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UNDERTALE

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago12,897 words

After putting it off for years, I finally played an obscure game called UNDERTALE that you've probably never heard of. Here's my 13,000 word dissertation about that experience. I hope I get an A. That is not the grade I would use to describe my personal experience of this game. (I'm assuming everyone and their little annoying dog have already played it and/or are intimately familiar with it, so this is full of spoilers.)



(That's not Undertale!)

Back in 2015, I was working on Taming Dreams, which was an attempt to make a 'nonviolent RPG' after feeling frustrated for years about being a pacifist who made games about killing (sort of, technically). It wasn't going so well, though, at least not financially; I'd decided for some stupid reason to release it just for mobiles, and I was making it in Flash, which was nearing the end of its days. I released three episodes of it (which I should re-release in some non-mobile form once I figure out how), but stopped when my life changed direction and I went to study Psychology at university instead.

While there, I heard about a game called UNDERTALE, which was an RPG in which "nobody had to die". It had been a huge hit! Completely unlike Taming Dreams. I didn't think sensibly about the reasons for that at the time; I just heard of this other creative work in passing that sounded similar to my own, but which was so much more successful, and the very thought of it made me feel like a failure. "Why did this succeed where I didn't? Did I do something wrong? Is my work not good enough?"

This comparison to other creators is something most creative types experience to varying degrees, and it can be crushing when you feel you fall short. Here's a youtube video about that which I remember from a few years ago:



Sure, we should be inspired by those who are better than us... but aspiring to that ideal can be more or less challenging depending on the particular comparison. In the case of Undertale, it sounded so similar to what I was trying to hopefully-originally make that it felt like my Best Idea, my magnum-opus-to-be, had been stolen, done before me, and it'd been such a huge hit that everyone would accuse me of just copying it were I to release my own. Weirdly, the creator even shared my uncommon first name (and his surname is one I wished I had as a child), which was one of those weird things that made me wonder whether life is all just some authored story I'm in!

So I just put off playing it, for years. Eventually those feelings subsided, but I continued to avoid it largely because I'd built it up in my mind as this thing I was avoiding for so long. It became a bit of a running joke.

It was a hugely successful game though, more than most indies, and I felt it'd be a good idea to finally play it so then I could perhaps get an idea of what people might like to see in a similar game of my own. Better to do that now than to play it after writing Atonal Dreams only to realise I should have done some things differently.

When I finally got to starting, I suppose I'd been avoiding it for so long that I was tired of feeling anxious about it. There was some reluctance for sure, but I managed to push through that and dive in...





I've finished my first playthrough, so there's more to see, and I was going to delay posting this until after doing that... though I don't really have the motivation to go through it again at the moment. Maybe some other time. I know there's a lot that I don't know that other people do, but I'm basing my feelings about it on what I did see.

Did I enjoy this game? I don't know. It's hard to ignore the general depression that drains everything of joy these days, plus that creative comparison was constant and made me analyse and overthink every detail in a way that a typical player wouldn't. So those got in the way.

I also don't enjoy the bullet hell mechanics at all, so the (pre-)final boss took days of short attempts before I finally got past it. During those days, returning to it to try again and again was a gruelling chore I could only stomach for a few minutes at a time.

There were some moments that felt particularly inspired though, and I can see how many aspects of it were widely appealing to people, especially the sorts of young people who feel a sense of belonging from geek culture, think in memes, etc.

I'm concerned though that since most people seem to have very fond feelings about it, expressions of anything other than positive impressions wouldn't go down well. MARDEK's far more flawed than Undertale, but most of us would probably prefer to hear nice things about it because of the fuzzy feelings it brought us in the past. I can't just gush here, though; I feel I kind of have to look at this through this critical lens if I'm hoping to figure out how best to make games myself... which saps the fun out of most games these days, unfortunately. Oh well.

So if you don't want to hear someone critiquing Undertale, that's completely understandable and fine and you probably shouldn't read the rest of this!

So... What did I think?



Well, one thing I noticed is that it's not really a game, in the way that, say, chess is a game. Games are defined by a set of rules, which you can master to become a more skilled player than you were when you started. I've spent the past few weeks trying to refine these rules for Atonal Dreams.

With Undertale, though, the mechanics changed constantly. There was a battle system, technically, and it was used in some interesting and fourth-wall-breaking ways, but usually your options were either to just use a basic FIGHT command (I don't know how varied it is since I ignored it for the bulk of the game, though I did notice it had some reaction-like component, which was interesting), or to take the nonviolent route and essentially just select conversation options which were different for every enemy. Once you knew the correct option to choose for a given enemy, every other instance was the same.

The bullet hell segments could be called the main gameplay I suppose, though they (and even your own movement rules) were drastically different for every boss fight, even for every enemy type, so it was more like a series of disparate minigames. There are a bunch of puzzles on the field, too, which are all also different, adding to this feeling. It often seemed to mock the idea of gameplay mechanics more than it made use of them (as in that screenshot).



I got the feeling that it was born of social connection. Not just in its overall themes and characters, but in what I imagined of the creative process behind it. I make my games alone in a bubble, so their voice is distinctly my own (this isn't necessarily a good thing if it doesn't exactly harmonise with the player's). Here, though, it felt like he made this while constantly chatting, joking, and trading ideas with his like-minded friends.

I got the impression while playing that a lot of the NPCs were designed by other people, and the credits confirmed this. Seems a lot was made by other people actually; it absolutely wasn't the product of a solo, isolated, lonely mind. (I don't know anything about the actual production; this is just the feeling I got and it could be wrong!)

I'm also aware though that it had a Kickstarter, and I get the impression the backers were rewarded by having their artistic ideas added to the game?

For example:



What the hell? This weird thing appeared out of nowhere, made some ridiculous faces at me, then disappeared, never to be seen again. Huh? Whatever that was, it feels like it has an out-of-universe story behind it that I'm not privy to, which I felt clashed with the feeling of being included that the game wanted to create.

When I first heard of Undertale, I already knew of Toby Fox as a particularly skilled composer who worked on Homestuck (there's a piece of music called Megalovania which seems to be associated memetically with Undertale, which I could have sworn was originally on a Homestuck album... I just checked and ∞ it was ∞). I liked Homestuck, though I never felt like I was one of the real fans; more like a distant onlooker, as with everything. I also found out relatively recently that Toby Fox had started off by making at least one Earthbound romhack.



The influences of both Homestuck and Earthbound aren't subtle. I'd go so far as to say that this is essentially "a Homestuck Earthbound romhack", just with some lore differences. It appeals to the same kinds of minds for similar reasons. I get the feeling that Homestuck really blew up once it introduced romance dynamics for the troll species that opened up whole new worlds for the geeky shippers to explore with these characters and their own. I don't know much about it, but I saw that Homestuck went on to birth some kind of friend sim or something? And Undertale heavily features feelings of friendship.

