undertale

01 Jul 2025 - digitalily

Just a short little thing this time.

Undertale is a game that for years was on the list of games I knew I should check out, but that I managed to keep avoiding. Way back when it originally came out, I wasn’t quite as into that sort of aesthetic or smaller indie titles in general compared to nowadays, and it certainly suffered a little bit from a particular kind of zealous fandom, though I get it. As a longtime Touhou Project I heard much of how ‘Undetale has bullet hell, just like Touhou!,’ which is technically true but definitely didn’t pass the smell check when I looked into it (though having now played it and knowing of Toby Fox’s ventures with ZUN since, the influence is definitely there in a cool way).

Having begun to gather a few longer games near the top of the todo list, and having had Undertale come up a bit more in recent conversation, I decided to just go through it since it had a shorter runtime and I didn’t want to jump from Expedition 33 straight into another large(r) game. A good choice, I think.

!! Spoilers will be included below !!- the game is a decade old at this point, but better safe than sorry.

Overall it was a pretty good time (bad times notwithstanding)- I’d say the only major regret to be had is not going into it blind, although I admit I don’t think I would’ve been quite as interested in exploring everything the game had on offer organically, at least today. I was aware of the two major paths, those being the pacifist and genocide routes, and I think the fact that the game allows for both of these and responds to each of them so differently is one of the bigger innovations that’s impact is reduced 1) by having foreknowledge, and 2) having many more games since play with similar meta aspects and themes. It’s certainly a novelty I can respect in hindsight though, and I think the game has more to offer than just that, though it is a major component.

I ultimately elected to do all of the major endings, starting with pacifist as I was under the (mistaken) impression that that was actually the more difficult route. I think knowing that there is a pacifist route and thus going out of my way to force that in all my interactions so as to not inadvertently ruin it definitely impacts things here (mostly, knowing that I need to genrally be sparing/acting always), but I think the game does do a good job telegraphing what it’s asking for here- special attention is called to the non-fight actions and Flowey is set up to be something to try and prove wrong. But I had thought that the sparing in fights would mean fight lasts longer -> more active time dodging -> fatigue/etc. This is technically true but the level of the fights doesn’t get too ridiculous, especially once you learn what’s going on in them. Given this mistaken impression though, I was surprised when I got to the end and didn’t fight sans- It’s kind of surprising how even though it’s been out for 10 years and I’ve seen who knows how many little spoilers or general discussion about the game, but I actually didn’t know sans was the final boss of the genocide route- I thought he was a hidden secret boss (which, is kind of true, but not really). It certainly made parsing his character throughout the pacifist run an interesting process.

sans was hard, though. I actually went out of my way to spin up the simulator: https://jcw87.github.io/c2-sans-fight/ as I knew as soon as I got smashed by the first attack that the game over screen, walk up, and dialogue process would make chipping away at this fight rough, so in that sense I have definitely lost and definitely did have a bad time. I wasn’t as well equipped as you are in the simulator though, and there was some weird frame lag in the actual game vs the web version, but after I got my first successful run in the simulator it only took a handful more tries in the game itself to clear it. Really fun bit of a gameplay and MEGALOVANIA is a certified bop. The music in general was very standout to me- you can definitely hear some Touhou influence at times, which I find very fun. Boss themes are memorable and impactful, and location themes atmospheric and immersive. Silence is used very well too. I think Spide Dance is one of my favorites all things considered.

I don’t have much new to offer in terms of overall analysis. I like that the game puts it on the player directly that you’re the one subjecting everyone to endless resets and (as is 100% true in my case) going out of your way to see what would happen if you did a certain thing- placing your own curiosity above that of what it means to actually help the denizens of the underground. After having finished the pacifist route, I definitely did have a moment where I seriously reconsidered if I even should pursue the genocide route- on the one hand, yeah it is rough seeing characters you enjoyed suffer, or being cruel to them (and I don’t mean to handwave that- I’m sorry Papyrus!), but on the other, it is explicitly a personal indulgence that flies in the face of what you did just play for and what I think the game is meaning to convey, as an artistic piece- nobody will be hurt by killing all your friends in the video game, and you’ll even get to experience some cool gameplay as a result- but you’ll still know what you did.

Personal satisfaction wins this time around, but the point is well taken. How’s that for casually and smugly actually missing the point? I do think leaning further towards lore (i.e., Chara) here makes me a little uneasy- to me it diminishes the statement when it’s used explicitly as worldbuilding, but maybe that’s fine, I’m just less about that than I used to be.

I think it is an important point to make though, and one that would serve many well to take to