Matricidal Anguish - The Experience of Playing Undertale in 13 Moments

Standard battle mechanics in Undertale

It's the RPG "where nobody has to die", yet the real triumph of Undertale is its emphasis on allowing the player to set their own path. The mechanics, structure and story influences of the game are finely balanced enough that your actions have an appropriate moral weighting. Killing an innocent creature that barely fights back feels utterly monstrous, as it should. Yet, when approached with more resilient opponent, the perturbing thought of killing being the only option starts to permeate and... well, we all make mistakes.

This, and probably the depth of characters and story, is what has made Undertale a gaming experience that has stirred emotions I haven't felt since battling through Final Fantasy VII as a naive young lad. Though that game is, in retrospect, a flawed, balls-to-the-wall cenotaph of its time, that enthrallment of playing through such a great adventure, with characters who resonated as real people, has evaded me in what is an admittedly kitsch taste in games.

Sephiroth's dialogue was basically the same.

So Undertale has revitalised my appreciation for the possibilities of games, certainly with indie gaming. It's important at this point to say that, if you haven't played Undertale, you should probably stop reading. Knowing the course of the game intrinsically defeats the purpose of what you should experience when playing this game, so unless you truly have no interest in shelling out £7 for this rare little gem, then kill this tab and I won't be offended.

Here is how it went down. The moments that captured me in all sorts of ways, making this the brightest and most enjoyable game I've played for over a decade.

1. Meeting Toriel

"Yep... this definitely won't end well..."

The prevailing thought when meeting Toriel, it seems, is "Oh God, my heart won't be able to handle this game". There's something about the motherly figure, projecting a desperate loneliness in her enthusiasm for your companionship, contrasting against the eerie underground ruins, that forebodes the incoming heartbreak.

Toriel is completely pleasant and docile towards the player, guiding them through dangerous puzzles and showing them the polite way to deal with monsters. All the while, the knowledge that this cannot last is a caterpillar in the pit of the player's stomach. And then, when you reach Toriel's home and observe that she has a room for you, has planned your education and has baked you a butterscotch-cinnamon pie, the reality starts to hit you.

This, right after she's told you about your planned education...

I couldn't do it. Not at first. This all just felt too harsh, but eventually the confrontation has to happen...

2. ...and then I killed her.

"Well, she certainly doesn't look like she's giving up..."

"You bastard!" you probably just shouted at the screen. Well, joke's on you. I can't hear you so now you look like a right mental.

This is not uncommon for a first playthrough, I have since learned, but it doesn't do anything to tuck the guilt under the sheets. The game is almost deceptive for this fight, but in truth it is only the player's lack of faith in being peaceful that causes Toriel's death.

Until now, all enemies encountered follow a simple mechanic. If you choose the correct option from the 'act' menu, the monster's name becomes yellow and you can spare them. When you come to face Toriel, the only option in the 'act' menu is to talk to her, and this appears to have no effect whatsoever. In this abyss of instruction, my age-worn instincts pushed me towards fighting back as 'the only option'.

"Ohhh... now I feel like a reclusive Hitler..."

Toriel saves your life at the very beginning of the game, and the source of her ultimate loneliness, when revealed later in the game, makes this confrontation all the more tragic. Suffice to say, the game succeeded in making me hate myself, not just in this moment, but in callbacks to it later on in the game.

3. Papyrus and Sans

Sans, of course, speaks in Comic Sans. Because he's... comic...

I love these two characters. Sans seems to be the big fan-favourite, but I couldn't get enough of Papyrus' brash, overtly-confident approach to everything. His fervent drive to capture a human initially made me expect a 'goofy villain' type character, but it quickly becomes apparent that Papyrus is incapable of anything but 'acting' like a bad guy. His emphasis on 'puzzling and japing' the human barely conceals his child-like desire to have fun, and by the end of his devilish encounters, it's hard not to absolutely love the crazy bonehead.

By this point in the game, I had concluded that there was no damn way I was killing Papyrus. Naivety was no longer an excuse, so when it came to fighting him at the end of the Snowdin area, I was far more assured in my own pacifist convictions. It's a long fight though, and for me it took two tries before I was able to get it right. However, seeing Papyrus openly postulate on his desire to capture a human, and how it conflicted with the genuine friendship he felt he had with the human, before ultimately setting aside his ambitions... that was incredibly satisfying. It was a mini-redemption for earlier sins.

