Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the gaming Backlog book club. Just a reminder before we get started that we will be going into heavy story and gameplay spoilers about undertale’s pacifist and genocide routes to cap off our discussion of the game and the wide variety of moments and experiences it can provide you.

So be warned, as this one is better experience blind. And you can always come back and listen to this episode after you’ve played through undertale. Well, let’s go through your true pacifist playthrough, Alex first, since that’s the true ending and the best ending supposedly.

[00:00:30] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, Sounds good.

I will say I’ll get this out right before I start. I didn’t fully finish this pacifist route. I got to what would be, I guess the true ending part. I made like a slight mistake and started doing a side quest before finishing the main part. I’ll get into all of it, but I have tried and tried and I got like slightly burnt out. So I have what happens. And I kind of read of what happens here for the true ending of the pacifist route, but I haven’t myself fully finished it. I will say I did a DNF and because I just, I tried, I put so way more hours into it than I thought I would have and I got slightly burnt out. So I may go back in the future and try and fully beat it.

[00:01:14] Speaker A: But maybe revisit it and see what happens.

[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yeah, but I did just. I read up about it because I was intrigued because I was literally, I think, right at the end.

But yeah, but I’ll let me go through. Yeah, I’ll go through my. My pacifist route because there are obviously differences from when we did our neutral route.

Basically. I. I’m a lot of it through the ruins. All that is all the same.

You just obviously, for the pacifist route, instead of killing anybody, you spare everybody. You’re trying. You’re trying to either spare or flee from every monster that you see.

[00:01:48] Speaker A: Assuming that’s. Yeah, like literally not a single kill. It’s. Everything is a spare.

[00:01:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, everything is a spare. Or flee.

And this guide I found, I’m not gonna lie, use a sort of a guide to help me through it to get through it. Like it tells you like, hey, to spare for this pacifist route. Like do this, this, this if you need to. Or this some I already knew because I spared in the neutral.

[00:02:08] Speaker A: There’s probably some pretty specific requirements for.

[00:02:10] Speaker B: For a sling that some have some enemies have. Like.

Yeah, some enemies have like specific, like, order that you have to do. If they have multiple options under the.

[00:02:22] Speaker A: Under the menu.

[00:02:24] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of it.

[00:02:27] Speaker A: Guessing game. In the neutral route, when you’re sparing someone or acting, it’s like, which of these random things that make no sense at all is going to actually get them to be able to spare.

[00:02:36] Speaker B: Actually going to get. Yeah, to spare. Exactly. So for the ruins, I think in the neutral route, I mean, it was the first time playing the game. I think I killed Toriel. I didn’t know that there was obviously this option of, like, sparing. So for this one, though, I completely spared her. For Toriel to spare, I think all you do, you just keep spamming, spare, spare, spare. And then at a point it just. She kind of.

It talks through and she gives up and plays off and she lets you go. Is helpful because she does come up later.

And then, I mean, the next biggest part, really, nothing changes. And then you fight Papyrus. So I spared him. I spared Papyrus. And after you spare him, this is where one of the big changes is spare him. You become friends with him. It gives you the option of like, do you want to become friends? It’s like, yes. Say, yes, I do. And when you become friends with him, then you go to his house and you go on a date with him in his house, basically.

[00:03:25] Speaker A: That is in my neutral route. I did that because it just seemed so random. And I spared Papyrus that I ended up going on that day too. That was a really funny moment. I think the. Yeah, you saw that. And then the sans trumpet moment.

[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:03:40] Speaker A: When you go into the bone locker and there’s a dog that steals a bone and all that. Yeah, that was. That was funny.

[00:03:46] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So on the date, like, basically he just asks you some questions you answer yes to, and basically you say you wanted the date. And he says, like, you’re way better at dating. And you kind of have like a.

Like a dating fight, sort of. But it’s just like sparing him or acting him and saying until he gets like super excited and be like, oh, my God, you’re so much better. And then it kind of ends.

[00:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And that. I thought when I did that for the first. The neutral route, it was really good in music in that fight too.

[00:04:17] Speaker B: Yeah, there was that time. That time I was kind of. Because you’re not. Luckily, I’m not, like, really paying attention to Bullet Hill. Yeah, it was good music after that. Then I think I went with Sands to Grillby’s Grill. You know, Grill Bees.

[00:04:28] Speaker A: Grill Bees.

[00:04:29] Speaker B: Little restaurant. We had some fries together, chatted. I can’t remember. I don’t think there’s much in the chat. And then kind of just you continue on. And then really the next biggest difference of the pacifist route is then fighting Undyne. So when you get up to Undyne, the main way to get away from her, you fight her. And you kind of have to fight, but you don’t. You don’t actually. I didn’t. You don’t actually fight. You kind of just spare and talk. And do what? Oh, not like act until you get the flee option.

And then when the. Your fleet option comes back up, you just.

It’s when your. When your heart turns red. Because she turns your heart, what does she turn your heart? Blue?

No.

[00:05:11] Speaker A: I think so. Yeah. It’s green or blue or yellow or something that’s not your red.

[00:05:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But when it turns back to red, it gives you the option to flee. So then you go on to flee and basically you just run and you keep running. She’ll catch up to you a couple times. You have to do it a couple times. And you keep doing that until you run and get to the hot lands at one point.

[00:05:30] Speaker A: Enjoy. Especially in the. The Overworld. And that. That whole chase sequence is essentially another bullet hell, but a bit easier. But it was still a kind of a nice change of pace.

[00:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. Once you get to the Hotlands, she collapses. She collapses on the bridge. And then you basically. There’s the water fountain like right there. You go over, get a cup of water and you go and hand it to her. And then after you hand it to her, you need to go. You go back to her house. Instead of continuing on, go back to her house and she’s there and she states that basically you kind of have like a. Just a long talk with her. One of the things I took out of it was she states that she could never make Papyrus a royal guard because he was too nice.

