Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-34831649-20180226201827

Welcome! I’m here to give my analysis on the design behind Undertale. Most of these days, we barely see any real blind playthroughs, and so, the true design of Undertale is really left a mystery.. There are theorizes, but... They mostly deal with the story itself.

You see, a pivotal part of what makes Undertale a great game is it’s routes. Neutral, Pacifist, Genocide.. And while you might not think so at first, there’s a path Toby intended you to take.

Let’s take a look at the game, shall we? It all begins with Flowey, telling you that it’s kill or be killed, before Toriel comes in, saving you.. And telling you to spare. Considering that Flowey is made out to be an enemy, it’s clear Toby was trying to nudge you over to Pacifist. However, what Toby’s true intentions are here is to nudge you over to do a Neutral Run! You see, your first run will probably have you kill someone.. Specifically... Toriel. You’re told how if you bring someone’s HP down enough, they won’t want to fight anymore. Since talking doesn’t seem to be the solution, the next logical thing to do is to do what the Froggit said. ...What? Toriel’s.. dead?

Yeah. It’s specifically programmed that your final hit will do a large amount of extra damage. This tactic is guaranteed to result in killing Toriel. Now, there’s two things the blind player could do-Just continue on, or.. reload and try another way. We are given a hint that eventually, there will be someone that we have to spare, even without a yellow name. That’s referring to Toriel herself, but one, two, or even three times isn’t enough to get much of a response. It’s perceived as a waste at first try. But.. if the first method didn’t work, it’s clear there’s only one way to spare Toriel. So, let’s say you do that. Well, that gives Toby the chance to bring out the fact that Flowey knows what you did... Wow, Flowey’s pretty creepy, isn’t he? Oh, and it also serves as a hint not to just go around doing stuff for the sake of doing it, because the fact still stands you did these things (like, take for example.. Genocide?) Really, it’s a nice take on the nature of players..

As you stay on the Pacifist Route, the monsters get more and more threatening. Papyrus wants to capture you! Undyne wants to KILL you! Mettaton wants to kill you.. supposedly for a show! It’s clear that Toby’s trying to nudge you to kill them.. He wants a Neutral path. Soon, you face Asgore, who destroys your mercy. Now you HAVE to fight. Then, after you kill him, you’re given a choice to spare him or not. In this case, Asgore flat-out ASKS you to kill him. Once again, a nudge away from a Pacifist ending. Then comes Flowey, who destroys the SOUL of Asgore, and becomes the final boss. You have to get the other SOULs to revolt. So, then comes Flowey again. So.. what’s the intended route here? Probably to kill Flowey. But, it really doesn’t matter too much. Because here’s where the choice system of Undertale starts to take its role. First off, we get the Neutral End phone call, with music that’s.. Wait, that doesn’t sound like victory music at all! Sans tells you the situation Underground. The most likely endings you’ll get are the Dog ending and the Leaderless ending. Dog Ending if you’re trying to spare whenever possible, like Toriel said, and Leaderless ending if you decide to start killing other monsters to make the bosses easier. Either way, it’s like the game wants you to do a Pacifist Route. And if you DID spare Flowey, he even challenges you to do that. And eventually, gaming curiosity would probably lead a player to try sparing Flowey just to see what happens.. Another thing that pulls players towards the Pacifist Route is the story of Asriel and Chara that’s told in New Home.. Maybe that’ll get you to spare Asgore instead? ...That choice doesn’t really matter in terms of what’s next anyway. It’ll be reset away,with no real changes.

The Pacifist Route gives us more information about how these monsters are actually like.. And with it, the core message of the game.. I’ll go over that later, but the short version is:Don’t kill, and don’t be killed, that’s the best you can strive for. Oh, and don’t assume malicious intent. ...Actually, that’s the big one. The story of the Undertale, the plaques in Waterfall. Humans assuming malice of the monsters, and putting them in bad situations. This is a common motif...

So, you save the monsters, find out even Flowey wasn’t all bad, and was only “kill or be killed” because of their death with Chara, and was actually Asriel Dreemurr.. And Frisk lives on in the Surface. Or.. do they? Well, that’s up for you, the Player, to decide.

I think you might know what I’m hinting at here... I’ll be posting about the Genocide Route here too, but this is pretty long for one post already. 