Reviews VideoGame / Undertale

I think this is the only review, critical or otherwise, that actually seems to take an objective and non-biased view of this game.

No such thing, but it's definitely a *balanced* view, taking both what he liked and didn't like into account.

It seems like most of the monsters are actively trying to kill you. That doesn't really make me want to spare them.

The reasons why are repeatedly and rather unsubtly stressed throughout the game: that monsterkind is one dead human away from finally being free from the Underground, and that all monsters desperately want that more than anything, enough that they're willing to compromise their morals in the process.

Explaining why they want to doesn't really change my position that much.

When you try to kill an innocent person, even for debatably justfiable reasons, the onus isn't on them to work out a compromise.

If the onus were never on anyone to be the better man, we'd still be ignorant stone-age apes bashing out one anothers' brains with crude stone implements because that guy's hair is a slightly different shade of brown.

Besides, plenty of monsters don't try to hurt you in the first areas, such that one can literally scroll right, select the "Spare" option, and instantly end the fight right after it begins.

It's easy enough to say you'd never do something unjustifiable if you and your loved ones were in desperate straights and didn't see another way out. It's quite another thing to be in that situation.

"If the onus were never on anyone to be the better man, we'd still be ignorant stone-age apes bashing out one anothers' brains with crude stone implements because that guy's hair is a slightly different shade of brown."

The onus is not on the victim, because that's blatantly unfair. Period. If believing that means we go back to being what you smugly call "stone-age apes" then good.

And so what If I would do something similar? Wouldn't make it right.

And "bashing each other over a different hair color" is an obnoxious exaggeration. I refuse to feel sympathy for those who are actively trying to kill me for their own sake.

Then you're free to fight back. You're free to get a less-than-satisfying ending.

Which is kind of bullshit. Disagreeing with the game's pacifist ideals shouldn't net you an unsatisfying ending.

Given that the game's Golden Ending kind of hinges on everyone A. being alive and B. liking you, it kinda only makes sense.

"Disagreeing with the game's pacifist ideals shouldn't net you an unsatisfying ending"

Is the only issue here that the game pushes non-violence as a legitimate and character-driven choice to get a good ending? Because otherwise it just sounds like you don't like the conditions for the golden ending.

It'd be like ripping on a dating sim for locking you out of the best ending for acting like a dick, whether it's because it's how you wanted to play or because it was more amusing or whatever. Your choices in that game, and in this game, are just as legitimate, but you need to see what you're doing through the game's eyes and bend yourself to its whims to get the best ending.

If that's not for you, whatever. But it's nothing to get bent out of shape over. Other genres have had the same mechanics, and other RP Gs have had multiple/"golden" endings that require you to jump through hoops. Undertale is fairly reactive as far as RP Gs go, which is a part of its draw. You can play it how you want. But don't get upset because the best ending requires a specific set of conditions to achieve.

You know, if the game wasn't so technologically limited (which really bugs me at times, because even if you want your game to be "retro", it doesn't automatically excuse it from using clunky solutions) and allowed you to voice your opinion more often than when it feels like it and in more than just a few words, maybe we would be given an option to do a "What the Hell, Townspeople?" towards the monsters and make them realize what the hell they are doing.

Though then again it would mean that, if you were to succeed in changing their minds, the rest of the game would be nothing more than you just walking through the now enemy-less environment just to reach the end.

Undyne, Papyrus, and the Monster Kid's character arcs didn't cover that ground enough? The crux of the pacifist route is winning them over.

I would just like to note that Yahtzee Croshaw made an interesting point in his Extra Punctuation article on Undertale, one I did not have the space to reiterate in 400 words. Monsters are repeatedly shown to be not really evil at heart, but more as desparate and flawed individuals who gave up on goodness too soon—the road to a Golden Ending requires us to show them that they gave in to despair and the 'easy route out' too easily.

I think that's why not following a pacifist route gives you a less than satisfying result. You have to prove to the monsters that their preconcieved notions of humans, as well as their situation, aren't wholly accurate. It's on the player to help provide the epiphany monsters need that humans aren't as bad as they've been told, that their suspiciousness and aggressiveness isn't as valid as they think it is. I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that this is fully half of Undyne's character arc. That's why, in some of the less satisfying neutral endings, monsterkind redoubles its war effort against humanity—because the player has validated their beliefs that humans are inherently bad as opposed to providing grounds for a realization otherwise.