All this considered, I wonder whether Undertale's success is wholly due to Toby Fox's association with Homestuck. It started life with a premade audience whose preferences aligned with what it provided, which is a once-in-a-generation sort of opportunity. Comparing the success of anything else - like my games - to this just wouldn't make sense.

I heard that Homestuck's continuing these days? I never see anything from it anymore. I've seen a ton of memes for Undertale though - fewer these days, though they're still around - and its memeability was obviously a factor in its success too.

I just got a youtube recommendation for a video by an obscure little creator called "jacksepticeye", titled "Donating To Smaller Streamers", and the image shows what I'm assuming is a violinist streamer who takes requests and the text "Sans donated $300 - Megalovania". Hmm.

I wonder whether the attention from internet celebrities also helped rocket this game into the limelight, as is the case with things these days (eg Among Us), or whether it got started by giving the huge, hungry Homestuck horde something new to chew on, and the streamers and memers jumped on the bandwagon once it was already rolling.

It's interesting looking at these external factors that led to its success, because as a creative work, I didn't feel that it was amazingly impressive. It's not bad! It just didn't seem as great to me as its reputation might suggest. Or at least it did a bunch of things I feel I'd be criticised for - or have been criticised for - were I to try them myself.



There's an awful lot of telling rather than showing, for one. For a game that seems to stress social connection and quirkiness, most of the 'main' story was told through soulless props you had to go out of your way to examine. It's hard for me to even remember much of it after my first playthrough because I have no actual experiences to bind much of the lore to. Just this disconnected writing.

I also feel like the story itself wasn't especially coherent, at least from what I saw of it from one playthrough. Rather than being a fulfilling narrative with a clear thread from the start to the end, it felt more like a series of disjointed skits, with characters (eg Mettaton) being introduced in the middle then going on to become a big deal for... some reason...? Despite having essentially no relevance to the main story thread about reaching the king and... escaping the underground you randomly fell into, or something?

A lot of it felt like he'd just included whatever came to mind at the time, or that there were several different stories/games made at different times all stitched together. Very Homestuck-like.

Perhaps the silent protagonist was a big factor in giving me this feeling, or maybe most games' stories are like this and I'm just being unfairly harsh. Maybe. If I seem to be, it's probably because I'm so concerned with these days about how to write a good plot, and this hugely hyped game didn't even seem to meet a lot of the criteria many would say are necessary for that...

I'm also aware though that its structure changes based on your choices, and I don't think it'd be possible to have something wholly coherent considering that. Perhaps there are a lot of things that only become clear from multiple playthroughs, which I've not done, though if that's the case then I wonder about the merit of a decision like that (since I'd be criticised for trying such a thing; I've already faced criticism for not making the entirety of my characters' personalities apparent from the first impressions!).

And I know it's a comedy game, but I felt like there was some intention to really make a heartfelt connection with the player, which was sometimes disrupted by making so much into a joke. Not all the characters were complete jokes, but I got the feeling that joking around made up most of the interactions. Perhaps this resonates more with how most people interact with one another, though; I know I'm odd for getting into ~heartfelt discussions~ with people as much as I seem to. I don't really do banter, but most people do.

(My own games are full of silliness too, so maybe how I'm seeing this wouldn't make sense to other people that aren't me. Maybe my games seem no less frivolous? Or maybe MARDEK was quite silly and I've just grown old and sour or something in the decade since. Not unlikely.)



The last boss - at least the one I got? - was a particular offender. I remember an idea that I had as a teenager, which I found hilarious at the time: WHAT IF the final boss turned out to be some Random Commoner from the first village who seemed completely innocuous when you first met him, and who you hadn't seen since? LOL!!! It'd be HILARIOUS because that character had nothing to do with anything and now they're the final boss and it's just soooo funny!!!!

It's not completely fair to compare this to that specific scenario since the final boss character had at least appeared a couple of times before, but it's not like it had any major story role or there were any hints it was TRYING TO BECOME A GOD or whatever. It didn't make me feel excited surprise, more like "well THIS is stupid". Then the chaotic mess of a 'battle' against it couldn't decide whether it was a joke or an actual challenge (I was bombarded with attacks that seemed unavoidable, as if the point was that I could survive that anyway somehow... but I still got taken to the very-familiar-by-that-point GAME OVER screen several times).



Plus it essentially made fun of the love + friendship etc themes in a way that felt like the game itself - rather than the abhorrent character - was mocking them (eg a gun changing from shooting bullets to shooting green healing flowers, or BAD WORDS turning into green healing NICE WORDS in a way that felt insincere).

The whole thing just left a bitter taste in my mouth... though that was already there after spending days having to 'git gud' enough to pass the brutal bullet hell mechanics the previous final boss inflicted on me and which I had no alternative way to deal with despite the whole game up until that point being all about finding ways not to fight... Maybe that stupid out-of-nowhere boss would appeal to the sort of people who find memes hilarious though (that is, most people these days, from the look of things).

Hmm, a thought: there are some nice connections between the very beginning and end of the story, but it's the middle that feels disconnected. Would anything major be lost, or would it make any less sense, if you entirely cut out the 80% of the game between the intro and ending, between leaving the ruins and battling Mettaton's final form?



My attempts at making a nonviolent RPG were met with a lot of opposition because people told me they felt they were being forced into behaving a way that didn't appeal to them. They'd rather fight with weapons, like they were used to! I made Atonal Dreams with this in mind, and put effort into making both the taming and aggressive paths feel equally valid depending on the player's preference.

Here, though, it's stressed right from the start that the monsters are good and kind and innocent, and implies that anyone who'd dare hurt them is evil. You're literally frowned at if you use the FIGHT command during the ruins section at the beginning (as I accidentally did once while figuring out the controls, ruining the pacifist run before I'd even got started... annoying). There's a clear correct way, and that's to be nice. Humans are bigger and infinitely stronger than monsters (there's a book that mentions thousands of monsters can't stand up to the power of a single human soul), and you're just a bully if you beat them down using that power.

It's not even that I don't approve of that as a message, it just irritates me that this game did this so heavy-handedly and was loved, but when I tried it people took issue with it. Feels so unfair!



I feel that what I've said so far has been mostly critical, negative... It's not like there aren't parts that I enjoyed.

I appreciated the depth with which characters were explored and the options available to interact with them. I particularly liked the character of Dr Alphys, even though she came out of nowhere and suddenly took over the game (this is what I mean about there not feeling like a clear thread; I'd say Homestuck did this kind of thing all the time too). As someone with social anxiety, I could relate to her awkwardness, and I liked her posting status updates about being too scared to call me on the phone; that seemed like brilliance to me. Plus she seemed to have intriguing motivations born of insecurity and a desire to be needed, and I'm still not sure whether she was manipulating situations to meet her emotional needs or not (maybe I just missed something or it's revealed in other replay sections, but it wasn't clear to me whether what Mettaton said about her doing that was true or just him lying).



