Can't help but be disappointed (story-wise)...

[Vulture]

So first things first, this is objectively, a great game (subjectively-objectively?). Just wanted to get that out of the way before anyone jumps down my throat about this.

I am disappointed with the lack of choice regarding the genocide route (the first, and only, route I've completed thus far). Why must we be made out as a schizophrenic nutjob whose only goal is to murder everything we can get out hands on. Now I know that sounds really weird as it is indeed called the genocidal route for a reson but how can it garner a name purely from the straightfoward, and rather bland, input that it demands. It just seems incredibly lacking from the rest of the game.

I understand that is part of what makes the route... appealing to many, the fact that you, as a player are not in control of... the protagonists... actions, but it just seems so... weak, forcing such an idle role upon the player and consequently, letting it fester into an inactive experience, keeping it not on par with the other routes where the player actively decides how the story will pan out...

It annoys me as the player to sit through actions not made by myself to achieve an undesireable end and as such, upon further investigation, discovering my ideal would not be realised within the confines of the game... although, it is worth noting, I very much enjoyed the lovely sessions with Undyne and Sans and also saying no at the end, getting warmer but altogether, alone and freezing.

P.S: Discussion on whether or not I'm mentally functional desptie writing this and having only "played" through the one route are undesireable and rather unwarrented...

TL;DR: I don't like, what I find to be, poorly written psychopaths...

[Noobslayer]

So. In relation to the whole pacifst run protagonist projection thing... almost quoting from the game here...
You are you.
It does not matter what your name is. You were in control here. You chose the actions, you acted out the events. You are still projecting on the protagonist, but the protagonist is not defined by what you name them, but instead by your/their actions. You may feel deceived, but I feel that this was a thematic device in a whole game about making choices.

OP, this is opinion here, not trying to sound 'holier than thou', but I feel that you have misinterpreted the message intended from the genocide route. It is true, you do have less control at certain times during the genocide run, but you had the power to stop all of that. And you chose not to. Whether just to complete the genocide run, out of a misinterpretation of the game, or, one of my personal favourites, just out of curiosity for what would happen, the player always had the opportunity to stop, to turn back, to change fate, or to regain control. Even at the point of no return, the player can still reset. But in the end, it was choice, not lack of choice, that brought you to the end of the genocide run.

That's the message. You could have done something, but instead you stood and watched as the character that you could have controled commits terrible acts. It's a dark idea, but the idea of the genocide character is to make you feel bad.

And, really, you still decide how this pans out. The player is warned, constantly, about their actions being destructive, wrong, and eventually just plain evil. Still, the choice was made to continue along that path.

So, still opinion here, in the end, the character may seem like a stereotypical psychopath, but it is by the player's hand. And that is what the genocide run is all about.

Whew. That was a long one. I still hope you enjoyed the game, OP. I sure did.

I maintain that this is all opinion, disagree if you wish.

[Corvus]

That's kinda the point of Genocide.

Frisk is turning more and more into Chara, and Chara is further dictating Frisk's actions outside of his/her control. This is made apparent especially at the end when Chara tells you that "Since when were you the one in control?" and when the red text becomes all the more common as you proceed through the playthrough. It's done in such a way that at first you don't take much mind of it, but then near the end you don't have any control at all.

Genocide is supposed to make you feel empty and unfulfilled.

[DohItAgain]

Originally posted by Cy-Kill:

Originally posted by EvilDylan:

The first child isn't necessarily "you". The mirror in the neutral route simply reads "It's you", the fallen child isn't mentioned in this scenario.

I mean, yeah, there's the naming thing. But one could interpret it as Frisk being beyond your control, and taking control of their own life, at the end of a pacifist route; similar to Flowey's post-pacifist lecture.

i still think it shatters the whole projecting onto the protagonist thing. that's be like, at the end of a legend of zelda game the protagonist is revealed to be "link", not whatever you named your character as. oh, and then gannon turns out to be whatever you named yourself

While a good idea, LoZ didn't start off asking you to "Name the Gerudo Male".

Though I'm missing the whole Genocide issue here. The game constantly shows you the negatives results of your actions to the point of preaching it; and it requires you not to "kill everyone in your path" but to actively hunt down every single living being and murder it.