I'd also like to note that the player always get the first action in standard combat—the monsters may dictate the rate of encounters, but the player dictates the tone of the encounter.

It shouldn't be up to a victim of prejudice to "disprove" it or provide an epiphany to anyone. The responsibility of correcting prejudice lies with the prejudiced themselves.

Given the fact that the last major contact the monsters had with humans was the humans roflstomping them in a war and sealing them underneath a mountain, that doesn't seem a like a particularly believable expectation.

Well, that's what I get for hitting refresh.

As I was about to say, that's actually why it works so well. They have not just years but vertiable generations of prejudices against humans as warmongers and act out thusly.

Do you fight back against them—an action that would reinforce those prejudices, no matter how ill held—or do you refuse to stoop to the level of violence to show them that they are in the wrong to keep attacking? I'd argue the existence of our very own Badass Pacifist trope suggests there must be some merit to winning people without having to kill them, even if they attack first. As I've already noted, the monsters set the regularity of encounters, but the human's initial action determines the outcome, pun unintended.

It's a very simplified depiction, and hardly fair when taken from an individualistic perspective, but it handily explains why the character has All-Loving Hero as a character trope, a messianic character trait; to change the opinions and hearts of monsters, they show that they are better than merely returning the violence visited upon them.

Yes, I would fight back against them. I don't believe that violence is inherently bad or "stooping to their level", or that returning violence with nonviolence is "better".

And no, the existence of Badass Pacifist doesn't suggest the merit of anything on its own.

Fair enough. I figured the accolades given in the trope's Real Life section to people who have overcome often violent opposition without themselves shedding blood must have counted for something.

That's hardly reviewing Undertale though, so I'll leave that point behind. I will say that, without spoiling, there's some statements in the True Ending that suggest that pacifism has to tempered with survival—an interesting flip to an early lesson learned by encountering the Ruins monster Vegetoid: being able to defeat an opponent has to be tempered by knowing when to stop fighting. As far as I recall, the only character that suggests Murder Is the Best Solution is Flowey, and his exposition is beyond unreliable.

"I murdered a lot of people and then the game yelled at me." man you really don't get how life works do you

I get how "life works" just fine. And in this case it wouldn't necessarily be "murder".

Um, just to add, a good amount of monsters try to kill you, sure, but more of them (the random encounter normal ones) don't actually seem to be trying to hurt you (a.k.a froggit, vegetoid, woshua) and more are accidentally hurting you due more to physiological differences between monsters and humans (somethign else the game stresses)

and to be fair, the game never says you have to be %100 pacifist saint or you're pure evil, neutral run is, well neutral. Obviously going out of your way to kill everything ever will punish you, but killing in self defense, while the game doesn't encourage it, isn't condemned either because yeah, the monsters aren't saints either. If that makes sense. I dunno what im getting at here

No, I get it. "Neutral" is "neutral"; neither abhorrently evil nor glowingly good. I don't really agree with what the game calls "glowingly good", but I can appreciate your point.

What I have the biggest problem with is that the pacifist path is the only path that's encouraged and treated as satisfying, with credits and everything. To get the "best" ending, you're expected to at least pretend to agree with the game's ideology, and I consider that to be a flaw that more open-ended RP Gs like Mass Effect don't generally have.

You seem remarkably adamant in arguing about a game you haven't played and know very little about.

I know all I need to know to argue this particular point. You yourself have said that playing anything less than pacifist nets you a "less-than-satisfying ending".

Because the non-pacifist endings conclude with at best you having to say goodbye to the friends you've made, and at worst with your actions having serious consequences.

You seem to think that context doesn't matter, as you've pretty much ignored everyone who's tried to explain very basic things about the setting and plot and just stuck with a baffling knee-jerk reaction against the game's very concept.

People haven't just tried to "explain" things to me, they've actually argued with me. They haven't just explained why the monsters do what they do, they've tried to get me to change my emotional reaction and feel differently about them.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the discussion throughout hasn't been as detached as you're making it out to be.

I'm not making it out to be detached. I'm saying you're ignoring context and that you're oddly invested in arguing against the game based on very little, which makes your arguments look incredibly flimsy and silly.

What context have I ignored, though? I can think of a few posts where I've said that the context that's been presented doesn't change my opinion, but I can't think of any posts where I've ignored it, as in pretended it doesn't exist.

I'd also like to add that I don't have a problem with the game's concept. If the monsters were trying to kill you over an honest misunderstanding (because they thought Chara had fully possessed the player character or that they were Chara in disguise), I would feel a lot differently.

