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00:00:01
S1 Ep6: Undertale
75 Plays8 years ago
Dave and Jake discuss one of their favorites...in the monster infested world underground!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
hello welcome to grill bees can I take your order hey yeah can I grab a number one with a small drink please is that all you're gonna need desire actually could I grab another medium
00:00:54
Speaker
How's it going, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the soapstone. My name is Jake. I am joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave?
00:01:05
Speaker
Well, it's actually terrible. Unrelated though, what are we talking about today,
What makes Undertale a standout game?
00:01:09
Speaker
Jake? Today, we are talking about one of the best games ever made, as considered, by some people. Near... Automata! Oh my god! Near Automata. I love that game. That's good. You're gonna have to. I have no notes prepared for it, because we're talking about Undertale. Oh, that is also a good game.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, Undertale, Undertale's pretty great. And that's my final review, so pick it up and we'll see you next time. But actually, Undertale came out in I believe 2015, made by the prestigious Toby Fox. Yes. Make you live long and prosper. I don't really have much to say about when it came out or how it came out. Yeah. But I figured we could just kind of start jumping into
00:01:55
Speaker
I think the classic thing is it was a good year. It was a good year. Good vintage undertale. Yeah, something like October. We were playing it at the end of the year. Dave, you actually got me into it because this is... I'm going to say there's a category of games where they're so high on your radar. They're so recommended by you that I feel like I have to pick them up.
00:02:18
Speaker
Because on the whole, there's some games you don't like and you're usually more critical about games than I am. Yeah, I'm kind of extreme about it. I'll either be like, I fucking hate this. Or I'll be like, this is the best thing in the world. Everyone needs to appreciate. But people are like, Dave, you're fairly lethargic. So whatever. And then people play it six months later. They're like, hey, have you played this game? Like, yeah, fucking recommend it. That's you. I made that game. What are you talking about?
00:02:45
Speaker
But this is one of those games where having played it off of Dave's recommendation, I was entirely satisfied. I'll save my final thoughts on the game until the end of the podcast, but spoilers. Also spoilers!
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's a little bit too much enthusiasm and love for the game to just speak about it at a very high level and say what aspects about it are good and why you should pick it up. But it is and you should. But I want to go into some of the nitty gritty about why we love it and what makes it such a good game.
Undertale's Gameplay & Mechanics
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those games you do need to play blind, I feel like, to get the full experience. It's really kind of hard now, because Undertale has somewhat of a community. Yeah, subreddits are really a bitch. Yep. But if you haven't been exposed to it yet, and you have any interest in the game, as always, play it first, come back.
00:03:37
Speaker
Will still be here. We will as this is a recording sitting here. We've been dead for many waiting for you You probably discovered this in some rubble of a building that's collapsed after the apocalypse and hopefully there's some bottle caps or something in here you can use along with the holotape, but Judging I'm getting I'm getting the head shake. So I'm gonna move off that line Undertale
00:04:03
Speaker
Basically, the premise is you are a child who fell into this mountain of some sort and are trapped underground where all of these monsters are. This is kind of the trailer premise. This is what you would learn from that. And the selling point is you can deal with the monsters in whichever way you wish.
00:04:23
Speaker
It's Killer Spare is basically the tagline. It's the RPG where you don't have to kill anyone. Yeah. But you could. I believe it was actually marketed that way, like you were saying. And I think it was one of the first, or maybe even the only, I've not done research games where it kind of encourages that. And the marketing for the game doesn't really highlight what the game is. They keep a lot of it under wraps, which we're not going to do again.
00:04:51
Speaker
We're going straight into the content of the game and how meaningful it can be depending on the mindset you're in when you're playing through it.
00:05:06
Speaker
It opens up, it's got this nice kind of theme on the main menu once you actually enter the game. What do you mean by theme? So Undertale has many tracks. It's one of those games that just is up there all time for me for original soundtracks. And they were composed by Toby Fox himself.
00:05:27
Speaker
And they'll repeat some themes throughout different areas in the game. They'll reuse some key. They're called like leotmotifs, which is basically a musical idea. And the main theme for the game is use several points and other songs that come up. And so you get this kind of sense that it's all tied together.
00:05:51
Speaker
but the the game itself is kind of like you can think of it as a like top-down isometric RPG classic thing like an RPG maker type type style but it's very old art style very pixelated yes you essentially have little sprites going across
00:06:10
Speaker
It's not a graphics intensive game which is one of the things that I think adds to its value because it has such great gameplay, story, the soundtrack which you just mentioned all ties it together and it does a fuck ton, a literal metric fuck ton with all of that but without requiring the graphics intensiveness of something like Doom.