I don't know why Sans became the face of the game and a huge meme - I'm guessing there's some big, dramatic BOSS BATTLE with him on a path other than the one I took - but from what I did see, I could see how the way that he establishes a rapport with the player would help him feel like a friend. There were sections where he randomly showed up and asked to go to the pub together or to get a meal, which is one of the reasons I felt this was made by the sort of person who's used to regular social contact (unlike me), but which I also felt was unusually appealing, not something I'd seen in a game before. Other characters have similar interactions like dates etc, which are great ideas and which I find inspiring. I can see how things like that would have really appealed to people.

I liked the music too, though I already knew Toby Fox was a skilled composer so I was expecting that. I'll probably listen to the soundtrack quite a bit, though I'll get it after replaying at least once more in case there are some big things I've not yet experienced with music that I want to hear in its proper context first.



So yes. Undertale. I suppose those are my main feelings about this game. It was... interesting, and I found some of the ways that the game handled character interactions inspiring for Atonal Dreams, but overall I got a similar feeling to reading a forum roleplay by a group of friends I wasn't part of, who were making it up as they went along and really enjoying relating to one another's similar views of the world, or something.

Perhaps the same could be said of Homestuck too actually, though I was younger and less focused on comparing and assessing then so I just enjoyed it rather than picking it apart in exhausting detail. I wish I could have enjoyed this in the same way!

I wish I could be saying "WOW YEAH THAT WAS AMAZING I CAN'T WAIT TO REPLAY IT NINE TIMES AND UNLOCK THE SANS SEX SCENE", but at least I don't feel like "I could never make anything this good!" about it? So that's something??

(Actually, the sexlessness of the connections stood out to me too. There are jokes about/genuine 'normalising' of gay and lesbian romantic relationships, and dates are incorporated into gameplay (kind of), but nothing about, say, Papyrus boning you or whatever (that I can recall, though that seems such an obvious thing I wouldn't be surprised if I just missed it). I'd be much more sexual in my writing, and I can see that being repellent to certain kinds of minds in a way that Undertale wasn't. Hmm.)

SO YES! That's my overall assessment of this game that I took far too long to play for creative insecurity reasons! I also wrote out notes to myself as I went along, as I felt that the weight my own mind and internet culture had given this particular game warranted it. I'll include them here, though they mostly say what I already """summarised""" (ha) here. So you are free to leave now if you've had enough of this! I will unlock your shackles and put away the gun!

Oh, and I'm not looking to have everything I've missed spoiled, so please don't do that, please and thank you!



(These are the notes I made along the way. I'll be including screenshots, though I didn't start taking any until after the intro, annoyingly!)

First impressions:

I'm writing this after having played the game for just 35 minutes, so I'm still in what I'm assuming is the tutorial? Or at least the intro. I died because I'm still figuring out the battle system, so I'm taking this opportunity to write out my first thoughts about it!

The Earthbound influences are stronger than I was expecting. There are a lot of details like the start-of-battle messages, battle layouts, general aesthetics, limited item slots, menu appearance and functionality, etc which are more than just reminiscent of how those games work. Didn't Toby Fox make an Earthbound romhack or something before this?

I heard of Toby Fox years ago when he composed some particularly good music for Homestuck, so I was expecting this to have good music and some similarities to Homestuck. I've noticed those so far, though there have also been some forgettable ambience style tracks too, to my surprise. I like the ruins music. Like Earthbound, each battle uses different music, which I suppose keeps them unique but which I could never do due to the effort involved! I noticed that different characters have different grammatical quirks - which Homestuck did - so that's good to know because I'm doing that in my games these days too, and if people were accepting of it here then hopefully they won't just complain of 'typos' in my games.

The focus on niceness and unique personality is apparent right from the start. That's nice. Certainly more interesting than having some 'hero' who just slaughters all the soulless fodder in their path. In Atonal Dreams, monsters make pre-battle comments, but they're all (comically) horrible, so while you can tame or spare them feels like a free choice. Here, I'm getting the impression that everyone's a nice potentially poor victim who you can kill but you shouldn't if you're not a monster. I accidentally killed (I think? It ran away) an enemy because I thought I thought I had to press a button to open the command menu, and the helper character came in and scowled at me. This is notable to me because people have complained about the 'feelings' battle systems I've been experimenting with - especially if they forced the player to take a nonviolent route - though Undertale did this and was a hit.

Each save point has a little bit of unique text that deals with the current environment or some micro-story or exploration of mental state. Interesting. [Later, proofreading comment: seems they continued the theme of 'DETERMINATION' throughout, which was different to my interpretation here.]

A starting cutscene made up of little drawings in a black void... works, I suppose. Interesting that it appeared before the title screen. The setting presented is a fairly generic Humans vs Monsters, a big war that led to the downfall of one, which probably helps since it's easily understood, not baffling. There's no figuring anything out to understand the world you're in. But I also feel like the character I am is a hollow nobody; this is not necessarily a bad thing, and is perhaps more inviting than having to play as a charactered character whose personality isn't harmonious with your own.

The more immersive approach to the tutorial is something I appreciate from a narrative standpoint. Rather than just going through how to play all at once before you can, NPCs mention little bits and pieces through dialogue which looks like it could have had branching possibilities (eg a frog telling me the button to skip through dialogue by mentioning its friend didn't pay attention to it, but I didn't press the skip button myself so it said at least I listened). However, this meant I wasn't sure how battles worked.

I don't like random battles that trigger as you walk around!

I'm still trying to figure out the battle system. I vaguely knew it involved bullet-hell-like mechanics and something about talking to or sparing your enemies, that they were all different, but it's interesting actually playing through that rather than just hearing about it. I don't enjoy the bullet hell segments at all, those aren't my kind of game (I prefer deliberate thought over twitchy reflex), but they're thankfully brief. Maybe they'll grow on me, we'll see [they did not]. I suppose it's more 'interesting', in a way, than watching monsters animate their unavoidable attacks at you. They all 'attack' at once, which is quicker but also overwhelming already.

I've been trying to avoid attacking and do whatever the alternative is, but it's not been entirely clear how that works. An NPC mentioned when names turn yellow, you can use the MERCY command, and it seems as if doing some non-attack action turns those names yellow and then you can do that? But they give 0 EXP? Am I doing this right? I don't know. I prefer the idea of the interactions playing with some non-HP numerical statistical system instead... though obviously I'm biased since that's what I'm trying to do myself.

Each enemy does feel unique, to a degree, and I appreciate the unique writing for each one.

I don't much care for the 'puzzle'-solving right at the start, but at least they're fairly trivial.

Having the character whose name I can't recall serve as an intro mentor helped feel like I was being welcomed and helped into the world. Her giving me a 'cell phone' was unexpected, especially it being added as a basic menu option; I wonder where that'll end up going. Seems useful for having exposition without an NPC necessarily having to be present. I like how the silly options you could choose from gave different responses when chosen multiple times and were aware of other choices (calling her my mother, then flirting).

