This review contains spoilers
After 7 years of being one of my favourite games, I think I finally found a thesis for my thoughts on Undertale. Since I don't really feel like writing a full essay or anything, and don't have much to say on level design or artwork or boss design, I'll summarise it here:
Undertale is an examination of LOVE - although on a broader scale, I think the game focuses on 'empathy' itself. Not just in terms of endearing players to its lovable characters, and asking them to forgive the unforgivable so that the world can move past vicious cycles; those themes are primarily relegated to the Pacifist, which I still adore for its passionate spirit, wonderful humour and touching story about "Determination". No, Undertale is fundamentally criticising the way its audience's empathy can become divorced from the way they play games. In most Neutral routes, the game calls uncomfortable attention to the accumulating impact of taking a life - producing unique interactions with Flowey, and culminating in the many variations of the player's call with Sans.
In the Genocide route, generally taken as the player's final route for completion sake, Toby Fox reveals his entire metatextual hand with a superb flourish. Encounters become a chore, the game's mechanics and characters resisting your impossible determination to butcher Toby's story, and in the final moments the player loses control of their character as they disregard, and murder, every element of the world. As the game repeats in the Genocide route (e.g. Snowman), everything has become useless to you. It's a haunting challenge to the idea of completionism, made even more potent by this route's recontextualisation of Flowey, the hateful villain of Undertale, as a literal mirror of what the player has become. Uncaring about the story, and devoid of 'empathy' or LOVE.
Undertale is an examination of LOVE - although on a broader scale, I think the game focuses on 'empathy' itself. Not just in terms of endearing players to its lovable characters, and asking them to forgive the unforgivable so that the world can move past vicious cycles; those themes are primarily relegated to the Pacifist, which I still adore for its passionate spirit, wonderful humour and touching story about "Determination". No, Undertale is fundamentally criticising the way its audience's empathy can become divorced from the way they play games. In most Neutral routes, the game calls uncomfortable attention to the accumulating impact of taking a life - producing unique interactions with Flowey, and culminating in the many variations of the player's call with Sans.
In the Genocide route, generally taken as the player's final route for completion sake, Toby Fox reveals his entire metatextual hand with a superb flourish. Encounters become a chore, the game's mechanics and characters resisting your impossible determination to butcher Toby's story, and in the final moments the player loses control of their character as they disregard, and murder, every element of the world. As the game repeats in the Genocide route (e.g. Snowman), everything has become useless to you. It's a haunting challenge to the idea of completionism, made even more potent by this route's recontextualisation of Flowey, the hateful villain of Undertale, as a literal mirror of what the player has become. Uncaring about the story, and devoid of 'empathy' or LOVE.