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A note: Sans doesn't really KNOW about resets. He has an idea, and when you don't change at all when he brings them up, he's really just spitballing and guesstimating how many times you've gone down by the look on your face.
hotland and the core is one area you can go through hotland with 0 kills and kill all 40/50 in the core (incounters are more frequent in the core) just make sure you kill muffet and get all 40/50 kills before fighting mettaton.
You know, I never thought about this: even though in the story Sans is doomed to fail, he absolutely succeeded in getting someone, probably many someones to give up. There's countless timelines where his last stand paid off and he genuinely saved his world. And in each one it gets reset anyway, so he'll never know he did that.
Sans is one of two reasons why I’ll (hopefully) never do a genocide run, the other is my brother showed me the ropes via a genocide run. I don’t think I’ll ever forget Toriel’s face. It still haunts me, even all these years later
I love a good fight in games, and so when I found out about the Undyne and Sans battles, I just... I had to. I loved the world, loved the characters, and doing a genocide felt like the absolute worst, but I just... had to. God, the genocide route ripped out my heart. It took me like 15 minutes to get past Papyrus. And with Undyne, I... god. She was so amazing, so incredibly badass, so much fun to fight, and I was literally cheering when she defeated me, because of course she should defeat me, it was the true hero's victory! But then, after like a dozen tries, I got her down to only a single hit remaining and I was like... okay. In order to fight Sans, I have to strike her down. And just... ow. My heart. Then Sans, and holy crap, that was amazing. I loved the fight, the dialogue, I loved his badass commentary. The mercy kill was just superb. Though that whole "If we're really friends, you won't come back'" thing... oh my god... I nearly quit the run from that. But I had to see what more he had to offer, which isn't really what a friend should do, but I felt horribly compelled. And then, the end. Him falling asleep, moving my heart over to the Fight button. I cried like a baby. And I just couldn't do it. He mattered to me, and there was nothing else I had to do. I wanted to see the end, but I couldn't do it. I loved him as a character - mind, I'd loved the others, too - but Sans was something else. It felt like he reached out to my real self, to me as a player, and not just to the thing walking around. He saved the world... and he saved my soul. Best character ever.
That last point is Flowey’s entire motive. Normally, when you reach New Home, a bunch of monsters will come around and tell you the story of the death of Asriel and Chara. But in the genocide route, it’s just Flowey. And he doesn’t tell you the story of Asriel. He tells you the story of _Flowey._ How he woke up as a flower and tried to live a happy life, and how he couldn’t feel love anymore. How he got a happy end, he got the “good ending,” but he couldn’t feel anything. It all became so predictable. So he decided to kill everyone. He told himself that he didn’t WANT to do this, he just wanted to see what happens, and then tells you what an _excuse_ that is. The same excuse most genocide players are telling themselves. In the end, you’re just like Flowey. Whether you like it, or not.
Best part is that even after killing everyone, he wasn’t satisfied. Nothing could make him happy. It’s why he tried to end it all, and then tried to end everything.
Chara : This was YOUR choice, YOUR Idea, YOUR sins. Soul: well, you killed the flower, and Asgore. Chara: You awoken me because of your blood lust and I had finished the job for you.
One of my favorite things with the geno route, is Sans knows if you beat him already. Lets say you killed him then just loaded up your file again so you can fight him. First time he says "that expression that you're wearing... well, i won't grace it with a description." But if you kill him AGAIN, and come back. he quotes "that expression that you're wearing... you're really kind of a freak, huh?" Just showing the fact he knows what you are doing, and theres not much he can do about it.
He doesnt know exactly what you are doing, He's simply good at reading the player. Flowey and Chara are the only beings that canonically remember through resets.
@@KronosfobiYeah. I don't think op was saying anything contradictory to that, but a lotta people do seem to think sans remembers resets so I guess it bears saying that he doesn't.
@@KronosfobiSans doesnt retain his memories but he is definitely aware that the resets are happening and is smart enough to infer certain things and is seemingly a good judge of character.
@@MugenHeadNinjahe knows that it happened just doesn't know what happened. He probably remembers bits and pieces like a dream and he knows they're probably from past resets although true resets and erasures fully reset even his memory I think
@@reallegendgamer379it’s not just sans… the monsters in the underground seem to share that as well… look at asgore. He seems to be aware of the human dying during their battle multiple times… and if you try to do a neutral route again… he will give up his life
Sans is brutally difficult, and it's on purpose. He's supposed to be your punishment for destroying the world. He isn't meant to be fun, he's meant to be infuriated.
Man I dont regret doing genocide at all. While it was really sickening the sense of accomplishment after beating sans and Undyne the undying makes you feel like a GOD. Nothing beats that adrenaline rush when you come close to beating one of them. Also quitting genocide, Ever heard of determination?
He's also completely fair though, most of his attacks have set patterns and all the damage is avoidable (except for the final slam attack but you can't die there), he just requires great timing and that makes him a fantastic boss if you ask me
Hell even going into the files to reset your file fits in-universe in Undertale. You're so damn Determined, you defy Chara, rewrite the reality of that world and prove you ARE above the consequences. That you CAN have your cake and eat it too.
Chara may be on some level a representation of the player, but even _they_ can fail to realize the scope of the power of the _entity_ that they're dealing with.
Which works with chara's "sense when we're you in control?" Cause chara believed they were the strong est they beat the player and can do everything the player can do but they don't know there's always a bigger fish
9:06 , call me a little weird, but I always interpreted the "but nobody came" thing as like, a subconscious way for the game to suggest that your character is like, goin flipping crazy and hearing stuff. Because, realistically, or at least for me, I'd be lookin around like an idiot at any random sound or subtle noise if I killed somebody.
yeah, I personally like to interpret a lot of the instances of Frisk moving on their own being...Frisk...moving on their own...not Chara. whether they were just trying to call out for help in whatever way they could think of, or were so broken they just wanted to get the next kill over with already, that's my take. cuz, fact is, Chara only fully manifested at the end, and I find it unlikely they could take control as early as Snowdin.
I always thought the ancounter was you accidentally making a noise, like stepping on a twig, which then alerts the monsters nearby to attack you. But after genocide, every time you get "caught" there is noone left there to attack you.
I really, really love how the choices of ERASE and DO NOT lead to the same result. Because, let's not kid ourselves, who on Earth would go through the No Mercy Route, only to choose not to destroy everything, and then leave it at that? No. Sans made it clear already. Because we "can", we "have to". So-if there WAS a second time around-we'd have chosen to ERASE the second time around, because we "have to" see absolutely everything, even if our prize is an absolute nothing.
@@BelBelle468 Another thing, too. For the player, "Okay, I might have tried to murder everything, but I'm not evil enough to destroy _everything_ . Toby be like, "Don't lie, yes you are."
Personally I just wanted to fight Sans and the only way to do that was to kill everyone. I feel like if Sans knew his boss fight was the reason everyone was sacrificed, I don’t think he’d react to anything ever again.
I absolutely love the depiction of Sans here. He isn't super overconfident and funny, his voicework here is clearly showing he's exhausted and terrified and not confident at all. Like he knows his "special attack" is bullshit, he doesn't think its actually going to work, but he has no other option. Sans is powerful but lazy and I love how he isn't depicted as some hypergod fanfic antagonist here.
It didn’t really feel like he was terrified during the fight sure he could just be masking it behind the smile but that’s a lot of baseless assumptions
"Oh boy if i can just beat Undyne i can get back to the blood pumping experience of walking around for hours and killing things." Ive been laughing for five minutes holy crap
i LOVE the whole sans monologue. not only because of sans' mannerisms, laugh, and the barely masked desperation in his voice, but the juxtaposition of "just because you CAN, that means you HAVE TO" against papyrus telling you "you CAN do a little better" i can think of a few ways to interpret this, but i'm reading it as sans implying the pacifist run you (probably) did before genocide wasn't out of a genuine desire to do good, but just to see if you "could" get the best possible ending. making the essence behind it effectively the same as genocide - following blind determination for its own sake. THAT's evil on the player's part. overall great video
How Toby Fox Once Said During The Interview: "Determination Is The Ability To Do Something No Matter The Consequenses. It Can Save The World Or Destroy The World."
I really think that encapsulates why the Pacifist run is more difficult _AND_ rewarding than the Genocide run. Because the Genocide route (simply going with base violence) basically represents the epitome of why true evil is so pathetic and deserves to be looked down on: the capacity to hurt other living beings is, in the end, the absolute EASIEST thing in the world. It's why Sans' stats are so low despite being an impossible boss in the Genocide run, because there's ultimately nothing to be proud of in taking the easiest and automatic path.
@@mrreyes5004I wouldn't say the True Pacifist run is more difficult. The final boss is pretty easy. Undyne the Undying and Sans are more difficult. But True Pacifist does have *more challenges* since the generic enemies are much more difficult in True Pacifist than in No Mercy.
I love this, and I am surprised how I never thought of this. In Sans' eyes, we are not doing pacifist because we wanted to, we are doing it because we can, and so we have to. A pacifist run for the sake of doing a pacifist run is just as soulless as Genocide.
If something you see before you does not change you, or make you think, then what is the point of it? It's just a waste of everyone's time. It is not evil, per-say. But its not filled with love, either.
I remembered when I did my second run of undertale. I did a neutral run & did spare monsters if I liked them or thought they deserved it or not, but the moment that really sticked me out the most was the ending with flowey, the game gives you a choice between sparing him or not, and I knew that his was toriel son but I didn’t cared and I killed him. I felt good because no matter who he was he was evil in my eyes & a chilling words from him came from him… “I knew you had it in you.” Worse of all, every time I went back in some places I saw him digging back down & I felt like being watched.
You have to appriciate the *Love* Toby feels for his characters. So when they suffer, it is very real. A thing not talked about alot is being strong internally and emotionally. Sans may not be strong physically, but strength inside, I don't think anyone can beat him. It's depressing just thinking about his circumstances.
I really appreciate the cuts to Papyrus’s final speech in between sans final speech. I don’t ever really see many people talk about papyrus’s speech, maybe I’m looking in the wrong places idk. I do remember when i played this with a friend that killing papyrus broke my heart. His relentless optimism in the face of the most evil son of a bitch made me start weeping. “YOU CAN DO A LITTLE BETTER. EVEN IF YOU DONT THINK SO” Papyrus is honestly one of my favorite fictional characters ever and looking back, i wish i hadn’t killed him. Because it was pointless. I never had a reason to, and he didn’t deserve that.
