Spoilers: Genocide route is the ultimate canon creepypasta

[brickey.8]

So I'm guessing a lot of people have already made this comparison, but I still think it's amusing: When you step back and look at it, the genocide route in Undertale is basically the result of Toby taking a checklist of every single "haunted videogame" creepypasta cliche and making them all canon to his videogame. And (un?)surprisingly it gets exactly the intended result.

So let's run through the UNMARKED SPOILER-HEAVY checklist:

* It's a hidden game mode that you reach through an obscure, time-consuming and in-itself violent method. It is not explicitly advertised or hinted at anywhere in the game or promotional materials, and you won't find it by accident.
* Nearly every cutscene after a certain point is changed. Your character becomes a progressively more emotionless shell who walks forward through people's speeches and puzzles. Characters in the game find you creepy.
* As the run goes on, your character progressively begins acting without your input more and more, especially during important cutscenes (this is a biggie for creepypasta).
* You kill pretty much everyone.
* All boss descriptions and a huge portion of the descriptions of things you can examine are also replaced. New text seems to be spoken by some new person, possibly the one you're playing, who has a sadistic streak. It refers to itself in first-person several times. (Good haunted videogames are nothing if not improbably thorough, right?)
* Most bosses die in one hit, being hit for orders of magnitude more than their max HP.
* Towns are nearly empty of NPCs. Some shops are abandonned and can be robbed at leisure. Dialog of anyone remaining is much darker.
* Music is slowed down and creepy. There's also several songs that aren't heard in the normal game anywhere, including one that's just a heartbeat at the end. (Seriously, though, have you EVER seen a videogame creepypasta that didn't try this one?).
* Right around that point Sans contributes the requisite "creepypasta arc words" that'll get endlessly associated with the horrible route (ie "You've met a terrible fate" for Ben Drowned; something that can become a meme).
* You have to attack the helpful kid who follows you through the third region.
* One of the midgame bosses calls you "not human" and "a threat to everything", goes into super mode and is described as "the heroine".
* Another boss says the same thing and goes into super mode and STILL dies in one hit.
* One of the characters calls out anyone who's watching this at home (technically not a real haunted videogame cliche due to medium constraints, but "audience participation" is huge in creepypasta)
* The "final boss" is the comic relief character who you never get to fight in the normal game.
* He spends whole fight talking directly to the player (big creepypasta points), begging them to quit playing before they see what's next.
* The villain initially teams up with you, and reveals extra backstory, but by the end he is so terrified of you he begs for mercy.
* Your character cuts down the last two bosses in the normal game entirely without your input, with insta-kills.
* Your character then talks directly to you (big creepypasta points), thanking you for helping him do this. They lets off some philosophical spiel about simultaneously being both "a demon who can be summoned by calling its name" (big creepypasta points) and a part of you that is always with you (big creepypasta points).
* Your character now has a new sprite that they never have normally, which shows them smiling gleefully.
* They then tell you what to do and steal control away if you refuse.
* Which leads to the requisite jumpscare.
* It then "crashes" your game.
* When you come back it's just a blank screen for ten minutes (big creepypasta points), then the demon-protagonist comes back and offers to let you trade your soul to restore the game. This can't be undone.
* Everything seems normal, but the game is now tainted. Whenever you beat the game there's now a stinger where (wait for it) either your character's eyes snap open at the end to reveal he's still the demon-protagonist, or the happy photo at the end shows the demon-protagonist smiling while everyone else is implied to be dead. (Holy crap, the creepypasta points)

So yeah, I'm not sure there's ANY haunted videogame cliches this game failed to hit. It even steals your soul! The only place he deviates from the formula at all is the abundance of opportunities to jump off the evil train, where more often than not creepypastas try to play up that once you start interacting with their subject you can't stop. (That one's not so big in haunted game ones though).

[World’s Okayest DM]

I'd like to give the game bonus points for Omega Flowey in the nuetral path. Crashing the game and HYPER REALISTIC X are basiclly the only two things it missed in the genocide run.

[RedOni]

Messaggio originale di CoffeeLovingGamer:

I'd like to give the game bonus points for Omega Flowey in the nuetral path. Crashing the game and HYPER REALISTIC X are basiclly the only two things it missed in the genocide run.

The vines weren't HYPER-REALISTIC BLOOD enough?

[World’s Okayest DM]

Relevant [gifsound.com]

[Pizzarugi]

Messaggio originale di CoffeeLovingGamer:

Relevant [gifsound.com]

Oh god, that's even more creepy!

