I know most of you were expecting Xenosaga Ep.1 this week. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish editing it in time. I'm going through a very difficult time in my life right now, and it has been tough to do the preparation and work necessary for these podcasts. I'm doing my best to get back on track. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this episode on Undertale. Episode 2 will be released later today on Patreon and SubscribeStar.
I don't think you guys mentioned this, but my first time playing, I was trying my hardest to spare Toriel, but I thought I was getting stuck without progress because of how the fight is set up. So I assumed you were supposed to damage her enough to get her to let you end the fight early, which is exactly what I think the game was designed to make you think. Naturally when you get about 2 hits away from killing Toriel, you will always crit and kill her early. This shocked me and I reset the game to reload and try that again. If you do this, Flowey knows it and calls you out on it after you spare Toriel the next fight. This really set the tone for the entire game for me after getting called out on my save scumming.
I did this too and after Flowey tainted me about it, I went to the game data, figured out how it was doing that, uninstalled the game and then deleted the data that let it know that had happened, and deleted that too, and then started over again. I was DETERMINED!!! :D
I was actually going to comment on this as well because I killed Toriel the first time, noticed I didn't earn any exp so I figured I should just spare her and take the gold. After sparing her Flowey calls me out for reloading my save..brilliant
On top of this, one of the random things that you can "talk" to her about if you reset is "You thought about telling Toriel that you saw her die. But... That's creepy."
An important part of Flowey's dialogue is if you kill Toriel and reload a save to spare her instead, Flowey acknowledges that you did that. It's the first moment that shows the game keeping track of your decisions outside of saves.
There is so much to love about Undertale, but one of my personal favorite things is just how much dialogue and flavor text there is that gets re-contextualized on multiple playthroughs. Lines that initially come across as comedic, or intimidating, or maybe just inconsequential, will get repeated much later on with a lot more weight. The mirror's text is probably the most popular example, but there's so many more lines that are used in the same way.
I’d love to see you all cover Mother 3 on the podcast! Another game that lends itself to really in depth analysis, thanks to its mature themes and clever writing. An interesting development history as well.
The Undertale demo has one of the spookiest 4th wall breaks I've ever seen. It ships with an instruction booklet, written by Toriel and vandalized by Flowey to avoid spoiling the battle mechanics. The final page features a large image of Flowey's default smiling sprite, in which he claims to be your friend and says he's excited to meet you. However, after completing the demo, he edits the final page in different ways depending on how you handled Toriel. I completed a genocide run in the demo and checked the final page. Flowey's stem and petals were there but his face and all of the text were gone. It was just a black page with a hollowed out Flowey. I wasn't expecting it and it sent shivers down my spine.
A cool thing many people do not know about the Toriel fight: So the first time I played through the game I resorted to killing Toriel simply out of frustration, because sparing her seemed aimless or almost impossible. After I killed her the Flowey scene came up, though I felt extremely bad and guilty for what I had done and loaded my last save point. So I spared her the "second" time I encountered Toriel only to trigger the Flowey scene and... Flowey commenting on how I "killed" her and undid my mistake by "going back"... was intense to say the least. Being called out for "abusing" the save/load system of the game just like that definitely ensured that I would think twice before having to make another choice for the rest of the game.
This is an amazingly welcome surprise. Some of things you mentioned cut straight to some of the subconscious principles I'd internalised, that I didn't realise I got from this game until you mentioned them. Always love your discussions but this is one of the most interesting ones yet.
I can’t add much to the conversation. Undertale is a masterpiece. Even tho I had its “thing” spoiled for me years before playing it, the game still managed to surprise me. Like, I accidentally killed the first boss, reloaded the save to avoid that, and Flowey chewed me out for doing so! It’s genuinely moving, constantly charming, always funny, and occasionally horrifying! I don’t get the criticism some have of feeling duped into the genocide run. They don’t like that their curiosity is punished. But isn’t that the point? To kill for curiosity sake is . . . unforgivable
I have known Toby Fox since middle school. To put it simply. I would sum up what's great about Undertale's story is that it provides a spiritual experience by the end. Through the game, it does some other neat stuff other games hadn't done yet like well-written use of cell phones.
I managed to not get spoiled on this game before I played it last year and it blew me away. I'd played the game normally for a little bit, not seeking out enemies, but killing anyone I thought might be difficult to talk down and I got to Snowden. An npc I spoke to there mentioned how he was searching for his friend and no one seemed to be able to find them. He then perfectly described a dog enemy Id killed not even half an hour before. It hit me right then what this game was and I had to restart. I wasn't just killing random enemy mobs. I was killing PEOPLE. I was killing the friends of these people. I don't remember if Flowey had any specific dialogue for restarting there, but he saw pretty quickly that I wasn't going to play his game the second time, and the changed dialogue blew my mind a second time. This game occupies a place for me that I find difficult to describe but I find myself recommending it to everyone I know with even a passing interest in video games. The only other game I have this feeling for is the outer wilds, which is odd considering how drastically different they are as games.