I subscribe to the belief that Chara is not the problem or your "partner" really but the narrator. That you alone are the one who causes all the destruction with Chara being the one to call you out for it in repeats of the run. Chara even suggesting to you to not do another run and to go for a different run. That everyone turned Chara into a scapegoat.
this is a narrative I follow as well, especially because as they say by the end of a genocide / no mercy run, that it wasn’t their actions nor determination that truly brought them back to life but the player’s. Chara only simply took the opportunity to return and end the world that they presumably have always wanted to do, as hinted by Asriel at the end of the true pacifist run ( ‘ Chara… wasn’t really the greatest person… They seemed to have hated humanity… ‘ ). But even with that, it just seems like a child lashing out against a world that had hurt them ( how or in what way, it isn’t mentioned or clear ). sure, Chara ends the world, but equally, they’re also the same force that can help pull Asriel out of his self destructive misery since reincarnating as a yellow flower - the same kind of flower that Chara loved so much and ultimately used to end their life with so that Asriel could take their soul and break the barrier. If it’s not clear, I absolutely adore Chara as a character ( lmao ) and I have a lot of feelings about them, even nearly a decade later.
Deltarune Ch 2’s Snowgrave route completely solidified this for me. Chara, like Noelle, was ultimately manipulated by the player into taking part in such a horrible act.
@@rei_queenkimochii Plus, Asriel says Chara "Wan't the greatest person" while still caring about them, [Not that they were cartoonishly evil] Combined with that, and it ɓeing spelt out pretty clearly that they were buried in the flower patch the game starts on, and the naration having several moments that suggest they are Chara's thoughts across the game, Pretty clear Chara was a deeply flawed complex kid from a broken home, if they even used to have a home.
Well, Chara only really "calls you out for it" in the sense of "what are you still doing here? We beat the game, move on, why are you so attached to it". By the end of it they ARE your partner, whether they started good and got corrupted or not.
17:57 - I know that these little cut-ins were because, despite having no love for you in this moment, Sans sees a lot of Papyrus in the player. But, to me, I love these cut ins because statistically... a lot of people quit their Genocide runs *because* of Papyrus. Because his unwavering belief in the inherent good of *all* people made them go "No. Absolutely not. Killing you would *kill* me." So, in my mind, it's Sans trying to be a little bit of Papyrus. To stand in your way and prove his brother right. To prove you *can* be a little better, even if you, even if *Sans* doesn't think so. And I just think that's neat...
When I tired a genocide run, I already knew the entire game story, but when I killed Papyrus I just felt so damn bad that I reseted and remade my pacifist route
Although sans KNOWS about resets, he can’t exactly detect them. He can only see it by facial expressions, not just through pure sense. Asgore is a similar case, who does know about resets as well. Flowey is the only one who can remember due to his extra DT.
yeah, it's awareness of them (Sans and whoever he's affiliated with have some kinda sensors to detect them, and Asgore has likely heard "you've killed me more times than I can count" 6 times before you came along), but not actually remembering them.
@@TwinWulfies no he can just read your face that well, he can even tell if you fell for his "mercy". But that's also why he can't really tell anymore after 10 deaths
@@arcticfluffyfoxy "our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting...until suddenly, everything ends. heh heh heh...that's your fault, isn't it?" if you haven't paid attention to Sans' dialogue in a while, you can just say that.
people don't talk about asgore's awareness enough. it's so tragically dark that the only reason asgore knows about the human's ability to reset after death is because he's had to do it so many times before. he's had to kill the six humans before you countless times each before they all inevitably gave up
was showing my gf undertale for the first time (she knew basically nothing about it before hand besides the fact that sans existed) and she at first played it "normally", killing a bunch of monsters. But it was amazing seeing in real time see someone discover what the game actually was and feeling bad for killing monsters, something me or my friends haven't experienced since the game first came out.
I so wish I went into the game blind, though JackSepticEye’s play through was awesome, I think I would’ve enjoyed it so much more if I played it on my own. Same with deltarune chapter one. I played Omori, hollow knight, and deltarune chapter two blind and it was so sick.
It was kinda cheesy when sans said: "my brother really wants to see a human... So it would really help me out if you kept pretending to be one" or smth like that, it literally made me laugh instead of being sad
15:10 I’m glad someone finally talked about Sans being not some mastermind who wants to finally end your spree and instead just trash talks you until you leave, I’m sure another youtuber has talked to it but so many people are under the impression that Sans does it because he believes he can win, but the dialogue really nails in the fact he knows he’s destined to lose and just wants you to stop
There is also a misconception of him remembering all your actions like a superpower. In reality he remembers as much as anyone. Unlike the others however, he's both good at reading people to a point to understand what they are thinking *and* he's apperantly a scientist. The fight you have with him he mentions how timelines are changing, which shouldnt happen, after our arrival. So he see's a child expertly fight off royal guards, the best of the best, kill absolutely everyone on their way here at the same time as timeline anomalies, He figures something is up.
@@Kronosfobi I agree with this as well, but since tobys dialogue is intentionally ambiguous theres no way to say that confidently because there will always be something.
What's saddening is that Undyne and Sans are probably a big part of the reason most people do Genocide routes in Undertale to begin with. It is facing and beating the hardest challenges in the game that motivate a lot of players. There's irony in the fact that in trying their darnest to stop you from killing everyone, they motivated you to kill everyone just to be able to fight them.
this didnt say anything new, nothing i didnt know already from being an undertale fan, nothing that made me stop and say "damn, i didnt know that"... but it didnt have two, just being able to re-experience the horror that is a no mercy run, through the words of someone else is a terrifying, yet freash experience. i've loved this game since jacksepticeye first made his videos on it, and ive loved all the fan work aswell. so it makes me happy that almost 10 years later is it still being talked about and getting new fans. thank you scott for thi samazing video, about one of the most horrifying optional paths in games
Honestly that's all I could've hoped for. My hope for this vid was both to tell new viewers about one of the most infamous playthroughs in gaming, as well as make those who already experienced it feel that same dread and profound depression that they did upon their first playthrough.
man, I did it 8 times consecutively once, getting so efficient with it that I made it to almost sub-2 hours. I challenged myself to do it without healing items the last time and then finally got bored and stopped playing undertale. I was originally going for 10 so... in some morbid way the game eventually succeeded I guess.
@@DZL1 I don't think the game succeeded in your case at all. Yes, you were going for 10 times, but it's as Sans says - for people like you and I (I'll clarify why I'm referencing myself later) each route is less and less important. The more we kill, the more we distance ourselves. Sure, the fact that the game stopped you from going two additional times is a "win" in a way, but... that's still 8 times you slaughtered everyone. Something most people only do once or twice, since there's no benefit whatsoever to do it any more. I don't think the game would see that as a win at all. I think people like you and I are an... interesting consequence of the Genocide Route. An inverse of its original goal. Yes, the game succeeded in stopping the majority of the runs attempted, but... the people that *did* succeed are the most "determined" ones. Getting bored isn't enough, and neither is frustration. People that went through with it once no longer care about what it has in stock, since... well, it doesn't change, bar Chara's dialogue once. It doesn't matter what they do - repeatedly go through the whole Genocide Route, like you did, or something else, e.g. saving before the Sans fight and resetting after a successful attempt, leaving him in a permanent purgatory of failing at his job, like I do. Odd, is it not? On surface level, most people have stopped their playthroughs, but there are people doing endless Genocide runs to offset the average. Like speedrunners that don't really care for what the route entails, willing to break the game and try the route over and over again, disregarding the meaning of the Genocide route. ...Ah, went on a bit of rant once more. I suppose username checks out, huh.
@@charadr33murrAnd yet the game still succeeded at what it was REALLY trying to do, deep down, all along...which is to teach you some things about good and evil. You can talk about how lifelike the characters are, how much love was put into them, but in the end, they're characters in a game, a work of art. Playing the game on your own computer won't affect the millions of copies on everyone else's computers and on the distribution servers. But the game taught you--or at least it taught me--about how evil isn't the equal opposite of good, it's a corruption of good. How pure evil isn't rage or fear or even selfishness--it's closer to mind-numbing apathy, ceasing to see good things as good, relentlessly pursuing something that has no love. It lets you experience what being evil is really like in a form that ultimately doesn't hurt anyone in the real world.
@@charadr33murrI think it still worked, in a way. Because it sounds like you aren't satisfied. For example, I wad happy and satisfied with Undertale after finishing pacifist. I was very happy with the story and the ending. But after a few months, I got curious about the genocide route and did most of it. Couldn't beat Sans, probably because I couldn't find the motivation like I did with Jevil and Spamton NEO. And it's not because of guilt over the characters, but rather because I realized I wasn't able to accept a good thing was over and that it was time to move on. I did something not because I cared about the art, the story and the character, but because I couldn't let go. That taught me a lesson about letting go imo
Fun thing to consider. [Fallen human], Frisk and _you_, *the player*, are separate entities. And in fact, you, the player, may not have a related character, but you have a name in game. You are the *Anomaly*. You are the reason why timelines are jumping left and right, splitting and fusing, until they end. And yes, don't put the blame on [Fallen human]. Because, what, did [Fallen human] crawl out from your screen with a knife and said "Now partner, play genocide run and I will not commit genocide on your bodily tissues cells"? Nope, *you* did it yourself. All that [Fallen human] does is makes sure that you remember: *ACTIONS lead to CONSEQUENCES*.
And it's of note the fallen child bears your name. A mirror to your evil ways, because in the end, they learned from you, as an impressionable child. They likely didn't understand why you killed everyone they used to love, and made sense of it this way. You do it to yourself.
As Ursula K. Le guin said ”Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the Treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain”. Games making evil routes uninteresting is not a fault of the developer, that’s just how evil is, evil is easy, goodness is infinitely nuanced and complex
Honor and a pleasure getting to voice the funny blue skeleton for such a dope video on one of my favorite games! Thanks for giving me the opportunity. Much love and INCREDIBLE JOB dude! 🤙🏼❤️
SOOOOOOOOOO HYPED WE FINALLY GOT TO OFFICIALLY COLLABORATE ON SMTHN MY MAN, YOU WERE AMAZING! Also, for anyone wondering, Chris is the one responsible for nearly all of the PHENOMENAL outro music I use on this channel. Check him out! open.spotify.com/artist/3tG8v81C32gJ64ba0WN0N2?si=g-VojpLESbqOWJBfcgeJKw
I loved your voiceover so much! It really gave me the impression of sans just being. a guy. Like he still stumbles on his words a bit, slurs a couple letters, completely on point for a laid back character like him. c:
i really wish toby had actually not added an ending. like sans' final sttack was actually that. you couldn't manipulate the box, all you were was just stuck there. so that there really was no ending to reach. there was no reward, or you couldn't even say you beat the genocide route, because sans won. he kept even the most determined person stuck.
I agree with your sentiment, but I think that being able to beat Sans is beneficial to the narrative. Mostly because it shows something very true: evil is never satisfied. We can see it in hateful groups: once they eliminate a target or reach a goal, they quickly grow restless and need to find another one.