I'll play some more later, and I'm certain my feelings will change the more time I spend with the game. But it's valuable to record these first impressions. I'm not blown away by the game, it doesn't make me think "oh no I'll never make anything this good!!", but it's interesting. Does some creative things. I'm interested to see where it goes.



I've played a bit more now, but it's hard to sink into the world and just play for hours because of depression and a lot of mental energy spent comparing this to things I make. So I'll have to gradually get through it in bits and pieces.

I've finished the tutorial, and the 'battle' against... Toriel? Is that the name? That was okay, better than her turning into some child-eating psycho you had to kill, anyway, though it was explored quite briefly and shallowly. Not a bad thing, otherwise it would have dragged on.

I'm still absolutely not enjoying the bullet hell segments (I'm also bad at them), and I don't prefer the lack of numerical feedback from your non-violent actions. The Toriel (or whatever) encounter had me use the Mercy action several times in a row and it led to different comments each time, but unlike with violence, I wasn't sure whether what I was doing was having any effect. I suppose you could say that lack of transparency makes it more like what an actual interaction might be like, but it's not as if violence has HP bars in the real world either. If you're going to show the effects of one as a numerical bar, why not both? That's been the mentality driving my own design decisions, anyway.

I appreciate that every monster seems unique and has its own nonviolent approach to victory, and they feel like conversations, though is the process identical for every instance of that species? I'll have to find out. Also weird if you're, say, joking along with them, but they're still attacking you every turn. I do like how these attacks eventually changed for some monsters and for Toriel though (in her case, I was still bombarded with fireballs or whatever, but they were intentionally missing me; a nice touch).

It seems strange to me that monsters enter a state where their name turns yellow, and then you have to deliberately use Mercy manually instead of them leaving with thanks or something once they reach that name-colour-changing point.

I've seen how memetic the character Sans became, but I knew absolutely nothing about him, so I was curious what role he'd play in the story. I've just been introduced to him, and I see that he speaks in Comic Sans and is a comic and is called Sans. I see. Funny. His brother is called Papyrus and speaks in the font of the same name. Interesting. I wonder what drove that decision. Maybe I'll find out.

I don't know what Sans's overall role will be - maybe it'll be big and that'll explain the obsession with him - but already the way he's been portrayed in his introduction quickly establishes a rapport with the player. He talks about his brother as if sharing secrets in confidence with a trusted confidant, and the camera zooms in on him after his hilarious jokes (which I find odd with the pixel graphics, but whatever) to bring the player into his world.

I've also been paying attention to the 'gabble' noises during dialogue. Some people complained when I showed off a 'Divine Scene' which included continuous sounds which weren't dissimilar to this. I like them and think they work, but hopefully people will be accepting of them in Atonal Dreams too.

I found it amusing how after the tutorial, the game's name was shown, marking its TRUE BEGINNING and all that, and it was followed by "By Toby Fox" in huge letters. Ha. I could never do that. Or I doubt I could get away with it, at least!

Oh, and there's that flower that introduced the game and setting in an amusing way, and I'm wondering whether it'll come up repeatedly between different game sections. My assumption at this point is that there'll be several sections which end with a boss encounter you can spare or kill, and this flower will come up afterwards to JUDGE your performance during that section. I was confused by what it said to me last time though, because it listed several monsters, said "maybe one of them was someone else's Toriel", and wondered if they had families or something. It wasn't clear to me whether it was saying I did kill them and robbed others of loved ones (I didn't though?), or that I should have killed them because they'll... trap people? I'm probably missing something obvious here, but it makes me think about how written dialogue might not always communicate what's intended, and that I'll need to be careful of that. I'm still at the fumbling around lost stage though rather than intimately familiar with the experience from having it in my mind for years, though. Plus depression's clouding my mind so maybe I'm just being stupid. [I think what happened is that because I 'killed' an enemy in one accidental hit, it assumed I'd been killing them all and I unlocked the killer dialogue?]

I'll probably end up adding to this a few times, at least during these early sections, since this game has been a big point of comparison and avoidance in my mind for years - plus it was a huge success - so it feels more valuable to record these thoughts than it would be for any other game.



Played for a third session, more notes: [I started taking screenshots around this point.]



I've been wandering around a snowy place having interactions with a pair of skeletons. There are a lot of these interactions - or I suppose scenes, since the player character is a mute who just watches - back-to-back, essentially constant. Makes me think about how I'd handle something like this, probably having a bunch of battles between each scene and having fewer scenes in total (I was planning to have silly scenes with Pierce at the beginning and end of Atonal Dreams' intro island, but no more than that). Maybe that's just padding and this is more appealing, though?

I can definitely hear the Homestuck voice in the dialogue. The cadence of Papyrus's speech in particular sounds like a few Homestuck characters.

While I can see the humour in the wacky characters setting up puzzles that are actually duds, showing their incompetence, it's not something I find wildly engaging, personally. There was one where Papyrus had set up a bunch of coloured squares with ridiculous effects and a random layout... and the punchline was visible a mile off, but we had to go through the whole charade anyway. I suppose that's how some jokes work, though.

I suppose Sans and Papyrus being brothers - and Sans talking to the player about helping his brother out - adds an extra layer of psychosocial engagement to what could just be a pair of comic relief characters (and would be in most other media). Since I see Sans memes everywhere but never any about Papyrus, I'm wondering whether only one of their roles will expand as the game goes on.



There's a lot of different stuff, variability in how you're playing the game or what you're seeing on every screen. Details like some frozen spaghetti next to a microwave, or kicking around a snowball. Stuff I couldn't be bothered with and would probably just pad an area with monster encounters. Maybe I should take inspiration from this though. Makes every scene unique and potentially memorable.

I'm still not enjoying the battle mechanics and have died three times now. The conversation-like nonviolent options seem to be a case of trial and error the first time, or retreading a known path subsequent times. There are presumably multiple paths to victory for at least some enemies, but I'm not motivated to experiment since I don't like the bullet hell segments and want to minimise them; it'd be different on subsequent playthroughs. I'm also still getting 0 XP for everything and wondering if I'm doing something wrong. Is XP only gained for killing things? It's unclear from what the game provides itself.

The item equipping is simple to the point of being annoying! I also never like it when games have just text for their items, no visuals or anything.



Being able to talk to this shopkeeper was an interesting feature, even though I didn't like the character (reminds me of aggressively smug types who ram their politics down your throat). Really goes with the not-impersonal feeling of the whole experience. Weird though that the shop used a whole different look to the normal field, but the inn next door didn't.



Most NPCs are static sprites, all apparently unique, and some seem so unique that I'm assuming they're characters created by supporters and included as part of a Kickstarter reward tier or something because they don't fit into the world at all. I don't mind; it's interesting, and if that is the case, I hope those creators got a lot out of knowing their creations were part of Undertale.

