Should I attempt Joyless run on my first playthrough?

[Szabolcs]

So I just played 2 hours of this game. I haven't known much about it so far, and I wish not to be spoiled. But I heard the ending changes if you never once used Joy during your playthrough (and you are playing on normal), so I'm thinking about attempting a joyless run.

Question, is that a good idea? Or am I missing out some important gameplay / scenes / story by not using Joy?

[Xan42]

Joy doesn't really affect the ending as much as you'd think.
The overall ending is more or less the same whether you take joy or not. But if you didn't take any joy there's an additional scene after the main ending which gives a little backstory for two characters. Though this scene is pretty much just that, extra information. The events in the scene aren’t a consequence of your actions.
However, not taking joy does change the dialogue in certain scenes earlier in the game. Namely the ones where a character will call Brad out for being a drug addict. If you haven’t taken any joy, Brad will point out he isn't taking joy anymore. It doesn’t really do much to change the other person’s opinion of Brad though.
There isn’t too much harm in doing a joyless urn first. I know my first run was a joyless run (joyless AND armless ). Though part of that might have been because I’m pretty stingy with my items in these kinds of games. There were a few difficult parts, but I made it through. But if your really unsure about it, you might as well use joy and you can try for a joyless run later.
Hopefully this helped a little.

[Enhancement Talent]

If you aren't on painful difficulty it shouldn't be an issue. The beginning is the hardest part, but when you actaully get some decent party members the game really isn't that difficult on normal.

[wcc]

Play it once on normal without Joy, and in Pain Mode with Joy later.

[Ajogamer]

I'd suggest doing it without joy, both since I feel like the game difficulty's balanced more around a party that's not using joy, (Joy makes things a LOT easier), and if you plan to get all achievements in the least amount of runs possible, it's better to use joy for a pain mode run (since the joyless achievement and scene are overrided by pain mode's end scene/achievement).

That said, extra scene for going joyless is a pretty short one (and pretty easy to look up if you miss it and don't feel like doing another run), so if you find yourself getting stuck and frustrated without using any joy, you can just go ahead and use it.

[Szabolcs]

I'm just wondering if joy adds some interesting battle mechanic or scenes or something in the game which are part of the experience. Like how in Undertale You can go straight to do a Pacifist run, but there is a lot about a Neutral run which you are missing out on, like a big part of the battle mechanics, and several scenes. I was kinga glad I did 3 playthroughs of Undertale instead of just the two extremes, as it really let me experience the weight of killing both some random monsters, and bosses (specifically, Toriel and Undyne... funny enough I actually wanted to kill Mettaton, too, but I triggered the merciful ending for that battle before his HP depleted). And the game was quite a lot easier, too, which was useful for the first time..

[Ajogamer]

Nope, using Joy adds nothing to the extent of what you mentioned in Undertale spoilers. The only changes are the few very minor dialogue changes based on whether or not you've taken joy. The additional ending scene you get for going joyless is far more substantial than all those minor line differences combined.

Even if you do care about those very minor line changes, you can just see them when you do a second runthrough on Pain mode, where you don't lose out on anything by taking joy. The differences on Pain mode are also a bit more substantial, like a few new/changed enemy encounters, a small, Pain mode only area to see, and a Pain mode only post-ending scene (about the same length and level of importance as the one you get for using no joy on a normal runthrough).

[Cteklite]

I did a Joyless run on my first go and it went pretty smooth. I only died because I failed to realize that you move around on tiles instead of individual pixels and ended up walking off of cliffs.