And that she also, at some point she’s taught. She’s the one who’s taught him how to cook. You kind of do like a fake cooking thing with her where it’s like you add more like a scene. No, it’s just sort of a scene where she’s like asking you. It’s like, do you want to. Do you want to like light the. Like light the stove like with a little fire or like, like the pot completely on fire and you go like completely on fire. She’s like, yeah.

She goes like. It’s like doing cooking to the extreme.

[00:06:42] Speaker A: And Dinosaur.

[00:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And then she’s like, well, maybe this is why, like, he’s not as good of a cook as I thought.

[00:06:50] Speaker A: Pyrus.

[00:06:51] Speaker B: Because she.

But then at point you do like a little fake fight with her, but she doesn’t fight back. You kind of do like a fake. You like do the action of like fake hit. And she sees like that you’re kind of wimpy, but you have a big heart like Papyrus. And so she spares you. And that was kind of the rest of that. And then you kind of become.

Become friends and all that.

And then you just kind of keep going along that most of the. Most of the rest of it.

Enemies wise. There’s some differences of just sparing enemies to.

I tried to more spare enemies to get gold, obviously.

[00:07:27] Speaker A: Because if you. Rather than fleeing. Yeah, you don’t.

[00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah, if you flee, you don’t get any gold. So I’ve tried. I try my best to spare enemies. Some are hard, though, to spare because they still. I mean, you’re only at 20 health for most of the. For all the game. And they hit kind of hard. So the next one then is like, you beat. I did Muff. You fight Muffet still, which was hard.

And I read up about that was.

[00:07:51] Speaker A: The one where I was still at 20 health before I got to last time. And man, I. Ooh, Muffet’s a tough one. Considering I’m not one of the primary bosses. It was definitely difficult.

[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And I guess for the pacifist route, there’s three options for this Muffet fight. The first option is if you just bought like 900 is. I don’t know if. Is it 999 gold? I think 9099.

[00:08:15] Speaker A: I think it’s four nines. I think it’s 9090.

[00:08:17] Speaker B: 9099. Yeah. Gold worth of like a spider donut. She instantly says, okay, if for some reason some player has that much gold already, which is shocking, you don’t have to fight her at all.

If you have.

[00:08:31] Speaker A: How are you going to grind that much gold?

[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I did not have that. So I did not do that. The second option was if you still have the spider donut from the ruin. If you bought one there and you ate it in front of her, it shortens the fight. You still have to fight her, but I think it shortens it by like half, maybe a little more. Unfortunately, I had used that donut no earlier in the game.

[00:08:56] Speaker A: That’s one of the very. You’re in the ruins still learning. I mean, I Guess this is a second playthrough. But, like, you need the health at some point. Yeah, those and that and the other options are the only things you can really use that early.

[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So that I didn’t have either. And so the third option was if you have none of these, this fight is not that easy and will be tough. As a pacifist, I was like, oh, cool, that’s a great way to put it through.

So it’s what luckily I found. I went on the Reddit and people were like, it’s 17 attacks total, so you can kind of count out how many you do.

And her.

Her. Is it her son or her pet? Sorry, not her son. Her pet comes out three times, and the third time the pet comes out is the final time.

So I made it.

[00:09:41] Speaker A: I did, like, at least that there was a little sign next to her with the preview of what the next attack was going to be. Because you can kind of plan out when to heal and when to, you know, just try to dodge.

[00:09:51] Speaker B: Exactly.

[00:09:52] Speaker A: Just heal right before the spider.

[00:09:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. Whenever I saw her pet coming up on the sign, I’d heal before because then she’d do like a wave of two different types of attacks.

[00:10:02] Speaker A: And then the pet comes out. Yeah, and then the pet.

[00:10:04] Speaker B: And if I could get through that wave with at least 14 health out of the 20, I could probably get through the pet. I felt confident. It took me quite a few tries, but I did get through. I had got past her and I was like, oh, thank God. Because it was not easy. I was like, I wish I had still had that donut after this, though.

[00:10:25] Speaker A: Donuts are tasty. You got to eat them right when you find them.

[00:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So after this, you go to the hotel and this was one of the big one of the changes. I don’t know if you had this in neutral out. This was obviously a change. You go to the hotel and actually Sans is outside and I have dinner with him in the hotel.

Oh, and he tells a story to you while you’re sitting having dinner in the hotel and the restaurant that requires.

[00:10:46] Speaker A: Reservations, but you can’t get a reservation.

[00:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah, you go like through the back side entrance to go in and you just sit down. Yeah.

[00:10:52] Speaker A: Leave it to Sans.

[00:10:53] Speaker B: I know, basically it’s the synopsis story. He says he’s like, he’s a sentry in the forest looking for humans.

That’s like his job. But one day he found a huge locked door that he thought was great for knock knock jokes.

So he kept Doing knock, knock jokes on it. And then one day he said a woman answered the knock, knocks and says, who’s there? And he said, dishes.

She said, dishes who? And he says, dishes. A very bad joke.

[00:11:20] Speaker A: Ha ha, ha.

[00:11:21] Speaker B: And does like his sans laugh.

[00:11:22] Speaker A: Oh, so he’s got his partner in crime with terrible jokes.

[00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And so she. And she. He says, like, she laughs and he keeps telling jokes. And then she says one day, knock, knock. And he says, who’s there? And she says, old lady. He says, old lady who? And she says, I didn’t know you could yodel so. And it’s just. I know, it’s just ridiculous jokes. But he said he kept going back every day I told jokes until one day she asked him if ever a human comes down to protect it, if they came through the door, they come through that door. And he basically tells you. Then he says, not sort of word for word, but basically says that if he didn’t make that promise, you would have been dead. Dead on the spot where you stand.

[00:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds about right.

[00:12:10] Speaker B: So he obviously made that promise and. Yeah, it’s. Which was kind of. It was a little bit of a creepy, sad, like, tale. It’s like a funny tale. And then it turns kind of creepy at the end.

[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:12:24] Speaker B: And then basically after that, I think for the pacifist route for Mettaton, I told this about the neutral route. I know you killed Metaton in the neutral route. This one, you spare them by sparing them. You just have to do like the act and pose and the other things.