Dogs. I'm using dog themes in Atonal Dreams too, and it's interesting comparing the approach I'm likely to take and this more... widely-appealing, let's say, approach to them. Portraying them as cute little pets you comically play with or be smelled by, the sort of thing that'd appeal to the doggo-booping r/aww crowd, rather than off-putting sexual fangirliness and pee jokes I showed in a Divine Scene with Collie. Maybe I should be inspired by this too, though I don't naturally think that way so I wouldn't go down that path in the same way that this has. Something I'll be thinking about.



Fourth session, more notes:

I just 'fought' and then went on a 'date' with Papyrus.



I really am not enjoying the bullet hell mechanics!!! I don't know what would have happened had I tried to attack in the Papyrus 'battle' (I really like the music in that, especially how his theme became more elaborate but essentially unchanged once things GOT SERIOUS), but the nonviolent path required me to just select Spare over and over while dodging attacks in some novel variation of the bullet hell mechanics which made them more like a platformer. Each 'attack' was different, but there were so many of them that I found it tedious. I'd rather think my way through than relying on twitchy reflexes, at least in an RPG. I died three times due to either having no healing items, or mistiming using them. Thankfully, this meant new dialogue bits were unlocked for each attempt, rather than just reloading a save, and after the third I could just skip the encounter. So that was appreciated.

(I'm so bad at games these days... Way worse than when I was a child!)



Then I went out of my way to head back and go on a 'date' with him, which played out as a long comical scene... which was funny, I suppose, and certainly different and rewarding and character-building and all that - being able to see his home and examine a whole bunch of things in it was a great touch - though the scenes feel somewhat empty to me because I'm a mute nobody and I'm essentially just watching a monologue.

I suppose that's wrong though, and it's less like I'm controlling a character and more like I - the one choosing the options - am the one having the interaction with him. Makes me wonder whether I prefer to watch other characters interact with one another rather than being the participant because I've spent my own life on the sidelines watching people more than I've ever participated with them. Hmm.

I thought at first the date might actually have unique mechanics I could control, and was disappointed when the UI that appeared was just a joke about games that measure various things. Lots of effort has gone into coding/animating all these little unique cutscene details though. That's a lot of work.

Overall I felt the whole date segment was a great addition, and I feel things like that are probably why this game has got the reputation that it has. I definitely feel a connection with the character beyond just fighting some random boss monster. It's inspiring ideas. I'm wary of copying, but I'd say a lot of this game is not-exactly-subtly copied of Earthbound and Homestuck, so...

A lot of the dialogue goes on quite a bit, but the same could be said of mine. I'm hearing a lot of the Homestuck speech style still.

I wonder if the game will be divided into segments, each of which with a key character you fight at the end, with a chance to get their number for your phone. I forgot to call Papyrus after getting his number, whoops. The other character (Toriel?) doesn't reply though.

Also, I've done the "absurdly boastful character who's insecure deep down" archetype before, most recently with Hammer in Sindrel Song. I chose to address the "it's all just an act" aspect through explicit, heartfelt dialogue (in the postgame), though here it feels like Papyrus never really develops beyond a joke. I don't know more about him than I could glean at the start despite all the many lines of dialogue he inflicted on me. Still entertaining though and probably more accessible. I wonder why it's only Sans that got all the memes and not characters like this; I suppose I'll find out when Sans becomes the main villain or whatever... or maybe considering the themes it's pushing he'll save the day or something. (I've also not finished, so I shouldn't really make judgements like this until the end.)

There's a library with some lore books, though they didn't suggest a world with especially deep lore or anything? As with many things I'm mentioning, that's not a criticism, just a comment. Weird that I'm still in the underground but there are trees and snow everywhere. Those trees are remarkably well-drawn though, for pixel art.

A lot of the NPCs say things which make me feel like I'm missing out on in-jokes or something, so I'm wondering again about the behind-the-scenes and whether they were designed and maybe written by backers or a group of friends or something, or whether they're references to his other creative work (that's something I do myself). Maybe not and I'm overthinking it. I've had to think a lot about what NPCs in things like villages could potentially say though, and I like my ludicrous approach in games like MARDEK... But everything's subjective.



Another brief session. Had encounters with a knight called Undyne, where I was being tensely chased/attacked with attacks that briefly transitioned to bullet hell segments. Interesting touch, though more frustrating than fun for me personally.



I liked the touch with the yellow lizard child thing, following me around while I held an umbrella. Also Papyrus ringing me up and asking what I was wearing, and asking about some item I'd actually picked up.

Unsurprising that a composer would add a music puzzle to their game... if 'puzzle' is the word for what that was.

I've seen memes about an 'annoying dog', and encountered that. Funny. I wonder if that's all there was to it or if it'll come up again. Interesting how basic gameplay mechanics - like the full inventory check - are being manipulated comically like this.

There was a scene where Sans asked me to join him in the pub on his break. Really adds to the feeling of being friends with these characters.

Some lore stuff told through wall panels; telling not showing? Something about humans' souls being infinitely more powerful than monsters. Interesting. Obviously foreshadowing how the story will go, though it'll be interesting to see if it veers away from what this is priming the player to expect.



An interesting environment that reminded me of the ambient games of... Nifflas, I think his name was? I wonder what he's up to these days. Maybe I should buy some of his games.



Some impressive (for these graphics) attempts at dramatic lighting. Walking past a distant castle while shadowed was particularly cinematic. I don't know whether I'd ever bother adding sections like this to my own games, though they probably add a lot to the overall feeling of immersion.

Battles are still frustrating, but seem very infrequent, almost to the point that I wonder why they're even included at all.

I do like that the whole 'SOUL' concept is used in battle and seems to be forming the focus of the story too. I wonder a lot about how to marry narrative and gameplay like this.

Overall I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly though. The environments and events are individually interesting, though nothing's really tying them together for me at this point.



Another session, more notes:



I just faced Undyne in battle and died. Gee, I wonder if that character design was influenced by Homestuck!! I don't like the character at all, though I do like her music. Sounds like the kind of thing that was written to be especially and instantly appealing, and it succeeded at that (for me at least, though I suspect for most other people too).

As usual I'm not enjoying the bullet hell bits. Keeping them different each time helps to keep things novel, but it also means you can't really get good at any particular thing.

That yellow lizard child seemed like such an NPC, but came up and had more personality and story role than I would have expected. I still don't even know its name.

There's more lore about human souls and a monster king, mostly told through wall plaques, which would be criticised in any other work, most likely, as telling rather than showing, or ramming in exposition without giving it proper context. Seems weird that in a game that's so focused on making characters into friends, the actual story stuff is communicated so impersonally.



