Undertale being a story-based game, it will awake lots of crispations even in its most dedicated fanbase.
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Characters
- For the Temmies, there are four groups: those who love them and think they deserved more of a presence, those who found the gag funny but are glad it was kept to a single area, those who find it a lame attempt at "lolsorandom" humor that the game otherwise avoids, and those who think they're overly blatant Mr. Saturn expies.
- Alphys is hugely controversial. One part of the fanbase adores her for being an awkward and relatable nerd with an adorable romance with Undyne, and for being one of the more complex characters in the game, being heavily flawed but also having understandable and sympathetic reasons for it. The other half hates her with a passion due a mix of finding her character gimmick and attempts to help more annoying than funny, especially on repeat playthroughs, as well as the reveal that, though she has her sympathetic reasons, she had been experimenting on sick monsters to create the Amalgamates, was responsible for the creation of Flowey, and has been manipulating the player to feel better about herself, made worse by the fact that she never directly apologizes for the latter.
- Asgore is either beloved by fans who find him a very likable character who was put through a very difficult situation and ended up making major mistakes due to it or hated for the same reasons Toriel hates him. It doesn't help that he's often a victim of Die for Our Ship as well.
- Sans's popularity eventually reached such a fever pitch that his fanbase imploded on itself, and these days he is solidly divisive. The amount of fanart and fanfic focused on him dwarfs all the other characters, complete with numerous AUs centered around different versions of him (and AUs of those AUs) sometimes shipped with each other, and even entire original series
inspired by the many different Sanses. Various jokes about his astounding popularity, including comparisons to the Once-ler fandom* abound. As a result, a backlash developed among other fans who perceive that he's become to the Undertale fandom what Wolverine is to Marvel at the expense of the game's other characters, especially since so many AUs and fan scenarios have Sans take their place in the story, alter their personalities or backstories to make Sans look better at their expense, or even have them killed off to make more room for Sans when they're not being ignored completely. This camp also includes those who do like Sans, but dislike the fandom response to him because of all the Canon Defilement and Mary Sue Tropes surrounding him — or think that, while he's an interesting character, he takes attention and focus away from other characters who might deserve it more. Not helping is that people think the concepts behind many of the broader-encompassing AUs are interesting and have great potential for storytelling, but, barring a few exceptions, a large number of them explore only Sans. The "Sans Undertale" meme arose to mock how he might as well be the only character in the game. - One of the reasons this game is so loved is for its charming and lovable characters, who have their flaws but are ultimately good people, and have everyone else's interests at heart. Mettaton is the lone exception to this rule. He's the only monster who tries to kill the player with a desire for personal glory and fame in mind, rather than for the benefit of monsterkind. He's egomaniacal and self-obsessed, and unlike Papyrus, this doesn't seem to be born out of insecurity. He's cruel to Burgerpants for no real reason. If you kill Toriel and Undyne, but not Mettaton, then Mettaton takes over the Underground in the epilogue and turns it into a Police State where anyone who doesn't love him disappears. Education, economy, and general hope are all in the gutter, but Mettaton thinks it's fine, because everything is covered in golden glitter and there's tons of statues of him. Despite this, his crimes are Played for Laughs and waved off, and he never gets any comeuppance. His supporters in the fandom point to the fact that his boss battle is both great and hilarious, and that he genuinely cares about Alphys and his cousin Napstablook, as well as the fact that achieving fame on the surface isn't really the only purpose behind his attempt to kill the player; he also does it because he loves humans and doesn't wish to see a war erupt between humans and monsters, as is an inevitability if Asgore does the job instead, with the prospect of being adored by humankind just being a perk. Additionally, hearing how much his fans love him and don't want him to leave genuinely touches him and is all it takes to sway him to leave the player alone and stay in the Underground with them. His detractors, however, don't find that these peeks at a softer and generous side compensate for his insensitive and selfish personality or Karma Houdini status.
