How ‘Undertale’ Subverts Expectations
Near the start of Undertale, after hugging its motherly figure goodbye, a small child takes a lonely walk through a dark forest. A haunting wind blows through the area. A camera is hidden in the bushes, watching the child’s every move. A tough-looking tree branch suddenly snaps, creating a startling sound. As the child approaches a short bridge, a shadowy figure approaches behind it. The figure asks the child to turn around and shake its hand. As the child reaches out for the hand, the sound of flatulence breaks the tension. The old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. It’s always funny.
Undertale is a masterclass of subverting expectations. Consistently throughout the entire experience, Undertale creates scenarios that are both hilarious and unexpected. This begins with its core gameplay mechanics – in addition to the normal turn-based RPG options, there is an Act command that offers unique ways to interact with each monster in the game. These monsters are thus treated not as fodder, but as characters with distinct personalities, where the goal is to figure out what makes them want to stop fighting (‘sparing’) as opposed to killing them outright. In a way, Undertale is part puzzle game.
Take the lowly Froggit, one of the first random encounters in the game. Using the Act command to check on it reveals that life is difficult for this enemy. It doesn’t know why it is here, and doesn’t understand much of anything. And yet, it has natural instincts to hop at foes and to run away when at low health. It corresponds to how it’s interacted with – complimenting it will make it flattered, and threatening it will leave it scared. Both methods will leave it reluctant to fight, turning its name yellow and thus can be spared. We as players know why Froggit is here: its purpose in life is to act as a tutorial.
The available equipment is uniquely woven into the gameplay as well. The human child starts with a stick and a bandage, but can find the gear of all of the past humans who happened to wander into the underground. One such set includes a ‘cloudy glasses’ and a ‘torn notebook’, items that increase the number of invulnerability frames after getting hit by an attack. Not being able to see attacks from the cloudy glasses makes the blinking last longer, a brilliant marriage of gameplay and narrative.
Expectations are shattered at the introduction of the first character in the game. Flowey the flower greets the human child, offering to explain how the game works. He introduces the bullet hell-like combat system, where the player moves around their ‘soul’ around a small box. Already different from normal turn-based combat, the player is invited to collect what he calls ‘friendliness pellets’. Instead, these are actual bullets, nearly killing the human. According to Flowey, in this world, it’s kill or be killed – but even this expectation is dropped when Flowey is promptly removed from the picture by the motherly goat, Toriel. Undertale then transitions smoothly into the early tutorials.
As early as the first boss fight, another curveball is thrown at the player. Toriel only wants the best for the human, blocking the way to the rest of the underground. However, the Act command doesn’t help at all – Toriel is steadfast in her decision, talking won’t get her to back down. She doesn’t actually want to fight, though. If the human gets low enough on health, she will aim her attacks away from the player, making it almost impossible to actually die during the fight. The only way to get her to stop is determination – standing there long enough for her to give up.
Throughout the path to Snowdin, the human is constantly interrupted by the antics of an eager Papyrus and his brother Sans. Rather than provide any immediate threat, they are content to confound the player with interesting puzzles, each of which subverts expectations in their own way. The electricity maze sounds complicated, but a mistake on Papyrus’ part gives away the solution. A word search lazily thrown on the ground seems like it might be time-consuming, but isn’t actually blocking anything and isn’t actually solvable in the first place. When the expectation that every puzzle is doing to be a non-puzzle sets in, suddenly there is a set of legitimate tile puzzles to change every X into an O.
Early on in the Snowdin Forest, without any prior warning, a dog named Doggo notices the human walk by and gets in the way. He mentions in passing that he can only see moving objects, waving a blue spear during combat. Thus, with no prior tutorial, the player is taught to stand still to avoid blue attacks. Throughout the rest of the expedition into Snowdin, there are constant references to blue attacks, ingraining it into the player’s mind. When an enthusiastic Papyrus later challenges the human, he leads off with his fabled ‘blue attack’ – which instead of requiring no movement, turns the player blue, changing the previous bullet hell combat into a platformer.
By the end of the Waterfall area, the player knows how the game works. Either a set of Act commands done in a specific order or hitting the spare button enough times will get past any encounter. That is, until Undyne shows up. Her presence lingers throughout the entirety of Waterfall, and when her fight begins, she immediately makes a statement by changing combat into a rhythm game of sorts. Worse yet, she is the most stubborn opponent thus far – she won’t give up no matter how long combat lasts. For the first time, the only option to de-escalate a fight is to flee.
Immediately upon entering Hotland, the stage is set for ridiculous shenanigans. The first encounter with the entertaining Mettaton results in a quiz show. The craziness continues throughout the rest of Hotland, including a cooking segment, news reporting, and a musical number. Mettaton shows that nothing is off the table when it comes to Undertale, and ends with a glamorous showdown all in the name of ratings. Every Mettaton segment is completely out of left field compared to the rest of the game, and they’re all pulled off spectacularly.
Things suddenly take a more solemn turn upon reaching New Home. Several monsters reappear to tell the story of the king’s children and how they both died in a single night. This is backed by perhaps the most beautiful song in the game, fittingly titled ‘Undertale’. The human is greeted once again by Sans, who then explains the deeper meaning behind the mechanics. EXP is short for Execution Points, quantifying how easy it is for someone to bring harm to another, and LV stands for Level of Violence. A perfect adaptation of the standard experience system that fits the world of Undertale. Sans acts as a reminder of the journey the player took to get here – Undertale is so full of quirky characters that it deserves to be fondly remembered.
The human finally meets with Asgore, the reigning king of the underground. First seen watering his flowers, Asgore meets the human’s gaze with a sorrowful expression. Despite both the player and Asgore not wanting to fight, they must, to determine the future of both monsters and humans. Asgore starts off the fight by destroying the Mercy button – an act that leaves any pacifist bewildered on how one can peacefully get Asgore to stand down. In yet another twist, this is impossible – Asgore must be slain.
And yet, that’s not the end. Flowey makes a surprise return, finishing off Asgore and closing the game itself. Upon reopening it, the player is greeted with a glitchy opening cinematic and a Flowey save file. Defying expectations to the end, Undertale finishes with a climactic showdown against a strange combination of plant parts. More than any other in Undertale, Flowey’s fight is unique, consisting of oddities such as mid-battle saves, a lack of a command menu, and the whole screen being the battle arena as opposed to a small box.
If the player chooses to spare Flowey, he offers some advice on how to get a better ending. To reach this, the player must first spend some quality time getting to know each of the main characters of the game. This grants access to the True Lab, a creepy area filled with strange amalgamations of monsters present in the game. This sudden change of atmosphere from a semi-cheerful game to horror is purposely unsettling. A distorted soundtrack sets the mood perfectly for the horror setting. Additionally, this area gives some insight into the dark backstory of Undertale: the desire for freedom drove some characters to unorthodox methods, and how the first fallen child was not as innocent as it may have first appeared.
In a final twist, Flowey turns out to be the king’s long-lost son, Asriel, frustrated that he can’t feel any emotions. This is an interesting final opponent, considering how the rest of Undertale is focused so much on making the player feel emotions about every character and setting. The last fight isn’t even possible to lose, as every time the player character dies, they come back to life immediately. This isn’t a battle to be free. Instead, this is a battle to free everyone else the player has grown to love over the course of the game.
And thus, Undertale comes to a close. Asriel temporarily comes to his senses and is able to free everyone from the underground, and everyone gets a happy ending. But is the player satisfied with this outcome? Flowey gives one last message about how everyone is happy, and begs the player to leave the game alone. The options presented may prove too enticing, however, prompting a full restart to see what else Undertale has to offer.
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