Bringing back the ghost from right at the beginning, and being able to go into its house and examine its stuff like with Papyrus, was a very nice touch. It's the kind of thing that someone who had a lot of experience visiting their friends houses as a child/teenager would incorporate into their story, I'd guess, whereas it wouldn't even occur to me since that's never been part of my real life experience.

I wonder if my character is this 'Angel' that's been mentioned? That's always an interesting thing to do with mute custom protagonists. Make them turn out to have been someone significant all along. KotOR's Revan comes to mind.

I don't particularly enjoy wandering through dark mazes, especially when the darkness becomes even more obscuring. Much of the environment exploration has been a case of "I'm glad that's over with", for me.

I'm getting the feeling I'm quite deep into the plot despite only playing for a handful of hours, though maybe that's not the case. Undyne reminds me of FFIX's Beatrix, who you fought at the end of the first disk with 75% more of the story left after that. I'm curious to see if this is similar, or maybe it is following the structure I was wondering about earlier and Undyne is this segment's primary character/antagonist/whatever.

Haven't seen Sans in a while.



More:

I fought Undyne for ages... until I realised that I had to Flee, which wasn't clear at all. While changing things up like this for every encounter keeps things fresh, it's not something I personally like because it feels like I'm just having to guess at whatever arbitrary whims the developer had for this particular scene rather than making my own decisions. At least once I realised that I had to flee it became trivial. Saving her by giving her a cup of water was a contrived act of kindness without meaning, but I suppose it felt nice at least (it also makes the character into an incompetent moron though, if she'd fall down incapacitated after like three steps the moment she steps into the edge of the hot area).



There was a 'quiz' against an obnoxious robot with mostly comedy questions, which again played out almost like a cutscene. That's a prevailing theme: there's this battle system, but it doesn't really play like one. It's just sort of there, and it's largely ignored or used differently for each encounter. So it's not like you can get good at the game, mechanically, for the most part. Maybe the violent path would be different, but this robot's description suggests it'd be invulnerable to physical attacks anyway. The game also stresses that you either do things right - nonviolently - or you're evil, so I've only used one physical attack by accident right at the start, and I'd be uncomfortable doing a violent run since the monsters I'd be killing would be alive (and the lore suggests they don't even survive death but humans do, so it's even more awful).



I can see why the type of humour and writing the game uses would be widely appealing, though a lot of it doesn't appeal to me. Like Homestuck, it seems catered to an audience of geeky gamers with far-left progressive politics who are into memes and anime (and it's interesting how frequently these traits seem to overlap). Character archetypes that might typically be male - a powerful knight, an eccentric professor - are made female, and one of those had a lesbian crush on the other. Of course. None of these are things I dislike - my own games probably include at least some of this stuff, and I'd much rather this than the macho military violence in so many other games - but it's just something that I can't help but notice. I wonder if other people notice it too, or whether if you're immersed in that world - rather than an outsider looking at it from a distance - it becomes like water to a fish. Hmm.

I also don't watch anime, so my understanding of the humour derived from that comes from noticing memes and from how people I've known or seen talk about them. So a "Tsundereplane" doesn't exactly tickle me as it might others (still absurd, but I personally prefer 'self-contained absurdity', where the weirdness isn't based on something external to the thing itself.)

Having this professor (Alphys? Was that it? Or was it Jade Harley?) send socially anxious 'social media' messages (tweets) that weren't meant for me but which I could read was an interesting, amusing touch.



I know what that's like, Dr Alphys. I too have claws and arthritis.



Session... 8, apparently?

I was exploring Hotland. Dr Alphys has been growing on me. Having those totally-not-tweets is an interesting concept, especially since they're shoved in your face as you walk around rather than updated on some menu you have to manually check, and you can see some narrative developing from two sides. Also amusing that a couple of other characters used it and expressed their personalities in expected ways.

I can... appreciate the comical TV show bits with the robot (Metaton? Mettaton? Metatton? Something like that?), though they're mostly a nuisance to me personally. Subjective.

The influence of Homestuck was obviously huge, and I wonder how much of Undertale's success came from essentially having that existing audience with a certain mentality who were highly receptive to something in a similar vein created by a known member of the community. I'd guess it was by far the biggest factor. Much of the humour is in the same style, the themes are similar, the dialogue uses similar formatting and cadence.

ASGORE is being presented as the main villain, and I suppose he's being built up to well enough in that I know some things about him even though I've never seen what he looks like. I'm expecting something expectation-defying when I finally meet him... which is an oxymoron.

I'm wondering based on the HP values of items etc (eg one that restores 1 HP every other turn, healing items restoring around 10) that it's not too odd that I'm still at 20 HP? Enemy attacks take off a big chunk though, and it's not as if I can get better at the game when every one uses different patterns. I've got GAME OVER a few times.

Also interesting that instead of finding a ton of junk equipment, the pieces you do find are lying around on the floor with their own sprites rather than invisibly in chests, and there seem to be only a few of them.



Session 9:



I'm at a part where several sections are connected by a lift, with destinations oh-so-helpfully labelled "Right 1" and "Left 3" or something like that, with no indication where each one actually goes to. I was lost for a while because the path I was supposed to go down had a factory (or is it called the core or something? I forget) in the background, but I initially thought I was going the wrong way because another, much earlier path also had that in the background. So that was misleading. I feel it'd be better if the stop names were more descriptive, or if the layout was redesigned to do away with that entirely, or for there at least to be a map! Unless there is one and I've not even seen it. Wouldn't be surprising!

I got a call from Dr Alphys asking me if I wanted to watch some 'show' with her, which was an anime she fangirled over. I've known a bunch of people who are like that, either directly as friends or just watching from afar, but I've never had that kind of fan mentality myself so I wouldn't be inclined to include it in something I wrote, or at least wouldn't do an accurate job of it (and yet Collie is supposed to be a fangirl... Hmm, might have to do some rethinking). Both this and Homestuck played with it, and likely appealed very strongly to the many people with those kinds of minds for doing so.



Speaking of Homestuck, I ran into Vriska. Or sorry, "Muffet". Completely different thing. I wonder whether the fish-woman and spider-woman things were deliberate homages to Homestuck, or whether Toby Fox was just immersed in that community to such a degree that the ideas that came for him were strongly subconsciously inspired by its idiosyncratic content. Hmm. [The credits say someone else designed this?]

I also really don't like the bullet hell bits - have I mentioned that yet?? - and died twice against that boss before just quitting until tomorrow. Not fun, for me at least. Maybe tons of people absolutely love those mechanics. The game certainly got enough love. I'd rather just have some way to not have to bother with them so then I could see the narrative, but I bet this is how all the many, many people who played Sindrel Song felt about that too.

Also, I realised that it's "Tsunderplane" - "tsund-ER-plane" - because Americans say "airplane", rather than a really lazy hardly-even-a-portmanteau. What an interesting remark.

