I had a.... time. Some Undertale Thoughts

I originally wrote this in 2021 after having completed genocide run of Undertale. I'm going to tweak the writing a bit but largely leave it as is because it represents how I felt at the time.

I have just completed a Genocide Run of Undertale. Before we discuss this, I am going to put a disclaimer. It’s a game. The characters are fictional and don’t exist. It’s perfectly fine to have emotional attachment to them, it’s not fine to insult/shame others for playing a game differently than you would. Undertale seems to inspire saltiness from people in the realm of ‘you’re having fun wrong’ and it's not really an attitude I care for. 

Further I backed up saves before doing this, I turned off cloud save, and I cheated to beat the final boss. Again, don’t wanna hear it.

Oh, and SPOILERS.

Previously, a while back I did a full pacifist playthrough of Undertale and it was great, difficult but great. I had actual tears in my eyes at the ending in it. I’m going to assume that most people reading this are at least familiar with the game but generally speaking, in the intended play method, you play a character that has fallen into an underground kingdom inhabited by monsters. You journey through this kingdom trying to reach the exit and get back home. You will be attacked by a variety of creatures because if they gather enough human souls they can break out to the surface and have such killed and taken the souls of several previous humans to have fallen into the underground.

When attacked you can choose whether to fight or perform other actions. To avoid killing these beings you basically make friends with them, either through joking with them, flirting with them or even picking on them. In general you are getting to know them and usually helping their self esteem, all while they keep trying to kill you. 

You’re basically trying to convince them ‘hey, I deserve to live’, something the previous humans failed to do. When you finally reach the king who possesses the souls of the previous humans, at first he seems gentle but then the battle begins, and he literally destroys the part of the menu that lets you flee or ‘spare’ him. I won’t spoil the rest of the ending of the True Pacifist Run but it’s very good and very emotional.

When an update for Deltarune (a related game by the same creator) was announced I decided to revisit Undertale. First, I did another True Pacifist Run, and then I decided I wanted to see the other side of the story. I did the Genocide Route. In this method you kill your enemies and unlike the pacifist runs you actually level up and become more powerful. As you go through each area you have to kill specific plot characters and then a certain number of random encounter enemies per area. 

As you do this you get very different responses from characters, they’ll hide from you, avoid you, plead with you and basically say ‘hey, I deserve to live’. The roles have reversed now, you’re the one taking lives and not showing mercy except…… most of them either run from you or try to kill you. They don’t try to get to know you, they don’t try to hug you, they don’t flirt with you, or any of that. Some plot NPCs will but not many. It actually feels kinda hypocritical.

In the Pacifist run you are expected to weather attack after attack from almost everyone in the underground while you have to convince them you and humanity deserve to live. However, here multiple characters suddenly are now talking about protecting humanity from you, something they didn’t care about in the other route before your influence. It almost feels like you’re holding up a mirror to them and they don't seem to like what they see.

I find the Asgore (The King) confrontation particularly amusing, as mentioned in the Pacifist run, he’ll destroy your ability to flee or spare him. However, in Genocide run suddenly he just wants to have a cup of tea, um where was that option when I wasn't killing your subjects? where was that option for the other humans you killed? suddenly someone has the power to fight back, and you don't wanna fight anymore?

In the True Pacifist run in addition to learning about the several humans that King Asgore killed you also learn that the scientist Alphys performed some truly horrific experiments and literally created some abominations. For these characters in this run you grant them a redemption of sorts and help free another lost soul despite the fact they have done some awful things, none of which were necessary.

In the Genocide Run you are put in the position of the monster, but you don’t really get the same options for redemption that they do, you are treated as irredeemable. The game even starts to decide for you, there are characters that you just automatically kill.  I’m not condemning this design choice just… observing.

Not only do you not have the option of redemption but Undertale plays around with saved games and certain things can carry over between reloads and resets. Character reactions will change if you’ve done things in the past and reloaded, at the end of the True Pacifist run it will ask you not to reset and at the end of the Genocide Run you’re offered the ability to reset in exchange for your soul. If you complete a True Pacifist run after a Genocide Run your character will be possessed in the end by an evil character that is now loose on the world. Alphys and Asgore get to have their happy endings, but you are now tainted, once again, you are denied the chance for redemption and are forever altered. (that’s if you do this as intended and not erase certain files). 

So…. How did it feel to do a genocide route? I mean, I almost cried in the TP route? Surely, I had a similar reaction here……. Right? Welllllllll.......

First off this is my third playthrough and the flaws in the general design become rather evident at this point. The game really needs some quality of life improvement. Even just increasing the walking speed a little would be nice. So, it got tedious. This is actually the big issue with the genocide route, the tedium. 

As you kill the enemies in an area it takes longer for the next enemy to appear, and you have to kill a certain amount in each area, or you don’t get to experience this side of the story. So, when I’ve reached the point that I’m placing something on the keyboard to have my character walk around while I go do the dishes or something it robs the game of its emotional impact.

Based on the scenes in the game, it clearly wants me to feel something, but it’s delivered in such a way that I don't. The game can either have emotional impact or be so tedious that I quit playing, these are mutually exclusive outcomes. The game is failing to deliver on at least one of these. This is why I feel like this part of the game is poorly designed regardless of the intended/desired outcome of this path.

Anyways, I did still find it interesting, I found it interesting to talk about and experience and gave me something to write about here. Feel free to play Undertale in any way you choose, and I hope you have a good time.