[00:12:39] Speaker A: To get similar to last time.

[00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Get the rating up to 10,000 and then the fight ends. So if you can survive through that. And I found actually if you like, go down to. If you had bought some food from the hotel, like little cafe there and eat it during that boss fight, it ups your rating a ton.

[00:13:00] Speaker A: The weird. The super weird cat that keeps shifting faces every time it changes what it’s saying.

[00:13:06] Speaker B: So I bought like a glam burger and I ate a glam burger during the fight, which I know would give me 25 health, but I was like down to just a couple. And I ate it, but it put my rating up a thousand.

And at that point I was at like 8,500 when I used it. And so I just had to survive one more wave and I got it. I was like, oh, sweet. So it. Yeah, that definitely helped.

So you get through the Mettaton fight and then you get all the way basically to the end.

So you get to the area before the throne room and you see, Sans and sans at this. At this time tells me, because last time he told me, like, a whole bunch of stuff and then says, I can’t believe you killed then why would you kill my brother? And I felt terrible. This time, obviously, this time obviously not killed anybody. So he tells me, I’ve gained no love or level of violence or XP or execution points.

I strive to do the right thing at every turn, and I refuse to hurt anybody. He says, basically, like, you didn’t gain level of violence, but you gained love for each person.

[00:14:09] Speaker A: Okay?

[00:14:10] Speaker B: I was like, okay, cool. And then I read somewhere and I did this, that if you then have saved before, like, if. Because you can save right when you get in that room, close your game, open it back up, retalk to him, and he’ll say, like, hey, haven’t I given you, like, heard you. Haven’t you heard this spiel before? And he gives you a code word to tell him to see if you’re a. To see if you’re a time traveler. And so you go through the spiel again, you get the code word, you exit out of the game, load back in.

And he says, he says, tell me the code word. And you tell him the. Cause when he tells you the code word originally before it just on the screen says, whisper, whisper, it doesn’t actually tell you.

And so he tells you tell him the code word. And he says, did you just tell me the code word that. And he said, the code word is I’m a doo doo head.

And he’s like. He’s like, that’s right. But I’m still not convinced that you’re a time traveler. Come back with my secret, secret code word. So then you go back, you exit the game, load back in again, you come back in and tell him the secret, secret code word. And he says, did you just say that I’m the legendary fart master?

And Sans says, wow, you’re so childish.

And then he says, like, I have a triple secret secret code word. And then he’s like, but not a secret secret, but I have a triple secret secret. And that was what it was. And then he gives you the key to his room, so you get the key to his bedroom, and then you can go and explore that.

So here, though, is where it completely changed for me.

So you go through and I go and I talk to Asgore and all that. But before I fight Asgore for the final battle, like, he says, I saved up there. And it says, like, do you. Before we start, are you ready do you want to go back? And I wanted to go back because I wanted health. Like I need to get some health things. Some like bicycles and some other stuff.

So I said no.

So I, I save, I come back out and I get like a task from Undyne saying hey, I have, I need you to come do this task for me. Can you meet me at Papyrus’s house?

So I go to Papyrus’s house. She’s out there.

She says, I need you to drop off this letter to Dr. Alphys. And I said sure.

She’s like, I don’t want to go myself because Hotland sucks.

So can you drop it off for me?

I was like, okay. So I do that. I go drop it off.

And then this whole part is you drop it off.

Dr. Alphys like you slip it under the door. But Dr. Alphys like reads it and then opens the door, comes to you and thinks it’s you that written the letter and says, yeah, sure, I want to go on a date with you.

And so you go on a date with Dr. Alphys to the trash. The trash lands.

[00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah, in the waterfall area where you fall into the trash pit. Yeah.

[00:17:15] Speaker B: And then she’s like, no. And then Undyne is there too and kind of shows up. But basically just a quick summary. Like it goes through you do some stuff. Dr. Alphis says, no, I don’t actually want to go on a date with you. I really like undyne.

I want to tell her my true feelings. I just don’t know how could you. And you do like a role play. Like I’ll be undyne, you be yourself, Dr. Elphis. And you kind of do like a little role play thing.

And then that turns into like Dr. Alphys leaving.

Just like leaves. Like couldn’t really tell undyne how she feels.

Leaves. And then Undyne says, like, I don’t know where she’s gone. Like go look for her at the lab. So you go to the lab and there’s like a note on the bottom. There’s like a note on the floor of the lab saying if you want to know the truth, like I don’t know if I’ll make it back.

If you want to know the truth, go through this door. So you go through this door and this whole section called True Laboratory which was just a mind trip.

So this is actually the real ending of the pacifist route.

And I didn’t know that. So I hadn’t read this far up.

So I somehow went to this ending before I actually fought Asgore. And once I went through this true laboratory, which is just. You go down to. You takes it. It’s an elevator, goes down to this basement. You have to find like four keys to open this door. But there are weird. And when I say weird, I mean weird ass monsters that are basically science experiments that you have to fight.

And they’re creatures. There are monsters that are from the underground, but have been, like, genetically altered.

So to spare them, it’s sort of the same as you would spare them in the underground. But you got to remember how you spared them, like the original monsters for these ones.

And there’s some weird fights. I was like, looking at my screen and I’m like mouthing to myself, like, what am I fighting?

[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:19:25] Speaker B: And so you’re like, okay, you go through all this. You do the lab, you go through the middle door, and then the middle door takes you. It’s an elevator. It takes you back up to Asgore.

So you go back up to Asgore.

But when you go up there and you get out of the elevator, the elevator vines over.

So you’re actually stuck up there and you can’t go back.

So you go see Asgore and like all your friends, you go to fight him. It’s like about to start the fight. And then instead of starting the fight, Toriel steps in and says, no, you’re not doing this fight.

And then Undyne, Alphys, Papyrus, Sans, everybody comes in to defend you. And Sans and Toriel meet. Because Toriel was the one behind the big door.

[00:20:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, he was Tori. They’re BFFs, but just on the earth.