There's empty areas, NPCs who mention you, people who are outright scared of you, notes telling you about this unstoppable killer hunting down people (and you ARE hunting them down.) Shopkeepers taunt you, friendly NPCs avoid you, Sans warns you, Papyrus begs you...

You had choices, you had many choices. You at no point where forced to kill that monster kid, or kill anyone. You could have stopped. You -made- that decision because you wanted the Genocide Ending, and you go it. There were player decisions made, you made them. You can try to justify it by saying "Well, the game was going to take my special psycho ending form me"... but that's kind of the point of that run? Isn't it? You were being a psycho to see what happened, and the game gave you ample time, warning, and consequence to stop doing it.

You didn't.

----

In terms of naming, the game says "Name the Fallen Child", not "Name the Main Character" "What is your Name" or "Name your Save File". It gives you a specific character to name with the intention of that being a twist... for two reasons.

One, to point out how horrible the Fallen Child is and make the distinction between You, Chara, and Frisk. And Two, if you go down the Genocide Route, and you name it after yourself... to be correct about how terrible you are.

[Vulture]

Originally posted by Cy-Kill:

Originally posted by RangedSpider:

Cus Charas influence maybe?

a possibility, but it feels like a cop out because no influence is asserted in any other path.

This. It just feels like a weak device to me.

Originally posted by Noobslayer:

So. In relation to the whole pacifst run protagonist projection thing... almost quoting from the game here...
You are you.
It does not matter what your name is. You were in control here. You chose the actions, you acted out the events. You are still projecting on the protagonist, but the protagonist is not defined by what you name them, but instead by your/their actions. You may feel deceived, but I feel that this was a thematic device in a whole game about making choices.

OP, this is opinion here, not trying to sound 'holier than thou', but I feel that you have misinterpreted the message intended from the genocide route. It is true, you do have less control at certain times during the genocide run, but you had the power to stop all of that. And you chose not to. Whether just to complete the genocide run, out of a misinterpretation of the game, or, one of my personal favourites, just out of curiosity for what would happen, the player always had the opportunity to stop, to turn back, to change fate, or to regain control. Even at the point of no return, the player can still reset. But in the end, it was choice, not lack of choice, that brought you to the end of the genocide run.

That's the message. You could have done something, but instead you stood and watched as the character that you could have controled commits terrible acts. It's a dark idea, but the idea of the genocide character is to make you feel bad.

And, really, you still decide how this pans out. The player is warned, constantly, about their actions being destructive, wrong, and eventually just plain evil. Still, the choice was made to continue along that path.

So, still opinion here, in the end, the character may seem like a stereotypical psychopath, but it is by the player's hand. And that is what the genocide run is all about.

Whew. That was a long one. I still hope you enjoyed the game, OP. I sure did.

I maintain that this is all opinion, disagree if you wish.

Well said. And yes, it was fantastic. I'm happy with how it turned out.

But (and this is a big, hairy one), it isn't my problem.

It isn't a matter of gaining fullfillment via pure killing, if I wanted that, I wouldn't be here. My issue was twofold (so far, at least, I'm sure I could ruminate on it some more), firstly I desired the ability to communicate "my" desires, as the character, seeking the fullfillment that only the view of others can give, validation (or even just some criticsm) for "my" actions, not the actions of some random entity that is there for some reason.

Following that desire, Toriel would always fail (...die?), regardless, if another play was attempted, just a matter of principle on my part. It's diconcerting when characters react with little other than blind justice. Altruism is little more than an idea. Sans get's close but ends up giving up and Flowey, the best shot of completing that desire, is killed outside of my control... not that he (she/it?) would have lasted long afterwords anyway.

Secondly, I did not feel as though I was being that "evil", am I missing something? I never felt pressured to cease my actions, to stop the bland slaughter. The closest it got was Sans and even then, that just felt like a challenge, and an interesting one at that, doing nothing but encouraging the route. Is it possible to innocently do the genocide route?

Maybe I got on the hype-train too long and expected too much, I feel like I'm complaing about a grain of pepper in a large salt-shaker or somethin' but I wanted to make it known. It's still great stuff, it just feels like I'm watching someone else enjoy it more than myself.

Again, I'm extremely happy with how it turned out, just a little disappointed...

EDIT: The hell did that link come from?

