I completed this game a few days ago, and I gotta say that the pacifist run is one of, if not the best, video game experiences of my life. Many games aspire to Undertale’s level of story telling, but they so rarely hit the mark.
I actually came into this from a pretty cynical point of view. I hate video games that try to judge the player (looking at you, Spec Ops: The Line) and claim they’re making some sort of high and mighty moral point about how you’re a bad person for interacting with what is fundamentally just data in a way that a third party you will never meet and who’s opinion should mean nothing to you doesn’t approve of. In fact, I still do feel that way. It is fundamentally shitty to call someone an asshole for enjoying things that you don’t when those things cause no material harm.
Similarly I feel that it is the height of smug, self-righteous douchebaggery to claim that because you abstain from violence in a purely fictional context that you are somehow a better person than those who do not. What you do in a video game and how you enjoy it has no effect on the world and no real bearing on your moral character and we need to stop pretending that it does.
Given my views on this then, you should understand what I mean when I say that Undertale is easily the best game that I will play this year, and that this year includes Witcher III, MGSV, and Fallout 4.
The characters are utterly charming and loveable, the story alternates between funny, cute, and sad and the fucking pacifist ending had me bawling like a goddamned infant in its pure, heart breaking beauty. There isn’t a single character that I can say annoyed me.
Also, I’ve got to give it props for actually making the pacifist option the more enjoyable one. The combat system itself is pretty blah, but interacting peacefully is always at least worth a chuckle.
Finally, let me close by saying that more than anything else I really, really wanted to give Asriel a hug and tell him that everything was going to be alright.