Actually,that would make no sense on a Genocide route Sure,it could stop a curious player and make them quit,but some people will go find other ways to get through. This is evil in nature,it won't stop until there's nothing left,so you cheating your way out against a sleeping Sans is accurate
@@AllenTheAnimator004 You know, now that i think about it... It would be EVEN MORE meta if you should've ACTUALLY hack the game to truly, COMPLETELY defy the game and destroy it. It really is fitting, considering there's even an error-handling ending
I first did a neutral run years ago when I had virtually no access to internet. Recently I found out about the two alternate routes and started the pacifist run, planning to then do a genocide run. After the pacifist run when Flowey said "do you really want to ruin their happiness?" I found out I couldn't. So I didn't reset, the game just sits on my pc so that they can live on happily ever after.
“That’s the look of someone who’s died twelve times in a row…” *…And I didn’t hear no bell.* DAMN BRO HOW DID YOU MAKE THE BEST QUOTE IN THE ENTIRE FANDOM FOR THE OG SANS FIGHT?!?! AWESOME VIDEO, MAN!!!
I love the genocide endings cause they highlight everything. You committed to a route that robbed you of the regular fun of the story and brought you nothing but emptiness and misery. And no matter what choice you make at the end, Chara makes it clear that even if they aren't a villain, they ARE the only one who can make you own up to your mistakes, and if you won't finish the job, they will do it for you and make sure your actions haunt you for the rest of your days. And that makes redoing the genocide route even more haunting because you did it. You made even the "demon" disgusted by your actions.
The best thing about the Geno route or just Neutral is that those options exist and anyone who only does True Pacifist knows they exist. You *could* be truly evil, so not being evil feels like a choice. True Pacifist is much harder than Neutral, even if Geno has the hardest individual moments, characters trying really hard to stop you. Your stats going up can only make the game easier, especially if you don't go full Geno. It's not always easy to stalwartly stick to your principles in life and Undertale tries to reflect this. Kinda doesn't work super well if you're really good at bullet hell gameplay, but it wasn't a genre I had mastered so the game's message really hit me hard. I never killed a single monster. I didn't want to, because I didn't have to, and it's refreshing that killing things isn't required in Undertale. But if I found out later that there were no consequences for being a murder hobo, then the message wouldn't have stuck with me so much after the fact, not to mention the impact on people who chose to play the other routes, as this video goes into. Undertale is a brilliant game.
ive been hoping someone would make this exact video ever since i played the game for the first time back in middle school. You NAILED it, this video is everything i felt back then when I did the genocide route and it encompasses all the reasons that i remember that experience so vividly- the emotional, PERSONAL connection to the game that goes beyond any lore or story, connecting the player to the game in a way ive NEVER seen before or since. its so special and you captured it beautifully
I did genocide just to fight sans and never bothered to try and beat him. Overall my genocide experience is something I hardly remember, so it being boring and unfulfilling definitely checks out
20:29, that wasn’t Flowey, he could never kill Asgore on his own let alone do anywhere near that amount of damage, that was your character attacking without your permission, because you’ve become so far gone, that killing becomes a thing that you don’t even need to think about (hence why the mercy option is gone), Flowey only comes in to finish him off when he’s already dead
Or, arguably, to make sure that the threat you became really stayed locked up inside the underground... albeit, Flowey is quite the coward, so I don't carry much hope for this interpretation.
I never actually played undertale (blasphemy, I know), but I watched gameplay footage and the endings. Gameplay from the genocide walkthrough horrified me. It was eerily quiet, as if the game's environment became inhospitable - as if you were a mere parasite in a larger organism. It was the backrooms before I even knew what liminal space horror was. And even more horrifying was the realization that, unlike in horror games, the world wasn't hostile for the hell of it; the atmosphere change was in self-defense. The real monster there, the only thing to fear, is the player. What a masterpiece.
That's what I love about the genocide route. It feels like a separate game entirely. It's a horror game but the horror...is you. Not to mention it gives more lore on sans, flowey, and chara in the game so worth it.
The "I didn't hear no bell" got me so hyped for the Sans portion. I never really played a genocide route, so I never knew there was a difference in approaches between The Undying and The Skeleton
Undertale teaches you the consenquences of evil, and what it can do to the ones within that world. All the people in that world; people you hated, loved, and those that cared for you but you didn't, are gone with that place. Those are the consenquences of being evil.
on 24:24 he asks us if that is evil or morbid curiosity, as from my experience i can tell that this is entertainment, humans don't do almost all things because they can or they want, it is because they need, for an example if you be stuck into a dark room with nothing for eternity you would still try to do "something" for the purpose of your entertainment, if you do the same thing for a while then you would get bored of it and try "something new" and that is why some people do the genocide route and basically for everything you do in life to achieve something to your entertainment in hope to cure boredom
i wouldn't call that entertainment, because as the guy in the video said, genocide route is not all that fun 90% of the time.. had you REALLY wanted just something to do, you would've left that game and played literally any other RPG.. the fact that you didn't means that you really just wanna see things through until the end, just because you can.. and because you "can", you "have to"
Fitting for how actual evil tends to be. Unless you're a psychopath, most of the time you don't like to do whatever malicious thing you're doing as much as you thought you would, feel guilty, and then go to jail and permanently suffer the consequences of doing something you didn't really even like doing.
As a game developer myself, I find stuff like this fascinating. It's kind of rare the game itself will make it their mission to try and discourage the player actively from proceeding. But the process of how Toby pulled it off is just amazing. Great video!
Im surprised that there wasn't even discussion of Chara's dialogue after you beat the Geno route again, or Flowey's dialogue in New Home before he's afraid of you. Really shows how impressive the Geno run of Undertale is
Fun fact: Apparently, Undertale was originally supposed to delete itself after a completed genocide route, although, Toby had trouble with coding it, thus was Soulless Pacifist born.
An amazing way to experience this video is to pull up a second tab with the Sans fight in it, just to experience everything he’s talking about crystallized right into the fight.
Fun fact: If you and switch room every time you encounter a monster you will encounter very fast cuz every room have a step count that increases every time you encounter a monster but it resets when you go to a new room. =)
Another thing about the sans fight is that he dodges every single attack. He tries to make you think that there is literally nothing you can do to win, he attempts to trick the player into thinking they can’t, cause as he said, you can do it, so you have too.
When I was around 7 years old I played Undertale and I didn't understand any of the deep or meta stuff but the skeletons were funny so I assumed there would be more funny dialogue if I did another route. I am now cursed to live with my actions. 10/10 game but I wish I understood sooner
Sans got me to end my geno playthrough, but not in the usual way. I'd heard of the playthrough before hand and I was mostly interested in the story and character work, how the underground would react to a human destroying them all and how Flowey had a bigger role. This was a long while after my true pacifist playthrough and I wasn't satisifed with leaving a small goat child to turn back into a horrid plant with his family never even knowing he existed. I had to have more. Clearing out the first zone was simple, it just took time and being very experienced in video games, I've learned that sometimes you just have hours long grinds so it went by quickly. Toriel was easy too, I'd disconnected from the game, seeing it more as numbers than a world. And I'd killed her once before anyway, so it wasn't anything new. Until it was, the first change. She'd noticed she was harboring a hidious creature and was sad she could not lock it away. The game continues Flowey happy with seeing his old friend, Sans asking us to pretend to be human for his brother. I liked that there was no puzzles on the way to Snowedin, I'd done them twice before and they were no more than busy work now. The town brough me back in, notes for the monster, the whole place evacuated. Papyrus, still barely understanding what's going on. Still believing in me even as I turned him to dust. It was the first real hit of what I'd came here for, the lore, the story, the character work. Like a psychopath I loved him as I murdered him. Moving on. Waterfall was boring, but I made sure to sing with Shyren, just incase something changed. It did, no crowds appeared and instead of selling tickets, Sans watched on from a distance, hooded and cold. I slew my costar at the end of the song, a terrible final act. The lack of puzzles and minigames and funny situations was beginning to be felt, bordom was setting in, but I'd done far worse grinds than this so I powered through. Gerson was a huge plus, I love that old Turtle, and his reason for talking to the monster "To hold you up so more can escape" was brilliant. Then I hurt monster kid. Just casually, wounding him as I used him as a ladder. And suddenly the bordom was gone, emotion was back. Guilt. I savoured it. Fully disacoiated from teh game and being snapped back in reminded me what was good about Undertale, its powerful use of the medium and its stong messages. Attacking Monster Kid was easy, I was salivating for the fight I knew lay after. Undyne was glorious. A true hero risen to slay the monster, showing the strongest and most positive instance of monster held determination. It was hard, but I'd had food stocked up and after a handful of tries, I lucked through an attack I had trouble with and slew the hero. It was everything I had been waiting for, real stimulation not a boring slog I was half aware for. She had made me situp and fight. She melted away as I reveled in the glory. Hotlands was the greatest grind, from feast to famine once more, but like an old predator, I knew these were but scraps leading up to the next feast. I did the required actions until the number turned to zero. Then I moved on, happy to meet another friendly face. Burgerpants and sadly he's all out of vacation days. I stocked up, each boss had something new and core would be annoying to clear out. Core was empty. It's mosnter count was linked to hotland and I'd already cleared that out, so it was a long boring walk while constantly being interrupted with but nobody came and the ocasional scriped merc to mix things up. Still easy, still boring. At the end, Mettaton, the human hunting machine. Finally I could see what his human hunting protocols did. Except he gave me the first attack and.... gone. An anti climax. I knew there was still cool fights somewhere, but after learning about undyne on accident I'd avoided spoilers. I was frustrated but even that fed my need to move on. And then finally sweet sweet rewards again, lore dialogue, story. A hint at the fact Flowey is just like you, his worldview having arisen from doing the very same things you were. Delicious. The judgment hall had a box and a save. It never had those before. Hyped to be judged, I walked forth to meet Sans. This again made me sing the game's praises. For a little bit. But after 12 death deaths sans had no new dialogue and it took me far more to kill him. 47 deaths later one normal attack barely survived and his special attack started I was sure I was going to die picto seconds into phase three and have to do this all over again. The fight bad been a struggle, the new lore dialogue and info about Sans's character had made it not bad, but the bones on the screen man. Those damned bones. Ready to do this all over again, I figured out the puzzle, swung at sleeing Sans, he dodged of course and began his phase 3 monalogu- another slash. Tons of nines of damage. San's health bar bottoms out and I am filled with the euphoria of victory. Sans says that's that and he's going off to Grillbys. Papyrus, do you want anything? And that shattered my euphoria. Sans was not a numbers fight, he forced me to fully engage with the game once again, even having lore and jokes inside his fight, a microcosm of the Undertale I'd grown to love and had been denying myself for so long. In that moment I'd not slain a monster or turned a number to zero. I'd not had an epic fight with a lone hero. I'd killed a guy's brother, killed a guy's town and then hurt him so bad he couldn't remember it'd happened or that he'd started hallucinating it all being fine. Sans bled red as he walked off screen, followed by that sound I'd grown so used to, the sound of a monster turning to dust. And I sat there, Undertale's last jab having sent me reeling for breath. Having forced me to care once again and forced me to see what I'd been doing, what I'd grown numb too. I didn't exist the judgement hall, waiting as I stewed until I came to some kind of resolution. I loaded my save, fought Sans to the fake out spare and spared him. It felt appropriate to give him the win he'd earnt over me and for me to follow his advice and not come back to the genocide run. I've since completed only one more run of undertale. A true pacifist run where I did everything right, unlike my much more messy first and second times. I reached Asriel, hugged the goat, spoke to him at the start one last time and respected his wishes, to leave him be and remember him has he was then. I have not touched Undertale since, but it has never been far from my thoughts and that particular save file has followed me through 2 more computers. I've been fully spoiled now, I know i stopped right before the end. I dont mind that, this story was far more personal to me and I really love the character and their world. They fought and beat me at my worst while encouraging me to do my best. There is value in that, and in being not so unhealthily focused on a game that you'll grind through 5 hours of nothing just to skrew yourself over. I dont think I can ever forget Undertale. A good game that is very important to me and that taught me to let go, else I may break what I love in the holding.