4. Ooo ooo ooo, ooo ooo ooo, oo oo ooo oo ooo

Napstablook's limit break.

Early on in the game there's a ghost called Napstablook who blocks your way across a path by pretending to sleep (one of my favourite little jokes in the game is how Napstablook tries to execute this). Later on, he disrupts one of the miniboss fights and the opportunity to hang out with the spectre becomes irresistible.

The depth of characters in a game like this can, in my opinion, be fairly measured by how much you just want to hang around with them. Napstablook, in his timid despressive state, is (perhaps subversively) a joy to interact with. There's a nice moment where, after eating a ghost-sandwich (which is as disappointing and impossible as it sounds), he asks if you want to lie on the floor with him. And boy, did I.

Actual screengrab.

I think it was here that I became fixated with the game. Up to that point, I was satisfied with booting up the game in small bursts. But at this moment, it started to dawn on me how excellent Undertale was becoming. This had its downsides for the first playthrough though, as I began to rush...

5. Undyne's done and Alphys is annoying

It was at this point I realised that Undyne is a fish.

So in my rush to see the conclusion of the game, I neglected a fundamental element of enjoying Undertale, which is to really breathe it in. It's not something to be barrelled through, but rather soaked up. I beat Undyne, the fearsome warrior, by running away and chucking water on her when she got hot, but didn't entertain the thought that there might be more to her character than a 'big boss', which in retrospect is extremely cloudy judgement.

Then Alphys becomes something of a guide through the Laval area of the game. I think I misinterpreted how to receive Alphys as a character (something which gave later scenes a greater impact, perhaps), as I mentally compartmentalised her as a satire on the 'typically annoying guide character' in an RPG. Perhaps this was also partly down to the consistent stream of social media updates Alphys interrupts the game with as akin to Al Gore's role in South Park: The Stick of Truth.

I was happy to hear this.

When Alphys mentioned watching some anime after 'all this is over', I gave a perfunctory 'yes', but never really turned back to initiate this.

6. Mettaton

....

I mean, enough said really.

7. Sans breaks me down again

I had a healthy skepticism about the ketchup this time.

My automatic, mindless blast through the game was sobered by the intervention of Sans. Before entering the core, he asks if the player wants dinner. Of course, you agree when Sans asks you something like that, because Sans.

It had felt like a long time since committing the cardinal sin against the maternal goat who saved my life, but Sans wasn't about to let me forget. He tells a story about a lady behind a giant door, who loved his bad jokes. Day after day, the two of them excitedly share inane puns until, one day, the lady behind the door tells Sans to protect any human that comes through the door.

"...you'd be dead where you stand."

Then it dawned on me. It's Toriel. Sans was sharing jokes with Toriel the whole time, and when Sans told me that he'd not heard from her since, it was like being flushed right back into that moment where I'd finally struck her down. And the worst thing was, it felt like Sans knew. As far as comic relief characters go, Sans is capable of catching you off guard with a moment of deadly seriousness.

The brilliance of Undertale is that it never lets you forget something like that. Redemption is only partial in this world, and acts of violence have irreparable consequences.

8. The Story of Asriel

The music dies... the end is near...

Following the Mettaton fight, the game treats the player to a scene of serene introspection. Across the skyline (which I know is the wrong word for an underground location) of a beige city, the player enters a home that is almost identical to Toriel's.

For me, things really started to fall into place here. The monsters tell the tale of Asriel and the human, and how Asriel died trying to bring the human to their final resting place. From this, we learn that the hope was taken away from the death of not one, but both of the royal children. King Asgore's job is just to rescue hope for the monsters, and Toriel... she was the Queen, leading the player to surmise that the death of their children forced the King and Queen to isolate themselves from each other. Both of them lost everything.

The story is told through the world's hopeful monsters...

And again, this makes killing Toriel a near-satanic act.

9. Flowey destroys the game

Flowey is instantly enamored by the player.

I've neglected to mention Flowey, who goads the player into treating the underworld as 'kill or be killed'. He operates some of the most unsettling moments of fourth-wall demolition I've witnessed.