[00:20:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

So they meet, and so you have everybody there. Everyone’s all, like, happy. And then Flowey shows up and captures all your friends and tries to kill you. And he tries to kill you as well. But your friends, like, all protect you with their moves set. So they took your power.

[00:20:30] Speaker A: True power of friendship.

[00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah.

But then Flowey’s like, yeah, no. He’s like, you guys are stupid. It’s not gonna work. And he takes everyone’s souls. And then Flowey turns into his real identity, which this shocked me. His real identity. Flowey is actually Azuriel, which is the son. I think it’s the son of Toriel and Asgore. So that was just.

That blew me away. I was like, what? And then you have to fight them there.

And this is where. I’ll say this is where I didn’t finish. I’m on this fight. I have not finished it. I have Tried it numerous, numerous, numerous times. There’s two stages of this fight. I haven’t even got past stage one of this. It is quite difficult, but I sort of read up of what it is. Like you fight Asriel, he has like a whole bunch of different attacks that are quite. That do a lot of damage. But there’s like a weighted.

There’s a way to minimize the attack power by like under attack. There’s like hope and dreams. So I think if you do hope minimizes his attack strength. And if you do dreams, it gives you. It fills your inventory with healing stuff. But the problem is like you only have 20 health and even though it doesn’t do as much damage and it’s like multiple ones, if you get to 10 health or so and don’t heal and then go through the next wave, you’re not going to survive. And so it’s kind of hard because it says like alternate. It says like alternate between like dropping his attack and filling your inventory. But obviously if you take an item that’s your turn. So it’s kind of hard to.

It’s difficult.

[00:22:06] Speaker A: Would you say that this is a sans moment here? Would you say that Asriel was destroying your hopes and dreams?

[00:22:12] Speaker B: Yes, I would. As I said, that’s the first part of the fight. And then supposedly he turns. There’s a second part where as I said, I did not. Again, I’ll tell you all, I did not finish this. But I read up about it. He transforms into like a giant winged beast, like winged demon. And I guess it gets even harder. And what he does is he then pits your friends against you and you have to watch out for their attacks.

And then what you have to do is you have to use the like actions in a specific sequence to get your friends back on your side for them to remember you, to remind them of your friendship.

So you have to do the actions in a specific sequence to get them back on your side and then help get through. And you have to do it for Undyne Papyrus, Sans alphys, toriel and asgore6. I was like, I haven’t got to this. And as I said, I will. As of right now, I’m a little burnt out on it. I might try in the future. Future. But I read up about it and I was like, this is just crazy. And so if you do all that, the battle ends.

[00:23:16] Speaker A: And here we thought Freaky Flowey at the end of the neutral route was.

[00:23:19] Speaker B: I know. No, I guess at the end of this battle you talk to Azrael you can choose to forgive or console him. Obviously, you forgive him, and he lets all the other souls free and open to the barrier. And then basically, you wake up, you can have little conversations with your friends, and then you can just walk to the right, and there’s, like, a little cutscene, not much, basically, for the ending. And then that’s really. That’s the true pacifist ending.

[00:23:45] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:23:45] Speaker B: So one day I might try and finish and get to it. But that is the true pacifist route. But as I said, like, I messed up and didn’t fight Asgore on the. Was it. So I didn’t know that if I do this and I finish this, I might have to go back and then fight Asgore normally as well, which is just weird.

[00:24:03] Speaker A: That seems like you said you were gonna convince as Gordon to. Or what’s it called? Like, make him remember you. So maybe he becomes one of your friends at that point.

[00:24:14] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe not.

[00:24:15] Speaker A: It is interesting that this demon, Azrael, is. Is also holding his own parents hostage.

[00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I know.

There’s another.

Also, this is not any part in this pacifist route. I found this myself. So you get the key to sans bedroom.

I look in his bedroom. There’s not much of some stuff to do. There’s, like, a treadmill in there. There’s a trash tornado.

But then you grab, like, a key, and it says, like, oh, a lock is opened.

I was like, okay. So I went. You go down. I went downstairs through the kitchen, through the back of the kitchen, and there is, like, doors that are blue and red, and you can open them, and they’re blue and red because of the switch. Joy Con Colors.

[00:25:02] Speaker A: Oh, so you push exclusive content, probably.

[00:25:05] Speaker B: So you push, since it’s blue and red, to open the door. You push each stick outwards. And then you open the door, and in there, there’s a Mew mew doll that Dr. Alphys has mentioned earlier in the game that she loved. Mew Mew. The Mew Mew doll.

[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:25:22] Speaker B: And, like, it’s all like, oh, hey. And it’s all nice. And then it says, oh, look, no, maybe like a vessel for me to use. I was like, oh, okay. And then you end up fighting the Mew Mew doll. This is another fight I did not finish. It is not easy. It’s like you have to use both sticks to move away from attacks.

And I. And I was trying to spare her. I didn’t actually fight her. I was trying to spare her because I didn’t Know if this would have an effect on my pacifist route.

[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Right.

[00:25:49] Speaker B: Because I did did this before I got to the end of the true laboratory, before the Azreal fight. I didn’t get through the fight and I thought, like, I’ll come back to this. But it was not an easy fight. It’s quite difficult. She has some strong attacks that come at you pretty quick.

[00:26:01] Speaker A: I mean even just the two joy like joysticks at the same time. That sounds a lot like that game Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons where it. But that’s more of an adventure game. It’s kind of more.

[00:26:10] Speaker B: That was a good game. Yeah.

[00:26:11] Speaker A: Platformers.

[00:26:12] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:26:12] Speaker A: This is, this is, this is harder.

[00:26:14] Speaker B: Like it really makes your brain work because you’re thinking like trying not to move one stick potentially and move the other or move both one. Like it’s sometimes your brain is just like thinking like, no, that doesn’t make sense. But it’s like I’m trying to do.