i just wanted to say, thank you for creating this video. i followed undertale and its fandom for years and loved how brilliantly written the characters and story was, yet i never watched a full playthrough of the genocide route. this video made me realize how this route truly affects the game (the town going empty, no fun puzzles), and weirdly enough, this was how i found out how you had to trade your soul with chara in order to play undertale again. i love how you emphasized sans' role in wanting to stop the player's run, and how evil the player must be to continue the route despite how boring it is. it's just such a well done video, i'll keep coming back to this for weeks. thank you so much for your hard work!
another random point in your favor is the fact that, in Genocide, you can pick up The Locket and Real Knife (as opposed to the Heart Locket and Worn Dagger in neutral/pacifist). Both items that give 99 in their respective stats... right before the boss that you cannot hit, and that only "deals 1 damage."
i love how you put papyrus flash backs during sans dialogue implying he was thinking about what his brother said while talking to you, my new headcanon
I mean... It IS her actions, you wouldn't have the choice of a no mercy route without Chara being who she is. But yes, YOU are the one who made those choices, even if you didn't set the pieces in play.
@@AzureRadiono actually it’s the games code. She is influenced by the games code. You are a player, are not. It is your actions and your fault, not Charas
Sans going eerererrer and breaking out into laughter like Spamton during his fight dialogue in this video was beautiful. This is just the kind of characterization I need here.
If you haven't checked it out yourself. I would highly recommend Undertale Yellow, a fan game that took 6 years to complete. It's not perfect but I'd love to see you cover how it handles it's genocide route compared to undertale.
The genocide route in undertale yellow is the only time where it has ever been justified, as Clover attempts to deliver what they believe to be "Justice", as they believe they are doing what's right.
That dialogue with Papyrus' death made it sadder than without the death sequence in between the dialogue from sans using his §4"special attack". (§4 turns your text red in Minecraft.)
13:09 made me laugh so hard XD seriously so far i am LOVING this it is absolutely incredible. you've iterated it beautifully. playing evil in undertale feels so dirty, so revoltingly hateful. it breaks my heart, and it's hard to even watch. why? well, i couldn't put it into words before now. you've done just that. amazing evaluation. also, this game is very much still alive despite being this old. people are still talking about it, people are still loving it, heck i've worked on an AU story for *eight years* and I'm still going. this game is a true rare diamond amidst a sea of gift shop rocks. this game is truly something special.
I think it's also notable how the concept of DETERMINATION in the game is something that applies equally to pacifist / true pacifist runs, and the genocide route, though it's not as directly named in the genocide route. In regular old routes, determination is a bit of flavor text that's meant to encourage you to keep going, and to keep pushing through despite the challenges you may have. You're encouraged to see the mouse get the increasingly ridiculous pieces of cheese, or seeing the different characters do their stuff. The determination is a motivator, which the game happily provides, though you still need to do your part. As for the genocide route, the game actively plays against that by trying to bore you. It's a test of willpower where you see if your mere, personal determination is enough to do things "because you can". And I think that's a really great duality that the game creates, because it truly goes beyond the screen and gets into the player's head
Neutral route also remembers your choices every character you kill minor or major has consequences on what future of this world will look like after you complete it. There's 30 neutral endings and all of each have different consequences depending on who you kill and how many characters you kill.
I believe the 2nd boss fight of the genocide run plays a important part, after the undyne fight providing the player with what looks to be another means of being excited about is meant to disappoint the player in the sense that they just one shot the boss that looked to surpass the other one. It's meant to disappoint the player and show them that there's no point.
"Before you hear the universal tagline for antidepressants". I had to think about it for a second I haven't continued the video yet but oh my goodness this is genius. First time watching anything on your channel and this (and other offhanded jokes) is almost singlehandedly making me subscribe.
I had to check the description to see if the person who did the Undyne voice was credited because 12:50 actually gave me goodebumps. That delivery, along with the theme and image choice for Undyne is perfection i literally replayed it like 20 times 😩 i need an undertale show now and Lexi NEEDS to play Undyne
When you bring up the point of “The Genocide Route has no reward.” I disagree. The reward is getting to fight Sans and test your skills against the strongest character in the game. Hell, that’s what encouraged ME to play Genocide back in the day.
Hey y'all! Hope you like(d) the video! If you wanna see more stuff from me and stick it tot he algorithm, consider checking out my vid on Lost Media: th-cam.com/video/CH9xvyXINBU/w-d-xo.html
And, as always, give my buddy Chris some love by streaming his new Single BEIGE on Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/3tG8v81C32gJ64ba0WN0N2?si=2lLhSu2ATymW4m2Z_hWa-Q
I remember you’re…
Genocides.
make a sequel to this dedicated to photoshop flowey
A note:
Sans doesn't really KNOW about resets. He has an idea, and when you don't change at all when he brings them up, he's really just spitballing and guesstimating how many times you've gone down by the look on your face.
hotland and the core is one area you can go through hotland with 0 kills and kill all 40/50 in the core (incounters are more frequent in the core)
just make sure you kill muffet and get all 40/50 kills before fighting mettaton.
Human, I remember you’re…
Genocides.
Toby loves his characters. So he makes you pay dearly for choosing to hurt them.
So true
That's why Sans has Toby Fox's own battle theme ( megalovania )
Genocide route is literally the easiest in the game
@@keithflippers4429well killing people is always easier then saving them right?
I do genocide runs for the theme songs 🗿
You know, I never thought about this: even though in the story Sans is doomed to fail, he absolutely succeeded in getting someone, probably many someones to give up. There's countless timelines where his last stand paid off and he genuinely saved his world.
And in each one it gets reset anyway, so he'll never know he did that.
Sans Actually Theorising About "Other Sanses" In The Game So He Knows That It's Possible, But He Just Doesn't Carr About That.
that's just him talking about pacifist @@user-dd7hv2sx5b
Sans is one of two reasons why I’ll (hopefully) never do a genocide run, the other is my brother showed me the ropes via a genocide run.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget Toriel’s face. It still haunts me, even all these years later
From my sample size of like 400 comments, 50 of them quit at Sans
I love a good fight in games, and so when I found out about the Undyne and Sans battles, I just... I had to. I loved the world, loved the characters, and doing a genocide felt like the absolute worst, but I just... had to.
God, the genocide route ripped out my heart. It took me like 15 minutes to get past Papyrus. And with Undyne, I... god. She was so amazing, so incredibly badass, so much fun to fight, and I was literally cheering when she defeated me, because of course she should defeat me, it was the true hero's victory!
But then, after like a dozen tries, I got her down to only a single hit remaining and I was like... okay. In order to fight Sans, I have to strike her down. And just... ow. My heart.
Then Sans, and holy crap, that was amazing. I loved the fight, the dialogue, I loved his badass commentary. The mercy kill was just superb. Though that whole "If we're really friends, you won't come back'" thing... oh my god... I nearly quit the run from that. But I had to see what more he had to offer, which isn't really what a friend should do, but I felt horribly compelled.
And then, the end. Him falling asleep, moving my heart over to the Fight button. I cried like a baby. And I just couldn't do it. He mattered to me, and there was nothing else I had to do. I wanted to see the end, but I couldn't do it. I loved him as a character - mind, I'd loved the others, too - but Sans was something else. It felt like he reached out to my real self, to me as a player, and not just to the thing walking around.
He saved the world... and he saved my soul.
Best character ever.
That last point is Flowey’s entire motive.
Normally, when you reach New Home, a bunch of monsters will come around and tell you the story of the death of Asriel and Chara. But in the genocide route, it’s just Flowey. And he doesn’t tell you the story of Asriel. He tells you the story of _Flowey._ How he woke up as a flower and tried to live a happy life, and how he couldn’t feel love anymore. How he got a happy end, he got the “good ending,” but he couldn’t feel anything. It all became so predictable. So he decided to kill everyone. He told himself that he didn’t WANT to do this, he just wanted to see what happens, and then tells you what an _excuse_ that is. The same excuse most genocide players are telling themselves.
In the end, you’re just like Flowey. Whether you like it, or not.
Best part is that even after killing everyone, he wasn’t satisfied. Nothing could make him happy. It’s why he tried to end it all, and then tried to end everything.
No, becuase I never did Genocide.
@@granda3649It said most genocide players.
womp womp
dope I like flowey
Player: *kills everyone*
Chara: "Greetings"
Player: "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"
Chara: "EXCUSE ME!?"
bro just explained the entire genocide route in one comment
Chara: HOLD THE FU
lol. true
Blaming others? Well that’s a new low I guess consequence caught up and they’re trying to avoid further judgment
Chara : This was YOUR choice, YOUR Idea, YOUR sins.
Soul: well, you killed the flower, and Asgore.
Chara: You awoken me because of your blood lust and I had finished the job for you.
" This is your reward. Your reward for a job well done"
Dude, CRAZY goosebumps
“I lied there’s nothing there, fuck you”
I am insulted and hurt 😡
Can I still have that vial of blood tho
@@SpacemanScott Erm huh? 0.o
@@SpacemanScott SpacemanScott secretly a vampire!!1!1!1
zomg!1!1!!!1!1!!
!1!1!1
This is the genocide route summed up.
"I don't give a photosyntheshit" is the insult I didn't know I needed
@gloopertwastakenI hope so
gotta keep this in mind
When was this, I cant seem to find it?
@@Undertalebeatsyoutodeath5:50
Thx
One of my favorite things with the geno route, is Sans knows if you beat him already. Lets say you killed him then just loaded up your file again so you can fight him. First time he says "that expression that you're wearing...
well, i won't grace it with a description." But if you kill him AGAIN, and come back. he quotes "that expression that you're wearing...
you're really kind of a freak, huh?" Just showing the fact he knows what you are doing, and theres not much he can do about it.
