Okay, I’m about to completely go off on Undertale in this random comment section and I don’t really expect sympathy about this but I have to talk about it.
Undertale is a great game. I respect it as a work of art and I respect how popular it is, and I think the story is genuinely interesting underneath the three layers of meta knowledge that hides the actual story from the player.
But dear God does it have some trash game design in some places.
I didn’t personally get too far in to Undertale because I managed to make a “bad” decision right off the bat without even knowing about it. I was at the beginning of the game where Toriel tries to stop you from leaving. I knew going in that this was a game that was going to judge you on your choices, and that you don’t want to kill unnecessarily. So I really didn’t want to fight her.
Tried to just leave, this does nothing, she just jumps you again when you talk to her again.
Tried to talk to her, over and over again. She just kept repeating her dialogue. Clearly this wasn’t getting anywhere after like the 8th time I tried it.
Had no items to use with the Item command.
So, I knifed her. Seemed like that’s clearly what she wanted, nothing else was doing anything, and she kept egging me to prove I could fight.
This was, apparently, the wrong move. The correct answer, in case you’re wondering, was to continue to talk to her and have her repeat her dialogue 11 times in a row, and then she’ll finally give up and let you pass without violence. You’re expected to know this, or figure this out, with exactly zero player guidance. Even something so simple as having unique dialogue for each of those 11 times would have signposted the intended result. But no, you’re just expected to bang your head against an option that is showing no signs of productivity whatsoever, until it eventually works.
Remember this is the very first combat in the game. I could forgive this later in the game once the player is more familiar with what they’re actually able to accomplish in “combat”. But this first encounter is designed specifically to prey on a new player’s expectations coming from other RPGs and will make you “ruin” your entire first playthrough before you even have the opportunity to know that you’re doing so.
Or maybe I’m just the idiot, because when I complained to my friends that I had to give Toriel a lil stabby to progress, they all looked at me like I had just curb stomped a puppy.
Well, not exactly. Keep in mind that Undertale was never supposed to get as popular as it did. The player isn’t really supposed to know about how to get the ““true”” endings from the get go, or that they exist.
spoilers for Undertale, in case anyone cares
Undertale is designed to naturally guide you through all 3 routes - Neutral, Pacifist, then (optionally) Genocide.
This is why some of the sparing mechanics can be so obtuse, especially with Toriel, who you don’t hear about until the Asgore fight when you’re like “oh damn I killed his wife”. There’s even a Froggit NPC in the Ruins who says you can spare enemies at low health, which could trick you into trying that with Toriel - doing so doesn’t work as your last hit does a lot of damage.
The game wants you to earn some EXP to increase LOVE until you learn what the acronyms mean.
If you spared Flowey at the end of a Neutral run, he comes back and tells you he won’t kill Asgore if you can get there without killing anyone, basically telling you how to do the Pacifist route.
Then, when you re-fight Toriel after killing her once, the Talk option explicitly mentions that you’ve killed her, and hints that you can “show mercy without running away”, making it easier to do a Pacifist run on your second go.
Characters will also mention feelings of deja vu on a second playthrough - Toriel has “a feeling” about your pie choice and Papyrus thinks you look familiar. And you won’t have to re-fight Omega Flowey.
Of course, it’s possible to figure out all the spare mechanics on your first try, which is why fighting Omega Flowey once and seeing the Pacifist phonecall is mandatory to unlock the final sidequest needed for True Pacifist.
And if you happen to boot the game up again after the True Pacifist ending, Flowey tells you that you’re the only threat left, with the power to reset everything, hinting at Genocide.
There’s some extra wrinkles, like how you can just reload your save if you killed Toriel and try again (which Flowey calls you out for), or how doing Genocide first changes things, but I think this was the main intended path - to do a run before you know you’ll be judged, then decide if you wanna be nice or evil with that in mind.
TL;DR: Get it twisted, you’re meant to kill Toriel once.