Before that, we finally meet King Asgore. Despite the King's lovely-guy persona, he is reluctantly aware of his duty and vows to take the player's soul. Despite Asgore literally destroying the 'mercy' option, I staunchly stuck to the 'talk' option for the first go, believing that I could get through this fight peacefully.

Unfortunately, there is no point trying to be coy in this confrontation. Asgore is unsparable... that is, until you bring him to within inches of his life. Then you can make the choice of whether to kill Asgore and return to the human world, or spare him and live underground. (Not before bringing up that he wants to see his wife again, the game's way of nonchalantly firing another guilt-bullet at the player).

I love choices like these.

Of course, I spared him. But Flowey had other ideas and finished him off on my behalf, before crashing the game. My feelings were a mixture of anger and confusion. "That sucked... hey, did the game really crash, or was that just my laptop being a dick? I'll reboot... hang on, that doesn't look like the title screen... ohh shit..."

Flowey takes full control of the game from this moment, and creates a boss that can only be described as creepy Photoshop parfait. Within seconds, I was obliterated, and the game scrolled and endless 'Hahaha' text before crashing. It's the sort of nightmare-inducing computer sentience they would put in bad nineties movies about robots taking over the world, except this time it felt fully plausible because it was happening to me.

Actual screengrab.

I genuinely thought I was doing something wrong after the 14th or 15th attempt to fight Flowey. Turns out I was... apparently you can actually use those floating 'fight' and 'act' buttons to do stuff. Eventually, I won, and it was bloody satisfying to say the least.

10. Try again.

This game's overarching knowledge of save states is endlessly creepy.

I wasn't done. By now I had learned of the 'pacifist' route and channelled some of the game's well-promoted 'determination' to do it right. I spared Toriel, I reconvened with Undyne (while begrudging that it wasn't a proper date), and dated Alphys (which is another of the funniest parts of the game). I was about to win the game properly. Approaching Asgore, I felt pretty great.

Asgore prepares to fight, but this time Toriel turns up to break things up. Then Undyne. Then Alphys, and Papyrus and Sans. All of these characters, evidently touched by the human's peaceful and loving demeanour, are bouncing off each other with funny dialogue. Finally, the fun, pleasant and 'happy' ending I was after.

By replaying the game, it turns out you're doing exactly what he wants. Sneaky bastard!

And then Flowey ruins it again.

11. The Asreveal

One hell of a reveal.

The moment I learned that Flowey was Asriel's disembodied soul is an 'oh shit!' moment that's up there with learning the twist of Oldboy. This moment brings everything together in a mesmerising way. I love the dangerous mix created by Asriel's soul, now unable to feel emotion because it lacks the appropriate corporeal forl, Asriel's childish desire to 'play', and his infatuation with Chara and the child that resembles them, the player.

There's so much going on in this boss fight that it's difficult to provide a satisfying summation of the feeling involved. Asriel is trying to remove your grip on these characters, the friends that the human has made throughout their adventure. He wants to get rid of that goddamn happy ending you worked so hard for.

And he's grinning like it's his birthday. His evil birthday...

While the souls of the other monsters are making Asriel a demigod, they are also resonating with the player. And with that, the opportunity emerges - it's down to the player to save the souls which are slowly fading away, by reminding those souls of the friendly, sometimes banal, interactions that they have enjoyed. It's here that the game cements just how much these characters are all tremendous, individually good-natured personalities that deserve saving (even the irritating ones, like Alphys who I decided, during this fight, was actually a lot of fun).

Then it's time to save Asriel, who has been feeling the power of the souls' love grow stronger and stronger. He can no longer remain completely aloof, and his attacks wane.

Everyone seems to get really lucky with their health at this point.

12. Saying goodbye.

Ow, my heart.

13. Not doing a violence

No I didn't Papyrus. No I didn't.

I should end this article (mainly because it's self-indulgently long-winded) with what I won't be doing. There is, as I'm sure you know, a genocide route to this game. As much as I've enjoyed Undertale and would love an excuse to play it again, there's simply no way I could bring myself to carry out a genocide run.

And that, to me, is another great achievement of Undertale. I'm sacrificing full completion of the game in favour of not killing a skeleton that threatened me with awful puzzles and fed me cold spaghetti.