He doesnt know exactly what you are doing, He's simply good at reading the player. Flowey and Chara are the only beings that canonically remember through resets.
@@KronosfobiYeah. I don't think op was saying anything contradictory to that, but a lotta people do seem to think sans remembers resets so I guess it bears saying that he doesn't.
@@KronosfobiSans doesnt retain his memories but he is definitely aware that the resets are happening and is smart enough to infer certain things and is seemingly a good judge of character.
@@MugenHeadNinjahe knows that it happened just doesn't know what happened. He probably remembers bits and pieces like a dream and he knows they're probably from past resets although true resets and erasures fully reset even his memory I think
@@reallegendgamer379it’s not just sans… the monsters in the underground seem to share that as well… look at asgore. He seems to be aware of the human dying during their battle multiple times… and if you try to do a neutral route again… he will give up his life
Sans is brutally difficult, and it's on purpose. He's supposed to be your punishment for destroying the world. He isn't meant to be fun, he's meant to be infuriated.
lol, he kinda attracted the opposite tho. Most people do the route solely for him
@@ohno7153and we have a sans simulator now so there is no need
@@BobboerbaIt's pretty old too, I think I discovered it randomly in 2016 or 2017
Man I dont regret doing genocide at all. While it was really sickening the sense of accomplishment after beating sans and Undyne the undying makes you feel like a GOD. Nothing beats that adrenaline rush when you come close to beating one of them. Also quitting genocide, Ever heard of determination?
He's also completely fair though, most of his attacks have set patterns and all the damage is avoidable (except for the final slam attack but you can't die there), he just requires great timing and that makes him a fantastic boss if you ask me
"Why do you want to go back to the world you tried to destroy?"
*I payed 30 fuckin dollars*
Underrated comment at it’s finest
-I got an Undertale Android Port and paid nothing-
wasnt it 10?
@@undertalefire22Piracy isn’t cool
@otttimon5654 I mean hey. Now I finished Pacifist and now I will never play the game again, I'm letting them have their ending.
Hell even going into the files to reset your file fits in-universe in Undertale. You're so damn Determined, you defy Chara, rewrite the reality of that world and prove you ARE above the consequences. That you CAN have your cake and eat it too.
That is a truly terrifying way to think about it. Thank you.
Chara may be on some level a representation of the player, but even _they_ can fail to realize the scope of the power of the _entity_ that they're dealing with.
I love thinking of it that way
The player character, Frisk, is canonically far more powerful than a ghost called Chara.
Which works with chara's "sense when we're you in control?" Cause chara believed they were the strong est they beat the player and can do everything the player can do but they don't know there's always a bigger fish
9:06 , call me a little weird, but I always interpreted the "but nobody came" thing as like, a subconscious way for the game to suggest that your character is like, goin flipping crazy and hearing stuff.
Because, realistically, or at least for me, I'd be lookin around like an idiot at any random sound or subtle noise if I killed somebody.
yeah, I personally like to interpret a lot of the instances of Frisk moving on their own being...Frisk...moving on their own...not Chara. whether they were just trying to call out for help in whatever way they could think of, or were so broken they just wanted to get the next kill over with already, that's my take. cuz, fact is, Chara only fully manifested at the end, and I find it unlikely they could take control as early as Snowdin.
I always thought the ancounter was you accidentally making a noise, like stepping on a twig, which then alerts the monsters nearby to attack you. But after genocide, every time you get "caught" there is noone left there to attack you.
Like Yeah You Instinctively Reaction Because Of The Noise, BUT NOBODY WILL COME BECAUSE YOU KILLED LITERALLY EVERYONR.@@codebracker
They aren't hallucinating. That is Aster or such lol.
It's also a great callback to you calling out for help in the True Pacifist finale
I really, really love how the choices of ERASE and DO NOT lead to the same result.
Because, let's not kid ourselves, who on Earth would go through the No Mercy Route, only to choose not to destroy everything, and then leave it at that?
No. Sans made it clear already. Because we "can", we "have to". So-if there WAS a second time around-we'd have chosen to ERASE the second time around, because we "have to" see absolutely everything, even if our prize is an absolute nothing.
If the player wanted to kill so many monsters and then just let the humans live, Chara won’t stand for that lol
I just reset the game before the choice, fuck off Chara.
@@BelBelle468 Another thing, too. For the player, "Okay, I might have tried to murder everything, but I'm not evil enough to destroy _everything_ . Toby be like, "Don't lie, yes you are."
Personally I just wanted to fight Sans and the only way to do that was to kill everyone.
I feel like if Sans knew his boss fight was the reason everyone was sacrificed, I don’t think he’d react to anything ever again.
@@freyathedragon899 Unfortunately Undertale isn't self-aware enough to account for spoilers
And my favorite line
“Despite everything… it’s still you”
I absolutely love the depiction of Sans here. He isn't super overconfident and funny, his voicework here is clearly showing he's exhausted and terrified and not confident at all. Like he knows his "special attack" is bullshit, he doesn't think its actually going to work, but he has no other option. Sans is powerful but lazy and I love how he isn't depicted as some hypergod fanfic antagonist here.
It didn’t really feel like he was terrified during the fight sure he could just be masking it behind the smile but that’s a lot of baseless assumptions
@@guycrew3973 Maybe terrified isn't the right word, maybe just "hopeless"
What the fuck? 1000 dumplings? Hi???
@@theneverwatcher9860 hello it is me 1000dumplings
@@1000dumplings HOLY SHIT IT IS 1000DUMPLINGS! !!!!11!
"Oh boy if i can just beat Undyne i can get back to the blood pumping experience of walking around for hours and killing things."
Ive been laughing for five minutes holy crap
What timestamp is that?
14:02@@user-gf9vb7wj4v
@@user-gf9vb7wj4v 14:00
You kill Undyne not because you want to but because you CAN.
@@user-gf9vb7wj4v 13:57
i LOVE the whole sans monologue. not only because of sans' mannerisms, laugh, and the barely masked desperation in his voice, but the juxtaposition of "just because you CAN, that means you HAVE TO" against papyrus telling you "you CAN do a little better"
i can think of a few ways to interpret this, but i'm reading it as sans implying the pacifist run you (probably) did before genocide wasn't out of a genuine desire to do good, but just to see if you "could" get the best possible ending. making the essence behind it effectively the same as genocide - following blind determination for its own sake. THAT's evil on the player's part.
overall great video
How Toby Fox Once Said During The Interview:
"Determination Is The Ability To Do Something No Matter The Consequenses.
It Can Save The World Or Destroy The World."
I really think that encapsulates why the Pacifist run is more difficult _AND_ rewarding than the Genocide run. Because the Genocide route (simply going with base violence) basically represents the epitome of why true evil is so pathetic and deserves to be looked down on: the capacity to hurt other living beings is, in the end, the absolute EASIEST thing in the world. It's why Sans' stats are so low despite being an impossible boss in the Genocide run, because there's ultimately nothing to be proud of in taking the easiest and automatic path.
@@mrreyes5004I wouldn't say the True Pacifist run is more difficult. The final boss is pretty easy. Undyne the Undying and Sans are more difficult. But True Pacifist does have *more challenges* since the generic enemies are much more difficult in True Pacifist than in No Mercy.
I love this, and I am surprised how I never thought of this. In Sans' eyes, we are not doing pacifist because we wanted to, we are doing it because we can, and so we have to. A pacifist run for the sake of doing a pacifist run is just as soulless as Genocide.
If something you see before you does not change you, or make you think, then what is the point of it? It's just a waste of everyone's time.
It is not evil, per-say. But its not filled with love, either.
I remembered when I did my second run of undertale.
I did a neutral run & did spare monsters if I liked them or thought they deserved it or not, but the moment that really sticked me out the most was the ending with flowey, the game gives you a choice between sparing him or not, and I knew that his was toriel son but I didn’t cared and I killed him. I felt good because no matter who he was he was evil in my eyes & a chilling words from him came from him…
“I knew you had it in you.”
Worse of all, every time I went back in some places I saw him digging back down & I felt like being watched.
You have to appriciate the *Love* Toby feels for his characters. So when they suffer, it is very real.
A thing not talked about alot is being strong internally and emotionally. Sans may not be strong physically, but strength inside, I don't think anyone can beat him. It's depressing just thinking about his circumstances.
I really appreciate the cuts to Papyrus’s final speech in between sans final speech. I don’t ever really see many people talk about papyrus’s speech, maybe I’m looking in the wrong places idk. I do remember when i played this with a friend that killing papyrus broke my heart. His relentless optimism in the face of the most evil son of a bitch made me start weeping. “YOU CAN DO A LITTLE BETTER. EVEN IF YOU DONT THINK SO” Papyrus is honestly one of my favorite fictional characters ever and looking back, i wish i hadn’t killed him. Because it was pointless. I never had a reason to, and he didn’t deserve that.
I subscribe to the belief that Chara is not the problem or your "partner" really but the narrator. That you alone are the one who causes all the destruction with Chara being the one to call you out for it in repeats of the run. Chara even suggesting to you to not do another run and to go for a different run. That everyone turned Chara into a scapegoat.
this is a narrative I follow as well, especially because as they say by the end of a genocide / no mercy run, that it wasn’t their actions nor determination that truly brought them back to life but the player’s. Chara only simply took the opportunity to return and end the world that they presumably have always wanted to do, as hinted by Asriel at the end of the true pacifist run ( ‘ Chara… wasn’t really the greatest person… They seemed to have hated humanity… ‘ ). But even with that, it just seems like a child lashing out against a world that had hurt them ( how or in what way, it isn’t mentioned or clear ).
sure, Chara ends the world, but equally, they’re also the same force that can help pull Asriel out of his self destructive misery since reincarnating as a yellow flower - the same kind of flower that Chara loved so much and ultimately used to end their life with so that Asriel could take their soul and break the barrier.
If it’s not clear, I absolutely adore Chara as a character ( lmao ) and I have a lot of feelings about them, even nearly a decade later.
Deltarune Ch 2’s Snowgrave route completely solidified this for me. Chara, like Noelle, was ultimately manipulated by the player into taking part in such a horrible act.
@@rei_queenkimochii
Plus, Asriel says Chara "Wan't the greatest person" while still caring about them, [Not that they were cartoonishly evil]
Combined with that, and it ɓeing spelt out pretty clearly that they were buried in the flower patch the game starts on, and the naration having several moments that suggest they are Chara's thoughts across the game,
Pretty clear Chara was a deeply flawed complex kid from a broken home, if they even used to have a home.
Well, Chara only really "calls you out for it" in the sense of "what are you still doing here? We beat the game, move on, why are you so attached to it". By the end of it they ARE your partner, whether they started good and got corrupted or not.
