It's a shame that a lot of people skip the optional conversations right before the True Pacifist credits. Despite being skipable, one of the most important parts of the game is the final conversation where Asriel warns you that real life is more harsh than Undertale and that being nice and talking things out won't solve every complex issue.
I believe that, at the end of the genocide run, Flowey mentions that not only is the player guilty, but everyone watching and letting it happen is as well. This means that even by just watching the playthrough on TH-cam, you might as well have done it.
It's more "people watching this didn't have the guts to do it themselves" and it's at the part where the random monsters tell you about Asriel and the first human in other routes. Personally, I wish I'd done that. There's 187 deaths-to-Sans-worth of time I'm not getting and all I got was sad for my effort. Yes, I counted. Not even Drakengard 3's boss took me so long! Ahhgkgh, it's fine, I'm fine. "Video games are fun" they said! "Just toys" they say! Whoeven are "they," I dunno!? Ahhhk, I'mma go lay down now.
Your commentary is spot on, and I appreciate your insights. I was given the opportunity to experience this game mostly ignorant of it about 6 months after it came out. My daughter showed it to me, asked me to play it, and it was all over from there. It hit me in a very succinct and infinitely profound way - not once, oh no - but three times! It was a brilliant experience. Thank you guys for doing this series, it's been great to listen to. On a side note, when I got to Sans I beat him after trying 162 times, the bone-daddy having lost count of my attempts. The gamer in me wanted to beat Sans because I love that achievement. That ending spooked the shit out of me, having Chara come at me with the knife. I learned a lot about myself and about the nature of gaming with this one. Thanks @Tobyfox.
Note: if you pay a lot of attention in Alphys’ hidden lab, you’ll get some interesting insights into chara and Asriel’s relationship. I really like the pacifist final battle music “Hopes and Dreams/SAVE the World.” The way it integrates flowey’s leitmotif while making it almost unrecognizable by altering pitch, tempo, and instrument choice to turn the off-putting theme into a triumphant battle tune that feels like a culmination of your journey. Don’t worry Casen, you aren’t the only one who can’t bring themselves to play the genocide route. I can’t either.
In regards to Chara, I think the game tries to give the impression that they were this crazy and evil kid as a sort of red herring, but I don't think it would make sense for Toriel, Asgore and Asriel to genuinely love them and treat them as family if they were truly some reprehensible monster. I think it's more likely that Chara was a disturbed child that went through some trauma, but wasn't an inherently bad person. I think the decisions the player makes throughout the game is what influences Chara, they even allude to this being the case in the Genocide ending where they say that it was Frisk that taught them that their reason for returning was for power. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Chara is the "narrator" of the entire game, they're the one that is describing everything and not just the text in red. With that in mind, in the Pacifist route, most of what Chara says is rather neutral, but can also be positive and encouraging, because Frisk influenced them be that way through their actions. This goes both ways, because Frisk decided to be a murderer in the Genocide route, this in turn influenced Chara to revel in the chaos. But yeah, really loved the podcast guys, really interesting thoughts and analysis. Also, it's been mentioned a few times, but please look into Omori, there is A LOT to dive deep into in regards to visual symbolism, psychology and mental illness, a really fantastic experience.
>The only way to get rid of genocide flag This is actually really tricky. Uninstalling the game won't do it. If you're on the Steam version you are almost screwed because the relevant data gets thrown on your steam cloud and deleting it off of your computer will just result in it getting restored by Steam cloud (unless you turn Steam Cloud off). But basically there is a file that gets dumped into your appdata folder for Undertale.
Undertale had a profound influence on me when I played it. Before then I was pretty certain I didn’t want any kids. But after that ending scene with Toriel tucking Frisk into bed I was changed. I have a 1.5 year old son now.
Worth noting that Chara doesn't only manifest during the Genocide route, and there's a plausible connection between them and Frisk. When Chara and Asriel fused and died, their body's ashes and therefore parts of their souls fell on the golden flower seeds they brought from the surface; just like this explains how Asriel became Flowey, it can also explain how Chara "latched on to" Frisk when the golden flowers break Frisk's fall into the underground. Additionally, the Snowdin Ball game associates each soul color with a particular trait. We can see from the coffins that Asgore kept that Chara's soul was red; the color of Determination. Presumably, Frisk's red soul was a good match for Chara and allowed Chara's soul to interact with Frisk, acting as the narrator and letting Frisk experience some of Chara's memories during the fall in Waterfall and the Game Over screen.
I only played through the game one time and I got true pacifist. Fought Azrael and even spoke to him by walking all the way back to the beginning. When I went to reload Flowey appeared and told me I had given everyone their perfect end, why would I mess that up? It's silly but I couldn't bring myself to play that save file again.