Character Interactions & Themes
00:06:34
Speaker
It has really stylized graphics, right? It's like they were going for this kind of like Mother Ness, Earthbound style approach to the graphics. Yeah, definitely. And they sell that in this newer engine that runs really smoothly. And just feels great to play. But as far as the actual gameplay getting in there,
00:06:57
Speaker
That doesn't tell you a whole lot like other than the fact that you fair. We haven't told them a whole lot either. Yeah To start off the game doesn't tell you a whole lot. You've fallen down. You're in this underground and In short order you come across the first the first monster you encounter, right? Colloquially known as goat mom, you know, oh incorrect. Oh
00:07:17
Speaker
I guess you actually first meet Flowey the Flower. That's right. This is your first interaction in the game. And he's speaking to you in a very chipper, happy manner. So like, oh, hey, welcome to the underground. I'm going to show you some friendliness pellets. Try and collect as many as you want.
00:07:34
Speaker
So, one of the key mechanics of the game for character interactions or combat, if you will, you have a little box, and within you have your red heart, which you can move with your WASD or arrow keys. And the friendliness pellets come from outside the box into it.
00:07:53
Speaker
And if you get hit by it, he essentially gets very upset and you see his demeanor change from very happy to borderline demonic. Yes. And then- He has a messed up face, right? Yeah. He's got this evil looking- It starts out as like a very, I could, even myself could draw in an MS paint type happy flower. Kind of like a, like a daisy sort of sunflower looking thing.
00:08:16
Speaker
But then you see that shift and you're like, the fuck is actually going on in this game? Then the character who Jake was just mentioning, Goat Mom, kind of shows up, rescues you.
Meeting Key Characters: Toriel, Flowey, Sans, and Papyrus
00:08:25
Speaker
Her name is Toriel. Yeah, and it's worth noting, Flowey at this point says his outlook on the world is killer be killed, right? He's just like, you idiot. You just walked into my attack. You're so dumb.
00:08:39
Speaker
And just to defend my earlier point, I actually just call flowery goat mom. So I don't agree with the community on some terminology, but uh, yeah, it's at this point you've been introduced to flowery. You see his very jaded view on the world. And then you meet Toriel, who was just.
00:08:59
Speaker
pure, pure nicety, colloquially called goat mom because she's a goat lady and very motherly in nature. And she essentially walks you through the ruins and guides you and teaches you how to solve some of these puzzles. Hold your hand. Yeah. She literally walks you through like traps and stuff like that. Part of the name for Toriel is tutorial, which I didn't realize until later, sadly. I didn't actually realize that until now. And maybe Jake didn't realize until just now. Okay. We're learning. We're learning.
00:09:29
Speaker
No, that's crazy. But she has this super motherly demeanor, even if you're going into this game. And when I'm creating my first character, I named him Murder, and the game called me out. It said, that's a little on the nose, don't you think? And I immediately already knew I was going to enjoy some of this kind of witty retour. I already liked this character. You can't hate her if you have a soul.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, the key thing is having that soul, because I know at least one or two who are not fans of the game, but they have the reasons. They're wrong, but they have the reasons. True, true. Yeah, she guides you through all that, right? You end up, she's kind of telling you about the underground. She's like, you can stay here. She has this nice house. She lets you take a nap, provide you some butter, a slice of butterscotch pie that you can then hold on to. It's there in your inventory.
00:10:26
Speaker
But basically says like hey, you know, you can stay here. I'm sorry, you know, you can't leave there's no way out but You know, I'll take care of you. So here you go. Here's a nice room. It's already like furnished everything looks nice It's not like a creepy vibe type sort of deal that you usually get in a game if you were a kid walking in there Just like we'll adopt you It's all very warm. Yeah, she's very altruistic in nature. Mm-hmm
00:10:53
Speaker
I actually had to tie back a previous episode of the podcast where we were talking about Fury, the angel lady who offers to take care of you. Yeah, the song. Yeah. In the same way, your character wants to progress and get out because you just fell into this foreign place. Right. You want to get back home, basically. And the only way you're going to do that is to go through the ruins, through the monster civilization and out the other side. Right. And as you find out eventually,
00:11:24
Speaker
there's a reason that you can't get out the other side. And there's a reason that Toriel wants you to stay here and it's for your own good. It really is for your own good.
