Undertale - Determined to be a Cult Classic

[Dracos]

So Undertale is a thing.  An indie game title that's mostly Toby Fox (musician for homestruck) that was kickstarted in 2013 as a traditional role-playing game where nobody gets hurt.  This is a terrible lie in every way.  It is an interesting interactive media experience.  An art game in perhaps the truest sense of the word, crafted with diligent intent throughout.  One might feel reminiscent of Cave Story, or Iji, or Earthbound, or perhaps even Portal.  All games that had interesting levels of symbolism and artistic story telling that helped take their game to a different level beyond just the mechanics.

Frankly though, the comparison isn't quite right.  For all those, you could strip off the artistic coating and beneath it is still a good game.  Undertale is art or stupid memes all the way down.  Even reducing down to the battles, you still get a game that is pounding its story at you, insisting that your play is part of its presentation piece to you.  There might really just be tiny flashes of danmaku that'd be all that's left.  The purpose that drives it pretty much never steps back from beginning to end and let's you just... play with it.  Undertale is a game that lacks safe play, as it is judging as part of the interactive medium at all times that's aiming to hit you in the heart, and hey, sometimes does a good job of it.  They at least got me writing a fair bit about them.

Also, that judge, Toby Fox, is a dick.  Seriously, shared opinion by almost everyone I've talked to that's gone through it so far.  Don't get me wrong, amazing game as art in many ways, and if you're into that sort of thing, absolutely worth checking out.  But the game does not invite you to experience it in your own way at any point in the process.  The flexibility (and there is a fair bit) that it offers is simply an expression of how the enormously heavy handed messages get played out.  You have a choice of a handful of roles in the game experience and damned if the game is going to let you step out of them.  That sometimes leads to pretty neat moments, silent steps of horror, violent acts of murder, etc.  But if you step out of line, the game is invariably there with a hammer to let you know it.  Especially if you decide to try out a different role.  Game has no problem about throwing the concept of playing it twice as a horrible thing in your face.

It's... difficult to discuss the story in any way that is not horrifically spoiling.  The way it's built doesn't lend itself to it.  If you discuss the superficial take, you basically do the entire thing a veritable disservice and provide an enormously misleading take on what's going on.  I think I shall discuss it, but it's going to be wrapped in spoiler tags.  It's at the end.

What about the rest of it?

Well, the music is rather nice, not quite Cave Story level of chiptrack style music, but it stands out.  Some of the top ones kinda are really.  Pretty talented music throughout, especially for some of the dragging long battles.  Decent soundwork throughout adding a nice atmosphere to the scenes.

The...art was actually pretty bad.  I get what they were going for, and while it seems a bit Earthboundy, it feels disjoint in a way Earthbound didn't.  Perhaps it is the lack of any real consistency in the town scenes or the cast itself, but it felt more the exception than the rule that the art was effectively delivering the scene.  Don't get me wrong, liked the flower, and some the scenes, but a lot of the overall setup felt slapped together and inconsistent.  It didn't feel like I was roaming in a connected world with characters that were part of a single setting so much as a hodgepodge of random saturday morning cartoon characters, complete with memes.  There was almost nothing in the way of consistent races in monsterland, and it basically ended up feeling tossed together.

It's definitely worth pointing out that the Shopkeepers have quite a bit of dialogue options (moreso than most other characters in the game), which as a place that almost every character pretty much needs to go was a pretty nice touch.  Just a nice bit of dialogue discussing the world and their view on characters and such.  Some them actually have almost as much dialogue as the main cast.

It actively plays with the fourth wall in sometimes very amusing or clever ways, which are hard to discuss without spoiling scenes.

Some folks mention that everyone who plays Undertale, even if they enjoy it, have a different rough spot that rubs them the wrong way.  Even though it is a pretty incredible art piece, I think this kind of misrepresents it.  Undertale has a lot of spots that aren't quite there and those are part of why despite its artistic strength it has trouble elevating to something that more.

The inconsistency of the art and the characters is a big one.  At no point could I picture the society as anything more than a cartoon setting, positioned to do nothing but communicate the story being told.  Almost everyone was farcical.  Some characters were memes or 'here's my buddy as a doggy!'.  The powerful narrative largely involving terrible or nonsensical people was definitely a rough spot.  Almost none of the main cast lives in something resembling their reality.  At its worse, its like if Donald Duck just went "Tee-hee, I'm sorry I carved off all Goofy's skin" and then everyone shrugged and went on their way.