As much as I feel like Undertale is hard to analyze, I still think you both did a really awesome job with presenting the themes and story of the game. I def would have loved to see thoughts on Undyne and Determination specifically, since she's the only monster in the game shown to have it naturally. Really makes her Genocide theme "Battle Against a True Hero" have that much more weight to it. Either way, really great analysis!
Fun bit of trivia: You can kill the training dummy at the very beginning and still get a true pacifist ending, as it does not give any XP. Totally not talking from experience here.
I’ve not done a genocide run - if you don’t have to kill, why would you? - but I’ve seen all the variations. That moment when you’ve killed everyone, and your alone with Chara? Chilling! I mean it, that’s good horror. And then the blank start up screen? Even more chilling. And I also love, despite what some say is a negative, is that if you wait on that blank screen and get a chance to replay the game and do Pacifist, it will never forget what you’ve done with Chara always being there. Proper Pacifist ending tho? One of the most heart warming, life affirming things I’ve seen in a game. Undertale is great. That’s my hot take
On the point of being controlled by an outside force, you are *not able* to name your character Frisk and play through the game. If you try the game will end after the battle with Toriel. (You aren't able to use other characters' names either, but those will refuse to even start the game with a custom message for each).
Almost every single Undertale youtubers: i CaN'T bRinG mEsELf tO pLaY GeNoCidE boohoohoooo. It's getting very very very annoying and cringe Otherwise, good podcast
It's a shame that a lot of people skip the optional conversations right before the True Pacifist credits.
Despite being skipable, one of the most important parts of the game is the final conversation where Asriel warns you that real life is more harsh than Undertale and that being nice and talking things out won't solve every complex issue.
You learn about Chara's motivations by watching the secret tapes in the true lab. Chara died on purpose.
I believe that, at the end of the genocide run, Flowey mentions that not only is the player guilty, but everyone watching and letting it happen is as well. This means that even by just watching the playthrough on TH-cam, you might as well have done it.
It's more "people watching this didn't have the guts to do it themselves" and it's at the part where the random monsters tell you about Asriel and the first human in other routes.
Personally, I wish I'd done that. There's 187 deaths-to-Sans-worth of time I'm not getting and all I got was sad for my effort. Yes, I counted. Not even Drakengard 3's boss took me so long! Ahhgkgh, it's fine, I'm fine. "Video games are fun" they said! "Just toys" they say! Whoeven are "they," I dunno!? Ahhhk, I'mma go lay down now.
Your commentary is spot on, and I appreciate your insights. I was given the opportunity to experience this game mostly ignorant of it about 6 months after it came out. My daughter showed it to me, asked me to play it, and it was all over from there. It hit me in a very succinct and infinitely profound way - not once, oh no - but three times! It was a brilliant experience. Thank you guys for doing this series, it's been great to listen to.
On a side note, when I got to Sans I beat him after trying 162 times, the bone-daddy having lost count of my attempts. The gamer in me wanted to beat Sans because I love that achievement. That ending spooked the shit out of me, having Chara come at me with the knife. I learned a lot about myself and about the nature of gaming with this one. Thanks @Tobyfox.
Note: if you pay a lot of attention in Alphys’ hidden lab, you’ll get some interesting insights into chara and Asriel’s relationship.
I really like the pacifist final battle music “Hopes and Dreams/SAVE the World.” The way it integrates flowey’s leitmotif while making it almost unrecognizable by altering pitch, tempo, and instrument choice to turn the off-putting theme into a triumphant battle tune that feels like a culmination of your journey.
Don’t worry Casen, you aren’t the only one who can’t bring themselves to play the genocide route. I can’t either.
In regards to Chara, I think the game tries to give the impression that they were this crazy and evil kid as a sort of red herring, but I don't think it would make sense for Toriel, Asgore and Asriel to genuinely love them and treat them as family if they were truly some reprehensible monster. I think it's more likely that Chara was a disturbed child that went through some trauma, but wasn't an inherently bad person. I think the decisions the player makes throughout the game is what influences Chara, they even allude to this being the case in the Genocide ending where they say that it was Frisk that taught them that their reason for returning was for power. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Chara is the "narrator" of the entire game, they're the one that is describing everything and not just the text in red. With that in mind, in the Pacifist route, most of what Chara says is rather neutral, but can also be positive and encouraging, because Frisk influenced them be that way through their actions. This goes both ways, because Frisk decided to be a murderer in the Genocide route, this in turn influenced Chara to revel in the chaos.
But yeah, really loved the podcast guys, really interesting thoughts and analysis. Also, it's been mentioned a few times, but please look into Omori, there is A LOT to dive deep into in regards to visual symbolism, psychology and mental illness, a really fantastic experience.