But then who's at fault for the encounters we don't initiate by ourselves? Like, through cutscenes?
17:57 - I know that these little cut-ins were because, despite having no love for you in this moment, Sans sees a lot of Papyrus in the player. But, to me, I love these cut ins because statistically... a lot of people quit their Genocide runs *because* of Papyrus. Because his unwavering belief in the inherent good of *all* people made them go "No. Absolutely not. Killing you would *kill* me." So, in my mind, it's Sans trying to be a little bit of Papyrus. To stand in your way and prove his brother right. To prove you *can* be a little better, even if you, even if *Sans* doesn't think so. And I just think that's neat...
oh wait... "You CAN do a little better" > "Because you can, you HAVE TO." > ...You HAVE TO do better ? Could that be a secondary idea ?
cryin in the club rn bc of this
Can Confirm, Papyrus Sparing the player, even knowing that they're not a good person, F*cked me up
When I tired a genocide run, I already knew the entire game story, but when I killed Papyrus I just felt so damn bad that I reseted and remade my pacifist route
Although sans KNOWS about resets, he can’t exactly detect them. He can only see it by facial expressions, not just through pure sense. Asgore is a similar case, who does know about resets as well. Flowey is the only one who can remember due to his extra DT.
yeah, it's awareness of them (Sans and whoever he's affiliated with have some kinda sensors to detect them, and Asgore has likely heard "you've killed me more times than I can count" 6 times before you came along), but not actually remembering them.
@@TwinWulfies no he can just read your face that well, he can even tell if you fell for his "mercy".
But that's also why he can't really tell anymore after 10 deaths
@@TwinWulfies sans doesn't have sensors what the hell are you on about
@@arcticfluffyfoxy "our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting...until suddenly, everything ends. heh heh heh...that's your fault, isn't it?"
if you haven't paid attention to Sans' dialogue in a while, you can just say that.
people don't talk about asgore's awareness enough. it's so tragically dark that the only reason asgore knows about the human's ability to reset after death is because he's had to do it so many times before. he's had to kill the six humans before you countless times each before they all inevitably gave up
"I didn't hear no bell." Is probably one of the most metal things I have ever heard.
Please tell me you knew this was a reference to the movie "Rocky"? Please? I'm only 22 I can't feel this old yet. T_T
@@geekygoggles628 I didn't know the quote was from Rocky, and I'm roughly the same age lol
@@geekygoggles628 sorry I knew the quote from south park
Me: “If I were faced with two hard bosses, it might give me some trouble.”
Toby: “But would you give up?”
Me: “Nah, I’d be determined”
I enojed genocide. Some parts were kinda unsettling but the boss battles and new flavour text make up for it.
was showing my gf undertale for the first time (she knew basically nothing about it before hand besides the fact that sans existed) and she at first played it "normally", killing a bunch of monsters. But it was amazing seeing in real time see someone discover what the game actually was and feeling bad for killing monsters, something me or my friends haven't experienced since the game first came out.
I so wish I went into the game blind, though JackSepticEye’s play through was awesome, I think I would’ve enjoyed it so much more if I played it on my own. Same with deltarune chapter one. I played Omori, hollow knight, and deltarune chapter two blind and it was so sick.
What was her reaction like when she got to omega flowey ?
It was kinda cheesy when sans said: "my brother really wants to see a human... So it would really help me out if you kept pretending to be one" or smth like that, it literally made me laugh instead of being sad
@@Gordonfreemanblckmesa There can be funny moments in the Genocide route as well it doesn’t have to be all serious.
@@TJ-hg6op There's also a bit of dark humour in the genocide route (Mettaton NEO's death)
15:10 I’m glad someone finally talked about Sans being not some mastermind who wants to finally end your spree and instead just trash talks you until you leave, I’m sure another youtuber has talked to it but so many people are under the impression that Sans does it because he believes he can win, but the dialogue really nails in the fact he knows he’s destined to lose and just wants you to stop
He knows its inevitable, he is just trying to delay it ever so much at the hopes of your determination running out.
There is also a misconception of him remembering all your actions like a superpower.
In reality he remembers as much as anyone. Unlike the others however, he's both good at reading people to a point to understand what they are thinking *and* he's apperantly a scientist.
The fight you have with him he mentions how timelines are changing, which shouldnt happen, after our arrival. So he see's a child expertly fight off royal guards, the best of the best, kill absolutely everyone on their way here at the same time as timeline anomalies, He figures something is up.
@@Kronosfobi I agree with this as well, but since tobys dialogue is intentionally ambiguous theres no way to say that confidently because there will always be something.
@@rudrodeepchatterjee If you go through genocide you probably have enough determination to last a life time.
"I dident hear no bell"
holy shit that sounds metal
Never seen South Park?
@@blahthebiste7924 i have just not an avid watcher
"I didn't hear no bell" is a bit where Randy(?) just will not give up even though he's getting brutalized, it's a meme now@@murlocmaster6192
@@blahthebiste7924lmao its not from south park its from rocky. South park ysed it referencing rocky
The meme is from SP though...@@therion8469
"You're gonna have to try a little HARDER THAN THAT"hits so fucking hard like holy
What's saddening is that Undyne and Sans are probably a big part of the reason most people do Genocide routes in Undertale to begin with. It is facing and beating the hardest challenges in the game that motivate a lot of players. There's irony in the fact that in trying their darnest to stop you from killing everyone, they motivated you to kill everyone just to be able to fight them.
If it wasn't for those 2 bosses then you would have to be REALLY messed up to do genocide because you get absoluetly nothing whatsoever from it.
this didnt say anything new, nothing i didnt know already from being an undertale fan, nothing that made me stop and say "damn, i didnt know that"... but it didnt have two, just being able to re-experience the horror that is a no mercy run, through the words of someone else is a terrifying, yet freash experience. i've loved this game since jacksepticeye first made his videos on it, and ive loved all the fan work aswell. so it makes me happy that almost 10 years later is it still being talked about and getting new fans. thank you scott for thi samazing video, about one of the most horrifying optional paths in games
"almost ten years" socked me right in the gut.
Honestly that's all I could've hoped for. My hope for this vid was both to tell new viewers about one of the most infamous playthroughs in gaming, as well as make those who already experienced it feel that same dread and profound depression that they did upon their first playthrough.
I love how if you do geno more than two straight times even Chara starts to get a lil sick of you
man, I did it 8 times consecutively once, getting so efficient with it that I made it to almost sub-2 hours. I challenged myself to do it without healing items the last time and then finally got bored and stopped playing undertale. I was originally going for 10 so... in some morbid way the game eventually succeeded I guess.
@@DZL1 I don't think the game succeeded in your case at all. Yes, you were going for 10 times, but it's as Sans says - for people like you and I (I'll clarify why I'm referencing myself later) each route is less and less important. The more we kill, the more we distance ourselves. Sure, the fact that the game stopped you from going two additional times is a "win" in a way, but... that's still 8 times you slaughtered everyone. Something most people only do once or twice, since there's no benefit whatsoever to do it any more. I don't think the game would see that as a win at all.
I think people like you and I are an... interesting consequence of the Genocide Route. An inverse of its original goal. Yes, the game succeeded in stopping the majority of the runs attempted, but... the people that *did* succeed are the most "determined" ones. Getting bored isn't enough, and neither is frustration. People that went through with it once no longer care about what it has in stock, since... well, it doesn't change, bar Chara's dialogue once. It doesn't matter what they do - repeatedly go through the whole Genocide Route, like you did, or something else, e.g. saving before the Sans fight and resetting after a successful attempt, leaving him in a permanent purgatory of failing at his job, like I do.
Odd, is it not? On surface level, most people have stopped their playthroughs, but there are people doing endless Genocide runs to offset the average. Like speedrunners that don't really care for what the route entails, willing to break the game and try the route over and over again, disregarding the meaning of the Genocide route.
...Ah, went on a bit of rant once more. I suppose username checks out, huh.
@@charadr33murrAnd yet the game still succeeded at what it was REALLY trying to do, deep down, all along...which is to teach you some things about good and evil. You can talk about how lifelike the characters are, how much love was put into them, but in the end, they're characters in a game, a work of art. Playing the game on your own computer won't affect the millions of copies on everyone else's computers and on the distribution servers. But the game taught you--or at least it taught me--about how evil isn't the equal opposite of good, it's a corruption of good. How pure evil isn't rage or fear or even selfishness--it's closer to mind-numbing apathy, ceasing to see good things as good, relentlessly pursuing something that has no love. It lets you experience what being evil is really like in a form that ultimately doesn't hurt anyone in the real world.
@@qufanat whoa... that's really poetic, i'm screenshotting that description of evil-
@@charadr33murrI think it still worked, in a way. Because it sounds like you aren't satisfied. For example, I wad happy and satisfied with Undertale after finishing pacifist. I was very happy with the story and the ending. But after a few months, I got curious about the genocide route and did most of it. Couldn't beat Sans, probably because I couldn't find the motivation like I did with Jevil and Spamton NEO. And it's not because of guilt over the characters, but rather because I realized I wasn't able to accept a good thing was over and that it was time to move on. I did something not because I cared about the art, the story and the character, but because I couldn't let go. That taught me a lesson about letting go imo
I like how you gave Flowey an ACTUAL VOICE, although ABSOLUTELY UNFITTING
And then gave Sans the most fitting voice possible
Have you ever seen the fan project Undertale the Musical? They give all of the characters voices, and I absolutely LOVE their Flowey voice!
@@knockout8157Story of Undertale!
I think it was supposed to be based on Asriels, might not have turned out quite right.
@@knockout8157 the one made by man on the internet?
@@Black_Swan1937 yeah, that one!
Fun thing to consider. [Fallen human], Frisk and _you_, *the player*, are separate entities. And in fact, you, the player, may not have a related character, but you have a name in game.
You are the *Anomaly*.
You are the reason why timelines are jumping left and right, splitting and fusing, until they end.
And yes, don't put the blame on [Fallen human]. Because, what, did [Fallen human] crawl out from your screen with a knife and said "Now partner, play genocide run and I will not commit genocide on your bodily tissues cells"? Nope, *you* did it yourself.
All that [Fallen human] does is makes sure that you remember: *ACTIONS lead to CONSEQUENCES*.
anomaly i remember youre genocides
@@theYeastBoi1332human, I remember your remembers
Welp, I’m going to start calling the thing controlling Kris in deltarune the Anomaly. Thanks, partner.
And it's of note the fallen child bears your name. A mirror to your evil ways, because in the end, they learned from you, as an impressionable child.
They likely didn't understand why you killed everyone they used to love, and made sense of it this way.
You do it to yourself.
You know the game says that the fallen child is named chara. Right?