The Game itself
- The fanbase cannot agree on what name fits the No Mercy/Genocide route better. The more popular choice of name is the Genocide route, since this is exactly what the protagonist does; however, some of the fanbase dislikes the name, either due to them feeling the name is too much of a Spoiler or considering the use of it to be making light of the real-life processes of violence against racial and cultural groups by comparing them to the fictional killing of monsters in a video game, and call it the No Mercy route instead. Those who prefer the name "Genocide" argue back that the "No Mercy" name is too vague and fits other routes of the game better (such as the one where all the bosses are killed but none of the monsters, or one where all the bosses and some, but not all, of the monsters are killed), on top of the fact that labeling it a genocide IS accurate, fictional or not, as you are in fact wiping out an entire species, and it should be no more offensive to call it as such than it would be to labe a fictional homicide a homicide. A few Take a Third Option and call it "Max LV" (due to the latter resulting in the player hitting the LV cap) or "having a bad time" (after a creepily-delivered line from an NPC (specifically the aforementioned Sans) warning the player not to continue their murderous ways).
- Whether or not players should be encouraged to go for the Genocide route. Many argue that it's a part of the game that must be played in order to get the full experience and not playing it is an injustice to the game. However, the fact that the game repeatedly discourages the player from doing this (especially after achieving the Golden Ending) and heavily guilt-trips them if they do, and will permanently taint the game with a Happy Ending Override on any future Pacifist runs should they complete the Genocide route has led others to feel encouraging newer players to play the route is overly cruel. (Also, the Genocide route's messages hit the hardest for players going into it willingly.)
- Then there's the flip side: whether players playing for the first time should be encouraged to go for the pacifist route. Many fans feel a moral duty to push new players towards the pacifist route (to the point of being quick to spoil spare methods in livestream chats if the player can't figure them out), or think that it simply makes better gaming sense to play the most efficient path to the best ending, while others feel that going into the game blind gives a greater impact to the choice elements of the story, even if it results in the player killing some monsters and having to restart the game to get the best ending.
- Discussing Mettaton's gender is often fuel for flame wars on a massive scale; while Mettaton is referred to as “he” in the game (unlike characters like the Human Child and the ghosts, who both in-game text and characters are content not to specify and the latter of which are actually the same species as Mettaton, making him the only ghost who's gendered in the game), his effeminate behavior and rather... flashy EX form have led to many an instance of Viewer Gender Confusion among more casual fans and been played in arguments over just what he identifies as.
- On a related note, there's the matter of whether Mettaton "counts" as being transgender or not. His change from being a ghost to possessing a robot body is referred to in his diaries in similar terms as a gender transition might be, enough that if nothing else there's a case for him being a transgender allegory or trans equivalent of the Discount Lesbians trope of sorts — for some fans, this is enough for them to feel that he canonically counts as transgender representation, while others actively deny that gender is even an issue with his character. People on both sides can be incredibly aggressive about the whole thing.
- There's a decent point of conflict within the fandom over Asriel and his ultimate fate in the Pacifist Run. Some fans argue that his actions as Flowey don't make him worth having his own happy ending, or believe that him staying in the underground as a redeemed but still emotionless flower is suitable penance, or that there needs to be one last moment of bittersweet to keep the ending from being insufferably upbeat. The other side... well, the amount of Fix Fics that have Asriel saved, one way or another, should tell you that there's a massive crowd who thinks absolutely everyone should get their happy ending, even him.
- Due to the immense amount of ambiguity involved with practically everything about them, including their true nature, motivation, and morality, another major point of contention is the Fallen Child/Chara. While fans initially more or less universally agreed that they were as Obviously Evil as the Genocide route made them look, it didn't take long for a small but vocal sect of fans to start speculating and then firmly believing that they aren't. These ideas took root more and more until the colloquially-named "Chara Defense Squad" made up a very sizable portion of the fandom, pointing out evidence within the game that could be interpreted as evidence in favor of Chara being a good person, or at least, not the monster everybody was treating them like, and making fan material that downplayed the darker aspects of their character. Nowadays, there is a very sharp rift between the fans who aggressively believe that Chara has been subjected to an undeserved Ron the Death Eater treatment, and the fans who believe that these people are pulling an extreme case of Draco in Leather Pants, with both sides asserting that the other is anything from uninformed and ignorant to outright bullying and toxic. And this rift shows no signs of going away due to the fact that practically nothing can be said about Chara definitively and about 80% of the content that make up both sides' arguments are at least partially up to interpretation. Outside of these two extremes, there are also people who believe that Chara is a character meant to directly represent the player in some fashion and, therefore, can't accurately be described as having a canonical morality/motivation, making this entire dichotomy pointless, as well as fans who believe that Chara's true identity is somewhere between the two extremes and that both sides are vastly oversimplifying them.