You didn't respond to that bit about how the circumstances in the golden ending only make sense in the pacifist playthrough (therefore giving you the big happy ending otherwise wouldn't make sense in light of the characters and story). Or how people have pointed out that some of the monsters aren't actually attacking you, but the difference in physiology results in inadvertent attacks (e.g. Temmie, Woshua, Vulkin, etc.). (You also went on to make a comparison to Mass Effect, a series where you get a crap ending no matter what you do.)

Also,

(because they thought Chara had fully possessed the player character or that they were Chara in disguise)

You see, this is kind of what I mean when I say that you knowing next to nothing about the game's context is a problem when you're trying to argue. Spoiler Alert: the monsters don't know that Chara was a bad person, therefore your suggestion is nonsensical.

Well, sure, I don't doubt that there's an in-universe reason for why it's the best ending. My objections are from a meta standpoint.

And I know what I said about Chara is probably inaccurate. My point is that if the conflict had been based around an honest misunderstanding, I would be more sympathetic.

I also don't recall ever saying that I thought all the monsters were evil. I know they're not. If I were playing the game, I'd go for one of the Neutral endings, not full No Mercy.

But I think my praise of Mass Effect needs to be explained. In the first game at least, you could get just as much satisfaction out of playing Renegade as Paragon; you could Intimidate Wrex rather than just Charm or kill him, or you could provide a Renegade rationale for a Paragon action and vice versa. Here it seems to mostly just be "kill" or "don't kill", and if you pick "kill" you get locked out of the best endings.

Say what you will about Mass Effect having a "crap ending no matter what you do", but it gave the player more power, and offered multiple ways to achieve the same goal.

I feel like people latch onto fallen child/playername too much as a character in of themselves, giving a convenient big bad evil that doesnt need mercy or whatever, but i feel thats against the point when they're kind of meant to be well, you, which is why you name them.

If there was a flaw with the game with me i'd say that said character/backstory element isn't super consistent, in the backstory they're a child who was a bit fucked up, and then in the genocide run they're apocalypse satan. But thats probably because theyre more in a meta context with the player in genocide runs. i dunno

It's sompletely nonsensival to compare Undertale and Mass Effect in this way. One thing to remember in Undertale is that the player character is vastly, vastly more powerful than litterally anything else in the game (with one notable exception). You can one-shot most bosses, for god's sake.

The monsters aren't attacking you because of prejudice or malice: those attacking you do so because they earnestly believe that your sacrifice is the sole way for them to stop being trapped underground, something that you will recognize as a rather shitty situation.

But you are basically Superman. You actually do not run the risk of dying because of the SAVE function. You become powerful enough to kill them all in one hit very rapidly. It doesn't even take much for you to convince them to stop attacking you, as Sparing a monster usually takes from one to three actions. You are essentially godlike in your power, and even the most powerrful thing in the Underground can't do much more than slow you down a little.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, and this game essentially gives the player unlimited power - it won't even take much effort from you to give abslutely everyone the best ending possible, to have everyone live and be happy. Going from this, yes, it does make perfect sense that the game doesn't give you the absolute best ending for getting lazy with your power and accepting to kill anyone, despite the fact that it would be the easiest thing possible to avoid for the player character. Undertale is a work of fantasy, but it can also be seen as a philosophical work on power and responsibility.

Put shortly, Undertale doesn't let you get away with letting avoidable deaths happen. If you find it annoying, well... That's kind of your problem.

Also, Undertale (like many of the JRPGs it's based on) is built around its combat mechanics, not dialogue systems the way games like Mass Effect or Alpha Protocol are. And even in that case, things like the Wrex example, when you boil it down, also comes down to a binary: do you keep Wrex loyal to you, or do you piss him off bad enough that you have to kill him?

Going in the other direction I could talk about how every enemy encounter in Undertale has unique attack patterns and ways of resolving the battle. Or how the bosses all feature their own unique mechanics (Undyne's spears, Mettaton's ratings, etc). Or as an example of "multiple stuff you can do" I could point to, say, the encounters with the dogs. When you encounter Greater Dog, you can fight him. Or you can play with him, ignore him, or throw a stick at him.

Dunno about the Superman comparison of the person above, but eh, whatever.

"The monsters aren't attacking you because of prejudice or malice: those attacking you do so because they earnestly believe that your sacrifice is the sole way for them to stop being trapped underground, something that you will recognize as a rather shitty situation."