As Ursula K. Le guin said ”Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the Treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain”. Games making evil routes uninteresting is not a fault of the developer, that’s just how evil is, evil is easy, goodness is infinitely nuanced and complex
Honor and a pleasure getting to voice the funny blue skeleton for such a dope video on one of my favorite games! Thanks for giving me the opportunity. Much love and INCREDIBLE JOB dude! 🤙🏼❤️
The Beige is coming.
SOOOOOOOOOO HYPED WE FINALLY GOT TO OFFICIALLY COLLABORATE ON SMTHN MY MAN, YOU WERE AMAZING!
Also, for anyone wondering, Chris is the one responsible for nearly all of the PHENOMENAL outro music I use on this channel. Check him out! open.spotify.com/artist/3tG8v81C32gJ64ba0WN0N2?si=g-VojpLESbqOWJBfcgeJKw
I loved your voiceover so much! It really gave me the impression of sans just being. a guy. Like he still stumbles on his words a bit, slurs a couple letters, completely on point for a laid back character like him. c:
This is legit
u killed it
i really wish toby had actually not added an ending. like sans' final sttack was actually that. you couldn't manipulate the box, all you were was just stuck there. so that there really was no ending to reach. there was no reward, or you couldn't even say you beat the genocide route, because sans won. he kept even the most determined person stuck.
that would be hilarious and kind of fucked up.
sounds like an april fools kind of deal
I agree with your sentiment, but I think that being able to beat Sans is beneficial to the narrative. Mostly because it shows something very true: evil is never satisfied. We can see it in hateful groups: once they eliminate a target or reach a goal, they quickly grow restless and need to find another one.
Actually,that would make no sense on a Genocide route
Sure,it could stop a curious player and make them quit,but some people will go find other ways to get through. This is evil in nature,it won't stop until there's nothing left,so you cheating your way out against a sleeping Sans is accurate
@@AllenTheAnimator004
You know, now that i think about it...
It would be EVEN MORE meta if you should've ACTUALLY hack the game to truly, COMPLETELY defy the game and destroy it.
It really is fitting, considering there's even an error-handling ending
@@prosto_a_userHow the hell is Toby fox meant to communicate this to the player
They can't just say in a massive text box "open the game files"
“I didn’t hear no bell” soul shatters right after.
Fr😭
14:49 “I didn’t hear no bell” goes so GODAMN HARD
I first did a neutral run years ago when I had virtually no access to internet. Recently I found out about the two alternate routes and started the pacifist run, planning to then do a genocide run. After the pacifist run when Flowey said "do you really want to ruin their happiness?" I found out I couldn't. So I didn't reset, the game just sits on my pc so that they can live on happily ever after.
The single frame of "Human, I remember you're GENOCIDES" killed me, bro istg-
WHERE IS IT
4:13 go on 0:25 speed and spam spacebar every so often@@iamlosingmysanityrapidly
@@iamlosingmysanityrapidly 4:13
@@BlueMerle65 thank you
“That’s the look of someone who’s died twelve times in a row…”
*…And I didn’t hear no bell.*
DAMN BRO HOW DID YOU MAKE THE BEST QUOTE IN THE ENTIRE FANDOM FOR THE OG SANS FIGHT?!?! AWESOME VIDEO, MAN!!!
I love the genocide endings cause they highlight everything. You committed to a route that robbed you of the regular fun of the story and brought you nothing but emptiness and misery.
And no matter what choice you make at the end, Chara makes it clear that even if they aren't a villain, they ARE the only one who can make you own up to your mistakes, and if you won't finish the job, they will do it for you and make sure your actions haunt you for the rest of your days. And that makes redoing the genocide route even more haunting because you did it. You made even the "demon" disgusted by your actions.
That has got to be the PERFECT description for this route
i love how the "it remembered" aka one of the best part about the game is toby's ginormous wall of conditional statement
...Even Flowey's afraid. "Creatures like us won't hesitate to kill eachother if we got in eachother's way. So that's... that's..."
The best thing about the Geno route or just Neutral is that those options exist and anyone who only does True Pacifist knows they exist. You *could* be truly evil, so not being evil feels like a choice. True Pacifist is much harder than Neutral, even if Geno has the hardest individual moments, characters trying really hard to stop you. Your stats going up can only make the game easier, especially if you don't go full Geno. It's not always easy to stalwartly stick to your principles in life and Undertale tries to reflect this. Kinda doesn't work super well if you're really good at bullet hell gameplay, but it wasn't a genre I had mastered so the game's message really hit me hard. I never killed a single monster. I didn't want to, because I didn't have to, and it's refreshing that killing things isn't required in Undertale.
But if I found out later that there were no consequences for being a murder hobo, then the message wouldn't have stuck with me so much after the fact, not to mention the impact on people who chose to play the other routes, as this video goes into. Undertale is a brilliant game.
ive been hoping someone would make this exact video ever since i played the game for the first time back in middle school. You NAILED it, this video is everything i felt back then when I did the genocide route and it encompasses all the reasons that i remember that experience so vividly- the emotional, PERSONAL connection to the game that goes beyond any lore or story, connecting the player to the game in a way ive NEVER seen before or since. its so special and you captured it beautifully
This means the WORLD to me my dude, thank you so much for saying so
I did genocide just to fight sans and never bothered to try and beat him. Overall my genocide experience is something I hardly remember, so it being boring and unfulfilling definitely checks out
20:29, that wasn’t Flowey, he could never kill Asgore on his own let alone do anywhere near that amount of damage, that was your character attacking without your permission, because you’ve become so far gone, that killing becomes a thing that you don’t even need to think about (hence why the mercy option is gone), Flowey only comes in to finish him off when he’s already dead
Or, arguably, to make sure that the threat you became really stayed locked up inside the underground... albeit, Flowey is quite the coward, so I don't carry much hope for this interpretation.
Technically, Flowey IS the one who killed Asgore, but it was completely pointless as all the Player had to do was hit his soul again.
I never actually played undertale (blasphemy, I know), but I watched gameplay footage and the endings. Gameplay from the genocide walkthrough horrified me. It was eerily quiet, as if the game's environment became inhospitable - as if you were a mere parasite in a larger organism. It was the backrooms before I even knew what liminal space horror was. And even more horrifying was the realization that, unlike in horror games, the world wasn't hostile for the hell of it; the atmosphere change was in self-defense. The real monster there, the only thing to fear, is the player. What a masterpiece.
That's what I love about the genocide route. It feels like a separate game entirely. It's a horror game but the horror...is you. Not to mention it gives more lore on sans, flowey, and chara in the game so worth it.
@@shadowboy2818 nah the true HORROR is in the pacifist ending... specificly the true lab.
@@BrodieMurphy-bl9zb id be more afraid of an omnicidal psychopathic murderer than a bunch of amalgamations that are actually friendly tbh...
14:50 “i didn’t hear no bell” jesus that line was cold! 🥶
I legit got shivers after I heard it. Absolutely terrifying if you’re in sans’ position…
The "I didn't hear no bell" got me so hyped for the Sans portion. I never really played a genocide route, so I never knew there was a difference in approaches between The Undying and The Skeleton
15:47 he doesn’t know about everytime you reset he tells by how your expression which is arguably more badass
yeah but he IS aware of them
Undertale teaches you the consenquences of evil, and what it can do to the ones within that world. All the people in that world; people you hated, loved, and those that cared for you but you didn't, are gone with that place. Those are the consenquences of being evil.
on 24:24 he asks us if that is evil or morbid curiosity, as from my experience i can tell that this is entertainment, humans don't do almost all things because they can or they want, it is because they need, for an example if you be stuck into a dark room with nothing for eternity you would still try to do "something" for the purpose of your entertainment, if you do the same thing for a while then you would get bored of it and try "something new" and that is why some people do the genocide route and basically for everything you do in life to achieve something to your entertainment in hope to cure boredom
i wouldn't call that entertainment, because as the guy in the video said, genocide route is not all that fun 90% of the time.. had you REALLY wanted just something to do, you would've left that game and played literally any other RPG.. the fact that you didn't means that you really just wanna see things through until the end, just because you can.. and because you "can", you "have to"
Fitting for how actual evil tends to be. Unless you're a psychopath, most of the time you don't like to do whatever malicious thing you're doing as much as you thought you would, feel guilty, and then go to jail and permanently suffer the consequences of doing something you didn't really even like doing.
As a game developer myself, I find stuff like this fascinating. It's kind of rare the game itself will make it their mission to try and discourage the player actively from proceeding. But the process of how Toby pulled it off is just amazing. Great video!
Im surprised that there wasn't even discussion of Chara's dialogue after you beat the Geno route again, or Flowey's dialogue in New Home before he's afraid of you. Really shows how impressive the Geno run of Undertale is
Fun fact: Apparently, Undertale was originally supposed to delete itself after a completed genocide route, although, Toby had trouble with coding it, thus was Soulless Pacifist born.
I think I actually heard he DID figure out how to code it, but he scrapped it bc it made computers mistake it for malware
An amazing way to experience this video is to pull up a second tab with the Sans fight in it, just to experience everything he’s talking about crystallized right into the fight.
Fun fact: If you and switch room every time you encounter a monster you will encounter very fast cuz every room have a step count that increases every time you encounter a monster but it resets when you go to a new room. =)
F, i hate this fact
23:42 this laugh fucking haunts me
Yeah well imagine hearing it on a blind playthrough
14:40 - 14:50
That is a BADASS comeback to Sans' line!
22:30 has the same vibes as Spartacus "Are you not entertained?!" 😅
Another thing about the sans fight is that he dodges every single attack. He tries to make you think that there is literally nothing you can do to win, he attempts to trick the player into thinking they can’t, cause as he said, you can do it, so you have too.
I've been counting down the days ever since you announced this in your FNaF/Undertale Storytelling video. So damn keen to see this one!
Fr.
When I was around 7 years old I played Undertale and I didn't understand any of the deep or meta stuff but the skeletons were funny so I assumed there would be more funny dialogue if I did another route. I am now cursed to live with my actions. 10/10 game but I wish I understood sooner
Sans got me to end my geno playthrough, but not in the usual way. I'd heard of the playthrough before hand and I was mostly interested in the story and character work, how the underground would react to a human destroying them all and how Flowey had a bigger role. This was a long while after my true pacifist playthrough and I wasn't satisifed with leaving a small goat child to turn back into a horrid plant with his family never even knowing he existed. I had to have more.
Clearing out the first zone was simple, it just took time and being very experienced in video games, I've learned that sometimes you just have hours long grinds so it went by quickly. Toriel was easy too, I'd disconnected from the game, seeing it more as numbers than a world. And I'd killed her once before anyway, so it wasn't anything new. Until it was, the first change. She'd noticed she was harboring a hidious creature and was sad she could not lock it away. The game continues Flowey happy with seeing his old friend, Sans asking us to pretend to be human for his brother. I liked that there was no puzzles on the way to Snowedin, I'd done them twice before and they were no more than busy work now.