But yeah, but that’s not part of this. Wasn’t anywhere in like a thing I read. So I just found this myself. And for anybody out there who’s listening to this, if you’ve done it in the full fight, like tell us on Discord or whatever you have. Right. Like what happens if you beat the Mew Mew doll at the end of fight? I mean, I’ll probably look, I’ll probably go to YouTube and find like the fight and see.

[00:26:51] Speaker A: I might have to look that up too.

[00:26:53] Speaker B: It was just like this was just random. So it just. And to me it just means like, wow, this game, there’s a lot more to this. The guy added a lot more than we would. Than you would think.

[00:27:03] Speaker A: There’s a lot of content for this very seemingly short adventure.

[00:27:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And doing the neutral route, as I think one of our members on Discord said, is definitely the boring route. And I get that because there’s a lot more to the pacifist route and I’m sure there’s more to the genocide route as you’ll see mentioned here.

[00:27:20] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:27:21] Speaker B: So. And with that, that was the past. I’ll let you talk. I’ve been talking now for like almost 30 minutes. It’s a long. It was a lot, but it was. Yeah, it was.

[00:27:29] Speaker A: I mean that sounds like good.

The true ending is worth seeing at one point or another.

Okay. Well, I, I hope you all had your light hearted, heartwarming fun with the true pacifist route because now it’s time to go down into the depths of the underground where Things get dark. So. Oof. The genocide run.

You have to go and kill literally every enemy possible until a kill counter maxes out in the save screen.

And that means not just kill every enemy that you come across, it means hunting down and killing every random encounter available. So this. This grind becomes such a massive slog by the end of the game. It’s like even at the meta level, it’s trying to discourage you from killing everyone because it’s so just like repetitive and time consuming. And it makes it even more painful since in most cases people are likely killing every last enemy and wandering aimlessly to spawn more because they already know the genocide route exists and want to do it for the sake of just more game to play. And they even reference that at some point.

But the emotional side of it hits hard too.

Anyway, because of killing everything you possibly can, you end up getting really good at the attack minigame that kind of just hit it right in the center. So you pretty much get perfect shots most of the time by the end.

But yeah, in each area once you kill every normal enemy wandering around respawning them. If you start another random encounter after they’re all done, the text just says but nobody came.

And then the music changes to something basically just a dark and dreary version of whatever the overworld music is around there.

This happens in every single area once everyone’s dead. The other thing is that even though you are wandering non stop for sometimes minutes at a time to try to spawn a random encounter, once the but nobody came message happens, you end up in a random encounter with that message pretty much every other step.

They’re really trying to rub it in your face at that point that you killed everyone, which is that one got me too. You don’t fight any of the NPCs in town, and most of them that are in the wild unless they’re pre scripted encounters. But once you’ve cleared all those random encounter monsters, all the NPCs for the area pack up and leave.

And then they basically just become ghost towns to the point where you know you can. In Snowdin, you can steal. In fact in most areas, once everyone’s dead, you can steal from the shops and that kind of thing. You also one hit kill all of the bosses, which was different except for Undyne in the final boss.

[00:30:01] Speaker B: Oh dang.

[00:30:02] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, which. Which makes it honestly.

And I’ll probably touch on it again later, but this is almost easier except for the two bosses that resist and the fact that you just have to keep wandering and Wandering it to kill all the random ones. You know, fight wise, gameplay wise, it’s a bit easier. It just takes a lot of time to get through it, really. Grind is the best word to mention it. Well, you said in your neutral run, you killed Toriel, right? Did she say, wow, you hate me that much now? Now I see who I was protecting. Do you remember that?

[00:30:34] Speaker B: I don’t remember that. She might have said it, but I don’t.

[00:30:37] Speaker A: That was. She’s just like, oh, you really hate me. Okay, well, shame on me.

[00:30:42] Speaker B: But I also know, yeah, I also know I killed her in that neutral route because I then later, just randomly during that neutral route, tried to call her and it says no one answered.

[00:30:51] Speaker A: Oh yeah, well, who’s going to answer her phone?

[00:30:53] Speaker B: That was. Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:54] Speaker A: Maybe Napstablook will pick up her phone.

But yeah, after. After playing a mostly positive neutral run last time where I only killed Mettaton and one other enemy. This one was terrible because no, Toriel, I don’t hate you. I’m just a scientist trying to experiment and see another ending.

Basically, once you step out of the ruins after killing Toriel, Flowey actually shows up and says, you’re not human, are you? You’re just like me. I have a plan to become all powerful. Let’s destroy everything in this wretched world. Everyone, Everything.

And then you hear an actual voice acted by Flowey’s voice that says, that’s a wonderful idea. Which I think was maybe the only time in this game that I’ve heard an actual voice acting moment.

[00:31:40] Speaker B: That’s okay if you kill voice.

[00:31:42] Speaker A: Yeah, which was creepy. I mean, in a creepy, creepy voice for sure.

So basically, if you, you know, you’re on this genocide route, you just wander around until you spawn all the random encounters in the ruins. Kill them all, kill Toriel. Then it kind of triggers this initiation of the genocide route. And Flowey comes and says that to you.

At one point, Sans says, Papyrus really wants to meet a human. So please keep pretending to be one.

Another layer of creep there and says a lot about who you are in this route. He considers you to be subhuman. If you say pretend to be a human before you reach Snowdin later, where Papyrus has that trap, you know the one with like six different weapons, it’s all aimed at you. And he says he’s not going to use it. Right before you get there, Sam says if you keep going the way you’re going, you’re going to have a bad time because he’s been watching and knows that you’re killing everyone even up till that point too.

If you like, I did kill everyone.

Basically go through the whole kill counter. So once you hit a save point, it’ll tell you how many kills you have left for each area to, you know, complete. Take the genocide route. If you kill all the areas in the Snowden area before you even get to town, it’s completely empty already. A ghost town except for the monster kid. You can’t use the inn, but you can steal from the shop. So you can get a bunch of healing items for free. Which is kind of nice, but no one to talk to.

But Progress also offers to eventually be your mentor.

When you get to his boss fight, but then the fight starts and then he spares you immediately.