The last Metal Gear episode, you guys sounded really really happy with the laughter and everything. I hope that you guys would get through the difficult time you're going through right now. Wonderful episode as always. I going to play this game in the future lol PS Always loved the studio/set you guys work on. Really looks professional. Like newscasters haha
You know I never even considered playing Undertale until you guys did this podcast about it. I got lucky and PSN had it on sale for $8.99 and it’s just an amazing game! Thanks for sharing
Btw theres actually another set of dialogue with Flowey after the Turiel fight, which is where I realized what this game was and was instantly hooked. If you kill her, and then say screw it I dont want her to die, restart the fight, and spare her, Flowey goes (basically) "I know what you did. You killed her. And you felt bad about it."
It took me awhile to watch this because of how strongly this game hit me. I played it through once, determined not to kill anything, and I really couldn't bring myself to play it again after beating it in that fashion. Recently I had to write two separate articles on it so had to start a new playthrough to get a perspective on the other ways the game can be played. Absolutely one of the best games, specifically in the form of stories told through game narrative. I would put this game in schools. Enjoyable, and teaches things that are meaningful and concepts of kindness and consequences but also serious subjects in ways that are hard for us to teach through other mediums. I love this game. And I agree, everyone, play this game.
Speaking of Mother 3, that would be a fantastic game to see you two analyze. The befriending monsters and choosing to be pacifist was actually an idea the Mother 3 devs wanted to use as well, but ended up not. Very similar vibes all throughout though! Long time viewer from the old FF review videos, rediscovering via the FF16 podcast (which has been an amazing treat so far.)
There are many, many layers to this rabbit hole of a game, some which which can only be uncovered through hacking it. The deeper you dig, the more dark, cryptic and abstract it all becomes. There's a huge amount of fan content about all of this already, but I'd be curious to hear Casen's thoughts on some of the deeper stuff. It is a pretty big time investment though.
Technically, it is possible for Toriel to kill you but she’s shocked because it was by accident on her part. Look up a video about it. It’s really crazy.
I don't want to divert attention from Undertale because it's my favorite game but LISA the Painful is another Earthbound influenced game that is A MASTER PIECE!
You missed what was, I feel, the most interesting outcome of the Toriel fight; killing her by mistake and then reloading a save to bring her back. I really think that people who never experienced this firsthand have a substantially worse experience with the game. Also, while "Ludonarrative Didsonance" may have had a point, like, over half a decade ago where it was overused, frankly I think it's tragically underused now.
I'd love to see you do a kind of behind the influence kind of look, at the Games Toby has said inspired different aspects of his game, some of which only came west really recently. Things like Earthbound, Mother 3, LiveALive, MoonRPG, etc.
For a clip of someone dying to Toriel, I remember the Game Grumps managed to: th-cam.com/video/EZrlCsaHdKk/w-d-xo.html You can go frame by frame if you need to in order to see her sprite change for a split second right as you die. One of the things I love about this game is how there's always something new to discover. There are an insane number of little details and easter eggs in there that you can watch videos going through this stuff and then still find something you didn't know afterward. Doki Doki was pretty similar in that regard.
Also if you restart after accidentally killing Toriel and restarting from a previous save Flowey will call you out for not taking responsibility for your mistake.
This game is a giant inside joke for long time gamers. What makes this game great is the love the creator had, not just for this game, but all of gaming as a whole. The plot is almost irrelevant in appreciating it. The real story with Undertale is the journey and mechanics of playing the game. EDIT: and the soundtrack is dope.
I got about 75% through the game before I saw someone mention you could "win" the Toriel fight so I just stopped playing because I had been passive the whole game other than that and I had tried so hard to be passive and the game resisted it so hard that I assumed it must've been impossible, and I didn't want to risk spoilers with a guide.
