, I just finished my true pacifist game. I think I agree about the ending kind of betraying the theme about empathy of the game. I honestly loved the game at first. The no-kill mechanic was great. The friendships were amazing. However, I really feel like the more effort you give the game, the worse it gets. A no-kill run just kind flubs around at the end. Then, the "true ending" is both unnecessary (why should there need to be another run for this?) and even less rewarding. Upon reflection, I want to recommend this game to people, but it is the kind of game that is worse the more you care about it. It went from a breezy joy to a total slog. I would have much preferred a straight forward sincere ending than what I got.

I hate how this game went for being surprising in a lot of great ways to surprising in a lot of bad ways. It might have been a GOTY contender for me, but it became indulgent with its story and the game play became worse and then just became unjustifiable.