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by MF | DohItAgain:

In terms of naming, the game says "Name the Fallen Child", not "Name the Main Character" "What is your Name" or "Name your Save File". It gives you a specific character to name with the intention of that being a twist... for two reasons.

One, to point out how horrible the Fallen Child is and make the distinction between You, Chara, and Frisk. And Two, if you go down the Genocide Route, and you name it after yourself... to be correct about how terrible you are.

i know it's a twisty pun, but "frisk" fell into the underground, and thus is a "fallin child", while "chara" also fell, litterally, they also figurativly "fell" by being evil.

either way, true pacifist insinuated that _i_, personally, was an evil, terrible person.

edit: i forgot people keep more to the lore of the 3d zeldas these days. you'll note i used gannon, not ganondorf. in point of fact, i remember most zeldas as just prompting you to "input name".

edit edit: the link comes from steam parsing 3 periods (an elipsis) as a link for some dumb eason.

[Roler42]

" Is it possible to innocently do the genocide route?"

Well, yeah, when you just play for the sake of playing, grind for the sake of grinding, and i'm sorry to jump to conclussions, but i'm guessing you just wanted to beat it so you payed no attention to anything other than mashing the "fight" button and dodge bullets until you got your ending

No one in the game is going to ever go out of it's way to call you a monster or a psycho for doing genocide because in the end it's all up to you, undertale is all about your own actions, your own playthrough, to even claim that the game did the monster kid sequence before Undyne the undying is just eh... You obviously went into the game with no intention of getting invested into anything

You did genocide because you could, your excuses that the game made you do it are irrelevant, secondly and most importantly: Genocide is not supposed to be fulfilling, pleasant, or to give you any sort of satisfaction, invested players will feel horrible, and less invested will just go "that's it?" (i've seen a share who did that), feeling dissapointed is part of the point

Not to mention... You can't excactly get any kind of story or character developement out of a game when all you ever do is kill whatever character you come across

[Strider VM]

You used the correct power. Do not be disappointed. It is boiled down to one thing, "determination".

See? You are determined. You got it. Just play Neutral to Pacifist if you felt disappointed.

[Vulture]

Originally posted by Roler42:

" Is it possible to innocently do the genocide route?"

Well, yeah, when you just play for the sake of playing, grind for the sake of grinding, and i'm sorry to jump to conclussions, but i'm guessing you just wanted to beat it so you payed no attention to anything other than mashing the "fight" button and dodge bullets until you got your ending

No one in the game is going to ever go out of it's way to call you a monster or a psycho for doing genocide because in the end it's all up to you, undertale is all about your own actions, your own playthrough, to even claim that the game did the monster kid sequence before Undyne the undying is just eh... You obviously went into the game with no intention of getting invested into anything

You did genocide because you could, your excuses that the game made you do it are irrelevant, secondly and most importantly: Genocide is not supposed to be fulfilling, pleasant, or to give you any sort of satisfaction, invested players will feel horrible, and less invested will just go "that's it?" (i've seen a share who did that), feeling dissapointed is part of the point

Not to mention... You can't excactly get any kind of story or character developement out of a game when all you ever do is kill whatever character you come across

As I said before, even after investigating the other routes, the genocide route is still the most fulfilling one in my eyes, but that is not the point. I did not play the game in that particular way just to beat it as quickly as possible, I would have only done that if I was grinding for achievements or something.

Again, the route I did is the most satisfying to me, albeit, the little parts, such as having to blandly kill to obtain it and the whole, "you did not do it" thing.

I get the confusion at my "blame" on the game for the monster kid thing but it was not I who initiated the combat, nor did I possess an inclination to kill him but, for the sake of the path, I had to act. I s'pose it was worth it though...

This isn't about being invested on different degrees, well, it kind of is in terms of who can best explain it so it isn't as disappointing or exhaust any possible recourse for my issue but that is from a purely informational standpoint... anywho, that is beside the point.

To be clear, my disappointment doesn't stem from any negative feelings towards how it played aside from a little frustration from certain scenes. I feel no remorse for the actions I commited for they are the actions I felt were reasonable. I greatly enjoyed the story that played out, granted I had to muse for myself for some of it but that's just the kind of acceptance I put into games in general. It's just that... it was just weaker than I expected.

