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Moonspeak Undertale - friendship/genocide RPG

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Cowboy Moment

Arcane
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Feb 8, 2011
Messages
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Are we meant to use spoiler tags for everything? This is the Codex after all, I assume spoilers would be a given in a game discussion thread a few months after launch.

I think the strongest theme of the game is that accruing power by crushing other people makes you a scumbag; this is why the happiest ending is achieved when you avoid this at all costs, while the worst ending is found by pursuing it to an extreme. In between the game constantly points out that the monsters you're killing are actual people- people notice when you kill their friends -not just the bosses either, a lot of characters have special dialogue relating to other monsters being conspicuously absent- or feeling betrayed if you befriend them then stab them while their guard is down. It's not so much an anti-jrpg in that sense, but an anti-murderhobo game, which applies just as well to something like Diablo, Roguelikes, MMOs, and plenty of other games.

There's definitely a secondary theme of pity for those who feel compelled to try everything they can rather than enjoying what they have, especially in the genocide route. I don't think it's the main point of the game though. Especially since it outright rewards you for experimenting in some places (like revealing yourself as an anomaly to Sans in the normal/pacifist route, and generally having a lot of extra dialogue for odd situations like fucking with the umbrella when you meet the kid in the rain, or dumping out all the water right in front of Undyne after defeating her.)

I disagree with that. For one, the central theme of Undertale needs to somehow incorporate the metanarrative, all the times the game addresses the player directly, and all of its attempts at analyzing the motivations of said player. Your interpretation, I feel, falls apart at the very beginning, where, given certain choices, the player is explicitly informed that their real power comes from "determination" - the abilitty to save and load. This is the power the villain wants (in fact, it's the power that turns him into the villain in the first place, as you learn in Genocide), and the game specifically comments on the player's use of it. On the other hand, there are barely any references to the player's combat prowess - even during Genocide, it's their behaviour that is commented on, rather than them simply being strong. There is a point made about the meaning of the stat acronyms, but even that's more of a reflection that, rather than making you more powerful, killing simply desensitizes you to suffering and death.

What you see as a secondary theme, I see as a part of the central theme, which is that choices made by a player in a virtual world have weight so long as the player cares about said world, irrespective of the player's power to redo and reset things at will. If you kill Toriel, then reload and spare her, Flowey calls you a murderer and says that he, at least, will remember - the point is that you've made the decision to kill her in the past, and this fact is not erased by reloading, and does reflect on you as a person in some way. After the True Pacifist ending, Flowey tells you that it's in your power to reset everything again, and asks that you do not, if you actually care about the world and characters as anything other than playthings in a theme park. You say that Undertale calls you a scumbag for killing everyone, but that's not the case at all - the Genocide route ends the way it does not because you engage in mass murder, but because of your motivation for it - that you're bored and want to see what happens. Or, as Sans puts it, that "you can, and therefore, you must". The game doesn't call you a monster during Genocide because you kill (in fact, you get a pretty decent Neutral ending if you kill everyone except for Toriel afaik), but because you don't give a shit. And then, after you finish the route and want to play again, it asks "Do you think you're above consequences?".

Point being, consequences mean as much as you let them. If you choose not to play ever again after the True Pacifist ending, that's as powerful of a consequence as can be achieved in a video game. And if you complete the Genocide route and then tamper with the game files to not have to deal with the permanent changes it produces, then nothing you did mattered at all.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
I think you're wrong on a few points. Most importantly, determination didn't make Asriel evil- Chara took his soul. Determination just meant he got to stick around long enough for that to manifest. You're getting the causation backwards here. He didn't become evil because he had the power to reset and kill people, he was able to kill people because he was evil already. Recall also that several other characters have significant amounts of determination in the game, and it's consistently portrayed as a noble thing with a heavy price to pay. Undyne's theme is 'Battle Against A True Hero' after all. The amalgams weren't evil at all, simply damaged. During the pacifist final battle they lay it on extra thick about how determined you are, reloading in the middle of battle, simply having infinite hp, etc.