Overall, the paths were overlarge and walking was slow and a drag on the experience.  To encounter a lot of storyline points just involved a lot of slow walking.  Heck, one of the big reveals involves having to walk through the entire game twice.  What in the world made that kind of stalling a good idea?  Want to appreciate the environment and the story?  Get ready to do a lot of walking to get between things.  It also made walking through the last two larger areas a whole lot of fun.  There are some teleport points and backtracking shortcuts throughout the game, but it doesn't change that there's just a lot of empty walking space.

The final boss has so much scripted stuff and communicates getting beaten into the ground so effectively that I didn't actually even realize it was a lose-able encounter until someone told me they lost several times, so I beat it without even realizing that my terrible play actually had a chance to lose.  If you actually lose, the boss counts off your defeats.  The bosses in general are beaten by Wait Outs (down any route they don't die instantly), which basically means that the entire set of options that they provide to you on the screen to interact are invalid.  You could replace them with Heal and Wait and it'd be functionally identical to the way the battles end up playing out.  Fight, which is punished, is literally the only option they give you to shorten battles.

Are you psychic or reading a faq or Really Just That Good at Danmaku?  Then expect to die plenty of times trying to do the pacifist final level and playing guesswork among the options to figure out what nonsense reality monster C is looking for (Options A, C, D, B, C, G in that order, followed by Spare of course), while repeating relatively bothersome short danmaku events.  I pretty much had to treat each encounter there as a boss, complete with wandering back to a heal point as I finished them nearly dead.

Bosses down one route are basically instant so you're not even playing with them, while down another route they're timed events more than really reacting to your choices.  You wait them out so they can show you their 'gameplay' rather than interactively having much choice.  Basically, the less you play with the combat, the more the combat is shoved in your face to interact with.

The game has a lot of semi-romantic bits, but really they come across more as checking 'here's a game with modern romanic sensibiilities' box.  Here's a dino and shark, they're both girls and in love!  Oh, and these two burly guards?  They're really gay and in love!  They go all in with it for a full spectrum of monster sexuality and relationships and end up with a number of romantic bits by the end, so really it's somewhat unfair to ding it for it, but the first one had me going "Okay, nice box checking in the totally safe way saturday morning cartoon way." and it was an impression that didn't quite leave throughout.

The game insists on certain points being accented with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face, going with heavy handed and just straight out awkward word remappings (like LOVE). The game basically bullies you about trying the other role, treating the fourth wall as just a device to lecture you on how you should only play once.

So there, a handful of obvious rough spots that damage the overall feel and flow of the game.  I think the overall atmosphere smooths over some of these, but I think they do hit people in the back of the head and are part of why people walk away not just appreciating the art but finding the developer smug, or the experience slow.

Anyhow, neat if you're interested in artsy efforts, but also really obnoxious at the same time and not really leaving much playspace that isn't their story.  As a game that has both a genocide and pacifist mode, I think it is fair to compare it along to Iji that has the same and I think Iji stands easily as the better delivery of it.  For Iji, you are alone and weaponized in a world of aliens that want to kill you.  The choice not to kill or to kill excessively is an entirely personal one, a reflection of the character you're playing and the game reacts to it well, but not judgementally.  It is not voiced as wrong to shoot the things that are shooting you or right to not shoot them.  It is an exploration of what ethos one might continue with as a normal person with a gun in a desperate situation.  For Undertale, there is always judgement, and it is absolutely recognized as the wrong thing to do to attack and kill, even if they are entirely trying to do so to you.  The game has a lot of 'neutral' endings where it discusses what happens when some people die, and it range from mediocre to very bad for everyone involved, and as a minor spoiler, forces you to have at least one monster dead on your first run no matter what, so you always will see the misery killing people causes no matter what.  I don't think this makes it better, just heavy handed.  It's a world where it is not much of a personal choice any more than we'd consider going out and stabbing our neighbors to death to be one.  Yes, you can do it, but beyond your own ethical reflection, the world has an enormous number of penalties for someone who does and Undertale is the same way.  So it's like going "Oh, you didn't reach into the murder jar that we hit you with a hammer every time you reach in?  Isn't that an interesting pacifist choice?"  No, it's just not really desiring being hit with the hammer.  The fact that the game has the very first character you meet preaching about kill or be killed to try and color the situation doesn't change the fact that if you play by that even a little, the game world tries to hit you with a giant guilt trip about it.