Okay, I’m about to completely go off on Undertale in this random comment section and I don’t really expect sympathy about this but I have to talk about it.
Undertale is a great game. I respect it as a work of art and I respect how popular it is, and I think the story is genuinely interesting underneath the three layers of meta knowledge that hides the actual story from the player.
But dear God does it have some trash game design in some places.
I didn’t personally get too far in to Undertale because I managed to make a “bad” decision right off the bat without even knowing about it. I was at the beginning of the game where Toriel tries to stop you from leaving. I knew going in that this was a game that was going to judge you on your choices, and that you don’t want to kill unnecessarily. So I really didn’t want to fight her.
Tried to just leave, this does nothing, she just jumps you again when you talk to her again.
Tried to talk to her, over and over again. She just kept repeating her dialogue. Clearly this wasn’t getting anywhere after like the 8th time I tried it.
Had no items to use with the Item command.
So, I knifed her. Seemed like that’s clearly what she wanted, nothing else was doing anything, and she kept egging me to prove I could fight.
This was, apparently, the wrong move. The correct answer, in case you’re wondering, was to continue to talk to her and have her repeat her dialogue 11 times in a row, and then she’ll finally give up and let you pass without violence. You’re expected to know this, or figure this out, with exactly zero player guidance. Even something so simple as having unique dialogue for each of those 11 times would have signposted the intended result. But no, you’re just expected to bang your head against an option that is showing no signs of productivity whatsoever, until it eventually works.
Remember this is the very first combat in the game. I could forgive this later in the game once the player is more familiar with what they’re actually able to accomplish in “combat”. But this first encounter is designed specifically to prey on a new player’s expectations coming from other RPGs and will make you “ruin” your entire first playthrough before you even have the opportunity to know that you’re doing so.
Or maybe I’m just the idiot, because when I complained to my friends that I had to give Toriel a lil stabby to progress, they all looked at me like I had just curb stomped a puppy.
Well, not exactly. Keep in mind that Undertale was never supposed to get as popular as it did. The player isn’t really supposed to know about how to get the ““true”” endings from the get go, or that they exist.
spoilers for Undertale, in case anyone cares
Undertale is designed to naturally guide you through all 3 routes - Neutral, Pacifist, then (optionally) Genocide.
This is why some of the sparing mechanics can be so obtuse, especially with Toriel, who you don’t hear about until the Asgore fight when you’re like “oh damn I killed his wife”. There’s even a Froggit NPC in the Ruins who says you can spare enemies at low health, which could trick you into trying that with Toriel - doing so doesn’t work as your last hit does a lot of damage.
The game wants you to earn some EXP to increase LOVE until you learn what the acronyms mean.
If you spared Flowey at the end of a Neutral run, he comes back and tells you he won’t kill Asgore if you can get there without killing anyone, basically telling you how to do the Pacifist route.
Then, when you re-fight Toriel after killing her once, the Talk option explicitly mentions that you’ve killed her, and hints that you can “show mercy without running away”, making it easier to do a Pacifist run on your second go.
Characters will also mention feelings of deja vu on a second playthrough - Toriel has “a feeling” about your pie choice and Papyrus thinks you look familiar. And you won’t have to re-fight Omega Flowey.
Of course, it’s possible to figure out all the spare mechanics on your first try, which is why fighting Omega Flowey once and seeing the Pacifist phonecall is mandatory to unlock the final sidequest needed for True Pacifist.
And if you happen to boot the game up again after the True Pacifist ending, Flowey tells you that you’re the only threat left, with the power to reset everything, hinting at Genocide.
There’s some extra wrinkles, like how you can just reload your save if you killed Toriel and try again (which Flowey calls you out for), or how doing Genocide first changes things, but I think this was the main intended path - to do a run before you know you’ll be judged, then decide if you wanna be nice or evil with that in mind.
TL;DR: Get it twisted, you’re meant to kill Toriel once.
Toriel deserved to be stabbed because she beat up a child. I’m not sorry.