Wowzers. The places this game goes. I went the pacifist route myself, largely because it seemed the most off-beat but also because I've written before a few times about how intrigued I am by a tenable no-kills run in any given game that offers the opportunity, especially as most tend to present their antagonists as irredeemable monsters that need to be killed before you can progress. In fact, Undertale itself does this with Flowey, who comes back a few times after the Ruins. He's adamant that you will have to kill someone eventually, whether it's to save your own skin, to save someone else you care about or because they might meet another entity like him who neither deserves nor desires mercy.

I want to focus on this aspect in particular, because it's an element I've seen actively addressed only a scant few times before now. Addressed, in the sense that many games can be beaten without taking a single life, but generally won't acknowledge a no-kill run in-game. Stealth games are the usual culprit regarding game-recognized pacifist runs, with achievements for Deus Ex: Human Revolution (though the entirely unnecessary bosses still need to be killed), Dishonored and various Metal Gear Solid games where the option to simply evade or knock out every foe is a feasible alternative. The optional superboss in Yakuza 3, which I recently beat, puts protagonist Kazuma Kiryu between a rock and a hard place with this dilemma: either kill him in battle, or watch as Kazuma's every loved one is murdered by the vengeful assassin, as his clan of highly-trained killers does not distinguish between defeat and death. Despite the danger, Kazuma is adamant that this assassin will not turn him into a killer, and promises to non-fatally defeat him as many times as it takes.

But take something like the scenario-based Live a Live - an obscure-ish Squaresoft Super Famicom RPG that Undertale tacitly references with some of its music which, if nothing else, suggests that its developer Toby Fox is fully aware of Live a Live - and its Ninja chapter in particular. The idea of the Oboro scenario is to assassinate the daimyo of a castle, making your way past the various traps and defenses and guards between you and your target. As a ninja, you can choose to elude most of them through concealment and silent movement. The game will actually reward you handsomely for two particular outcomes: killing zero of the castle's inhabitants before reaching the boss, or killing all of them. It's very easy to accrue a kill count that lies somewhere between no-one and everyone, and so you have to learn how the various secrets behind how the castle's occupants operate in order to hit either of those extremes. For instance, keeping a certain person alive so that another one can come out of hiding some time later to thank you for your leniency, allowing you to then murder them both. Or choosing to completely avoid useful item chests because it would mean triggering unskippable battles. While this scenario is only a few hours long, as the game has eight separate scenarios in total to split its runtime between, it offers multiple routes for the player to take in subsequent playthroughs. It's where I perceive Undertale's particular strain of rewarding absolute morality or absolute amorality to have been derived.

The characterization in this game is fantastic. Every character has a one-note goofy personality defect that factors into determining the method to defeat them in combat that doesn't actually involve butchering them, but after their defeat the game lets you dig deeper into their backstories, develops them more fully as characters and usually provides an optional task to help them out, which often ends with you befriending them. Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, Asgore and even minor foes like Napstablook, Doggo or Muffet have special attacks that are germane to their characters (another example of the game's excellent combat system doubling as a narrative tool) and will persist beyond one-dimensional foes if your choices allow it. You could simply murder them all and keep moving too. The game won't assume you know anything about anyone unless you've taken the time to get to know them, going backwards along the game's semi-linear route to encounter them again in their homes after the relevant battles have been fought. The very concept of the lore-optional game, in which a game's designers acknowledges that not every player is going to care about the story, the setting or the characters to actively go out of their way to seek out more information on them, is one that must be fairly distressing for authors who are fully committed to the universes they create. (It's probably also damning of the value of video game narratives in general and the expected average engagement level of its audience. "If the gameplay's good, that's all that matters," is a sentiment I've often espoused, though occasionally with some regret if the game failed to deliver on the narrative front. But maybe how we're conditioned to not expect anything from a game's story, and how so many of them are reheated movie cliches that aren't even worth the button press needed to skip them, is an article for another time.)

I could honestly talk about this game for hours and I'm not sure that's healthy. The game is what it is, and I think players are expected to walk away with their own interpretations based on how much of the game's content they saw and be content, so it perhaps doesn't require pages of additional loquacious rambling. It has some very clever touches, but those touches become less clever the more you elaborate and expand them, losing their punch through overanalysis. Sort of like how you can ruin a joke by explaining it. While I'd love to talk about some of the end-game stuff, especially as the danger level ratchets up and bosses start destroying/appropriating key elements of the UI even, it's all better left in the "oh shit" moment. I believe Austin said something similar in his own scrutiny of the game, and I'm inclined to agree with him.

It was a fun journey, Undertale, and I hope to play many more games like you in the future.