Second, we're not defining power the same way. You don't seem to think your ability to one shot people in genocide counts as power because it's not explicity martial prowess, but as far as I'm concerned, anything that lets for do something is 'power'. Psychopathy offers immense power, for example, by letting you do things other people wouldn't be able to live with. The motivation doesn't really matter when the genocide route is the only way to have the most power. You can't separate it from that motivation and substitute curiosity- curiosity leads to plenty of other innocent scenarios too. But only one motivation leads to the genocide route and nowhere else- maximum power. Flowey even says that when he was killing everybody, he was convincing himself that he was just curious. But the truth is that he was willing to kill someone to begin with because he was already a scumbag, and it just got easier the more he did it. Same with the player.

Lastly, the game definitely rubs your face in how evil you are during the genocide route. Sans says you should be burning in hell, the shopkeepers who stick around comment on how fucked up you are, even flowey thinks you're a creepy fuck by the end. And as I said, you get plenty of similar moments during a neutral run. There's more to the game than just the ending. Besides, the 'pretty decent' ending you're talking about involves the underground in anarchy with no leader, and Sans telling you to never return. Hardly a pat on the back.
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Messages
4,407
You're correct about Flowey, but that only reinforces my point. Flowey is clearly meant to be a mirror reflecting the player during the Genocide route - both him and the player aren't "evil" because they kill, but rather, they kill because they don't care, they're bored, and they're curious what will happen. The game explains this attitude in Flowey by stating that he has no soul, that he is incapable of forming emotional connections to others (sociopathy, in essense); consequently, it points out that the player acts like a sociopath in the Genocide route as well.

I don't agree at all that the Genocide route's defining characteristic is that it offers the most power, that is secondary, and mostly there to make a point about skinner boxes (the Fallen Child talking about numbers going up during the ending). And the point isn't about curiosity in and out itself, but rather a combination of curiosity and lack of emotional connection to the game's world. This is, in fact, the only reason to do a Genocide run - that you're curious what will happen and don't really care otherwise. I'm sure the game would point out when you do other things with that kind of motivation, but alas, it has no way to detect it. Point in case, Flowey, a stand-in for the player during the Genocide run, doesn't want power in and out of itself - rather, he's bored and wants you to keep playing, as you're the only unpredictable factor in his personal theme park.

If Undertale does indeed try to make the rather trivial observation that it's bad to hurt others for personal gain, then it doesn't really do a very good job imo. It would, perhaps, if killing was more fun, and the resultant power gave you more options and opportunities. It doesn't, though, and Genocide (or high kill count Neutral) isn't really any more or less fun than True Pacifist from a gameplay standpoint. Power (character advancement) has meaning in RPGs because it lets you do things you couldn't before - no such thing in Undertale, killing or sparing is a fairly arbitrary choice. The concept of power as a capability for destruction doesn't come up that much throughout the story, either, but references to your character, how good you are as a person, and so forth, are plentiful.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
Well, I think you're wrong about the reason to do a genocide run. I wasn't actually going to do it until I found out the most difficult battle was there. Defeating the strongest enemy in the game was my motivation. If I were so desperately curious that I'd be willing to grind encounters just to see another route, I'd also have done a bunch of other things, like that sound puzzle (fucking hate sound puzzles) or getting into all the locked rooms, etc. But I didn't bother with any of that stuff, even though it'd have been a smaller investment of my time. Not to mention the various differences in the neutral route depending on who you kill, which I also didn't care about.
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Messages
4,407
Yep, that's one of the reasons I think both of the Genocide exclusive bossfights would've been better placed in True Pacifist. It does bear mentioning, though, that said hardest fight is intentionally frustrating and cheap, and its point is to make you give up, rather than provide a fair challenge.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
Eh, there's no such thing as 'fair' when it comes to an asymmetrical conflict as far as I'm concerned, it's just a different kind of challenge. I suppose you mean in the 'requires foreknowledge' sense, but that's not true. Given sufficient reflexes there's no reason you couldn't do that battle on your first attempt. It's remarkably well designed with the intention of letting you gradually make progress as you get further and have to deal with an extra mechanic that you'll almost certainly need practice to deal with. It's not even close to something like IWBTG where you'll fall into actual inescapable deathtraps you physically can't react your way out of.

