Toby Fox's Undertale is currently the darling of the internet, streamed by countless Youtube streamers and invading tumblr blog rolls since its release on Sept 15, 2015.
And why shouldn't it be? This homage to classic JRPGs like Earthbound is full of quirky charm that makes it instantly likeable and a depth belying its simple style. It's aesthetic is retro, but has modern mechanics to make sure that you never feel idle. All around a killer soundtrack with the best 16-bit tunes this side of Final Fantasy VI.
It also has one of the most novel concepts in recent gaming history: you don't have to kill anyone. It is that conceit that flies in the face of RPG conventions. After all, who doesn't have fond (or not so fond) memories of killing their way through random enemies to gain enough power to beat particularly tough boss?
But, the ability to spare enemies that makes Undertale one of the most unique games in recent memory.
The ability to, mind you.
Not that you have to spare your enemies but that you can.
*CAUTION: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR UNDERTALE AND STEPHEN KING'S THE DARK TOWER BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED*
And its in relation to the choice of mercy or murder that the game draws most of its depth. It's a short game, especially for a JRPG. Depending on which characters you kill or spare affects the events in the game and ultimately, the ending. Ending requirements roughly break down as follows:
Pacifist - Do not kill anyone. At all. Plus some other stuff.
Neutral - Kill any combination of creatures and bosses, but not all of them. This ending has the most variations.
Genocide - Kill everyone and everything. Leave no stone unturned and no monsters unstabbed. Kill all the bosses and kill random encounters in every area until they stop coming.
What really makes things interesting is that the game remembers everything, across multiple playthroughs, and certain events will trigger dialogues hinting that the some characters know about the multi-timeline nature of the game.
In fact, short of reading a walkthrough, getting the Pacifist ending is impossible, with most first time players getting a variation of the Neutral ending. At the end of the Neutral ending, however, you receive hints on how to get the Pacifist ending.
The order usually goes: Neutral -> Pacifist -> Genocide. While Genocide has no requirements and can be pursued as a first ending, it is highly recommended that you save it for last (or indeed, not at all) as getting it while irrevocably change the game for future playthroughs.
Assuming that the player beats the game once and then again to get the Pacifist ending, you are left only with either variations of the Neutral ending or the Genocide ending.
Or you could stop.
You have your happy ending after all. Everyone is on their way to an ideal future, the player character included. A character even warns you that you are the biggest threat in the world, since you have the ability to reset everything.
But you can go through with it, knowing that you will everyone's happiness.
It's not enough. You have to know what the other endings hold. Eventually (or immediately), you find yourself in a Genocide run. After all, you've heard stories, right? Of epic boss battles not available in other routes.Of background information only available on this run.
You just have to know.
One of the things that makes Undertale so brilliant and how it highlights the nature of choice and the consequences of those choices. You chose to start everything over and to kill everything in sight. After a Genocide run, the game tells you "You think you are above consequences". It knows you're not. You know you're not. Not even in this game world.
Starting a new game requires you to trade your soul to the entity at the end of the Genocide run and doing so corrupts your save file. Your next playthrough is changed in subtle ways to let you know that you are not you anymore and when you try to fix everything, try to give everyone their happy ending, you cannot. All because of your curiosity.
A similar case can be found in the Dark Tower books by Stephen King. In the last book, Roland makes it to his goal, the titular Dark Tower. As he stands at the final door, the story goes to his last surviving companion, Susannah.
She finds herself in a place where all her friends are alive and she has a perfect life, where she can move on and finally be happy.
It is here that Stephen King, as himself, directly tells you to stop reading. That everyone is happy and that turning the page will only make things worse. He also acknowledges, with a hint if irony, that he knows you'll turn the page anyway.
Similarly, the last (and toughest) boss in Undertale's Genocide run ruminates on the nature of the player and how you keep going no matter what, because that's just how you are. And you wont stop until you reach the end, no matter how many lives you ruin.
Because you just have to know.
And so you turn the page. And Roland makes his way to the top of the tower, every room a moment in his life and at the very top a door. He opens and has time for a brief moment of horror before he finds himself at the beginning of the first book.
Both The Dark Tower and Undertale do something amazing. They make the consumer complicit. It is not the fault of the story that you kept going, but your own. Even though the prospect of forbidden knowledge is strong, you could have still stopped.
But, it's all so tempting, isn't it?
And you have to wonder...
"Since when were you the one in control?"
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| Photo from http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1023712-undertale |
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