00:11:33
Speaker
So basically you figure out through, um, pushing her a little bit that she doesn't want you to go past this point because as Gore who evil name has essentially killed other kids that have gone through there to essentially take their souls for a later revealed purpose. So she doesn't want to see you become the, sorry, fuck fall to the same end. Jump into my words here. It's okay.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, she doesn't want you to just walk through and die. She doesn't want Asgore, who turns out to be her husband, to kill you too. And there's more going on, like Dave said, we'll get into it.
00:12:22
Speaker
it boils down to you you need to move forward right you've got a you can't just sit here and wait and Live out your life in the house, so I mean you could but the game wouldn't progress and be sitting in your computer forever So you head downstairs head into that basement kind of follow her through she's just like stop following me and She goes up and her plan is to go and actually destroy the exit permanently just let it cave in and
00:12:48
Speaker
Do you mind if I jump into my experience at this point? Sure. Yeah. Okay. All right. So set in the stage. We've played through the game for about an hour. It's very warm. It's very witty and it's humor. The monsters that you encounter and I didn't kill anything at this point. I was avoiding everything. You have the options of attacking or you can talk to them or do other unique interactions where they can check. Let's not fight. Yeah. Yeah. You get some witty kind of dialogues. Yeah.
00:13:18
Speaker
So I've gone through all that Toriel is expecting me to enter her home as essentially a family member and we're at the edge of the ruins and basically you put into a fight with her. She's like hey if you want to get past her you have to actually prove that you're gonna be able to make it out there because I want to just let you go.
00:13:39
Speaker
So you have combat with her. The music for the fight is very somber and her character changes a little bit because usually she's very happy, very warm. But you see her kind of looking past you and the dialogue says that in the fight as well. She's stern. Yeah. And so I'm trying to do every other option I can for like, let's not fight and let's not fight. I like you goat mom. I don't want to do anything to you.
00:14:08
Speaker
And so eventually you find out, you're like, okay, I actually do have to do something, right? So I started attacking her, thinking, because it's explained earlier in the game, certain monsters you can attack low enough, and they'll say like, oh, hey, they don't want to fight anymore, because they don't want to die. Right, right. So I'm like, this seems like my only option. So you're chipping down her health. And like, I'm measuring out how much of her bar it's taking wage time. And then there's another hit that happens.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think if you have her down to like a third or something. Yeah, you essentially just crit and you fucking explode her. It is insane how much damage you do. Now this throws everybody for a loop, but as she's dying and she's saying like, I wish you the best, et cetera, et cetera.
00:14:56
Speaker
I was already at a very emotional point at this point in the game, and at this point in my life. So you walk past her, you go out the other side, and then it doesn't fade to black. It says Undertale by Toby Fox. Now I thought that was the game in its entirety at that point. Like it's just going to some credits. And I was like, holy shit, that short amount of game actually really impacted me. And it's just sucker punched me in the emotional gut.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah. And I also feel a little bit upset for spending $20 on that. But then like shortly after, if I can go a little bit further.
00:15:34
Speaker
You're walking and it's very quiet. There isn't really much music. You're kind of walking through like a dark wooded area. And you're like, oh, this is still some heavy shit. Is this what this game is going to be? And then a dark figure comes up from behind you. And this is like a scroller, right? You're walking from the left to the right. Left to right. And you see something following you. And it kind of like locks your character in. There's like a slow walk up. Yeah. And they put up their hand. It's like, don't you know how to say hello? And you're like, uh.
00:16:03
Speaker
So your character puts out their hand, and you hear... The guy had like a whoopee cushion in his hand, and you're like, what the fuck is this game?
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah. So that's my initial introduction into this, but I was already sold because I was on this emotional roller coaster of such deep lows to the, that actually broke my status entirely. It just really lightened the mood. Yeah. And I think that's, that's one thing this game does really well. Like this leads into the next section that, that, uh, guy you encounter with a whoopee cushion is sans. He's a skeleton that makes some just terrible jokes.
00:16:43
Speaker
and is super lazy and just seems to just take everything in life in stride. He's perfectly fine just being your friend and his brother Papyrus, which you meet not long after. You hide behind a lamp that is shaped exactly like your character model. Yeah, it's called a conveniently shaped lamp.