I'm also wondering whether the all-different NPCs are just random drawings Toby Fox did based on nothing, rather than fans' creations he'd added. It's hard to tell. They have a similar style to them, but that could just be because he drew them all? If he even did? Who did what on this game?! I don't know! I suppose their wide variety is consistent with the... hmm, incoherent feel of the whole game. Disjointed? Something like that. I'll talk about that more when I'm done.



Session 10:

I finally got past Muffet after several attempts. I suppose I got better with each one, but I also lost motivation too. Turns out my first attempt got me almost to the end, but on subsequent tries I did worse and worse until eventually I got past it without using up my healing items. All this makes me wonder about how people felt about Sindrel Song's gameplay. Also, her surrender made reference to something from right at the beginning where I bought an item from a spider web? That's interesting, though I wonder what would have happened had I not done that.



There was a scene paying homage to the opera in FFVI, with that robot I'm finding increasingly annoying. Its name is abbreviated as MTT apparently? Still can't remember if it's Mettaton or Metatton. One of those, probably. Metatron with an r is the name of a mythological angel which has always amused me because it sounded like some kind of Voltron-esque mecha to me. What a fun fact. This scene was another where you just sit and watch some random scene play out of nowhere.

More and more I'm getting the feeling of Homestuck from it all, where it's a series of disjointed scenes that feel like whatever came to the creator's mind just being rammed in. It was followed by an amusing return to the coloured tiles puzzle that Papyrus attempted ages ago, with the comical expectation that you could remember all the ridiculous rules. It turned out to be a joke without real danger in the end, though I was partly disappointed by that and wished I could have actually attempted it again and maybe got through.



Then I passed through a hotel devoted to that robot or... something? I don't even know. And I paid an exorbitant amount to... move around under the covers of some giant bed? Bizarre. I'm probably missing a lot. More NPCs with fever dream designs that make me wonder about their creative origins. Two shopkeepers in a back alley who went into that conversation shop mode and who I cannot say that I liked at all. Makes me think about the characters I write, though, and who'll dislike them. I'm noticing things cost a whole lot more than the amount of money that I have, to the point where I had to grind a bit just for cash. Doesn't help that I bought a piece of not-cheap equipment only to realise it was inferior to what I already had on. Whoops. That's why stat comparisons in shop UIs has been the norm in RPGs for years.

There was another scene with Sans where he asked out of nowhere if I wanted to join him for a meal. It has this casual inclusive feeling to it, like having a friend, and what he said could be seen as heartfelt - I wonder if it's scenes like this, rather than some major story role, that made him memetic - though it feels so disconnected to me. Like it just takes you away from what's happening rather than being a natural part of it. Conversations like this were the thing I like most about what I did with Sindrel Song, but in that I at least tried to make them feel earned to some degree. Here... hmm. Obviously my view would be different to most players' because of this comparison I can't help doing.

To contrast that though, there was a scene where Dr Alphys called me on the phone and spilled her heart out about her deepest insecurities etc. I appreciated that, but the context also felt a bit weird? I can't actually remember what triggered it; it just felt like it came out of nowhere. I do like that character, and wonder why I'd never seen anything about her around the internet before, or most of the other characters for that matter. And her attempts to help afterwards did feel different knowing how she felt, especially since they weren't as effective as she hoped. Really put me into the character's thoughts beyond the written dialogue. There was a lot of these comments though, every few steps (so much for her being afraid to ring!), so I wonder if the same effect could have been achieved with fewer of them. Quality over quantity. Maybe. Or maybe not? It helps with the immersion, and makes me feel like I'm wandering around with company.

I'm currently exploring the core, and died against some random enemies twice so I just quit for today. I really don't enjoy bullet hell mechanics. Ugh. Only so much of that I can take before I get fed up.



Session 11:



I had a dramatic showdown with Mettaton, who transformed into a humanoid... rockstar? Or whatever archetype that is. Weird. His odd prominence in the game makes more sense to me seeing this... kind of. I raised my eyebrow about having such a significant encounter with him, but maybe it's just because I didn't care for the character rather than because he hadn't been written into the overall narrative well enough.

Anyway, I still hate the bullet hell stuff, and died several times... though I got to the end and he was repeating a pattern without saying anything, so yet again this battle has a different victory condition. Turns out I need to get the 'ratings' value high enough, and I did do that, though I'd used up all my healing items so I quit and tried again... a few times, without success. The more times I attempt it and the more familiar the patterns are, the more fun and less overwhelming it feels. It's more a case of "ooh, maybe next time, I can do this!" rather than "this is too much, I hate it". I can't help but think of Sindrel Song again.

Also, I appreciate that the game allows me to skip the first stage with each subsequent attempt.

I wonder if what he said about Alphys making things difficult for CHUMPO (which I called my character because my usual go-to silly protagonist name, Chuckles, wouldn't fit) so then she could be a part of the story is accurate. I'm assuming I'll find out when I finally get past this later. MAYBE SHE'S THE BIG BAD AFTER ALL!! Though that'd be odd, especially since it's obviously Sans. Obviously.



Session 12:

Got past Mettaton. Alphys said I had to kill Asgore to pass through the barrier and go home. Do I even want to go home? Why would I, when I've not seen this character's home and know nothing about it or them? I also don't know how much of what Alphys is saying is true considering her psychology and what Mettaton said. I like that the story brings out thoughts like these.



Then I wandered around a house which was the same as the one at the start, but grey. Very intriguing "what's going on here?" feelings there. Interesting that 'battles' against monsters from earlier areas revealed bits of the story, though I still get that 'tell don't show' feeling about it. Another instance of the battle mechanics being used in a weird way.



Then I encountered SANS - gasp - and was interrupted in the real world by a long phone call right in the middle of this conversation which is frustrating!! He talked about how "EXP" was actually EXECUTION POINTS, which is an amusing thing and which finally explains why I have none. Interesting choice, that, to have the player wondering whether some game mechanic is broken throughout the experience for the sake of a reveal like this at the end. He also said that LOVE - which that flower from right at the beginning said the LV stood for rather than LEVEL - is an acronym for LEVEL OF VIOLENCE or something. He then said he'd judge me, and I had a moment to think about things... but then he just casually said don't worry about it and then was gone, or something? That's where I was interrupted, though. I wish I could go back and do it again, but I (stupidly) saved afterwards so I can't. So I don't know if I missed something there. Seems like my violence or lack thereof should have been assessed at that point, but I didn't even get told well done for not killing things.

[I wonder whether you BATTLE SANS here on some other path - maybe if you've killed a lot - and the Megalovania music plays, which is where the memes come from? I'd rather explore that myself than have someone tell me whether that happens or not, though.]

Also, as I said a while back, the entire game is very much on the side of pacifism, so you either do things the right way or you're an evil killer. Seems intended to guilt players who take the violent option. I don't dislike this, but I do dislike that people seem to universally love this game but got annoyed at me wanting to stress nonviolence in my own battle systems! Pfff!