So yeah, I prefer the experience that doesn't go: "This guy was swinging an axe at your face, but you killing him?  That was out of line!"

Spoilers below here, click only if you want the story ruined.  This is a discussion of the story and where it goes and basically a critique of how it was put together.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Okay, this is a heavy handed tale of basically horrible situations and people, playing around a bit with a how do you react to a suggested kill or be killed world.  We've got the monsters, sealed away and forgotten behind a mountain.  A mountain where children are semi-regularly committing suicide off of, and being found by the monsters, who then kill them.  Long ago, <Playername> committed suicide on this mountain.  They were found by the Asriel, son of King Asgore and Queen Toriel of the monsters.  Being a soft-hearted bunny, he brought the injured <Playername> back and they were a loving family.  They all loved planting flowers, though <Playername> missed the flowers from their home.

King Toriel had his best scientist Alphys working very hard to find a way to save them from being trapped all underground. She experiments with human Determination on dead monsters, turning them into horrific fused amalgations that are then hidden away.  The scientist continues to make terrible things underground while hiding them all.

<Playername> though was full of hate and pain from the world above, and after learning about things, decided on their path...

They would commit suicide after bullying Asriel to take their soul, then as a fused human/monster, they'd break through the barrier and murder everyone in their town to get back at them.  So they do so, but Asriel decides he really doesn't want to murder everyone, even though they attack him seeing him holding a child's bloody corpse and that hurts so much.  So he forces them back where they die in the flowers, having brought a few from the upper world.

King and Queen Toriel are very sad at this.  The Soft-hearted king decides that they need to get out, but doesn't really want to kill things so instead says humans that fall down there should be killed and have their souls taken.  Being that these are almost entirely suicidal children, Toriel finds this monsterous and divorces him, heading off.  Alphys continues her work, trying to find a way break the barrier, and experiments with the flower brought back by Asriel, reviving Asriel as the soulless monster Flowey, who has learned the meaning of kill or be killed while losing his tie to other people by being revived as a soulless flower.  He has weird powers because Reasons.  San also exists, and has timelord powers, for no apparent reason other than to provide someone to make judgements on your play.

Later on, the child Frisk commits suicide and lands in the bed of flowers where they buried <Playername>.  Under a couple of the routes, you are posessed by <playername>, who then either murders their way out, or as a soulless monster (who for some reason has a soul), befriend everyone, to get outside, so you can in turn, murder everyone.

Pausing here a sec, basically, the game is super mean here if you play with your own name, casting you invariably as a suicidal psychopath who had a terrible life and decided to give your pain to everyone using godlike powers.  That even after death, you personally came back to start killing people.  Some take this as a parable on anti-completionist...  Me, that just seemed one of their on the nose jerk moves.  I used someone else's name as a random whim, so I got to hear the game go on about them being a terrible monster who should never live.  And no, you don't get credit for playing good, because if you play good, it is all Frisk, the wonderchild who was responsible.  The game in other words sets it so that your presence in the game is solely a statement of being a monster, because otherwise you'd leave these poor innocent people (who are suicidal or psychopathic or committing crimes against nature) alone.  Yeah, fuck you too.

On arrival, Flowey possibly beats you half to death and explains kill or be killed, or you dodge him and don't hear the spiel and he just tries to murder you, and then Toriel procedes to mother you aggressively and then strand you in the middle of nowhere so she can 'surprise' you later with a butterscotch pie.  Here the game begins basically having random encounters of creatures that attack you, which it makes you more evil as you fight back.  If you fight enough encounters stop, and bosses become one hit events as you're painted as the Real Monster willing to kill anything that approaches you.  These monsters will never run or plead.  At best, some do nothing, but basically almost all of them are literally playing as RPG monsters who attack you immediately without any sign of remorse.  But yes, you are the real monster by attacking back.  With very rare exceptions (Napstablock) do they even slow their attacks down before you convince them to stop fighting entirely.  The game fails from beginning to end at interacting with the player on a communication level, but instead relies on the player forcibly pushing an aggressively pacifist world-view in spite of a world literally trying to murder a small child.