The town brough me back in, notes for the monster, the whole place evacuated. Papyrus, still barely understanding what's going on. Still believing in me even as I turned him to dust. It was the first real hit of what I'd came here for, the lore, the story, the character work. Like a psychopath I loved him as I murdered him.
Moving on.
Waterfall was boring, but I made sure to sing with Shyren, just incase something changed. It did, no crowds appeared and instead of selling tickets, Sans watched on from a distance, hooded and cold. I slew my costar at the end of the song, a terrible final act. The lack of puzzles and minigames and funny situations was beginning to be felt, bordom was setting in, but I'd done far worse grinds than this so I powered through. Gerson was a huge plus, I love that old Turtle, and his reason for talking to the monster "To hold you up so more can escape" was brilliant.
Then I hurt monster kid. Just casually, wounding him as I used him as a ladder. And suddenly the bordom was gone, emotion was back. Guilt. I savoured it. Fully disacoiated from teh game and being snapped back in reminded me what was good about Undertale, its powerful use of the medium and its stong messages.
Attacking Monster Kid was easy, I was salivating for the fight I knew lay after.
Undyne was glorious. A true hero risen to slay the monster, showing the strongest and most positive instance of monster held determination. It was hard, but I'd had food stocked up and after a handful of tries, I lucked through an attack I had trouble with and slew the hero. It was everything I had been waiting for, real stimulation not a boring slog I was half aware for. She had made me situp and fight. She melted away as I reveled in the glory.
Hotlands was the greatest grind, from feast to famine once more, but like an old predator, I knew these were but scraps leading up to the next feast. I did the required actions until the number turned to zero. Then I moved on, happy to meet another friendly face. Burgerpants and sadly he's all out of vacation days. I stocked up, each boss had something new and core would be annoying to clear out.
Core was empty. It's mosnter count was linked to hotland and I'd already cleared that out, so it was a long boring walk while constantly being interrupted with but nobody came and the ocasional scriped merc to mix things up. Still easy, still boring. At the end, Mettaton, the human hunting machine. Finally I could see what his human hunting protocols did. Except he gave me the first attack and.... gone. An anti climax. I knew there was still cool fights somewhere, but after learning about undyne on accident I'd avoided spoilers. I was frustrated but even that fed my need to move on.
And then finally sweet sweet rewards again, lore dialogue, story. A hint at the fact Flowey is just like you, his worldview having arisen from doing the very same things you were. Delicious.
The judgment hall had a box and a save. It never had those before. Hyped to be judged, I walked forth to meet Sans. This again made me sing the game's praises. For a little bit. But after 12 death deaths sans had no new dialogue and it took me far more to kill him. 47 deaths later one normal attack barely survived and his special attack started I was sure I was going to die picto seconds into phase three and have to do this all over again. The fight bad been a struggle, the new lore dialogue and info about Sans's character had made it not bad, but the bones on the screen man. Those damned bones. Ready to do this all over again, I figured out the puzzle, swung at sleeing Sans, he dodged of course and began his phase 3 monalogu- another slash. Tons of nines of damage. San's health bar bottoms out and I am filled with the euphoria of victory. Sans says that's that and he's going off to Grillbys. Papyrus, do you want anything? And that shattered my euphoria.
Sans was not a numbers fight, he forced me to fully engage with the game once again, even having lore and jokes inside his fight, a microcosm of the Undertale I'd grown to love and had been denying myself for so long. In that moment I'd not slain a monster or turned a number to zero. I'd not had an epic fight with a lone hero. I'd killed a guy's brother, killed a guy's town and then hurt him so bad he couldn't remember it'd happened or that he'd started hallucinating it all being fine. Sans bled red as he walked off screen, followed by that sound I'd grown so used to, the sound of a monster turning to dust. And I sat there, Undertale's last jab having sent me reeling for breath.
Having forced me to care once again and forced me to see what I'd been doing, what I'd grown numb too. I didn't exist the judgement hall, waiting as I stewed until I came to some kind of resolution. I loaded my save, fought Sans to the fake out spare and spared him. It felt appropriate to give him the win he'd earnt over me and for me to follow his advice and not come back to the genocide run.
I've since completed only one more run of undertale. A true pacifist run where I did everything right, unlike my much more messy first and second times. I reached Asriel, hugged the goat, spoke to him at the start one last time and respected his wishes, to leave him be and remember him has he was then. I have not touched Undertale since, but it has never been far from my thoughts and that particular save file has followed me through 2 more computers. I've been fully spoiled now, I know i stopped right before the end.
I dont mind that, this story was far more personal to me and I really love the character and their world. They fought and beat me at my worst while encouraging me to do my best. There is value in that, and in being not so unhealthily focused on a game that you'll grind through 5 hours of nothing just to skrew yourself over. I dont think I can ever forget Undertale. A good game that is very important to me and that taught me to let go, else I may break what I love in the holding.
a well said story of why undertale is well written
Sounds cool. There's no way in hell I'm reading all of it, though.
i just wanted to say, thank you for creating this video. i followed undertale and its fandom for years and loved how brilliantly written the characters and story was, yet i never watched a full playthrough of the genocide route. this video made me realize how this route truly affects the game (the town going empty, no fun puzzles), and weirdly enough, this was how i found out how you had to trade your soul with chara in order to play undertale again. i love how you emphasized sans' role in wanting to stop the player's run, and how evil the player must be to continue the route despite how boring it is. it's just such a well done video, i'll keep coming back to this for weeks. thank you so much for your hard work!
another random point in your favor is the fact that, in Genocide, you can pick up The Locket and Real Knife (as opposed to the Heart Locket and Worn Dagger in neutral/pacifist). Both items that give 99 in their respective stats... right before the boss that you cannot hit, and that only "deals 1 damage."
i love how you put papyrus flash backs during sans dialogue implying he was thinking about what his brother said while talking to you, my new headcanon
I love how people are FINALLY getting the fact that it wasn’t Chara’s fault it was yours
Where did u come from
@@delta9731 Hi Delta
I mean... It IS her actions, you wouldn't have the choice of a no mercy route without Chara being who she is.
But yes, YOU are the one who made those choices, even if you didn't set the pieces in play.
@@AzureRadiono actually it’s the games code. She is influenced by the games code. You are a player, are not. It is your actions and your fault, not Charas
Sans going eerererrer and breaking out into laughter like Spamton during his fight dialogue in this video was beautiful. This is just the kind of characterization I need here.
14:29 bro really dropped the hardest sans edit and thought we wouldn’t notice?
This part was perfect like chefs kiss ✨👍 14:37
If you haven't checked it out yourself. I would highly recommend Undertale Yellow, a fan game that took 6 years to complete. It's not perfect but I'd love to see you cover how it handles it's genocide route compared to undertale.
The genocide route in undertale yellow is the only time where it has ever been justified, as Clover attempts to deliver what they believe to be "Justice", as they believe they are doing what's right.
That dialogue with Papyrus' death made it sadder than without the death sequence in between the dialogue from sans using his §4"special attack".
(§4 turns your text red in Minecraft.)
If there was an option to just ask Sans for a sparring match, I wouldn't have committed genocide.
Exactly, sans is 100% the most fun boss in the game (however I do enjoy omega flowey)
@@currenswildworld766 Yep, I just want to fight strong shit
Thankfully, there _is_ a way to do that, although not in the game itself....
And it's called the *Bad Time Simulator* :P
13:09 made me laugh so hard XD
seriously so far i am LOVING this it is absolutely incredible. you've iterated it beautifully. playing evil in undertale feels so dirty, so revoltingly hateful. it breaks my heart, and it's hard to even watch. why? well, i couldn't put it into words before now. you've done just that. amazing evaluation. also, this game is very much still alive despite being this old. people are still talking about it, people are still loving it, heck i've worked on an AU story for *eight years* and I'm still going. this game is a true rare diamond amidst a sea of gift shop rocks. this game is truly something special.
This video of yours had what is perhaps the most amazing intro sequence ever made. I was utterly entertained the entire way through.
“The universal tagline for antidepressants”
I think it's also notable how the concept of DETERMINATION in the game is something that applies equally to pacifist / true pacifist runs, and the genocide route, though it's not as directly named in the genocide route. In regular old routes, determination is a bit of flavor text that's meant to encourage you to keep going, and to keep pushing through despite the challenges you may have. You're encouraged to see the mouse get the increasingly ridiculous pieces of cheese, or seeing the different characters do their stuff. The determination is a motivator, which the game happily provides, though you still need to do your part. As for the genocide route, the game actively plays against that by trying to bore you. It's a test of willpower where you see if your mere, personal determination is enough to do things "because you can". And I think that's a really great duality that the game creates, because it truly goes beyond the screen and gets into the player's head
For everyone wondering. Red Dead is mentioned at 24:51 in the form of the high honor icon. Then a few seconds later the low honor icon
your narration and delivery is absolutely perfect
YAY NEW SPACEMAN SCOTT VIDEO YAY!!
Neutral route also remembers your choices every character you kill minor or major has consequences on what future of this world will look like after you complete it.
There's 30 neutral endings and all of each have different consequences depending on who you kill and how many characters you kill.
I believe the 2nd boss fight of the genocide run plays a important part, after the undyne fight providing the player with what looks to be another means of being excited about is meant to disappoint the player in the sense that they just one shot the boss that looked to surpass the other one.
It's meant to disappoint the player and show them that there's no point.
"I didn't hear no bell" that line does hit hard tho ngl ;-;
just me?
"Before you hear the universal tagline for antidepressants".
I had to think about it for a second I haven't continued the video yet but oh my goodness this is genius. First time watching anything on your channel and this (and other offhanded jokes) is almost singlehandedly making me subscribe.
I had to check the description to see if the person who did the Undyne voice was credited because 12:50 actually gave me goodebumps.
That delivery, along with the theme and image choice for Undyne is perfection i literally replayed it like 20 times 😩 i need an undertale show now and Lexi NEEDS to play Undyne
The fun value of this video is a cold, hard, 66.
Sixty sixth like
14:20 and sans has started many genocide runs
12:23 my brother quit on undyne
Her determination won
Monsters lived
When you bring up the point of “The Genocide Route has no reward.” I disagree. The reward is getting to fight Sans and test your skills against the strongest character in the game. Hell, that’s what encouraged ME to play Genocide back in the day.
CLOVER?!?! 20:40
This is one of the best undertale videos I’ve ever seen, like I was genuinely shocked on how good this game is
23:51 IS THAT ENIGMATIC ENCOUNTER
Yep
I've rewarded this video about 6 times now, the presentation presentation is just so good
9:30 this game is brimming with life, until you kill all the living things, who could possibly have foreseen this?
14:42 Why is this such a RAW interaction? XD
*"I didn't hear no bell."*