00:17:06
Speaker
and kind of like start to make your way through you meet more monsters but the game gives you like some time to kind of adjust to what you've been doing right like the impact of the fight with Toriel and make some new friends realize you know hey it's not the rest of the monsters are necessarily bad you know
00:17:29
Speaker
it's not her she's the good one everybody else is terrible it's gonna turn into like a hack and slash yeah as you're going through the town everyone is pretty standard townspeople granted they're monsters they're not human like you and you'll occasionally still have some random encounters from some monsters you'll have to avoid fighting or fight if you choose to right well in between having still these antics with sans and papyrus where papyrus wants to capture you as a human
00:17:56
Speaker
because he wants to hand you into Asgore and get a promotion. He wants to become a member of the Royal Guard. So that's his motivation. Yeah. But he, as the polar ops to his brother is very excitable and motivated and he's always talking in a very loud, I shouldn't say talking. He's beeping. Yeah. All of the quotes, voices in this game, it's the scrolling dialogue, but everyone has their own intonations and similar way to animal crossing.
00:18:26
Speaker
Yeah, and a font. Yeah, so they're all very unique in that way and you pick up on it pretty quick what the archetype is.
00:18:35
Speaker
But as you go into these silly antics with papyrus and sands, you're like, I like these guys. Yeah. They're just a bunch of puns, a bunch of jokes. Super, super friendly. Yeah, it's super difficult to dislike them. And the world kind of opens up. You'll find a town eventually. You'll see their houses. You see the monsters are living down here. This isn't like...
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's all underground, but it is well-developed. They have nice houses. They have a Christmas tree. They have all this stuff. Monsters that you spare show up later in the game. They'll just be at a bar. There's a lot of really the actual design for the characters you encounter. And it feels bad to actually call them monsters, because a lot of them aren't. There's the dog couple. There's Napstablook. There's all of these great characters that
00:19:30
Speaker
you know maybe they'll fight you for one reason or another but they don't really want to or they have some other motivation and if you can figure out what that is you can you know get through the fight without killing them you can kind of defuse the situation and the game doesn't make it a little more difficult if you're playing through that way because you get experience when you fight monsters right so if you get experience you'll get like more max health do more damage stuff like that
00:19:57
Speaker
And if you choose to avoid all of that, you have more characters to keep it going. And the tone of the game stays pretty light. For me, my character, again, named Murderer, I was like, I'm going to be Edgelord. I'm going to go through here. I had killed some characters, and I started to feel pretty bad about it. And the consequences in the game were there.
00:20:22
Speaker
Places just seemed like depopulated. Yeah, and I was just like I just don't feel good about myself And for the dog couple specifically It's one of those unique fights where it you're fighting two of them at the same time. So they technically have
00:20:38
Speaker
They each have their own combat mechanic going across the screen, which are in the form of two giant axes. But if you kill one of them, the other one just looks sad and starts crying and refuses to attack you. I think it's the guy in particular. Because I think the female dog will still fight or something. Is she in rage? I believe so, yeah. But the male dog just wimpers. And he was just like, I am the scum.
Engaging with Monsters & Combat Mechanics
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:02
Speaker
I want to point out at this point, one thing I really like about Undertale is each different monster or boss has unique mechanics. You're still the heart that's trying to move around and avoid things. Kind of like a bullet hell sort of simulator. A soft bullet hell, yeah. But there are either projectiles or objects you have to avoid.
00:21:24
Speaker
Right. And then you take turns. It's a turn-based game. You'll fight whatever you're fighting, avoid their attack, hopefully not take any damage, and then you can make your attack, and it's kind of just a timing attack, like a golf simulator or something like that, where you try to zero in in the middle and make a hit. To do more damage, yeah. Yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker
Or in the case there's some other the other option is spare and sometimes you can spare monsters if they're in like a certain state like you mentioned earlier And other monsters you can just spare outright. You're just like alright. I don't want to fight you. Let's be friends
00:21:55
Speaker
There's one called I think whimsome who just it looks very meek and like very scared like a little fairy. It's like oh shit So you have the option to spare them immediately. Yeah, there's just oh, thank God other ones like I think it's mold small is like it looks like a little gelatin that kind of wiggles around and
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah. And, um, so that you had to flirt with or something. Yeah. You can like flirt with it. It's like, it doesn't understand, but it appreciates the compliment anyway. It's like vibrator or whatever it was. There's lots of weird, unique interactions like that, but really adds personality to each character. I'll say instead of monster. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
00:22:34
Speaker
And like I said, as I was going through the game fighting some of these monsters and characters, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with my own choices, experiencing that cognitive dissonance. So did you stop killing things at that point?