But yes, every boss here is a one hit kill. So you just do one attack. Hit it, as long as it’s not a miss. I don’t know if you even can miss, but as long as it’s not a miss, you kill him in one hit. When you kill him, he gives you a pep talk. So he just says I believe in you and you can do better.

But that dies, right?

So that’s cool. Once you get to the waterfall village, everyone’s gone except for the turtle vendor who just kind of hangs around and he says that by talking with you at least he’s buying enough time for everyone else to escape. So this becomes sort of a trend. Is that some NPC or enemy that you run into is kind of just killing time trying to distract you so that the rest of the people around can escape? You can’t actually fight the turtle, so I guess you just let him live technically. But I also at this point, because I remember from the first time around I went searching for and eventually found the Temi Village, but it wasn’t a particularly lively or pleasant place. Given the nature of my personality this run, I have to assume that there is something to be found in Dummy Village in a neutral or pacifist route. So maybe next time.

And then you know, moving along before the Undyne fight, the monster kid comes and says that Undyne told them not to go near you because you’ve killed a lot of people. And then he says you haven’t though, right? And you don’t say anything. And I think I don’t know that you notice any kind of actual conversation coming out of you. The character in this route, it basically just. You just keep not responding to everyone.

So the. The monster kid puts on a brave face and says you can’t hurt anyone else.

So you End up in a fight with Monster Kid which is like this is gonna dwell the kid, he just like stumbles everywhere and can’t. Doesn’t know how to walk. You know why? Well you’re a genocide route here so it’s gonna happen. Another kind of funny detail. If you do the check action for the stats right? For Monster Kid the comment says it looks like free xp.

Oh basically the second you choose attack and you’re about to swipe at the monster kid, Undyne actually steps in and saves the kid who then kind of runs off. And at first it looks like you’ve hit Undyne with that hit and she dies. But in reality it kind of like mentally fortifies her. She says oh no, I can’t be dying. And then her determination, you know, same way that you get some throughout the game pops in and she becomes Undyne the Undying.

And holy hell if you disliked her fight in the neutral run, go watch a video of this one. It basically is the same thing as before but way more relentless with the rhythm game shots portion flying at you way faster than before and your attacks do practically no damage at all at first. So you just have to survive, survive, survive for long enough to actually have a chance and then you can finally go and fight. This is one of the two boss fights here where you don’t want to hit kill and it’s way harder.

You know all those arrows fly like crazy. There’s a lot of the mix up ones that switch sides.

It took me a while, I don’t think I counted but wow. Yeah.

Probably at least the same if not more than Muffet the first time around.

Eventually you can kill Undyne and then you get keep moving.

When you get to the lab you don’t even meet Alphys so you actually don’t meet Alphys at all in this run. She.

Well Mettaton is there. He greets you because Alphys went to go evacuate the people because Undyne tipped her off and then went to go defend the area. So Alphys is just gone. There’s no meeting at all. Funny there because the hole in the wall where Mettaton bursts out Kool Aid Guy style in the neutral run is still there even though he didn’t burst out here. He was just standing around. And if you inspect it it says it’s just here to complete the look when you kill Muffet. Also a one hit kill in this run. Tiny spider crawls across the screen, sees that Muffet’s gone and then it leaves and then it comes back with a flower and just leaves it in the middle of the screen and then wanders off again from there. You don’t end up doing any of Mettaton’s game show challenge fights. Like not the play one or the cooking show one or the game show or any of that. It’s just a bunch. Those are all just empty rooms you just keep going through. You do end up fighting a different version of Mettaton where he. Where you have the final version called Mettaton Neo, but. And it looks different, but you end up one shotting it too. So Mettaton’s gone.

Then once you get to the new home black and white version of the house of Toriel’s house, Flowey starts spawning constantly to tell you his backstory. He tells you when he died and was reborn as a flower. He had no compassion or anything, but he wanted to have compassion.

Eventually lost the will to live, but right before he died, his gut feeling made him want to keep living. So through determination he respond and kept responding in a Groundhog Day type scenario, trying to experiment through every possible iteration of each interaction that he could possibly have. Kind of just how. Just like how a gamer might want to see every ending in the game. So this is another layer kind of looming back to what we’re doing here now. He just wants to destroy the world and erase it from existence.

You keep wandering. When you finally get to the gold hallway room with the windows on the end, you know that was a place where sand stops you. And at a save point and all that, he asks asks if you think even the worst person can change.

And I don’t know, whatever the response is, obviously here you’re deliberately trying to get this genocide route, so you choose.

No, but guess what?

Sans is the final boss.

Okay, so this is where. Where it gets nuts. Sans opens up the fight talking about what a beautiful day it is, birds are singing, and that on a day like today, people like you should be burning in hell. And then he immediately catches you off guard, slams your heart on the ground and sends you through a gauntlet of multiple very different bullet hell segments before you even get your first turn.

And it’s just out of nowhere. It’s a sucker punch, basically. So fool me once, right? Died immediately in that one. And then respawn. And then even if you’re not fooled the second time, he can still destroy you on your next attempt. And your next attempt in just this first section because it’s just so many different things all at once.

He then proceeds Once you get past that to dodge every single one of your attacks and then mocks you by saying what you think I was going to stand there and get hit?

Which is a very sans logical answer. How come nobody else tried to just sidestep away from an attack before in this game? Which is question for Toby, I guess, makes sans movements a little bit more funny. Then he goes full meta and talks about how they noticed many timelines are converging and it’s your fault, isn’t it? How he talks about how it’s a terrible feeling knowing that your life is just going to be reset. So he’s referencing your multiple playthroughs here.

Of course all this dialogue was happening right after he dodges your attack and right before he starts attacking back. So I had to go and find the transcript and read it right after I finished it finally, because you damn well know I was laser focused on just trying to stay alive second to second doing this.

Gameplay wise, there are actually a lot of true platforming sections.

And when his attacks hit you, they have this poison like effect where you take the initial hit damage and then you keep bleeding or being poisoned or whatever it is while your health continues to deplete.