I s'pose it would have been the best experience to do the pacifist run first, huh? That would have made the genocide route more interesting... but this way was nice too...

[SuperNewb]

Originally posted by Stitches:

I understand that is part of what makes the route... appealing to many, the fact that you, as a player are not in control of... the protagonists... actions

You misunderstand it completeley. The point of the genocide route is that you are completely in controll of the protagonists actions with a tiny bit of exceptions. The only thing there is in this path is to explicitly choose to meet the requirements for the genocide route, then re-affirm your choice in the 'boss' battles, then move on to the next area. It is your choice to set out to do a genocide route, so doing things "for the sake of the path" is certainly not the game forcing you to do something.

Even at the very last boss you can choose to abort the run... no combination of arrow keys or the z,x,c keys will abort the genocide run at this point... however did you know that the esc key causes an action that is very much considred to be a part of the game. So much so that the game utilizes this functionality or variants of it in certain endings. After you use the this key, assuming you manually used it with the esc key, you can perform a reset and abort your genocide run. And if you didn't notice, reload/reset, is also very much considered to be a part of the game and narrative.

The game doesn't write about a psychopath, because the game doesn't contain a story about a psychopath. The game is simply attempting to react and acknowledge each and every action you take. Kill, Mercy, Rest, Flirt... Flirst with mother... A story is about your actions an other characters in the game. This game pays very close attention to all your actions and crafts somewhat detailed and sometimes suprising responsed to you actions. The responses are manifested in the non playable characters. But... you killed all those characters in the game. So... by the end of it, the game can't really respond in any way. It can't give you a conclusion, they are dead. (Well there is that one character, but that character is not there to explain the story) The only thing left at the end of a genocide route is the history of your actions that got you do the end of the route. So your actions, my actions, everyone, whose experienced the genocide run, actions are the story of the genocide run. And all the game can do is ask. Why did you do it?

Here is my genocide story. Contains spoilers. And probably a boring read.

I completed the true pacifist route and was pretty much happy for all the characters and the ending. But... Like Asriel I didn't really want it to be over, so anyways I wandered over to these here discussions and learned that there was more story and a character in the game, for the most genocidal of people. I was curios about the character and lore. But, I am not the type of person who could choose to take the required actions. So maybe I should have resigned myself to not know the genocide story.

But, hey... I don't have to be the one controlling the game to experience this 'final' game route. No... I can give away my control to a popular Youtuber, and watch the genocide route. Great Idea... Then the first boss. Dead. I should have realized all the EXP and LV would have changed how the battle went... But that, on a character that I was one glad to see a happy ending for? That was a bit shocking for me. The second boss, allows you to spare on the first move... But wait I'm not in controll I'm watching a video. Dead. And in all honesty and higndsight, I was in controll, I ddin't have to continue watching the videos, which where split up into multipl parts. I didn't have to learn about how deep this knife went. But for some reason, I continued to click on the next video's tumbnails.

Dea... oh wait... Dead. Dead. Dead. Hi, flowey, nice to know you still find a way to acknowledge me even when I'm not playing. (I really hate that flower) Dea...DiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDiedDied.... DeadDeadDead. Died? Welp, that was wonderful. What happens to people's game who complete this run? Oh, well, that sucks, now I'm just plain sad.

Why did I let myself experience the genocide playthrough? Because I was curious. Why did I watch it happen through to the end and didn't stop it? I dunno, the shock and horror of it left me fixated on it. I guess I kinda wanted to see it happen, because it felt so bad to see it happen... ... that it became extreemly intriging.
My first hit was out of curiosity, my continued ride to the end was some kind of pleasure in my own distressed mental state. I am also a coward, who willinginly let someone else do the dirty work. Geez. Can still feel the bad times crawling up my back.

But you know what, those boss battles look fun. Perhaps in the future... I mean, I don't want to... I mean my only intent would be to play those boss not to see the others d... Anyways.

The point I am trying to make is... the genocide route doesn't present you a murderous character, it asks you to embody a murderous character. Your murderous character.

So if you wan't to know the story to your genocide route. You simply have to answer one thing. Why did you do it. What are you looking for? What are you interesed in?

Originally posted by Stitches:

TL;DR: I don't like, what I find to be, poorly written psychopaths...

What do you think that says about you?

Originally posted by Stitches:

Secondly, I did not feel as though I was being that "evil", am I missing something?