00:22:49
Speaker
I think it took me a while. But eventually- Guilt does not stop Jacob Media. I tried to buckle down and I still regret it. So you were trying to do it out of spite initially? I kind of wanted to see what would happen if I just went all in. Like morbid curiosity. And you know a lot of games, they don't care. They don't care if you kill all the characters. It's just like you're playing an RPG or something like that. Sometimes you can just kill people. You know, just townspeople, whatever. It doesn't matter. Fall out something.
00:23:20
Speaker
Maybe you limit your options a little bit, but it's just part of the game. It doesn't matter that much. This is the game. How you interact with the characters and how you treat them is the point of Undertale.
Undyne, Alphys, and Mettaton: Adding Tension and Humor
00:23:37
Speaker
That's not to say there isn't a story. You progress through the game. You encounter many interesting characters. We mentioned Napstablook.
00:23:44
Speaker
We mentioned Sans Papyrus. You are chased by Undyne at some point as she tries to capture you and take you out. Yeah, she actually is a member of the Royal Guard. Compared to Papyrus who's a... She's like a trainee, right? She's much more menacing than Papyrus. She's in this heavy armor. You kind of see like the glints of her eyes through the helmet and it has this ominous music.
00:24:13
Speaker
and there's a lot of these encounters with her where you're just avoiding attack because she's out for blood trying to get you. Yeah, she throws these like huge blue spears that deal damage to you or cause combat in some instances and in general just run away from her. She's like a little kid, he kind of doesn't understand the situation and is like a really big fan of her and wants to be your friend and
00:24:38
Speaker
It's just like, oh no, you should meet her. It'll be great. And you're just like, yeah, it's not so much kid. Thank you though. And, uh, yeah, it's the, you're just going through here. I mean, and she really kind of introduces the concept of, um, some of the monsters really don't like you, right? Like they're willing to actually take you out. Yeah. Um, to go back real quick.
00:25:03
Speaker
As part of the intro before you fell in, they kind of gave a brief plot synopsis on essentially the humans and the monsters had a war, which had been ongoing for a while. And then at some point, the humans kind of won and pushed them back into the mountain, in which case they went underground. So not everybody has these warm, fuzzy opinions about humans. Right. It's very true.
00:25:25
Speaker
And you encounter some other characters that have pretty big impact on the story too. You encounter Alphys, who's kind of this nerdy. She's kind of reclusive, doesn't know how to deal with you at all. Socially awkward, I think is right to say. 100% socially awkward, like if there was zero on the social scale. Speech zero.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah, just fucking failed. But there's Alphys' robot, Mediton. Mediton. Mediton's a fan favorite. Yeah. I think, uh, introduced in, uh, a singing segment or something like that. Where he's serenading your, what was it?
00:26:04
Speaker
I think when you first encounter him, you're at Alphys' lab, you meet Alphys a little bit, then he kind of pops out of the wall and he's like, hey, I'm here to get human blood. I've come for the human. Combat starts with him, but instead of typical combat where you're avoiding things, he makes it a quiz show.
00:26:24
Speaker
And you have to answer these questions really quickly. And he games it, right? Yeah. So I remember one of the questions was like, uh, it was numerical. Yeah. It's like how many characters are in this or something like that. And then it stretches all across the screen as it keeps rolling around. Yeah. You're just like, Oh my gosh. But if you're paying attention, Alphys will actually use hand signals to kind of give you a clue for which one the right answer is. Yeah. She kind of like cheats in the background, helps you out. She gives you a phone too. That's nice. Those are expensive.
00:26:53
Speaker
yeah but uh but yeah i mean eventually it culminates in this this fight with metaton same deal you know you can spare him or not um depending on your actions
00:27:08
Speaker
And there's a lot of other characters. There's basically a series of bosses you're going through. You go through Muffet who has this spider who has an amazing song. So many of these bosses have really, really great songs that you should go out and listen to the OSD for. And sometimes they have special mechanics.
00:27:26
Speaker
I was gonna say the, uh, for Muffet, it's the lines. Oh yeah, yeah. Where essentially you're on spiderwebs, but it's like three tracks. You can go up or down, but you have to avoid things she's sending down the spiderwebs. Yeah. And then during the encore of the song, the whole screen shifts and you're actually falling down and you have to keep jumping up the webs because she has this pet bug that's coming up from the bottom of the screen trying to eat you.
00:27:49
Speaker
Yeah, they really play with, because you basically have this square as your interactive space when you're in heart form and you're avoiding attacks and things, and the game lets you get used to that, and then it's like, all right, well, we don't care, and then we'll manipulate the shape of your actual playable space. It loves to do that. As soon as you're comfortable, it's like, all right, well, now this extends all the way off to the right and down and up.