I don't think that really justifies them trying to kill an innocent person. Even if it did, there's no good reason why it's the responsibility of the person they're trying to kill to understand that. So no, it's not just "my problem" in the way that you say it is.

Whether the main character can actually die is irrelevant. The monsters don't know that, and their plan relies on him dying

"it won't even take much effort from you to give abslutely everyone the best ending possible, to have everyone live and be happy."

Not "absolutely everyone" in the game deserves the best ending possible.

The monsters don't really have a choice in the matter: they were trapped Underground by humans after the War (which is quite heavily implied ingame to have been started by the humans), litterally left to wither in there - most of them are innocent to begin with. Killing humans to break the Barrier is, as far as they know, the only way to reclaim some freedom. Desperate times, desperate measures - them trying to kill you is a case of Shoot the Dog, something that's forced on them because their power and possibilities are limited. Your power isn't, so you can take the high road.

None of the characters in the game are /perfect/ but none of them are /bad people/ either, with the exception of Flowey (and even then, he's hardly responsible for his inability to feel love) and the Fallen Child (and here, them being a Complete Monster is the point.) Everyone else is a morally light grey at worst. Again, evey single character doesn't get everything they could have wished for in the end (Flowey/Asriel don't exactly end up super happy), but I'd say they all at least deserve to keep their lives and have a shot at being happy.

There's always a choice, and no, their powers and responsiblities are not limited. Killing innocent people for your own group's benefit may not be unjustifiable, but it's hell of a lot darker than "light gray at worst". The least the game could do is treat killing seriously across the board, rather than just condemn it when it's on the player's part.

"I'd say they all at least deserve to keep their lives and have a shot at being happy."

I'd say they don't, and that "taking the high road" when people are actively trying to kill you when you yourself have done nothing wrong is not worth doing.

Have you played the game, Robotnik? Many of your criticisms strike me as those of a person who is critiquing an extremely abstracted and generalized version of the idea rather than the specific implementation.

I've played the game myself, so yes, I do agree with plenty of Robotnik's criticism.

But the game does treat killing as something serious ! It's pretty clear that you are supposed to sympathize with Toriel when she expresses her disgust towards her ex-husband's plan, and that said plan, while it was spurned from an understandable motive, is quite brutal and merciless.

The monsters are just supposed to sit on their thumbs, rotting away in the Underground while waiting for someone to come up with a solution ? Fact is, the ease with which you can convince the monsters to leave you alone demonstrates that even they are extremely reluctant to go through with it.

So, Shooting The Dog is never justifiable ? You are always supposed to use 100% morally white means to righten injustices ? I mean, in an ideal world, yeah, that'd be true, but the monsters' situation is hardly ideal and their plight is hardly their own fault. Unless you really believe that no one can ever get any redemtion for anything or ever righten their way, then I don't see how that makes them deserving of death.

I'm not too experienced with computer games downloaded directly off the Internet, being more of a console gamer. But I am thinking of getting it as a late Christmas present.

But what am I missing in my criticisms? What about the implementation do you think would feel differently? I don't doubt that a lot of the monsters in the game are benign, but if I did play the game I don't think I'd want to spare monsters like Undyne or Flowey, whereas it sounds like Asgore is very self-aware and wants the player to kill him.

@GKG: It treats killing seriously only in regards to the player. It doesn't extend that same behavior to the rest of the cast, sans Asgore, and even then he gets a happy ending. Toriel was only disgusted by his plan of sitting around waiting for people to fall into the Underground. She told him that he could've taken the souls, go through the barrier, and collect enough to break the barrier. He could've done just that, and find either took the soles from evil, dangerous humans and dying humans(by asking them to have the soul be used for a greater purpose before lying them to rest). So yeah, the monster DID have a choice all along, despite their situation. They just went with the lazy way, what you're accusing players of who didn't follow the pacifist route.

And as for your talk about shoot the dog never justifiable and you have always be 100% morally white to right injustices... that's exactly what this game is saying and doing if you wanna get the golden ending.

Make me feel differently, rather.

^^ I'm extremely wary of saying shooting the dog is always unjustifiable, especially depending on the circumstances, but here's the thing; if the dog in question is innocent and can fight back, it has every right to. It has no obligation to understand or sympathize with someone's reasons for shooting it.

The monsters may not be bad exactly, but neither would the player character really be wrong for killing them. If the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could've fought back, would it have been right to blame them for doing so, even though we had our own reasons for the atomic bombings?