[World’s Okayest DM]

IT'S LIKE MY ENTIRE BODY IS BEING SPOOKED

[brickey.8]

Messaggio originale di CoffeeLovingGamer:

I'd like to give the game bonus points for Omega Flowey in the nuetral path. Crashing the game and HYPER REALISTIC X are basiclly the only two things it missed in the genocide run.

Genocide run does crash your game at the end. I forgot that one. Still missing hyper realism though.

[Pizzarugi]

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

Messaggio originale di CoffeeLovingGamer:

I'd like to give the game bonus points for Omega Flowey in the nuetral path. Crashing the game and HYPER REALISTIC X are basiclly the only two things it missed in the genocide run.

Genocide run does crash your game at the end. I forgot that one. Still missing hyper realism though.

Genocide ending does have a creepy jumpscare.

If you refuse, the innocent-looking Chara tells you that you already made this decision long ago then suddenly makes the most horrifying face that appears to be laughing. They slowly approach your screen and draw closer and closer while the screen flashes red and black. Then it ends as they destroy the world.

[Chara the Explorer]

I've been thinking about this, and frankly I'm surprised I haven't seen more people drawing that conclusion.

[Kisai]

Caution Spoilers...

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

* It's a hidden game mode that you reach through an obscure, time-consuming and in-itself violent method. It is not explicitly advertised or hinted at anywhere in the game or promotional materials, and you won't find it by accident.

Actually it's hinted if you've been reading the flavor text. Re-read all the flavor-text about the prophecy from Gerson. Likewise there is a meta-narrative of who Chara is if you take the effort to run all the way to where the game started after the True Pacifist ending. Only "Frisk" completes the True Neutral ending. Which means "Chara" is who? or maybe "what?" ...

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

* Most bosses die in one hit, being hit for orders of magnitude more than their max HP.

Such is the case in RPG's when you are more powerful than them.

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

* One of the midgame bosses calls you "not human" and "a threat to everything", goes into super mode and is described as "the heroine".

Such is the case when you're the villain.

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

* One of the characters calls out anyone who's watching this at home (technically not a real haunted videogame cliche due to medium constraints, but "audience participation" is huge in creepypasta)

That's actually a calling-out/trolling people who won't play the No-Mercy route, but have no problem watching someone else suffer. If you know it's a game, there's no problem here. But if you have emotional investment in the characters, then you don't want the meta-narrative of being a soulless husk like Flowey. If you went back to see Asriel after the true pacifist ending, he tells you this. He wasn't in control, and "Chara" was the one who wanted to destroy Humanity.

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

* They then tell you what to do and steal control away if you refuse.

If you paid attention to what Asriel says, this is very clear why.

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

* Everything seems normal, but the game is now tainted. Whenever you beat the game there's now a stinger where (wait for it) either your character's eyes snap open at the end to reveal he's still the demon-protagonist, or the happy photo at the end shows the demon-protagonist smiling while everyone else is implied to be dead. (Holy crap, the creepypasta points)

So yeah, I'm not sure there's ANY haunted videogame cliches this game failed to hit. It even steals your soul! The only place he deviates from the formula at all is the abundance of opportunities to jump off the evil train, where more often than not creepypastas try to play up that once you start interacting with their subject you can't stop. (That one's not so big in haunted game ones though).

To quote "you made your choice" No take-backsies. You are given every chance to jump off the evil train. Absolutely nobody makes a first-strike against you except Undyne.

Now where I think Toby may have went a little too far (or maybe not far enough) is how the game tries to prevent the player from rolling-back, since this prevents other players from playing the game (eg the Gamegrumps and Commander Holly sharing the same computer for video recording,) and if you have steam-cloud enabled for the game, also makes it difficult to undo. What I would have done is added tamper-checks and if a tamper-check fails, tell the player that they destroyed the world by tampering/hacking/cheating and "I'll erase everything you did if you promise not to do it again." Thus allowing a full-reset even on game consoles or mobile devices where the filesystem isn't reachable. The way to trigger it from within the game would have to come with a double-confirm warning. eg sans room. "On the computer you see an icon called "Undertale", "tamper with Undertale?", (if yes), "ARE YOU SURE? YOU MIGHT REGRET THIS!?" (if yes again) "Okay, but I warned you", and cut straight to the hacker ending.