00:28:12
Speaker
And now it's elongated in all of this. And the other thing is some of the decision making, the coding, the writing for this game allows you to do really interesting things. You can get some information or items that you can use later. And a good example, that's the Muffet fight. There's a spider product that you can get earlier. It's like spider pie or something like that.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah, you can buy an item from the spider bake sale, which is at the beginning of the ruins before you go into Toriel's house. Yeah, it's really early and it's like a relatively expensive item and you might use it for, I think, healing. But if you get all the way to the Muffet fight and you like use the item in front of her, she's just like, oh,
00:28:55
Speaker
like you've supported you know spider kind or whatever basically and the fight stops you instantly win at that point and you can go through yeah um and otherwise it's like you know relatively difficult boss fight and i just i love when games do stuff like that when they they have all these extra features and ways you can approach the situation undertale is the deus ex i'll cut that don't worry
00:29:26
Speaker
But the way I think it relates to Dark Souls is... Yeah, Undertale Souls-like.
00:29:32
Speaker
It's her favorite line, definitely. But you're continuing through. You're learning about the world, meeting interesting characters. They have a lot of really cool designs. There's, at one point before you enter the area called the Core, there's basically a fast food attendant. And he's not only animated hilariously,
00:29:57
Speaker
he has great dialogue he's just like i literally don't have time for the world to end like i'm on the clock like my manager's gonna fire me all this stuff's going on depending on like uh what's going on outside and he's just he's got great animations there's him with like smoke in or something in one of them and he looks like super super chill and other times he's really stressed out and he's like pulling his face down like i'm so stressed
00:30:24
Speaker
It's really great. I'll have to just get a picture of him, put that as the icon for this one, but this podcast. But he's amazing. There's the Thames and Temmie. Temmie is great and designed by the artist who, you know, is also also goes by that.
00:30:44
Speaker
Right. Yeah, it is telling the artistry. Yeah, I was like, I doubted myself for a second. But all these like ridiculous mechanics, there's a way you can get kind of like infinite money and a play through and a standard play through by getting a, you go to like grasp this like powerful orb or something like that artifact. And then the annoying dog comes up, which is a recurring character, which is there to be annoying.
00:31:10
Speaker
grabs it from you and then puts like dog residue in your inventory which you can then use which fills your inventory with dog residue and then another item called dog salad randomly and every time you use any of the dog residue it fills up your inventory again yeah and you can sell that stuff off to make money in the uh the tem shop or the the item shop yeah
00:31:35
Speaker
And I just I just love stuff like that. The game's got amazing writing. I can't go through all of the jokes
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah. And we don't want to spoil all the jokes either. A lot of it is going through meeting these unique characters, seeing the wit of the game. But I would argue that every character, except for maybe Alphys, I think is really well-designed and funny and unique. And it's not that the design for Alphys is bad. She's meant to be obnoxious, I think. So they succeed.
00:32:07
Speaker
the character does of the role very well yes sold but uh you do progress through the game like you're you're moving area by area if you're fighting monsters and killing them you're getting stronger getting better gear equipment defensive and offensive offensive doesn't matter if you're not killing them obviously but um but you're going through and you can kind of piece together just like
00:32:30
Speaker
a lot of the situation, there's a library at some point, I believe in the town of Snowden, which you can read some books there and it kind of tells you about the perspective of how things are going from the perspective of the monsters. And they see asgore is this righteous
00:32:53
Speaker
leader, a king that's kind of protecting them, giving them hope. You can kind of, you can go through it at a slower pace and you really just appreciate the game. I think a lot more if you do that. And this is usually, I kind of like power through games to a certain extent. Not to say I don't go for completion, I'll complete side quests and stuff. This is kind of a game you can just sit back and play and just enjoy the writing and not skip dialogue. Yeah, it's not a two monitor game. Yeah.
00:33:21
Speaker
Definitely takes your full attention. But regardless, what you do, you end up at the end, right? You end up before Asgore in that throne room.
00:33:33
Speaker
which from Toriel you've heard, and his name always comes up in red text because he's like the final boss, right? They play with that. They like to manipulate the text a little bit, special noun or something, make it in blue or red or something. So you're going with a lot of anticipation, a lot of apprehension.