- There's also the debate over Frisk's canonical identity. Is Frisk meant to be a Featureless Protagonist Player Avatar, and therefore whatever gender the player is? Or is Frisk always and only ever their own person who just doesn't state their gender (or is nonbinary with they/them pronouns)?
- Related to the above, the fanbase is heavily split on whether Frisk and Chara are canonically nonbinary or not. Some suggest that the constant use of they/them pronouns for both is canon proof that they are, while others argue that it could just be a case of Gender-Inclusive Writing. For Frisk's case, the pronouns could be just an extension of the fact that they are a Featureless Protagonist who is meant to be projected onto, or just the other characters not knowing Frisk's gender. On the other hand, given what kind of game Undertale is, it could very well be a Deconstruction of such a protagonist type, especially as Frisk is heavily implied to not be just an extension of the player at the very end of the pacifist routenote . Not to mention that even after the main cast learns Frisk's true name, they continue to refer to them with they/them pronouns. In Chara's case, some argue that Chara as a character is meant to represent the playernote , and as such should match the player's gender. Though Chara possesses a more established personality than Frisk does, making it difficult to tell exactly how much they're meant to be projected on by the player (as mentioned above). They are also always referred to with they/them pronouns even by their adopted family. Some people also point out that since the player can choose the fallen child's name, it wouldn't have been hard to add a prompt for gender if the player was truly meant to pick it themself. For the entire issue, some fans say that it's pointless trying to argue over the Fanon gender identities of intentionally gender-ambiguous characters (especially since Toby Fox hasn't said a word on the issue), while others say that there's enough evidence to consider Frisk and Chara canonically nonbinary, especially since nonbinary characters get so little representation in media anyway. The debates on this can get pretty heated.
- Mentioning a sequel is usually a surefire way to get the fanbase fired up. One side believes that the game's Golden Ending should remain as is (thus no sequel), while the other side feels that the game can expand upon a sequel and that there's room for it. It doesn't help that Deltarune, the official follow-up to Undertale, takes place in an Alternate Universe and therefore doesn't directly build upon the world, characters, or story of Undertale in any meaningful way.
- Among the Japanese fandom, the topic of which translated version of the game is better — the official localization or the earlier fan translation — is a frequent topic of debate. Both are very well made, and nowadays the majority of people agree that the official one is for the most part superior, but you can still find arguments about this topic to this day. The fan translation has a more direct, almost word-for-word translation of the original text, which led to a lot of the nuance, puns, and clever writing being lost, since much of the source material simply does not work in Japanese without some adjustments that would properly localize the "spirit" of the game with equally creative Japanese writing. Since it's so streamlined, a lot of the characters' unique speech patterns are done away with; most egregious of which are the Temmies, who speak perfectly normal Japanese. The official translation is often praised for adding localization that retains the game's sense of humor and wit through the Japanese text (for instance, Sans and Toriel's pun exchanges are rendered as a Boke and Tsukkomi Routine, Sans' text is written with a stereotypically "lame" Japanese font akin to Comic Sans, and the Temmies speak with appropriately-broken Japanese), and for the fact that it received some supervision and specific translation requests from Toby Fox himself. On the other hand, it was still subject to some criticism for some bits of localization that were deemed unnecessary, such as the Pacifist route's Final Boss, where the word "Save" ("Saving the game really is impossible, but maybe you might be able to save something else...") was replaced with "Revive" ("Reviving your save state might be impossible, but you might be able to revive something else..."), seemingly not confident that Japanese players would understand the dual meaning of the English word "save". The fan translation, being more streamlined and direct, retained the original English word and was praised for it.
- The game's meta approach to its storytelling and general self-awareness of being a videogame. You will either consider it a clever way for Undertale to comment on and deconstruct various videogame tropes and conventions, while also interjecting many unique comedic jokes that take advantage of its medium and self-awareness. Or you will consider it an incredibly pretentious inclusion that isn't as smart as it thinks it is and shatters any sense of immersion.