Well, you certainly are missing and understanding of psychopaty. Psychopathy is the lack of 'social' emotions, like compassion... or perhaps the feeling of goodness and evilness. But don't confuse those emothions with emotions like happyness, sadness, or excitedness. Like the excitement of almost getting caught and getting away with something.

Wait...
What is your ExP and Lv?...

[Valmar]

Originally posted by Stitches:

I did want to spare some initially but even after I learnt of the results, I found the killing to be a necessity.

...what? Killing is not necessary to win the game. It's not that difficult to dodge the bullets, you know... just have good healing items on hand.

Your reasons, your justifications, are quite shallow, I'm sorry to say, but there you go.

[Vulture]

I like you

There's a lot of convincing stuff here.

...

...

But, I can't help it...

If there are two doors, where one leads to a desired object while the other goes somewhere you have no interest in going, which one do you go down?

If you come across the previously mentioned object in a room with a tunnel that links back to the previous room, how many times are you going to go down the tunnel before obtaining said object?

If the said object was valuable in your eyes, but worthless to everyone/thing else, do you keep it, trying to make sense of it's value or do you leave it to gather dust, in the void you have just created?

Originally posted by SuperNewb:

What do you think that says about you?

It says to me that my ideals could not be realized, hence, the dissapointment.

Originally posted by SuperNewb:

So if you wan't to know the story to your genocide route. You simply have to answer one thing. Why did you do it. What are you looking for? What are you interesed in?

I did it, for it was the closest way of achieveing my goal. I was looking for power within the parameters of the world. I'm interested in... everything.

Once again, I shall say, I am supremely happy with the ending that happened but, I cannot help but think of it poorly.

Originally posted by Valmar:

...what? Killing is not necessary to win the game. It's not that difficult to dodge the bullets, you know... just have good healing items on hand.

Your reasons, your justifications, are quite shallow, I'm sorry to say, but there you go.

It seems like you haven't been paying attention (not that anyone can blame you).

I wasn't doing it to "win"...

[Valmar]

Originally posted by Cy-Kill:

8 year old child surrounded by monsters that want to imprison me or steal my soul.

To put things into perspective... the ONLY ones who were the least bit interested in soul stealing were Undyne, Mettaton, Mad Dummy and Asgore, each with their own reasons.

Papyrus was naive. Undyne believed all humans weren't nice at all, Mettaton just wanted to entertain people for self-centered reasons, Mad Dummy... speaks for itself, and Asgore, very reluctantly. He would rather you take his soul instead, in the end, if you were kind.

Flowey was a downright ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, to be sure, but he had his maniac reasons.

Apart from them, none of the other monsters were the least bit interested in stealing your / Frisk's soul. They just wanted to say hi...

[Valmar]

Originally posted by Stitches:

It seems like you haven't been paying attention (not that anyone can blame you).

I wasn't doing it to "win"... :Arakune:

If genocide was your cup of tea, then your interest definitely wasn't the storyline.

For there to emptiness and drama, you have to actively cause it. If you can show mercy, then Undertale really shines.

Unless this thread is just a form of more sophisticated bait...?

[Valmar]

The game doesn't imply you're a psychopath or evil.

However... comparing your in-game actions, imagine someone doing something similar in real life, slaughtering defenseless people en masse, with little to no opposition.

Also, imagine yourself in the position of the minor character monsters... you simply want to say hello, out of curiousity, and then you get cold-bloodedly attacked, nevering meaning any ill-will.

Heck, only Undyne was truly determined take your soul by attacking you outright. The others didn't have such motivations. Even Mettaton wasn't THAT determined.

[Vulture]

Originally posted by Valmar:

If genocide was your cup of tea, then your interest definitely wasn't the storyline.

For there to emptiness and drama, you have to actively cause it. If you can show mercy, then Undertale really shines.

Unless this thread is just a form of more sophisticated bait...?

Hence the disappointment, a game that could "really shine" despite the choices or lack thereof, now that would be somethin'...

"Maybe sans was right..." is my current attitude towards this whole thread, although I would have to fill in some blanks here an there which is fine...

In regards to this being "bait"... do you really think that one who has obviously thought about this this much would use it as "bait". I will say though, I am enjoying it very much, does that count?