00:33:52
Speaker
But also, after you finish your fight with Papyrus, he's like, oh, Asgar? Asgore? He's just like a big, fluffy teddy bear. He's like the nicest guy ever. I've met him a couple times. Super comfortable. You're like, that seems a little bit odd. Yeah. And you're not really sure what to expect. But when you finally get to the throne room,
00:34:12
Speaker
There's just all these flowers and he's just like casually watering them, just taking care of his garden. He's like, Oh, hello. Like, hi, how's it going there? You want some tea? I think he does like invite you for tea, right? Make some tea for you.
00:34:25
Speaker
He's very nice and civil, but then when it gets down to brass tacks, he's like, Hey, I really don't want to do this. Yeah. But I need to do this for my people. I need to take your soul so you can break out of the barrier and go back to the top road again, back where we belong, back where we can be free.
00:34:47
Speaker
there's some foreshadowing for it too you can actually go down like underneath like the castle take the south route and see that there's coffins basically lined up like full coffins and then one that's empty like a snap that's for me hop right in there
Confronting Asgore & Final Challenges
00:35:09
Speaker
One of the things I really liked about the Asgore fights, I obviously don't want to detail every single fight, but like we said before, you always have the option to attack. You have the option to use items. You have the option to check and see if you can do a different action, like, oh, what other stats? Or can I not do any dialogue or anything? And then you have the option for Mercy at the right side, which you can either try and run away or you can try and spare them if that's an option.
00:35:37
Speaker
So as soon as the fight starts with Asgore, you see he has this big ass trident. Yeah. You see his face changed to like a visor instead. And then he takes the trident and just fucking destroys your mercy option. Yeah. Literally the button just stabs through it, breaks it. And yeah, no spare in this guy.
00:36:00
Speaker
And yeah, you have to fight your way through there. And it's like, this is your way out. He's guarding this barrier that leads to above ground. And in order to get through him, you're gonna have to beat him. And he's not a very easy boss. Like, he's got amazing music. It's like Bertruck hang or something like that. That's the intro for the actual fight. Right, okay, what was the actual, do you remember the? I don't remember the name of the track, no. No, it's fine.
00:36:28
Speaker
It's all right. You already list the OST so should be here But it's it's a very difficult fight and if you finally kind of like whittle them down You have the option in the end after he's kind of like collapsed. He's like, okay finish like finish me off take my soul like ascend through the barrier and Be free right? He tells you to do that and you can choose to spare him in that or not and
00:36:54
Speaker
But whether you do or not, basically, Flowey comes back. Yeah, either destroys Asgore's soul, if you chose to kill him. Just shatter the soul in the air, basically. Because there's this cool animation where they break apart. And for monsters, they disperse. For humans, they shatter.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, he then fights you as this final monstrous boss form, having claimed the human souls that Asbor was kind of collecting. You being the final one, so he could shatter this barrier, bring all the monsters through. And Flyway takes those souls, basically assimilates them into his being and becomes this monstrous, screen-huge wide beast, basically.
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah, but this is where the art style changes, because there's a lot of just random fucking assets they put in. Yeah, this one made by a different guy. Yeah, this photo shot. He is a true monster, unlike anything you've seen. And his attacks are crazy, and they like sweep off parts of the screen, and there's so many projectiles.
00:38:09
Speaker
but essentially you're going through and Calling help from the other souls which are inside flowey to help you out. Yeah, and he manipulates the game flowey will He has so much power with these human souls because human souls and like the make the the lore here You can figure out some of it in the library. Yeah, they're very powerful. They're more powerful than monster souls They're capable of like holding determination which is something you use throughout the game and
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, we'll touch on that more in a second. Yeah, we'll get back to determination. But with all of this power, Flowey gains the meta ability to save and reload the game at will. So he'll put you in situations where you basically are going to be hit by an attack, and then just save, and you'll die to the attack, then he'll just reload, and you'll die to the attack, and he uses save states, literally. And even if he doesn't instantly kill you with him,
00:39:06
Speaker
Some of his attacks, he'll like dodge an attack, then he'll reload before he dodged the attack. And you'll have to move really quickly to avoid the new one. And it's just absolutely crazy, metagame nonsense, and I love it. Sorry, that's my input, I'm flat. No, it is definitely a good fight. I don't want to necessarily spoil everything of that portion.
00:39:33
Speaker
But to touch a little more on determination, which Jake mentioned, throughout the game, you have these little save points, which are detailed by little flashing yellow stars. You have the option to save your game there. And it says something about your area, like, oh, the rustling of the leaves fills you with determination, which you think is just a phrasing initially. And they do it throughout the game, like, oh, the hope that the one day the mouse will come out of its hole to get the cheese fills you with determination.
