this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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Trying to give Undertale a second chance (last time I got like... idk, 3/4 of the way through? and couldn't finish it).
Currently on the verge of giving up again because there's a part with the kind of game design that is so bizarrely player-unfriendly, it feels more like the developer is playing a practical joke on the player than anything else.
Explanation / vent in spoilers:
spoiler
There's somebody you gotta fight and if you're going pacifist route (where you befriend / avoid hurting anyone), you have two options with this fight. Either survive for 17 rounds of attacks (which is more than it sounds like if 'bullet hell' mechanics are not your strong point) or... and this is where it actually gets under my skin... there's a particular item you can buy early on in the game and give it to them. But you can also use this item as a consumable to heal along the way (which I did) or never buy it (which could also easily happen). So you are essentially punished for not working out something extremely obscure. On top of that, the ideology of this game has yet to make any sense to me. The "pacifist" route just seems to be a "self sacrificing against all good sense" route. The lore tries to justify how hostile so many are toward you, but the mortal threats to you means you should fight your way out if you have any sense, out of self-defense (which is considered the "genocide" route, if I'm not mistaken???). I'm vaguely aware there's supposed to be some extra layer to it and how it's designed, but it's hard to get past the identity and ideology of the game. Bullet hell is not fun to me and I don't understand what I'm supposed to be proving by trying to befriend beings who want me dead. And like, the quirky humor is fun sometimes, but the game can't seem to decide whether it's all a big joke commentary on video game design or supposed to be a genuinely challenging game. Like with the aforementioned example of design, it could be very easy to get past this part... if you know something very obscure and keep track of it from an early point to a much later point. But this is not funny or quirky or cute to me. It's just mean.Speaking as a massive fan of Undertale (one of my favorite games of all time) if you don't enjoy it by now you should stop forcing it on yourself. Which enemy are you talking though? I don't remember many instances of struggling with dodging enemy attacks to that extent.
Sometimes you just don't enjoy something even if it's otherwise near universally beloved. I think A Link to the Past is a boring, bland game with unsatisfying combat that sucks at guiding the player, and no amount of other people going on about how it's Shigeru Miyamoto's personal gift to humanity will change that.
spoiler
Muffet.But yeah, it's been years since the first time I gave the game a chance, so I thought I'd give it a second chance. Just doesn't seem to be my cup of tea.
You don't enjoy the
Tap for spoiler
MuffetGaining levels doesn't help. Level refers to Level of Violence (LOVE) in Undertale, you'll just encounter harder battles if you gain too many levels.
In case you didn't know, the true pacifist ending isn't available on your first playthrough anyway. You must complete at minimum one neutral ending first.
Undertale became massively popular so now everyone knows everything about it, but the game is designed for players to come into it blind & with the expectation that it'll be a normal JRPG. You're meant to kill monsters, be surprised that they stay dead, finish the game to learn why, and then be told to avoid combat as a new game+ challenge run. You're not supposed to know the gimmick beforehand and start the game with the challenge run.
There's something to be said about how subversive things lose their appeal when they become so popular that they lose their subversiveness. But yeah, go do some grinding because you're probably level 1 and have garbage equipment.
I see. No wonder it feels jank then. I'd heard about the pacifism thing before playing it for the first time and so not only did I expect the game to not be so combat-heavy, I didn't know there was some thing where you can't fully be one the first time anyway?
From the sound of it, because I knew some things about it going in (apparently too much), it became annoying in part because it doesn't expect me to know things and beeline right past its subversive ploys to try to get the "best ending".
So I'm essentially playing the game "wrong" because I didn't treat it like it's a typical "fight and level up" video game. It sure sounds like the designer did not account for a person doing that and instead designed on the basis that the player would necessarily treat it like a "normal" game.
Yeah you did well to avoid story spoilers but you did get spoiled on game's premise, which is arguably more important, so now you pretty much are playing it wrong. Undertale is best when it's subverting your expectations but it falls flat if you don't have those expectations in the first place. But to be fair, this is a kickstarter indie game from a creator previously best known for making music and who had only developed an earthbound ROM hack up until then. By all means, undertale should've been a niche game and it's weird that it blew up as much as it did. I don't fault the developer for designing his game with the assumption that people will treat it the same as the billion other indie RPGs.
Like with that boss you mentioned, she's designed to be challenging for a player with good gear and a high LV. Then you beat the game and are told to replay it without fighting. Then during a second playthrough, you remember this boss when you reach the point where you can buy her key item. Then you're relieved that you don't have to fight her again, but without your gear and stats.
I feel confident in saying that you're not meant to know in advance that this boss is optional because you're not supposed to know at first that fighting as a whole is optional. The key item is better understood as a mercy for repeat playthroughs than a secret requirement.