As for whether somone can redeem themselves or righten their way, I think that really depends on what they did and the circumstances behind it.

The game doesn't call the protagonist a bad person for fighting back, nor does it give you the worst ending for doing so: fact is, the only way that this can happen is if you deliberately go out of your way to kill every single monster in the Underground, even the ones that aren't actually trying to kill you.

But the protagonist has the power to resolve the situation without killing anyone, and this is what gets you the best ending. Even if everyone else wasn't 100% pure white morally, the protagonist can be and manage to keep everyone alive.

I mean, I would of course sympayhize with an innocent being forced to kill other people, even if these people had good reasons for trying to do so - I'm not judging anyone in the real world, to be perfectly clear. I'm also not calling anyone "lazy": even I find the game's judgment to be too harsh on players who go for the Genocide route.

But Undertale is supposed to be a TALE, where the gameplay serves the story and the point that the game is trying to make. Not going with the Pacifist rout isn't a sign of "laziness", but you're sort of missing the point of the game if you don't at least try to experience it once.

Here's another question: Why do you think you should get the Pacifist ending if you don't play Pacifist? Giving the same good ending even if you don't meet the requirements would defeat the point purely from a design standpoint.

I don't feel as though I'm missing the point as much as disagreeing with it. I don't feel that sparing people who are actively trying to hurt you (and in fact may have already hurt other people) is 100% pure white morally, either.

I'll grant you that the pacifist ending might be worth seeing for its own sake, but not that it's the "best'' ending.

^^ When did I give the impression that I thought I should get the Pacifist ending for not playing Pacifist? My complaint has always been that the Pacifist ending is treated as a Golden Ending, and thus to get the "best" ending you have to agree with game's apparent worldview.

And that's different from any other game that has multiple endings because...?

@GKG: I aware of that-I played through all three routes to try to experience it as much as possible. With regards to the Genocide route, of course I would understand why it would be critical of the player's actions. But most of my issues with the game are more directed at the Pacifist and Neutral route. While it doesn't call you a bad person nor give you the worst ending, it still tells you twice that you should've done better regardless of the situation you were in. That kind of attitude is pretty douchebaggery if it was directed at someone in real life who had gone through similar experiences.

In certain situations, being to resolve problems without killing anyone would be great. My problem is how Undertale executes that. But despite my disagreements, I do at least understand where you're coming from.

@Pannic: Because a lot of other games that have multiple endings don't present a moral worldview that you have to abide by to get the golden ending. Plus, even if you play through the game not killing anyone and yet didn't befriend all of the major characters, you still get the Neutral Ending. Being a pacifist in real life doesn't necessarily require you having to befriend those who would do you harm.

Eh? Not all games that have multiple endings favor one over another. Grand Theft Auto IV has two endings, both with their pros and cons. Seems to be the same case with Deus Ex, though I haven't yet beaten it.

Even games that do have Golden Endings based around keeping the main characters alive (Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, Grand Theft Auto V) don't promote an explicitly moralistic POV that the player is expected to agree with.

>Feels like he can critique a games story while knowing nothing about it and having never played the game Holy shit, dude. Undertale doesn't force you to do anything, you freaking guy. I've had a friend that legitmately enjoys the worst ending in the game because he likes doing evil shit. The game isn't like Spec Ops: The Line- you always have a choice in regards to any situation, literally any situation the game puts you in, and it reacts accordingly. You don't "agree" with the games worldview in any of the endings, you just beat the game in a way that prevents death. This extends to morality as well. Being good or evil is a choice in Undertale, but so is being neutral. First playthrough I killed who and what I wanted and spared who and what I wanted without a care in the world. I gained sympathy for the monsters in the end, and redid it for the best ending. Why? Because the game is layered. A lot of the monsters are sympathetic in multiple ways, and many of them are unnerved by your pacifism (for instance, Undyne and Mettaton), seeing you as a freak or a weakling. Proving to them that nonviolent solutions are possible for them is a large portion of their character arcs, and so on. Despite this, the game isn't stupid. This is a serious lategame spoiler, but one of the last bosses is unspareable, forcing you to best them in battle. The game isn't forcing any moral messages about nonviolence, either, as it's shown multiple times in the worst run that violence is sometimes necessary to use when someone threatens your life, or the lives of others. This is a lot better than Spec Ops, in which the game beats you over the head with "YOU FUCKING SUCK" because you're playing a goddamn game. In fact, the game never ever says the worst run is bad in any way, and in fact relishes in the despair you're causing. It's some legitimately chilling shit, and allows you to really feel like what being evil is like in ways that games with morality systems can only dream. But you wouldn't know that because you haven't beaten the game and yet feel like you can be an expert about how the game functions and it's messages. You're not the goddamn ubermensch.