One of the most interesting things to me about Undertale is that Matthewmatosis of all people appearantly doesn't like the game (and Deltarune for that matter) at all and i really want to know his critique points. Of course not everyone has to love the game or something, as i for example don't think every joke lands and the Alphys running gag in the lava land drags on for way too long, but to downright dislike the whole game? In other words Matthewmatosis VS. Toby Fox is a discussion i really really want to see lmao
I have not played undertale, but I’m totally going to stop watching this episode and play it. From what I have watched of this episode it sounds like trying to do a critical analysis of Monty python and the holy grail. Yes, everyone should watch it, and yeah it’s mostly genius and hugely satirical. But can you analyze the plot? Not really…
That's what I was thinking, the more they described everything about it... I mean, I can see why some people would have a blast playing it, but it rubs me exactly the wrong way. I know I would not enjoy it at all (not that that makes it a bad game.)
@@NameNotAChannel of course, I totally agree it’s not a bad game. It has the right elements. It has a very obvious respect for the games that inspired it. It just didn’t do much of anything for me personally.
![เปิดคำทำนาย นอสตราดามุส - บาบา วานก้า ปี 2025 คนทั่วโลกต้องเจออะไรบ้าง? | แฉ 11 ธ.ค. 67 [2/3] |GMM25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xmTIKWJUMPM/mqdefault.jpg)
I know most of you were expecting Xenosaga Ep.1 this week. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish editing it in time. I'm going through a very difficult time in my life right now, and it has been tough to do the preparation and work necessary for these podcasts. I'm doing my best to get back on track.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this episode on Undertale. Episode 2 will be released later today on Patreon and SubscribeStar.
No problem dude. Gives us more time to finish Xenosaga!
No worries at all. We all understand.
Never expected Undertale so this will be fun! Wishing you all the best!
Everyone goes through tough times my dude. Everyone understands the hardships associated. Keep up the good work
No worries, Mike! I hope you are able to resolve everything and try not to overdo it. Take care!
I don't think you guys mentioned this, but my first time playing, I was trying my hardest to spare Toriel, but I thought I was getting stuck without progress because of how the fight is set up. So I assumed you were supposed to damage her enough to get her to let you end the fight early, which is exactly what I think the game was designed to make you think. Naturally when you get about 2 hits away from killing Toriel, you will always crit and kill her early. This shocked me and I reset the game to reload and try that again. If you do this, Flowey knows it and calls you out on it after you spare Toriel the next fight. This really set the tone for the entire game for me after getting called out on my save scumming.
I did this too and after Flowey tainted me about it, I went to the game data, figured out how it was doing that, uninstalled the game and then deleted the data that let it know that had happened, and deleted that too, and then started over again.
I was DETERMINED!!! :D
I was actually going to comment on this as well because I killed Toriel the first time, noticed I didn't earn any exp so I figured I should just spare her and take the gold.
After sparing her Flowey calls me out for reloading my save..brilliant
SAME! scared the shit out of me.
@@ForPromethious watching players edit save files fills you with DETERMINATION…
On top of this, one of the random things that you can "talk" to her about if you reset is "You thought about telling Toriel that you saw her die. But... That's creepy."
An important part of Flowey's dialogue is if you kill Toriel and reload a save to spare her instead, Flowey acknowledges that you did that. It's the first moment that shows the game keeping track of your decisions outside of saves.
No it's not, the cinnamon or butterscotch question was.
The best and most thoughtful podcast on gaming there is.
There is so much to love about Undertale, but one of my personal favorite things is just how much dialogue and flavor text there is that gets re-contextualized on multiple playthroughs. Lines that initially come across as comedic, or intimidating, or maybe just inconsequential, will get repeated much later on with a lot more weight. The mirror's text is probably the most popular example, but there's so many more lines that are used in the same way.
I’d love to see you all cover Mother 3 on the podcast! Another game that lends itself to really in depth analysis, thanks to its mature themes and clever writing. An interesting development history as well.
The Undertale demo has one of the spookiest 4th wall breaks I've ever seen. It ships with an instruction booklet, written by Toriel and vandalized by Flowey to avoid spoiling the battle mechanics.
The final page features a large image of Flowey's default smiling sprite, in which he claims to be your friend and says he's excited to meet you. However, after completing the demo, he edits the final page in different ways depending on how you handled Toriel.
I completed a genocide run in the demo and checked the final page. Flowey's stem and petals were there but his face and all of the text were gone. It was just a black page with a hollowed out Flowey. I wasn't expecting it and it sent shivers down my spine.
A cool thing many people do not know about the Toriel fight: So the first time I played through the game I resorted to killing Toriel simply out of frustration, because sparing her seemed aimless or almost impossible. After I killed her the Flowey scene came up, though I felt extremely bad and guilty for what I had done and loaded my last save point. So I spared her the "second" time I encountered Toriel only to trigger the Flowey scene and... Flowey commenting on how I "killed" her and undid my mistake by "going back"... was intense to say the least. Being called out for "abusing" the save/load system of the game just like that definitely ensured that I would think twice before having to make another choice for the rest of the game.