Eventually, you force Toriel to let you go on and experience the world of monsters, supposedly gripping to the hope that they will be able to go topside and kill all humans (several of them say this in towns).  This is the group of people who you are supposed to feel all beat up about killing.  They are organized into surprisingly thriving towns, which seem to lack...misery really.  Generally, they seem to be living in well structured communities that entirely counter the point that these folks are relying on the hope that they will escape.  There is no sign of lack, or people huddled in the streets suffering or whatnot.  Basically, it communicates that they've actually built a fairly livable kingdom underground with enough food and time for them to build gigantic tech labs and things like that.  They've got tv, internet, bars, libraries, etc.  This is to communicate that you are a terrible monster attacking normal people if you play the game violently... but entirely damages the notion communicated throughout that these people are desperate and relying on the king's word that killing one more human would set them free.

The people are also enormously stupid as a rule.  The average intelligence levels shown by Toriel or Asgore set them as mental giants in the grand scheme of the monsters.  So these folks, which are living in reasonable towns with internet, tv, camraderie, plenty to eat, and apparently no need to really work with a beloved king, who are by and large functionally retarded are all desperate for the hope of getting out.  And removing that hope will condemn them all to tremendous misery.

Yeah, I really didn't buy that and found that whole thing very heavy handed.  The narrative doesn't match the memes, use of modern tech, several complete towns, and just the fact that many of the characters you talk with literally aren't aware enough of the world around them to be more than miserable that their favorite ball is in another room.  Yes, they can make you feel guilty about hitting children or retarded people, but when they try and then loop that they're some hopeless terrible situation it strikes as decisively false.

Some are really bought into the king's story though and come to murder you.  Papyrus spends a chunk of the game attacking you like a poor mental cripple (which he is), followed being your friend and yet not effectively doing anything to reduce the violence heading your way.  Undyne stalks you for pretty much 1/4th of the game, throwing spears and trying to murder you.  Again, the game hits you with a narrative hammer of guilt if you kill her.  The fact that you might have entered the fight having befriended almost everybody she's ever met has no bearing as she will aggressively try and kill you and there is no ability to have any conversation with her, instead having simply to tire her out to the point of collapse.  She too, doesn't do anything to reduce the violence heading your way.

In fact, no matter who you befriend or how many people you befriend in the game, it does not in any way reduce the latter number of people who decide to attack you.  While the game reacts aggressively to any violence dealt by it, and does provide 'friendship' side stories for characters befriended, basically the game is unwilling to go the other direction and have the non-main character cast reacting to your being pacifist.  This really is a big part of why I consider it heavy handed.  Kill the monsters that attack you in the field and towns will be empty and terrified.  Befriend them or just kill some of them and there won't be any real notice.  Continue befriending all the way to the last minute and outside of timelord San, nobody even notices, random mooks will continue to leap out at you, and bosses will continue to do boss fights.

Eventually, at the end of the neutral (forced first time) route, you're put up against the big softy Asgore, who sadly but firmly insists he must kill you to free everyone and has a group of coffins from previous dead kids (including <Playername> who's coffin is empty).  Suddenly, you are given a fight where you do not get a choice to do anything but battle normally, and while there are some helpful ways to make it easier, it is pretty obnoxious if you've been doing all pacifist so far and for all the designer went for 'Look, Epic, No Choice, Must Fight' I actually found it kind of a cop-out, in that no matter what you learn about asgore, the game basically reduces to kill or be killed to pitch its artistic concept, rather than having a talk it out mode with the desperate and sad king.  This gets followed by Flowey which is just a pure danmaku bit with no RPG stuff going on at all anymore.

Well, that was long.  Think I pretty much communicated why I felt it's both incredible...and a flawed piece of art.  Definitely is art though, that can't really be contested, so really as a rare thing among the thousands of games, deserving of praise there.  But really, you might want to spoil yourself and ignore the heavy handed plot punches the designer insists you take as chained participent in his story.

Or take the game's real advice: And leave it alone entirely. :P

[Kaldrak]

So yeah, I prefer the experience that doesn't go: "This guy was swinging an axe at your face, but you killing him?  That was out of line!"

So the morality in the game is completely defined by the game devs and any attempt to deviate from their narrow minded viewpoint results in them telling you what a terrible horrible person you are? Yeah, I might pass up on this one. There are enough self righteous people in real life, methinks.

Would you say it's worth ten bucks or strictly a sale buy if you find it interesting?

[Dracos]

If you're not interested in funding artistic self-indulgence... watch a video, really.  It's pretty dark though.

[Anastasia]

I've heard a lot of hype about this game. Drac, you're the first reviewer who doesn't sound like you fell in love with the game.