I also wonder whether Sans and Papyrus are the undead forms of the human and... was it Azriel? Some name like that. The angel? Asgore's son, who absorbed the soul of the human he adopted and, uh... what happened there again? I wish I could go back over the plot stuff since I obviously didn't absorb it fully. Gives me a reason to replay it or check a wiki, though.

Again though it's tell not show, like reading a novel. I didn't actually see these characters doing anything so it's harder to remember or engage with.



I met Asgore, who looks to be the husband of Toriel from the start, meaning that she was so motherly because she lost both her sons and didn't want to lose another child. Interesting 'book ends' narrative thing there, where something from the start is mirrored at the end. I like that. Pleasant surprise, I didn't expect it (as is often the case with surprises).

I liked Asgore's characterisation as a nice friendly father... who knew what he had to do but wasn't exactly giving a villainous rant about it. A much more interesting villain than most RPG final bosses, despite only actually being directly present very briefly. I'm assuming he's the final boss. MAYBE IT'S STILL SANS.

Interesting that he destroyed the Mercy option in the UI. Another fourth-wall-breaking thing Homestuck was wont to do. I tried "Talk"ing to him on my second attempt, and got the message that he'd already killed me once, which made me wonder whether I'd missed some plot reveal thing earlier. But then on my third attempt - after dying in seconds to the particularly brutal bullet hell - it said he'd killed me twice. Then three times, four, five... He went from nodding sadly to nodding grievously. I imagine I'll just have to die a bunch of times to trigger an event, which is... interesting, I suppose, but a bit off-putting, so I'm quitting to hopefully finish during my next session.

Also interesting seeing the coloured souls which he's been collecting, which look like the soul the player's been represented by throughout.



Session 13:



Well, I've now died against Asgore to the point where the Talk option just says he's killed me 'too many times to count' (he can only count to ten apparently), so it doesn't look like repeated failure is going to let me pass the battle. I wonder whether not attacking will ever lead to a peaceful outcome, or whether I'm required to use violence here. I'm trying to just Talk even though it does nothing, but it looks like I'll have to get through the brutal bullet hell? Uggghhhh. I'll try again later.

Makes me think of Sindrel Song yet again and how that might have created similar feelings in the player, but at least that tracks your progress at the end of each attempt so you can at least feel like you're building towards something and see that you're improving. With this, it seems the first couple of waves are the ones I'm worst at, but if I survive those with decent HP remaining, I can do a bunch more before eventually dying. Maybe I need to backtrack to get more healing items - I only have two - but the extremely limited inventory space and the effort of that makes it very unappealing.



Session 14... or is this 15?

I don't know. Just more attempting to fight Asgore and dying repeatedly. Not remotely fun. I don't even know if I'm forced to use the FIGHT command here - which would be awful after letting the player be nonviolent throughout the rest of the game and essentially guilting them if they aren't - but I tried that and still couldn't survive long enough to even get his health down to half. I'm just no good at and don't enjoy bullet hell mechanics. His seem to have some randomness involved too so I can't even just figure out a specific movement for each wave and memorise it. And even if that were possible, it's not like I can practise those movements by attempting each wave several times back-to-back.

Ugh. It's really unpleasant thinking I have to go back to attempt this again. I could only do it for a few minutes this time. Not fun. Maybe other people loved this, though, or I'm doing something wrong, in which case I don't know what it is. I couldn't even look up a strategy, since the strategy is just 'be better at avoiding bullets'.

I wonder why he chose those mechanics. Is there an overlap between people who like narrative experiences and people who like evading bullets? I would have thought not, and people would have surely told me so if I'd suggested working on such a thing. They did with Sindrel Song!



Session 16 or 17 or something:

Well, I finally FIGHTed Asgore to death, since that seemed to be the only solution. Only took dozens of short, joyless attempts spaced over several days, and the only way I was able to survive long enough in the end was to backtrack a loooong way to the last shop to buy some more healing items. Ugh.

Apparently after he's finished his set of waves and got to repeating the final ones, your attacks do several times more damage, making stats feel a bit pointless (though I get the feeling the listed ATK and DEF when you Check monsters aren't actually reflective of any real numbers anyway?).

That encounter made me think about the last bosses of other RPGs, which manage to feel long, challenging, and satisfying because of tricks like lowering your party to 1 HP constantly but also giving the player easily-accessible healing spells to use as much as they need to. Here, though, since healing was only apparently possible through expendable items, which you could only carry a few of, and the attacks were so brutal, you couldn't just alternate attacking and healing as needed for as long as you could. You just had to 'git gud'. Not my idea of fun.



This was then followed by a ridiculous reveal that that flower from the beginning - who had no role in the story other than that, and which I didn't even know had a name - was the BIG BAD and I had to fight him in some ludicrous, chaotic mess of nonsense with a different graphical style which all felt like it couldn't decide whether it was a joke or an actual challenge (I died several times). "Well, this is stupid and frustrating", I thought. Hardly the emotionally satisfying ending I'd hoped for.



Then I got the credits, and it turns out a lot of people worked on it, and a lot of the NPCs and some monsters and bosses and things were designed by other people. So that answers that, I suppose.

I then got a final call from Sans, who was friendly as usual and whatever he appeared to say earlier seemed to have been entirely forgotten (did that even happen? Or was it just supposed to be him joking? I was distracted at the time so I'm not sure). He and Papyrus talked about the queen (Toriel) coming back and Undyne living on their couch and swearing vengeance... and it sounded like I was outside the barrier so she wanted to pass through it to get to me? I thought I chose to remain though? I don't understand the lore there.

Then I was met by Flowey again (who I spared, obviously, when given the choice), but he said I should try to get to that point without taking a single life. Which is VERY annoying since I think the only kill I had was from like the first or second enemy where I selected the FIGHT option by accident because I thought I had to press the confirm button to begin selecting rather than to choose the current selection.

So what now? Do I go back through the whole thing trying for a pacifist run? Would anything be different if I did? I don't know. I can't say the thought fills me with any joy at the moment, though those last bits were so unpleasant that maybe I just need some time to recover before going in again.

(I was told in the Discord that some things are different the second time around. And my final playtime was less than 6 hours, so it shouldn't take too long to get through again, I hope...)

Anyway, I'll write an overall assessment and include some screenshots and stuff.



Something occurred to me while adding screenshots to this post: there are several 'talking flowers' that you interact with to hear lore stuff; they record what's been said to them and play it back, or something. So you can overhear past conversations. The final boss was also a talking flower. Was the point that it was one of these that had absorbed a lot of BAD VIBES and turned evil, or something like that? Hmm.



I just proofread this whole thing before posting it. It is long and took ages. So if you've got this far, here is a well-earned reward:

CONGLATURATION!!!

Perhaps I'll feel differently about the game after spending some time absorbing it and recovering from the horrible end sections.