This is an amazingly welcome surprise. Some of things you mentioned cut straight to some of the subconscious principles I'd internalised, that I didn't realise I got from this game until you mentioned them. Always love your discussions but this is one of the most interesting ones yet.
Oh wow. That set behind you guys is physically there?! It looks really nice.
That's what I thought too!
Thank you two for all the work you two do. Honestly look forward to these every week.
I never knew you could just ignore Greater Dog until it goes away. I always used the pet and play strategy to satisfy it.
I can’t add much to the conversation. Undertale is a masterpiece. Even tho I had its “thing” spoiled for me years before playing it, the game still managed to surprise me. Like, I accidentally killed the first boss, reloaded the save to avoid that, and Flowey chewed me out for doing so!
It’s genuinely moving, constantly charming, always funny, and occasionally horrifying!
I don’t get the criticism some have of feeling duped into the genocide run. They don’t like that their curiosity is punished. But isn’t that the point? To kill for curiosity sake is . . . unforgivable
I have known Toby Fox since middle school. To put it simply. I would sum up what's great about Undertale's story is that it provides a spiritual experience by the end. Through the game, it does some other neat stuff other games hadn't done yet like well-written use of cell phones.
I managed to not get spoiled on this game before I played it last year and it blew me away. I'd played the game normally for a little bit, not seeking out enemies, but killing anyone I thought might be difficult to talk down and I got to Snowden. An npc I spoke to there mentioned how he was searching for his friend and no one seemed to be able to find them. He then perfectly described a dog enemy Id killed not even half an hour before. It hit me right then what this game was and I had to restart. I wasn't just killing random enemy mobs. I was killing PEOPLE. I was killing the friends of these people. I don't remember if Flowey had any specific dialogue for restarting there, but he saw pretty quickly that I wasn't going to play his game the second time, and the changed dialogue blew my mind a second time. This game occupies a place for me that I find difficult to describe but I find myself recommending it to everyone I know with even a passing interest in video games. The only other game I have this feeling for is the outer wilds, which is odd considering how drastically different they are as games.
How is this game going to only be covered in 2 episodes? It's truly deep. Looking forward to it!
Good news, it looks like they'll end up doing 3 :)
The last Metal Gear episode, you guys sounded really really happy with the laughter and everything.
I hope that you guys would get through the difficult time you're going through right now.
Wonderful episode as always. I going to play this game in the future lol
PS Always loved the studio/set you guys work on. Really looks professional. Like newscasters haha
I'm so glad you guys are doing a podcast on Undertale! I can't wait for the next episode!
You know I never even considered playing Undertale until you guys did this podcast about it. I got lucky and PSN had it on sale for $8.99 and it’s just an amazing game! Thanks for sharing
Btw theres actually another set of dialogue with Flowey after the Turiel fight, which is where I realized what this game was and was instantly hooked. If you kill her, and then say screw it I dont want her to die, restart the fight, and spare her, Flowey goes (basically) "I know what you did. You killed her. And you felt bad about it."
It took me awhile to watch this because of how strongly this game hit me. I played it through once, determined not to kill anything, and I really couldn't bring myself to play it again after beating it in that fashion. Recently I had to write two separate articles on it so had to start a new playthrough to get a perspective on the other ways the game can be played. Absolutely one of the best games, specifically in the form of stories told through game narrative. I would put this game in schools. Enjoyable, and teaches things that are meaningful and concepts of kindness and consequences but also serious subjects in ways that are hard for us to teach through other mediums. I love this game. And I agree, everyone, play this game.
While Pacifist is harder than a general playthrough, it's actually much much easier than a Genocide playthrough that has infinitely harder bosses.
Speaking of Mother 3, that would be a fantastic game to see you two analyze.
The befriending monsters and choosing to be pacifist was actually an idea the Mother 3 devs wanted to use as well, but ended up not.
Very similar vibes all throughout though!
Long time viewer from the old FF review videos, rediscovering via the FF16 podcast (which has been an amazing treat so far.)
So hyped you're talking about this
I didn't know I needed this until I saw it pop up in my subscriptions!
I am SO HYPED
There are many, many layers to this rabbit hole of a game, some which which can only be uncovered through hacking it. The deeper you dig, the more dark, cryptic and abstract it all becomes. There's a huge amount of fan content about all of this already, but I'd be curious to hear Casen's thoughts on some of the deeper stuff. It is a pretty big time investment though.
Technically, it is possible for Toriel to kill you but she’s shocked because it was by accident on her part. Look up a video about it. It’s really crazy.