[Dracos]

Heh, yeah.  It was built down the line to be a cult hit, and buoyed by the creator having a pre-existing fanclub.

Don't get me wrong, it's impressive art, but really I think a lot of folks are appreciating it on a "You've done something rare, so the craft of what you did is unimportant, thanks for making me think on stuff!  You hit me!"

I think a lot of reviewers are playing it once down its best arc and frankly not doing anyone any service by "I cannot think of any flaw" (random grab off metacritic critic reviews).  And a lot of folks hating it are hating because its a cult hit. 

I think it is art which could use improvement and frankly was a bit mean-spirited.  Would anyone really complain if the boss battles actually allowed you to solve them by using actions and talking through?

It's a good piece of art, and one I frankly am not convinced is better to play than to watch given how strict the behavior is, but I can see it resonating with lots of folks.  It got me to discuss it on a fairly deep level, so props to it for that.

Random 100 score quote:
"To get a different ending, I wasn't required to spend hours collecting hidden trophies or struggling against a frustrating bonus boss." - such a lie, what game were they playing?  Undertale had not one, but TWO of those.  I died like a dozen times getting my way past one of 'em.

Yeah, frankly, not saying my way is some simple truth of how it is...  but a lot of the reviews I've now looked at are frankly, full of shit about it.

[Kaldrak]

I've heard a lot of hype about this game. Drac, you're the first reviewer who doesn't sound like you fell in love with the game.

Drac is the lone voice in the wilderness. :)

[VySaika]

I agree with...parts of Drac's review, but hardly all of it. My own take on the game is that I enjoyed it but kind of want to punch the dev in the dick for being a smug jerk? I couldn't give the game a rating, though. It would be like plaid/10, it defies standard numerical ratings for me. The game absolutely does some things that basically tells perfectionists or completionists to go fuck themselves, which are some of the issues that grate on me a bit(perfectionist) and I'm very sure are part of the issues Drac(completionist) has.

Was it worth the price of entry? Absolutely, just to understand the memes cropping up from it and to get into the discussions of game design it sparks alone. Also because some of the characters are pretty great. The game is at it's best when being silly and at its worst when going into mood whiplash(I don't like being emotionally manipulated, part of why I avoid the horror genre as a whole). Also if you expect consequences of things to follow normal logic, you're gonna have a bad time. For my part, I'm glad I bought it and played it. I do not experience passive entertainment the same way I do active, watching videos of the game would not give me the same information or experience as playing it(even if the video did literally everything the same).

It has been suggested to me(as a response from someone I linked this review to) that they don't really think the various random encounters are actually trying to kill you. It's more like bullet patterns are just A Thing in monster world, but they happen to be highly hazardous to humans. This supported by a book in the Librarby that mentions "humans will never know the glories of a bullet pattern birthday card" or something along those lines. So only a few of the monsters(mostly the bosses) actually know that they are really trying to kill you with what they're doing, and not just saying hi with some friendly danmaku. But it's just a theory, not word of god on that, so take it as you will. It...seems to make sense to me, though that doesn't negate the point that the bosses you make friends with should really have tried to help you a bit more.

But, as I said, if you expect logic to work normally in monsterworld you're gonna have a bad time. The game flat refuses to be internally consistant about things because it WANTS to go for the emotional gut punch. It wants you to not take it seriously and just have fun with the silly characters right up until it wants you to take it VERY seriously because it wants you to become invested in these characters and see them as more than just a game. But don't look too closely under the hood of things, because it's just a game~ But not really. Until it is. Basically whichever is more convenient for the game at the moment. :V

If you're willing to buy into that and experience the game the way it wants you to experience it, willing to laugh at the silly and get choked up at the serious, you'll have a fantastic time. I wasn't entirely, but I didn't really try going off the rails or insisting on interpreting the game my own way either, so I had a :undefined: time. If you want games to just let you do your thing however you want and not pass judgement and not remember everything you've done...this is not the right game for you.

[Dracos]

In oddness, I didn't do anything past a perfect pacifist run, in part as I really had no interest in the other stuff.

I also, died in only two places...  Papyrus and ObviousPacifistRunSpoiler...