@Sullytofu: Chill out. Every game has a message in it, whether you like it or not. No on is obligated to like that game's message, and your over the top reaction to those who don't like it is a big case of the extreme fanboyism Undertale has gathered. I played the game, and I find that it's filled with problems in its story and message.

@Robotnik "The least the game could do is treat killing seriously across the board." The reason the game treats killing seriously only on your side is because you are literally immortal, and both you and the protagonist know that.

Look at some super-hero comics, and notice that while they could just kill their enemies, most choose not to, often because their moral code. Killing would be much easier, but they opt not to. I figure this is the case with the game's protagonist. And considering they are likely just a child, it would make sense that they opt to befriend them rather than fighting.

"The reason the game treats killing seriously only on your side is because you are literally immortal, and both you and the protagonist know that."

I get that there might be some in-universe mechanic that justifies why the game treats violence in a hyperopic manner, but doesn't make it any better to me on a meta level.

"And considering they are likely just a child, it would make sense that they opt to befriend them rather than fighting."

I'm not sure "they're just a child" is the best explanation to use. The game doesn't seem to treat the protagonist as realistically childlike for the most part.

And even if we take the protagonist out of the equation, what about the six other people the monsters killed? They sure weren't immortal.

Nobody really knows much about the other 6 souls. But who's to say they were innocent as well? Heck, it'e even believed one of them caused Undyne to lose her eye. You sorta play as two characters in the game. It's confirmed that Frisk is nice to everyone, as if you look at a mirror during a pacifist run, it says, "It's you!" If you look at a mirror during a neutral or genocide run, it says "It's me." Keep killing people and it will say "It's me, [playername]

So if you're playing a Pacifist run, you're playing as Frisk, who is canonically kind to everyone. Whereas in a neutral/genocide run, you are playing as Chara/[playername].

"But who's to say they were innocent as well?"

That's not much of an argument. Who's to say they weren't?

"Heck, it'e even believed one of them caused Undyne to lose her eye."

Given that it's Undyne, I find it difficult to care.

"Who's to say they weren't?" One of the souls had an empty gun, the other had a toy knife, and another had a glove that's used to smack people around. Those don't look much innocent to me, mate.

"Given that it's Undyne I find it difficult to care" Yeah, how dare she fight to rescue her people from the Underground? She should just die! *sarcasm*

You are extremely short-sighted (is that the term I'm looking for?). You think that just because they fight you they should die? You can't see that the enemies have character and personal lives, and a lot of them aren't even trying to fight you. (Heck, all of the enemies in Waterfall sans Undyne hurt you accidentally.) For you, they don't deserve to live just because "they tried to kill me", even though you are immortal and can easily convince them otherwise. Self-defense might be justified, but it doesn't make murder right.

"You think that just because they fight you they should die?"

If they're trying to kill me purely for their own gain, even if I've done nothing to antagonize them beforehand, then yes, "mate".

"You can't see that the enemies have character and personal lives" That doesn't make them sympathetic in and of itself. I'm sick and tired of people acting as though humanizing enemies is enough to excuse everything they do.

"For you, they don't deserve to live just because "they tried to kill me", even though you are immortal and can easily convince them otherwise"

It doesn't matter if my character is immortal; the monsters don't know that, and it doesn't magically make their actions any better. They're not worth convincing otherwise, and no, killing them is not "murder".

And if you feel so sorry for the monsters, why don't you give the trapped humans the same courtesy? Those weapons could've easily been for self-defense.

I'll just use "kill" them, since that word bothers you.

"If they're trying to kill me purely for their own gain" Even though a lot of them aren't trying to kill you on purpose... You keep forgetting that they have NO OTHER CHOICE. If they don't kill you, they will remain stuck underground. You think you would be any better than them if you were in such a situation? People keep saying "oh, I would never do that" until they are put in a situation like that. Stop pretending you would be any better.

Can I just point out something funny in your comment? You say "even if I've done nothing to antagonize them beforehand" to justify killing enemies. Let's say you kill an enemy. "Not my fault, it was self-defense" you say. One of this enemy's friends come and attack you. Would you say that they're in the wrong then for attacking you?