It'd be really fun to see you two discuss and analyze zen koans both in their figurative sense. That's basically what this game is.
The original Toriel song was actually for an Earthbound soundtrack made by fans back in 2012 called "Fallen Down"
Tsunderplane is a great enemy just... jeezum, if you kill/destroy one... damn. Didn't expect _that._
I don't want to divert attention from Undertale because it's my favorite game but LISA the Painful is another Earthbound influenced game that is A MASTER PIECE!
You missed what was, I feel, the most interesting outcome of the Toriel fight; killing her by mistake and then reloading a save to bring her back. I really think that people who never experienced this firsthand have a substantially worse experience with the game.
Also, while "Ludonarrative Didsonance" may have had a point, like, over half a decade ago where it was overused, frankly I think it's tragically underused now.
I do believe that a lot of the Undertale fandom calls Toriel “goat mom.”
YOU GUYS ARE DOING XENOSAGA??? HAHA TAKE ALL THE TIME YOU NEED DAMN THATS GONNA BEA PROJECT
I would love to see you guys talk about OMORI or LISA the Painful at some point
I'd love to see you do a kind of behind the influence kind of look, at the Games Toby has said inspired different aspects of his game, some of which only came west really recently.
Things like Earthbound, Mother 3, LiveALive, MoonRPG, etc.
For a clip of someone dying to Toriel, I remember the Game Grumps managed to: th-cam.com/video/EZrlCsaHdKk/w-d-xo.html
You can go frame by frame if you need to in order to see her sprite change for a split second right as you die.
One of the things I love about this game is how there's always something new to discover. There are an insane number of little details and easter eggs in there that you can watch videos going through this stuff and then still find something you didn't know afterward. Doki Doki was pretty similar in that regard.
Also if you restart after accidentally killing Toriel and restarting from a previous save Flowey will call you out for not taking responsibility for your mistake.
This game is a giant inside joke for long time gamers. What makes this game great is the love the creator had, not just for this game, but all of gaming as a whole. The plot is almost irrelevant in appreciating it. The real story with Undertale is the journey and mechanics of playing the game.
EDIT: and the soundtrack is dope.
I got about 75% through the game before I saw someone mention you could "win" the Toriel fight so I just stopped playing because I had been passive the whole game other than that and I had tried so hard to be passive and the game resisted it so hard that I assumed it must've been impossible, and I didn't want to risk spoilers with a guide.
Dam Nice pick!
I've never played it, but I hear it's fantastic, and was inspired by "Mother"
Why was this discontinued?
Excellent! I would love to see a Spec Ops: The Line podcast from you two. Have you ever played it Mike?
The best podcast on the best game ever 🤩
Fei Valentine would be one of those anime girls. She totally caught feelings for Spike, by the end of cowboy bebop!!
One of the most interesting things to me about Undertale is that Matthewmatosis of all people appearantly doesn't like the game (and Deltarune for that matter) at all and i really want to know his critique points. Of course not everyone has to love the game or something, as i for example don't think every joke lands and the Alphys running gag in the lava land drags on for way too long, but to downright dislike the whole game?
In other words Matthewmatosis VS. Toby Fox is a discussion i really really want to see lmao
How I long for them to spend 10 episodes on Red Dead Redemption 2
I am surprised you didn't fear toriel after flowy
I paused the video 11 minutes in. Should I play the game first, or is it just as much fun to keep watching?
"pacifist is like the hard mode of this game"
....
someone didn't play genocide
I wish I could have gotten into this game just to hear you guys discuss it but I dropped it fairly early.
Might have to try this game. Didn't know if it was some hipster SJW game or something actually good
Chicken and egg scenario. They latched onto the game after it came out. Great game with an annoying fanbase.
Considering you have to use that term in a negative connotation, the game may be wasted on you.
I have not played undertale, but I’m totally going to stop watching this episode and play it. From what I have watched of this episode it sounds like trying to do a critical analysis of Monty python and the holy grail. Yes, everyone should watch it, and yeah it’s mostly genius and hugely satirical. But can you analyze the plot? Not really…
you guys say "literally" way too often..
I really don’t like this game. 😂
That's what I was thinking, the more they described everything about it... I mean, I can see why some people would have a blast playing it, but it rubs me exactly the wrong way. I know I would not enjoy it at all (not that that makes it a bad game.)
@@NameNotAChannel of course, I totally agree it’s not a bad game. It has the right elements. It has a very obvious respect for the games that inspired it. It just didn’t do much of anything for me personally.
Please stop saying fetch. Love the fucking content otherwise