This video is tangential, but I think you'd be interested. It covers what RPGs is like from someone with nearly no gaming experience at all. The player didn't resonate with undertale either because she didn't recognize the tropes that it subverts so it just came off as boring and irritating.
https://youtu.be/YBRTg74ZhLU
That makes sense.
The video was interesting, thanks. It does seem like even though I'm experienced in video games where she isn't, I got annoyed because I expected it to be a break from normal RPGs and it's apparently more like a heavy-handed message about them that needs you to come in thinking of it as a normal RPG in order for it to work right. In both cases, I guess you really need to come into it with a very specific idea about it.
That's true. I guess only the vanishingly small demographic of people that like RPGs but haven't heard of undertale can still experience it as intended. At least everyone can still enjoy the charming characters and catchy music regardless.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
What you refer to as the "genocide" route is actually something a lot more specific.
spoiler
It's not simply killing the random encounters, it's going out of your way to grind in each area until there's literally no one else to kill. You aren't really condemned for killing in neutral runs beyond getting locked out of the best ending and having to restart the game.i would recommend you finish it, you're really quite far anyways.
spoiler
not using a baked good to skip muffet isn't really that big of a deal, it's just supposed to be a joke because most players wouldn't buy anything at the bake sale anyways. i didn't do it on my first playthrough, either; i believe all the items there are purposefully overpriced so that it's more likely for you to encounter the boss battle on your first playthrough.obviously if you're not that great at bullet hell i can understand it being a hard time, but i wasn't that great either (never really played any bullet hell before) and i got better enough that it was a reasonable challenge but not too frustrating over the course of the game. i thought the different mechanics used within the bullet hell JRPG framework were clever throughout.
in terms of writing, it's really a story totally focused and revolved around the characters. if you don't like the characters you're not going to have a good time, but if you do you'll have a great time.
as far as ideology it's obviously very liberal but for a reason slightly different and/or deeper than what you describe: after all, the monsters in the story could reasonably be interpreted as a nation exploited/oppressed by the humans, which is good. but, the story takes place from the perspective of that nation (with the exception of the main character, who is just an insert) as opposed to the fact that the vast majority of "gamers" come from an exploiting class (white, men, etc). furthermore, as you touch on, the story posits that peace by all means (literally pacifism) is the way to resolve that exploiter/exploited contradiction, which is of course deeply, deeply liberal.
Personally I don't think it's very interesting to approach the game as critique of society directly, maybe because of the RPG mannerisms of kings and queens, but I think the game does have something interesting to say viewed as a media critique. What I got out of it was this postmodern parody of the narrative tropes of video games (and other media as well) wherein you are a cosmically anointed ubermensch going out to do something and you'll kill anything that gets in your way without a second thought of its interiority. So as a foil look at Hollowknight which is pretty much exactly that narrative structure, and while there are a couple bugs with interiority most of them are othered quite explicitly through a mind virus. But beyond even that there's creatures that are just set dressing like the birds, which you end up exploding without even realizing when super dashing across a map. In HK these moments are normalized through a lack of commentary while the whole point of UT is problematizing this dynamic by creating a sense of interiority in these small background creatures whose life is at your mercy. The frame of this is individual ethical choices which same may call a liberal branch of thought, but I personally think it's worth examining your personal ethics.
Interestingly, the subversive narrative of the true pacifist route not only includes pacifism which is obviously anathema to serious political leftism (but again, I'd say is a good pursuit as an individual), but this narrative also includes building together a community and transforming the society of the game. If I remember correctly it's maybe a restoration of monarchy (ew), but the narractive structure of sublimating your individual interests in order to help others and reshape society is quite radical. And the salient point: UT implicitly makes us question why this narrative structure is uncommon compared to destructive quasi colonial ones of other games. So then the question posed is not "why is society not like undertale?" but "why does society create games with violent individualistic narratives?"
I tried a couple more times to do that fight, even following a tip to buy more healing item to have on hand first. Still failed. I will probably try again another day, but it is not really fun for me, the fight mechanics. I don't get the appeal of bullet hell and some of the attacks later in the fight seem designed in such a way that it's virtually impossible to dodge everything because of the pace it goes at and things overlapping. I probably just suck at bullet hell though.
But yeah, the pacifist ideology of it kinda annoys me. I want to give it a fair shake to see it all the way through so I can properly judge what it's actually doing in design and storytelling as a whole (partly cause the game designer in me is interested to learn from what it does well in design), but I wish there was a way to play it without the bullet hell stuff. If I end up giving up again, maybe I'll just spoilers myself and watch a playthrough of the parts I haven't seen.
that fight was definitely hard for me, but probably within 10 tries i got it. but yeah, i was going to say: worst case scenario you just watch a let's play or an overview to get the whole story.
Keep going, the pacifist ending is one of my favorite video game storylines ever. Also, I think it's trying to tell you that
spoiler tag i guess
pacifism isn't an easy thing to stay committed to.