So basically you can’t just. If you don’t dodge or screw up your bullet hell, you get residual damage on top of. But at least you have a much larger health pool from killing every monster in the game if you keep going and eventually get far enough. He mentions that you’ve been friends before. He spares you at that point, and if you check his stats, it says he’s the easiest enemy and can only do one damage and only has one gp, which is obviously a joke. When you attack him after this, he takes off his handicap and starts up the basically universe jumping. It’s like a multiverse at this point, so it can easily destroy you because every two seconds the screen cuts to black like you’re changing channels on a very old tv and it comes back to a different bullet health. So you do like two seconds of one Bullet hell cut to black, come back, you’re in a different bullet hell. So you just got to be constantly on your toes.

Eventually he starts to tire out from just absolutely demolishing you. And then he says he’s going to use his special attack and just like Papyrus, it does nothing. And he even says, oh, that’s not going to do anything. Something like a special attack is nothing.

He knows he can’t beat you, he says, and you’ll eventually kill him. So he’s taking away your turn.

It’ll be his turn forever, even if it just means standing there endlessly. And he eventually falls asleep for a while before you have a chance to attack him and hit him. While he’s asleep, you kind of. He falls asleep, you see the Z’s, and you kind of just nudge your bullet hell box over to the fight option, and then you can hit him and he actually gets hit. I highly recommend watching this fight if you don’t ever intend to play it because it’s just so wild. This one took me multiple days, many, many tries.

It felt like if you’ve played hollow knight, it felt like Nightmare King Grimm.

Eventually you kind of figure it out or just get lucky on the run and you finally get through it.

It’s rough.

You have to be very good at bullet hell and just practice and practice and practice and kind of have some idea of what. What’s going on.

Would I recommend it? You know, I don’t know.

[00:42:52] Speaker B: It sounds extremely. Okay, that sounds extremely tough. Now I feel bad that I didn’t finish my pacifist route. I kind of like, as of right now, I have to go back to it.

[00:43:02] Speaker A: He should watch. Watch this one. Watch this one, and it’ll give you the determination to go finish yours.

[00:43:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. I will definitely watch. Watch this. Sans fight.

[00:43:13] Speaker A: So Sans is dead. He says. He says something to Papyrus about, hey, I’m gonna go to Grillsby’s. You want something? Even though Papyrus is dead and Sans is walking off to his death, you see, when you hit him, you see a bunch of blood, like, kind of drip out of his mouth. Then right after that, you go, and one shot, Asgore Flowey shows up trying to suck up to you, basically saying he can help.

But then you end up killing Flowey, too.

And then right after Flowey’s dead, the weirdest part happens. So someone named Chara, who mostly looks just like you, but not yellow, shows up, says your power, like true ultimate power, awakened her from death.

And basically, she’s all your murderous personality traits built into one person. So whenever you were leveling up and gaining statistics, this side of your personality is what’s growing.

She says, now we’ve destroyed the world, so now it’s pointless, and let’s just erase it. And it gives you a choice at that point to erase or not.

I chose do not because this turn of events was super creepy and you wanted some semblance of redeeming qualities, I guess, after this. But of course, she then says, you must have misunderstood why did you think you were the one in control?

And then her face kind of jump scares you and gets all distorted. You get slashed with an attack and with no chance of bullet helling it at all, it just a slash across the screen and you see the screen full of red nines, like literally border to border to all corners, just red nines.

So that’s where it ends. I looked it up and if you choose the option to erase, she literally just erases your save file. So either way you slice it, once you finish Sans, this game is over. I know I mentioned it last time, but this was indeed the darkest timeline.

[00:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that is. That is extremely dark.

[00:45:01] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, now that you become the scum of the earth in the genocide route, it’s time to go curl up in a ball. I did. Also after finishing, I did read that any playthrough after doing the genocide route, you know, because you go into the menu and the main menu and reset your save file, any bladethrough after the genocide route will give you a different, lesser version of a true pacifist route after. So if you go and do everything you were doing for the true pacifist, it actually remembers that you’ve done a genocide route before and you don’t get the best ending.

So I might be locked out of that unless I play it on another console.

[00:45:33] Speaker B: That’s crazy. Wow. All right. That is crazy.

[00:45:36] Speaker A: And so that’s, you know, kudos. Another level of creativity here.

[00:45:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s a big level of creativity.

[00:45:41] Speaker A: Toby and team.

[00:45:43] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:45:44] Speaker A: In summation, I would say the genocide route is kind of a bother. Overall, the completely flipped story from the true Pacifist makes it worth going through at the end of the day and experiencing the true dystopian world of your own making. But at its core, they’re basically just two uber intense boss fights that are incredibly challenging and break the rules, even in Sans case, but also incredibly rewarding when you finally get past them. Even though these bullet hell fights in this RPG environment are so far and away from the Souls like genre, the satisfaction you get from finishing them, especially these two, was on par with beating Orphan of Kaas in Bloodborne or various bosses in Sekiro. For me, I.

I don’t know, I kind of wish that there was like a speed version of this somehow where you could just play the two boss fights and then watch the ending. But obviously that doesn’t layer in every level of detail that comes with, you know, seeing the abandoned towns and everything like that. So you kind of just Got to power through. Anyway, as far as parting thoughts, I don’t know what you got.

[00:46:50] Speaker B: Parting thoughts. I will say the neutral route was. It was fun. It was fun to play. Just overall, just thoughts on. On Undertale, the neutral route was fun to play, but it was definitely the most boring. The pacifist route I have. As I said, even though I haven’t finished it, I will try and finish it at some point.

But we definitely wanted to just at least like, talk about it. As I said, I’ve read up on the ending.

Well, I’ve enjoyed the pacifist route more because of also just some of the funny dialogue. The more funny dialogue that you get, the other differences with the bosses.

And it’s made me. It did make me. Other than this final fight right now against Ezreal and the Muffet fight, it made me enjoy the game a bit more than when I was playing the neutral because obviously there was more story, more funniness to it.

So I enjoyed it.

