Undertale for the Unremittingly Uncoordinated

[alias_sqbr]

So! I was enjoying the rpg Undertale right until it all got too hard and I gave up (specifically, the point where I had to run away from GIANT SPEARS falling from the sky while RUNNING THROUGH A MAZE) I looked up the rest on youtube and it was so great I don't regret the $10 I spent to play some of the game, especially since it helped a lot with the immersion. The whole game is a really clever, funny, and emotionally satisfying exploration of various RPG tropes. And has adorable canon same sex relationships! Note that it can be quite surreal and dark at times, though it's overall optimistic, and also as a child character you go on (innocent and not very romantic) "dates" with adult characters, which mildly weirded me out.

Since it was a little tricky to find all these, for anyone else who'd like to enjoy the story but sucks at reaction times, here's some links.

The Undertale site Has the demo, which is worth playing even if you are terrible at the combat but can otherwise enjoy rpgs. Just keep running away! Most people will improve greatly at any given battle with practice, so don't give up right away. But there's no shame in giving up eventually if it's not fun. Determination isn't everything ;)

The Undertale wiki Has hints on defeating most monsters, information on easter eggs etc.

If you want to watch a playthrough with minimal spoilers this is the best I have found. If you don't mind spoilers for the different kinds of endings I have a more detailed list under the cut.

**** Mild Spoilers ****
So! The three endings are neutral, pacifist, and genocide. To get a true pacifist ending you have to not kill anyone in a playthrough, then play again.

Pacifist playthrough video, no commentary This isn't the one I started with, since that reached a tough boss and gave up. But it seems complete. Here's the point where it shows how a true pacifist run differs from a neutral pacifist run. The account also has shorter videos of some specific scenes.

Summary video of the differences when you play a "genocide" run This is VERY different. See the video description for an explanation of how you trigger this.

The ending you get if you play genocide then pacifist, is the same until the very end. In the comments people describe what happens with some minor different choices.

Ending if you play true pacifist more than once.

I don't know what happens if you kill some major characters but not all, switch from one play style to the other etc. EDIT: apparently, a range of things, from "basically the same with minor changes" to your own special angsty end. But they're all variations on the neutral end.

And if you're done with all that Emberkeelty has a bunch of fanart and discussion on her undertale tag including this MASSIVELY SPOILERY post which clarified some things for me.

Comments

[yalovetz]

Thanks for this. I'd been hearing good things about the game and had almost decided to give it a try (unusual for me, I'm not a gamer) when I saw your earlier post mentioning that it involved time-based reaction play, which I absolutely suck at. It makes me super anxious and really tense, to the point where I just feel too awful to carry on playing. Which is one of the reasons I'm not a gamer. But I might yet give it a try with the help of some of these resources.

[alias_sqbr]

Hooray! I hope you have fun! I think my ability is such that I might have made it through with effort, but it just made me increasingly unhappy and anxious. I used to avoid games in general until I found genres that let me pause or play on easy etc, but this game doesn't let you do either.

[kiezh]

Thanks for the playthrough links! I too was intrigued by your review but unwilling to play the anxiety-inducing speed-requiring bits.

I'm very curious about how the different styles of play affect the story and character relationships; I'd love to see more games experiment with that kind of immersive worldbuilding, where choices the player makes have consequences that ripple out in understandable but not necessarily predictable ways. That was one of my favorite aspects of Mass Effect, though they didn't take it as far as I wanted.

(BTW, I think you are the person originally responsible for getting me interested in 7kpp - thank you! Though after vanishing down the rabbit-hole of playing the demo multiple times, backing the kickstarter, and signing up for the alpha, maybe "what have you done??" is more appropriate... :D )

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I found that aspect really interesting too! It's something I like experimenting with in my own games as well, so this was quite inspiring. I hope you find the links useful!

BTW, I think you are the person originally responsible for getting me interested in 7kpp - thank you! Though after vanishing down the rabbit-hole of playing the demo multiple times, backing the kickstarter, and signing up for the alpha, maybe "what have you done??" is more appropriate

You're welcome :D :D