Though it certainly is intentionally frustrating and a huge difficulty spike, but that's right up my alley. Makes the struggle that much more satisfying.
 

vean

Scholar
Joined
Jan 3, 2016
Messages
296
Great game isn't it? Can't tell you why, you just have to trust me.
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
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Feb 8, 2011
Messages
4,407
Very belated answer, completely forgot about this thread.

Eh, there's no such thing as 'fair' when it comes to an asymmetrical conflict as far as I'm concerned, it's just a different kind of challenge. I suppose you mean in the 'requires foreknowledge' sense, but that's not true. Given sufficient reflexes there's no reason you couldn't do that battle on your first attempt. It's remarkably well designed with the intention of letting you gradually make progress as you get further and have to deal with an extra mechanic that you'll almost certainly need practice to deal with. It's not even close to something like IWBTG where you'll fall into actual inescapable deathtraps you physically can't react your way out of.

Though it certainly is intentionally frustrating and a huge difficulty spike, but that's right up my alley. Makes the struggle that much more satisfying.

"Not as cheap as IWBTG" is hardly an enthusiastic endorsement, wouldn't you say, and it's very telling that you need to fall back on a hypothetical ("someone could do it on their first try if ...") when talking about the design. So yes, until proven otherwise, it does require foreknowledge; in fact, it seems like Toby Fox's idea of increasing difficulty is to make everything very fast, while the player continues to move at a snail's pace, which is a design philosophy that tends to result in lots of required memorization in action games.

The problem though, is not so much that it requires memorization, but rather that once you memorize enough of it, it becomes, with the exception of some randomized attacks, rather easy and boring. So you spend the first half of the fight slowly making your way through attacks you can easily handle, just to have a shot at learning the stupid menu bones - and to make things even more annoying, Sans' actual attacks are easier in the second half, with the exception of the final one, which is again mostly memorization (and some moving in a circle with the right speed).

To continue with the Touhou comparison, Sans is kind of like a Touhou Extra stage boss, and shares many of the problems those have, having to go through the whole bloody thing just to get to the few difficult patterns included. Those bosses, however, are still placed within a context of mostly solid shmup mechanics, and have actually been cleared on the first attempt by good players, in spite of being significantly more difficult overall than Sans. Where ZUN tends to actually throw some more challenging stuff at the end of those bossfights, Toby Fox just adds cheap bullshit in the form of menu bones.

I mean, Sans himself literally tells you that he's just there to frustrate you into giving up, so I assume this is all intentional to some extent, but that doesn't actually make it fun to play.

On a vaguely related note, here's a video of a good shmup player clearing Undertale bosses without getting hit, complete with some dumb fanboy butthurt in the comments:

 

Damned Registrations

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Well if you're going to bring up Touhou, you hardly need to go to the most difficult fights to find trap bullet patterns that will guarantee you need to use a bomb or take a hit unless you have foreknowledge. Plenty of them do that by design, forcing you to lead shots in certain ways to create gaps to pass through. Again, nothing in the Sans fight requires memorization- it just helps if you can't keep up with the pace, which is admittedly very difficult. But EVERYTHING he does is telegraphed, with the exception of a small portion of one of his early attacks that will probably clip you for 10-20 hp if you jump late. But there is never, at any point, a part where you just let go of the controls and go 'fuck, they trapped me, I'm screwed' which is common in plenty of other games I don't hear you bitching about. Like, say, every fighting game ever, where your enemies have a plethora of attacks you need to memorize to avoid being open to them. Not Toby's fault you didn't react when the menu bones show up. Pretty sure I noticed them the first time around before they hit me.

Execution of the fight is much more difficult than the memorization. And you don't need to be moving at a snail's pace btw, there are speed boosting items in the game, they're quite helpful.
 