Yeah. Overall, I have. Thinking back on it, I have. I’ve put way more hours into this than I thought just doing these two routes.

And I have enjoyed it. I definitely have enjoyed it. I would say for me, I’d probably give this. I know there’s a lot of people who love this massively. There are some people who really don’t like the game, but for me, I’d probably after doing the pacifist route or getting through three quarters, if not more of it, I’d probably give it like an 8 out of 10 for undertale. Nice for the characters and just because of the characters, the dialogue.

A lot of that’s just funny how, like, it all, like, kind of ties in. The music’s great.

So I’d say eight out of ten.

[00:48:19] Speaker A: It’s.

It’s definitely. It feels like a mishmash of a bunch of different genres. Right. With some JRPG elements and then there’s the bullet Hell and then some more unusual things throughout. And I think it. It did a really good job at what it was trying to do. And obviously it has a big fan base and all of them have been really excited with deltarune and. And all that. So I’d probably hit it around a seven and a half or an eight two.

Yeah, it was a good time confirming also, we know we mentioned it in our expectations. Yes, the music is incredible. I really enjoyed most of the soundtrack. There’s a couple that aren’t underwhelming compared to the rest, but just all around a good soundtrack.

[00:49:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. Yes, it was a good soundtrack.

[00:49:02] Speaker A: And then while the Earthbound vibes here are mostly surface level, I think they get a little overblown in the discourse around it, but I totally get why they’re compared to each other.

Even with those because of those surface level comparisons, I don’t feel they’re all that similar gameplay wise. Obviously, what with the Bullet Hell and the multiple endings and the fact you’re solo and not in a party, but things like even just seeing the enemy in front of you face to face instead of side by side in the final fantasy of that age makes sense, but the quirkiness is there and really well done. And honestly, by comparison, Earthbound is such a chill game. Sure you have to do some grinding to level up to be able to get past some tougher later game areas and bosses, but it’s all manageable. Undertale’s Bullet Hell in the final areas can be anywhere from simple enough to tough to damn near impossible. Yeah, definitely just barely doable by getting good or putting in lots of repeat attempts and maybe sleeping on a boss after hitting the wall too many times and then getting through it almost immediately the next day. I feel like that happened a couple times.

[00:50:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that happened. Yeah, definitely.

[00:50:06] Speaker A: All that said, it did give me a strong urge to go replay Earthbound again. Or better yet, finally go figure out the Mother 3 English fan translation, which I believe only exists as a ROM. Hopefully Nintendo releases that one day. And then obviously there’s deltarune. Did playing this make you want to play through deltarune chapters one through four at some point?

[00:50:25] Speaker B: Yes, at some point, yes. Probably not in the sort of nearest future.

[00:50:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s definitely.

[00:50:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I do, I do. I want to know more about that, the story of that in the Delta review. So I do want.

[00:50:37] Speaker A: I will play those in the future, I would say. Deltarune is definitely now on my will for sure play Play it section of the backlog rather than the maybe I’ll play it section. But I do tend to like to wait until full releases are out of games with all their dlc, so I can go play them as one package rather than revisiting them. This goes well with playing backlog games rather than at release in most cases too, because almost all of it’s going to be out and Deltruin sounds like it’s going to get it be getting at least five more chapters at some point somewhat soon.

So back to the backlog it goes. I also do feel that obviously this game is 10 years old, so even researching the tiniest amount about it and you’ll know there are multiple routes and a true pacifist and genocide route and all of that. But really, this game would have been exactly the type of game that would have been perfect to Release in the 90s before the Internet had the answer to everything in seconds and was also not available so quickly, pretty much anywhere you want to access it. Had this come out, then it would fit perfectly into that feeling we’re chasing here at the gaming Backlog book club of sharing tips and tricks and random discoveries with people a day or a few days later.

[00:51:44] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.

[00:51:45] Speaker A: Back when you only had one game available to last you at least a few months and you spent all that time uncovering its secrets and either alone or talking with friends or the strategy guide.

That is likely also what I imagine playing this game at launch was like, even if it was just for a few days. Because it seems like any indie game gets completed by a big portion of the audience in days after release. People that don’t have massive backlogs just go straight for it and finish it quick and then they’re back to the waiting game for new releases. But I like our strategy better.

[00:52:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so do I.

[00:52:17] Speaker A: In the meantime.

Yeah, it’s always nice to have something to go on to if you. If you aren’t taking a break for something else. In the meantime, maybe I’ll fire up a few rounds of Smash Bros. Putting Ness, Lucas and Sans against each other just for fun.

[00:52:32] Speaker B: Oh, that would. Yeah, be interesting. That’d be fun to play. Might want to join you.

[00:52:39] Speaker A: Sounds like a plan. Okay, Alex, it’s time. Are you ready to play Cupheads, the delicious last course? Now? After all this Bullet Hell, there’s no better time than the present.

[00:52:47] Speaker B: Yeah.

May need a little bit of a break from Bullet Hell for a bit and then. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe soon.

[00:52:57] Speaker A: I’ll hold you to that one day.

[00:52:59] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.

[00:53:00] Speaker A: Maybe when we’re 80, we can revisit Bullet Hell.

[00:53:03] Speaker B: Exactly. Maybe.

[00:53:05] Speaker A: I’ll say I do have the urge now and the desire to go through the true pacifist run, even though I kind of know how it ends based on what you described. Because it sounds like just a good fun time and a good laugh and way to redeem it all after playing the Genocide Dark timeline, but that’s going to have to wait until I finish Silksong and many, many other games.

[00:53:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. If I want to try genocide, I’m not so sure if I will. But yes, it would be waiting later on.

[00:53:34] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Maybe check out that video first and see if it’s up your alley.

[00:53:38] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:53:41] Speaker A: Cool. Tune in next time to find out which game Season six of the Gaming Backlog Book Club will be about.

[00:53:48] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Thank you everyone for listening, and please let us know if you’ve done the pacifist route or the genocide route and how your experience was.

And yeah, looking forward to hopefully hearing some of your thoughts. Thanks again for listening.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of native games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.