So the variety of clever (and I am of the understanding they are quite clever), failure and 'rememberence' things the game had, I never encountered at all.  Only know of them by wikis, videos, and chatter :)

Interesting thought, Gate.  Don't think I saw that book (thought I'd clicked on the whole library but then the town was big and oft unencouraging on poking things in it).  I think that does fall over though with things like "We see character holding axe, danmaku pattern is giant axe swinging at you" or "Here's my spear, same thing", but it is an interesting world suggestion.

[Arakawa]

* Arakawa appears in search of Undertale fanfiction!

[ACT > SHOW Ao3]

* Arakawa beholds tags such as 'skelepreg' and 'fontcest'.

* Arakawa has had his vocabulary expanded in unpleasant ways!

* Arakawa has temporarily lost the urge to fanfiction.

[MERCY > SPARE]

* You won! You earned 0 EXP and 0 GOLD.

_{This comic was cute though.}

[Arakawa]

There is now a sequel. Or "Chapter 1" of a sequel, which is still at least half the length of Undertale. Unfortunately, it seems like most of Drac's criticisms of the original apply to this one as well. There is promise of further chapters which may geniously subvert the first one, but the sequel is pretty big and stands alone and can be discussed in a self-contained manner.

The big 'difference' is that whereas the earlier game had multiple paths this one telegraphs very explicitly the idea that this is a 'standard' linear RPG where the ending is fixed in advance and you play through to the end of the story. This idea is presented as though being inherently creepy.

Spoil-everything discussion:

Spoiler: ShowHide

In this story you are Kris, yet another Deadpan Human Kid going to school in Undertale: High School AU World where there's Adorkable School Bully. Kris and Adorkable School Bully fall through a supply closet into Narnia Wonderland the Dark World, a pocket universe that seems to have grown out of some toys in an abandoned part of the school. Dark World is a pretty transparent metaphor for a video game reality that you and School Bully are 'playing' within. You meet up with an anagram of your older brother Asriel, whose Dark World version is a White Mage who explicitly admits to ruling an empty kingdom and having spent his 'entire life' waiting for you to show up so he can give a tutorial and join your party i.e. he has no meaningful existence outside the plot for the game ('The Prophecy'). He also explicitly recommends for you to play Pacifist.

You go through a Great Door into the next classroom which is populated with Darkner monsters based off toys and game pieces. These are still in the Undertale mold of having single-digit IQs and usually continuing to throw danmaku at you even after you've befriended them. School Bully plays as the metaphorical Undertale player who starts out killing monsters then gets emotionally invested in the plight of Recurring Comedy Villain and switches to Pacifist, which makes her grow into a better person. You play as *shrug* and beat and/or befriend your way through all the game-piece monsters to get to the King of Spades, who is angry at the Lightners for abandoning them and wants revenge.

There are sort-of two endings depending on whether you befriend the monsters along the way who will ally with you to overthrow the King and lock him in jail, or whether you play faux-genocide and beat up the monsters. In the latter ending you get chased out of town after putting the King into a temporary slumber because the other monsters form an implied lynch mob to go after the violent threat to their kingdom. Your choice has obvious permanent repercussions for the Darkner world and its politics and seems to contradict the stated 'single ending' premise of the RPG but that's consistent if the game-within-a-game Darkner reality does not affect the Lightner reality. The School Bully still befriends Recurring Comedic Villain and undergoes the same character development in faux-genocide, and so everything in the Lightner world remains the same.

The metaphor is dripped over everything that Lightners are video game creators/players, Darkners are video game characters. The Darkners either resent the Lightners' influence over their world (the King), explicitly revere them (White Mage who tells Recurring Comedic Villain 'our purpose is to assist the lightners'), regard them with jaded superstition (the button-eyed shopkeeper), or have gone into full-on Lovecraftian madness about their own ontological status as video game characters (the hidden bonus boss). The motivations mostly make sense in this light, and there is less of the "they did terrible things because the plot demanded it" that plagued the first game's story.

After leaving the Dark World there's an ending sequence when you walk around the town full of Undertale characters who say you're acting weird, then Kris goes to bed and rips out the 'heart' which represents your control over the game, which I guess is meant to make the player feel creeped out at the idea of having been 'controlling' someone who's their own person and might be completely different.

So deap! What will it all mean!

Thus far it seems to mean the same thing: at bottom, very nice video game art wrapped around a slightly mean spirited but edgy idea that people who play video games should feel bad because they're playing God with an imaginary universe.

I remain open to further installments that might add depth. Or at least deapth.

[Dracos]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  Ignored it since 'chapter 1'/preview and all that.