[Chara the Explorer]

Messaggio originale di Kisai:

Messaggio originale di brickey.8:

* Most bosses die in one hit, being hit for orders of magnitude more than their max HP.

Such is the case in RPG's when you are more powerful than them.

Wait, what? Since when was one-hit killing bosses standard in RPGs?

[Kisai]

Messaggio originale di PASTAMANCER PAPYRUS:

Messaggio originale di Kisai:

Such is the case in RPG's when you are more powerful than them.

Wait, what? Since when was one-hit killing bosses standard in RPGs?

Standard JRPG fare... faster to faceroll over the monsters instead of using a better strategy. The "no mercy" run is implicitly "grinding" that does this. You're killing weak monsters because you can (worth exp/gold), not because they're possibly bad.

[Chara the Explorer]

Messaggio originale di Kisai:

Messaggio originale di PASTAMANCER PAPYRUS:

Wait, what? Since when was one-hit killing bosses standard in RPGs?

Standard JRPG fare... faster to faceroll over the monsters instead of using a better strategy. The "no mercy" run is implicitly "grinding" that does this. You're killing weak monsters because you can (worth exp/gold), not because they're possibly bad.

The OP was talking about insta-gibbing bosses, not choosing violence over other options or 'just' grinding in general. Answer the question: how many games let you insta-gib bosses, even after what can be considered somewhat excessive grinding?

[He Who Is Vile]

Messaggio originale di PASTAMANCER PAPYRUS:

The OP was talking about insta-gibbing bosses, not choosing violence over other options or 'just' grinding in general. Answer the question: how many games let you insta-gib bosses, even after what can be considered somewhat excessive grinding?

World of Warcraft in which the player can become powerful enough to return to dungeons/raids after outleveling them and in-turn, be able to annihilate everything and everyone with impunity.

FF7 also had a somewhat similar mechanic (and more along the lines of being a single-player JRPG) in which it was possible to go about excessively grinding levels/materia and then be able to blow up just about everything effortlessly with KotR. Crisis Core was similar, but with Costly Punch and the Genji equipment which made it possible to literally walk up and one-shot anything save for a few extra 'hard' encounters.

[Chara the Explorer]

Messaggio originale di He Who Is Vile:

Messaggio originale di PASTAMANCER PAPYRUS:

The OP was talking about insta-gibbing bosses, not choosing violence over other options or 'just' grinding in general. Answer the question: how many games let you insta-gib bosses, even after what can be considered somewhat excessive grinding?

World of Warcraft in which the player can become powerful enough to return to dungeons/raids after outleveling them and in-turn, be able to annihilate everything and everyone with impunity.

FF7 also had a somewhat similar mechanic (and more along the lines of being a single-player JRPG) in which it was possible to go about excessively grinding levels/materia and then be able to blow up just about everything effortlessly with KotR. Crisis Core was similar, but with Costly Punch and the Genji equipment which made it possible to literally walk up and one-shot anything save for a few extra 'hard' encounters.

There you go then. It certainly happens, don't get me wrong, but aside from games that let you replay bosses (and even then) it's hardly anywhere near regular for you to be able to completely obliterate boses like that in one hit, even after excessive grinding and min-maxing stats and gear.

Grinding makes the game easier in RPGs, sure, but rarely to that level.

[brickey.8]

I cannot think of a single game besides this where the author intentionally gave you the ability to insta-gib bosses that were normally meant to be a challenge, through mere level grinding. I'm not counting cases where the game includes a "non-combat" option for getting someone killed, like hacking a security system to kill them or getting an ally NPC to do it, or games with a few bosses that are always supposed to be anticlimactic. It's one thing if that's a side-effect of the way your stats scale or of being allowed to return to earlier levels, but here it's actually a special case--I'm pretty sure you do way more damage to bosses in geno mode than you do to normal enemies.

Anyways, I think you may be taking things a bit too seriously, Kisai. I understand the narrative reasons behind every one of the points I listed, and they do all contribute to the narrative and moral that the game was trying to tell. Including the "audience participation" part. It's just that they also happen to line up very well with a list of creepypasta cliches.

That said, I don't consider hints about Chara to be hints about the geno route. The only thing I'm aware of that I'd count as a hint is that if you get judge by Sans several times with a very high level but without killing Papyrus (similar to how you get his house key), he'll mention how close/far you were from the max level, that you could have done even worse, and beg you to stop. And honestly that's hidden better than the actual route!