>The only way to get rid of genocide flag
This is actually really tricky. Uninstalling the game won't do it. If you're on the Steam version you are almost screwed because the relevant data gets thrown on your steam cloud and deleting it off of your computer will just result in it getting restored by Steam cloud (unless you turn Steam Cloud off). But basically there is a file that gets dumped into your appdata folder for Undertale.
Undertale had a profound influence on me when I played it. Before then I was pretty certain I didn’t want any kids. But after that ending scene with Toriel tucking Frisk into bed I was changed. I have a 1.5 year old son now.
Worth noting that Chara doesn't only manifest during the Genocide route, and there's a plausible connection between them and Frisk.
When Chara and Asriel fused and died, their body's ashes and therefore parts of their souls fell on the golden flower seeds they brought from the surface; just like this explains how Asriel became Flowey, it can also explain how Chara "latched on to" Frisk when the golden flowers break Frisk's fall into the underground.
Additionally, the Snowdin Ball game associates each soul color with a particular trait. We can see from the coffins that Asgore kept that Chara's soul was red; the color of Determination. Presumably, Frisk's red soul was a good match for Chara and allowed Chara's soul to interact with Frisk, acting as the narrator and letting Frisk experience some of Chara's memories during the fall in Waterfall and the Game Over screen.
An interesting point, when you kill Toriel then stop the game and start over to be pacifist, Flowey comments with a "I know what you did"
Loved this podcast all the way through, and SUPER EXCITED FOR PANS LABYRINTH!!
This was fun to listen to and relive the game. Cheers
I only played through the game one time and I got true pacifist. Fought Azrael and even spoke to him by walking all the way back to the beginning. When I went to reload Flowey appeared and told me I had given everyone their perfect end, why would I mess that up?
It's silly but I couldn't bring myself to play that save file again.
It sounds strange but I truly regret going through with a genocide run myself. It was such a hollow victory that left me feeling miserable
@@cameronmills3599 yeah like I know it's just a game but it made me feel something and I couldn't fathom doing that.
You can't go to the True Lab until after you've done the credits once IIRC. That's what locks you out of the True Pacifist ending.
As much as I feel like Undertale is hard to analyze, I still think you both did a really awesome job with presenting the themes and story of the game. I def would have loved to see thoughts on Undyne and Determination specifically, since she's the only monster in the game shown to have it naturally. Really makes her Genocide theme "Battle Against a True Hero" have that much more weight to it.
Either way, really great analysis!
Player: (completes genocide run)
Game: You're gonna carry that weight.
Fun bit of trivia:
You can kill the training dummy at the very beginning and still get a true pacifist ending, as it does not give any XP.
Totally not talking from experience here.
I really, really hope these guys saw Nux Taku's video on Sans. It's perfect.
I’ve not done a genocide run - if you don’t have to kill, why would you? - but I’ve seen all the variations.
That moment when you’ve killed everyone, and your alone with Chara? Chilling! I mean it, that’s good horror. And then the blank start up screen? Even more chilling.
And I also love, despite what some say is a negative, is that if you wait on that blank screen and get a chance to replay the game and do Pacifist, it will never forget what you’ve done with Chara always being there.
Proper Pacifist ending tho? One of the most heart warming, life affirming things I’ve seen in a game.
Undertale is great. That’s my hot take
This. Everything with this! 🥰
Yes!! Do Jurassic Park. My favorite movie of all time.
I stopped taking the mysticism thing seriously when he started talking about So Sorry. That was an oc that a patron created
42:39 I felt that one 😂😂 I think Casen did too
Loved the series
I’m glad that this game punishes gamers who become Postal 2 gamers
Great job guys.
Chara basically plays the long game by resetting and then pretending to be "normal" during another pacifist route to escape the Underground.
On the point of being controlled by an outside force, you are *not able* to name your character Frisk and play through the game. If you try the game will end after the battle with Toriel. (You aren't able to use other characters' names either, but those will refuse to even start the game with a custom message for each).
I think the bear force 1 I found on TH-cam isn’t the one they reference can someone hook it up
This one: m.th-cam.com/video/-wBEKy-Fph4/w-d-xo.html
Master class game
I second Omori. Doooo eeeet
Omori is so good, would love to see these two talk about it.
Oh, and Meglovania is a banger! 😝🤘🤘🤘
Some might say you need a lot of DETERMINATION to do a genecide run :D
I recommend OFF at some point.
What's OFF?
"Touhou being a Japanese anime" 1:11:50
It galls me that this is both correct and very wrong.
Almost every single Undertale youtubers:
i CaN'T bRinG mEsELf tO pLaY GeNoCidE boohoohoooo.
It's getting very very very annoying and cringe
Otherwise, good podcast
Are you complaining that the game's characters are so good you don't want to kill them? Lol