00:40:01
Speaker
So you keep seeing this come up a lot, but you think it's just... All caps determination. Yeah, you think it's just a thing that the game's trying to encourage. And if you ever fail in the game and die to a monster or boss fight, it says don't worry, character, stay determined. Yeah, it takes you back to your save point.
00:40:22
Speaker
And later on in the game, you find out that determination is something that you have as a human to keep persisting on, keep persisting through death. Essentially, it explains how you are able to reload saves, how you are able to do certain things. You can basically shape reality in a limited sense. You can restore reality to a previous point just through force of will.
00:40:46
Speaker
So it's discovered later on around this point that Flowey also has determination and Flowey has been around for a really long ass time. And with his jaded view of the world wants to assume that power of the souls and as Gore's soul to essentially break out from the underground and kill all humans and everything.
00:41:09
Speaker
Yeah, not a great guy. No, not super redeemable. But like you said, you managed to beat him in the end thanks to calling out to the souls contained within Flowey and basically have them turn against him. He loses the ability to utilize them. They heal you up a bit in some of the combat phases.
00:41:34
Speaker
um and uh you finally get to the point where you're like all right you beat him he's like oh no how are you doing this oh that's all crazy like you're not supposed to be able to do this and he just loads a save and resets and he's just like no though you don't actually have power here i control this game yeah but finally after resisting death all these times the uh the souls of the humans surround flowey and
00:42:02
Speaker
refuse his ability to manipulate them
Themes of Choice & Replayability
00:42:06
Speaker
basically. So he loses the ability to reload saves, he can't use their determination, and they defeat him, depower him, and you finally have the option to either kill him or spare him.
00:42:20
Speaker
Which is pretty much the theme of the entire game. Right. Killer Spare. Exactly. You've come up to this point. What have you learned from your actions and experiences? Are you going to take out the baddie or are you going to show him some mercy? Are we the baddies? The recurring thing. But that choice comes down to you, dear listener, if you play the game.
00:42:44
Speaker
That's basically we Dave and I had discussed on the side whether we wanted to go further as far as spoilers But I think we'd rather leave it up to you guys to check out If you want to do a full passiveness run or if you want to do a full genocide run Each one's gonna give you a little more insight into the overarching plots of the game get a little more lore and
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah, we basically explained some but not all of the events of the neutral route, which is a necessary start to the game. The next playthrough is where you can go either full genocide pacifist or continue neutral again. And the game does track.
00:43:27
Speaker
certain things are maintained and recorded so it knows what you've done in the past. And I think that's great. It makes replaying the game feel really awesome.
00:43:44
Speaker
I always love meta features like that in games. Undertale is one of the original ones. I've played some other games, I've done some meta stuff, you know, like Doki Doki or Pony Island, other things like that. Anything that actually involves game files, I think for you is a big, big win. I'm just like, oh boy, busting out the hex code again.
00:44:03
Speaker
But so usually this is where I say that the game is great. The game is not great. The game is excellent. Undertale is a contender for one of my favorite games. Period. Yeah, that's it. Jake's not going to out of all time. Just throw out time and space. Possibly just my favorite game.
00:44:19
Speaker
To add on to what Jake's saying, I obviously share this sentiment for the people who actually know me, which probably the only people who are listening. I have an Undertale tattoo on my left arm, which says, stay determined. And then it has a little heart and underneath it has Undyne's spear. So that's for me and my depression and own issues. But it's also symbolic of just paying homage to the game.
00:44:42
Speaker
I cannot express enough how little justice I am doing the game in this podcast. It really does mean a lot to me and Jake. And it has so much good content. It doesn't even, you don't even need to wait for it to be on sale. It's such a cheap game. Or reach out to me, I might just buy it for you. Yeah. I bought like three cafes or something. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry about the game. And every time like I have people who are over and they,
00:45:11
Speaker
They don't have a drink in their hand. I'm like, hey, you should come check out this, uh, this game. And I do force it upon people, but because I love it so much and I want people to experience it on their own. Yeah. You guys haven't been able to track this because I mean, of course I've cut it out. They've broken to tears at least five times over the course of this podcast. All right. I'll cut that too. Don't worry.
00:45:33
Speaker
But yeah, we welcome you to come join the fandom, check out the game, check out the soundtrack, check out the remixes, check out people's fan posts and fan art. Don't do that now. Well, stay off of certain fan sites for sure. But a lot of cool things out there, and we hope you guys check it out. Yeah, for sure. And thank you for listening to another episode of The Soapstone, and we will see you guys in the next one. Bye.