"The monsters don't know that" Flowey and seemingly Asgore do. "You tell ASGORE he has killed you once before. He nods pitifully."

Humans started a war many years ago, killed several monsters, and banished the remaining ones to the underground. Everyone is hopeless. What did you want them to do, welcome you with open arms? Of course some of them won't be nice (Undyne for example). And you keep thinking it's for their own personal gain? They are just trying to reclaim the freedom they lost due to humans many years ago.

This is going nowhere fast. I think Robotnik is set in his opinion and has been for a long time, and I don't think reigniting a 50+ (now 60+) comment chain is going to change a thing.

I'm sorry you're not a fan Robotnik, personally the game looks damn charming for me and I enjoy seeing it around despite the hype. As much as I disagree with your viewpoint and indignation at how the game handles its premise, I respect said viewpoint and the conclusion you've come to and I'm not going to pick at you because of it.

Now, please. Can we stop this madness.

I've never seen someone care so much about slagging off one single aspect of a game that they haven't even played.

I'm not really seeing it as a failing of the game if the sparing mechanic/pacifist options have been critically lauded, praised as a way of combining the gameplay with a narrative decided by the player, and are in part responsible for the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the game... but someone in the comments section of a TV Tropes review thinks they're a bit rubbish.

"My complaint has always been that the Pacifist ending is treated as a Golden Ending, and thus to get the "best" ending you have to agree with game's apparent worldview."

Or maybe you could just, you know. Play the pacifist route without agreeing with it. I played the Genocide route without agreeing with it because I wanted to fight the hardest boss in the game.

The game is not forcing you to agree with its worldview by having a happier ending on one route than another.

"Even though a lot of them aren't trying to kill you on purpose..."

I've already acknowledged that several of the monsters are just clumsy, timid, or harmless like Papyrus. They're not the ones I have it in for.

"You keep forgetting that they have NO OTHER CHOICE."

There's always a choice. If they want to take an especially violent way out, that's on them, and I'm not obliged to feel sorry for whatever happens to them afterwards when I'm not at all responsible for their predicament in the first place.

"You think you would be any better than them if you were in such a situation? People keep saying "oh, I would never do that" until they are put in a situation like that. Stop pretending you would be any better."

"Stop pretending" nothing. I don't know what I would do in that situation, and you don't either.

But it doesn't necessarily matter if I would do the same thing. It wouldn't all of a sudden become right just because I did it.

"Let's say you kill an enemy. "Not my fault, it was self-defense" you say. One of this enemy's friends come and attack you. Would you say that they're in the wrong then for attacking you?"

It would depend. Does he know why I killed his friend, exactly? If he continues to attack me even after I made it clear that his friend came after me unprovoked, then yes, I would say he's in the wrong.

"Flowey and seemingly Asgore do."

Maybe, but apparently they still try to kill you regardless.

"Humans started a war many years ago, killed several monsters, and banished the remaining ones to the underground. Everyone is hopeless. What did you want them to do, welcome you with open arms?"

No, I want them to piss off and let me leave unmolested.

"And you keep thinking it's for their own personal gain? They are just trying to reclaim the freedom they lost due to humans many years ago."

So...they're doing it for personal gain. Killing someone for your freedom is still killing someone for personal gain. Your motives may be sympathetic, but you shouldn't expect the person you're trying to kill to see it that way.

And I'm willing to drop this if people will stop commenting that I "just don't get it" or am morally deficient simply for not seeing it the same way they do.

This looks like a decent game that I could pick up, but I don't think I could ever like it in the way most fans do, and I ask that anyone who comments from here on out respect that.

Can I finish off with one last question? Just one last question? What choice do you think they have? The barrier can only be broken with 7 human souls. It's not that they chose the violent solution, it's that the violent solution is literally the only way.

We like to think that we always have a choice and that we're in control, but sometimes, there really is no other way.

Reminds me of the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops.

Maybe, but even Toriel didn't seem to think that Asgore's policy of killing anyone who fell into the underground was necessary in order to get them. If they'd taken souls from murderous asshole humans or persuaded those who were already dying to give their souls for a good cause, I wouldn't have any problem with it.

"Reminds me of the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops."

I'm not sure if that's the best comparison to make; Walker did have a choice (not to get involved with the situation) and therefore was at fault for what happened. His "no choice" lines seemed to have been intended as ironic.