Cowboy Moment

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It's simple, really - I don't hear of anyone beating Sans on their first try (or hell, let's say within 5 attempts), while I have seen people do much more difficult stuff in various action games under similar constraints, blind clears of arcade shmups included. However, Sans is really not so difficult and most able-bodied people who've gotten to him should beat him within, say, 20 attempts? From these facts I conclude that foreknowledge and a measure of experience handling his attacks (holding all keys on the slam attacks, knowing about the menu bones, remembering the basic flow of the static attacks, etc.) are more important than any general skill in regards to sidescrollers. This also mirrors my own experience, where I spent a few attempts flailing around and getting hit by everything, only to start comfortably cruising through the fight once I memorized the static parts of it. It really isn't difficult to execute the majority of it.

Tell me, have you ever gone back to the fight, just for the sake of it? I do that with shmup stages and bosses I find fun, and I even replay the PCB Extra Stage with some regularity, but my reaction upon beating Sans was "Thank god that's over with.". Are there people who do this for fun?

Also, out of curiosity, which bullet patterns in a Touhou Normal or Extra kill you if you don't have foreknowledge? I honestly can't think of many.
 

Damned Registrations

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I actually did go back and beat Sans (a lot) in the process of getting a no death no save run of Genocide mode. I haven't been on twitch in ages, but I'm sure people are speedrunning the game, shouldn't be hard to find. As far as people doing blind clears, the game doesn't exactly attract hardcore shmup/platformer enthusiasts, nor people especially concerned with performance during a run.

Off the top of my head, I want to say Youmu in PCB at the very least has some sort of bullshit pattern that can corner trap you with a bullet wall (think she fires from the bottom of the screen too at some point?), but I haven't played any Touhou at all in months now and don't have any of them installed at the moment. Oh yeah, and then there's Marisa's bullshit cannon in Eternal Night. Good luck evading that if you didn't know you'd slow to a crawl or happened to be in a bad spot when it starts up. I should grab them all again though, and try the newest one while I'm at it.

What part of Sans kills you if you don't have foreknowledge exactly? I can't think of anything. It repositions you before every attack and then telegraphs what you need to do. There was never a point during the fight where I thought 'I'll know what to do next time' Sure, my reactions got faster with practice, but I was making the same moves I did the first time around. Shmups tend to be much more gimmicky with regards to finding out you can hide in particular spots or lure bullets with specific timing to make a pattern survivable, and I get plenty of those 'ohhhh, if I move in this way the pattern is much easier' moments after several rounds of practice and experimenting.

What really seems weird to me is that you aren't bitching about Undyne instead. While the same things I said about Sans certainly apply, she becomes WAY easier once you memorize the DDR patterns, which are frankly too chaotic to react to properly, much like many shmups I find, where it's essentially impossible to notice which tiny gap you could have evaded through until it's too late.
 

taxalot

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Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I've completed the game yesterday, and thought it was great, but I was going to leave it at that, until I started reading this thread and wondering what the fuck was all that shit I missed about. Starting another playthrough immediately :o
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
That video makes me want to change my rating from 7 out of 10 to 8. I really enjoy small things like that.
 
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One wonders how is it that so many people apparently think Undertale has bullet hell elements despite clearly not having played a single bullet hell shmup in their life. Kinda reminds me of those people who think IE games have turn-based combat.

I assumed people just watched Sans' battle on youtube because that's usually the first thing that pops up when you search for the game.

'That's a lot of lasers"
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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That video makes me want to change my rating from 7 out of 10 to 8. I really enjoy small things like that.
Should look at some of the 'secrets' videos, there's cool shit like screwing with papyrus making him run back and forth when you're in his house, all the extra things to point at in Undyne's place, the weird shit that happens if you try to suicide on Mettaton's games or other things Alphys helps you with.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

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c27_zpsaym8eo4o.jpg
 

lightbane

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So, yesterday I had the terrible idea to check what the fanbase has done lately. As expected, the majority of their works are really terrible and demonstrates that humanity needs to be exterminated and replaced by superior life-forms. However, sometimes you can find some stuff which have a minimal of quality, such as this fanmade battle:

 

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