The way I see it Asgore was afraid to do so. The last monster who crossed the barrier was his son, who was killed by humans after doing so. And he's not really a murderer. He just wants to see his people free. The reason he destroys the Mercy option when you fight him is because he doesn't think he deserves to be spared after what he's done.

And the reason I mentioned Spec Ops was because the lines about lack of choice popped up as I wrote about it.

"He just wants to see his people free."

But he's willing to commit murder in order to do it. And while the situation in the Underground is pretty shit, and it's not a place anyone would want to be stuck in, the monsters don't sound like they're in imminent enough danger from being there to completely justify their methods of escape.

"The reason he destroys the Mercy option when you fight him is because he doesn't think he deserves to be spared after what he's done."

Well, I don't really think he does either.

"The last monster who crossed the barrier was his son, who was killed by humans after doing so."

The funny things is, depending on how many humans were involved in killing Asriel, that if he'd just gone after them in particular he might've been able to get revenge and free everybody.

They're not desperate to escape, it's just that you're the last soul needed to break the barrier. And the reason some monsters don't really do anything to you is because they've already lost all their hope to ever leave the underground.

And about the Asriel situation, they didn't have a human soul at the time to leave. And it's very likely all the villagers passed away. Asgore doesn't hold a grudge against humans, he even feels bad for killing or at least being involved with the deaths of the previous 6 humans. If you beat him, he asks you to kill him and take his soul to leave, but If you spare him, he talks about how he'll take care of you and get Toriel together to live as a family right before he is finished off by Flowey.

He's not vengeful, he just wants to move on.

Well, I don't think him feeling bad about it is enough to make up for it, but we've been over that.

I think it's best that we just drop it at this point.

(Wow, that's a lot of comments. That said, plesae do not feel compelled to reply to this comment; I am not reopening the issue, but actually want to critiquing and expand upon my prior analysis, and I'm out of words in the main review.)

Upon replaying the game to try and look deeper at its issues, I have come realize that I have made a glaring error in my analysis of the setting. Frankly I don't know how I didn't notice it before.

My mistake was taking the protagonist's experience of the game in a vacuum and judging it accordingly.

I don't know how I had completely failed to consider this, but there were six other humans prior to the protagonist who had passed through the Underground. It's clearly stated Toriel has seen this happen before—a human falls, goes through the Underground, and dies without escaping. Based on the descriptions of the items belonging to these humans, as well as where these items found, I formed a distressing hypothesis: at least two of these humans have colored the monsters' perceptions of subsequent humans by killing monsters.

The dark blue soul, Ballerina, left 'dusty' items that make the protagonist feel 'dangerous' when used. This heavily implies the previous owner killed monsters during their travels. The yellow soul, Gunslinger, left behind an empty 'antique revolver' (not a toy) and a 'battle-worn' hat—with the implication that they used up the bullets in battle (as few people are likely to regularly carry an empty weapon around) and perished afterwards.

Taking those into consideration, it's no wonder many of the combat-encounter monsters react with suspicion, hostility, or the presumption that humans are bad... at least 1/3 of the humans who passed through previously tried to fight their way out and killed monsters in the process. A very poor and unrepresentative sample size of six, but that's all the salient examples they have.

It also explains the Underground's unusually small population... there were more monsters before some of the previous humans killed them. Killing just 10 monsters will have Sans chide you in the ending for killing enough people to make the underground 'less crowded.' That's a very telling statement, especially compared to the total number of kills in a Genocide route run, a mere 112 (not counting civilians). I have yet to count, but I would genuinely not be surprised if the total population count was under 200.

All together, from the more martial monsters' perspective (Undyne especially), there's a 1 in 3 chance that this latest human will kill more of their friends and family in this small, tightly knit community. (Killing Papyrus causes far-reaching ripples of consequence in Snowdin's atmosphere, for instance.) Their hostility suddenly makes a lot more sense, especially if you invert the perspective—believing that interacting with someone will lead to 33% odds of violence would be too high for a lot of people in the real world to take a risk with their families. Yet, by fighting preemptively just in case this strange outsider is one of the ones willing to kill, the monsters now look like baseless aggressors to the new kid who hasn't even seen a monster before today.

Short form: I think the actions of the previous humans messed up human-monster relations ahead of the protagonists' arrival, which is why combat monsters pick fights with the protagonist—a form of Fantastic Racism and (very ironically given the perspective) He Who Fights Monsters. No comment on justification—just a theory on probable cause.