Second Childishness and Mere Oblivion

I didn’t take the time to reread my previous post, so I don’t remember every personal detail, but we’ve still got the same little lie-eating dragon front and center, and her daddy whose name I don’t 100% recall but that’s okay because he’s probably going to change it again anyway. Because he’s a habitual liar, and she’s here to ~~~bring out the best in him.~~~ I suppose it’s a bit of a twist on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing in that you’re (well, I’m) actually playing as the girl instead of reading about the poor misunderstood guy, but we’ll have to see how far it really goes off that particular rail.

We begin with a FLUFFY SHEEP that lives on NIGHTMARES. Because... of course it does?

Our main characters, both of whose names I’ve apparently forgotten, appear outside yet another town. Or a pleasure resort. Or something. Although I’m not 100% sure the guy she’s with is the same guy from before, because they were talking about stealing people’s clothes, but his hair looks different? It’s... blue? So maybe she’s hanging out with one of the police from last episode, but more plausibly it’s the white-haired guy again and he’s just in a disguise to be extra-dishonest.

It’s hard to screencap but these puddles on the ground are reflecting the colorful clouds as they drift overhead and it’s pretty! But notice that our guyfriend definitely doesn’t have white hair.

More cat people! Did we ever figure out why some people are cats (or dragons)? I don’t think we did. Maybe it’s just taken for granted around these parts.

right, right, our name is Efi. Short for Efina. I can remember that.

the cats’ name are Thom and Mars and I’ve already forgotten which is which

This all looks important! Also apparently they’re dogs, not cats. Wow I am having a hard time guessing species in this game. Fortunately it seems they’re humans and that’s the important thing.

Wandering around the resort for a while reveals it has a whole lot of guest rooms, and also a cathedral? A very christian-looking cathedral, no less, with a giant cross. Huh. I found a couple weapons in some bookshelves in some of the rooms, so that’s useful.

RPG common tropes strike again! I am properly amused by the idea of us walking into this room and getting into the bed while this confused person stands there at the table, watching but unwilling to strike up a conversation with us until we do the work of initiating one.

Hello.

This lady claims the manager is “a woman with bandages around her face.” The chapter’s opening narration referred to the fluffy sheep eating a young girl’s dreams, rendering her an empty shell of a person... would bandages be appropriate on an empty shell? Something to keep an eye out for, I guess.

We found another guy who works here. Maybe he can be the first murder victim? Efi says he reminds her of the guybuddy.

This building is really big.

After a meeting with the manager (who is scary and used to be an executioner and has a sheep?/dragon? boy follow her around), it’s time for Efi to explore again! Probably her best move is to go find that sheep boy, in case he is a dragon, so she can learn more about herself! That greenhair lady is probably too classy for a little kid like Efi right now.

Okay, found the sheep boy. He very much does not deny being a dragon. He’s pretty reserved but Efi seems able to draw him out of his shell, which might be useful for when he inevitably dies horribly later on. Still, I’m sure Efi will learn some valuable lesson along the way! He also says she smells tasty.

But, y’know, quieter and more reserved than that, because he’s a sheep, and sheep only rarely eat humans.

Okay then the green-headed lady was actually really nice to Efi so maybe I overestimated her aloof classiness. And of course everything she did played into the truth/lies theme, because she was using lies to entertain people or something. I don’t remember anymore if there was any overarching philosophical point being argued for in this game but I’m sure this lady is part of it somehow.

All the patrons of this establishment look identical to one another (although maybe they come in two different genders, which is to say, hair lengths). Is that a conservation of artwork thing or an actual bizarre phenomenon about the nearby villagers? The sketchy guy at the bar did warn Efi to stay away from them, but that might just be because she’s young... eh, I’ll be suspicious of them all anyhow.

Lucas was already the first murder victim! Gosh I am good at this. Except for the minor detail that he isn’t actually dead.

well, okay then

The green-haired woman’s name is Olivia or something like that, and she is also a snake? I’m not sure how literally to take that in this game. But she’s dating Lucas, which doesn’t seem to match either of their outward personalities, but they are both good at (dazzling Efi with) card tricks. So there’s that. Still, it’s looking like we’re descending into everyone-is-suspicious territory.

Although I don’t think the manager (Sophie?) did it.

And the sheep kid has other things in store for him.

On the other hand, Olivia has now started talking about how missing memories are a recurring problem in this place, not only something that happens to Lucas when he gets crucified. So the sheep boy, who after all “eats dreams,” is looking suspicious all of a sudden. But maybe he’s doing it on accident?

One of Efi’s policey friends says this is the secret to becoming an adult dragon. As opposed to, I dunno, waiting for time to pass. They’re still going strong on the idea that dragons are born for specific Reasons, but Efi doesn’t know hers yet.

There’s a lot of silly stuff with trying to get Olivia to answer questions which is plainly just so much filler. :( But it’s clear she isn’t as nice as she came across at first... or at second... or whatever.

Have I mentioned that the basic combat in this game is just... boring? All the Little Lie creatures look similar to each other, sit there and wait for you to attack them, and have no interesting moves or anything. Just Attack until they’re down because it’s not worth wasting SP on them instead of waiting for an end boss thing. Sometimes they serve plot purposes, but others are just... there. Bleh.

At least Hal and Efi got a solid bonding moment out of this mess down in the trash heap, and without a single cup of noodles between them either.

Really, this is pretty, but there’s just nothing to it.

Then there was a HAPPY ENDING and EVERYONE LEARNED LESSONS ABOUT LOVE AND HONESTY

woooooo

It would seem that what I thought was a game is in fact... a trilogy? Judging by hair, eye, and outfit colors (you’ll just have to take my word for it) I guess this is the same character in each portrait, presumably representing successive stages in her life. The middle one looks kind of armored, so maybe she becomes more militaristic in the middle times, then... gives it up for pacifism? And wearing black things in her hair? Yeah I’m really not sure what I’m looking at here.

Our story (LiEat 1, specifically) begins with a father telling two children the story of a place where humans and vampires lived in Harmony, until one vampire killed one human, so that vampire was killed in turn. And apparently vampires don’t exist anymore.

The first screen. On the left is Efi (short for “Efina” according to the menus); on the right is a man who apparently goes by many names, but currently prefers Leo. She seems fonder of him than the reverse. Efi looks like the girl from all the opening images, whereas Leo (the one I’m currently controlling) does not, so maybe Leo is going to die soon. That’s game logic for you.

I found a “Liar” in the inventory and gave it to Leo as “Weapon 2.” It increases his Att and Def but also sounds kind of dangerous to have around? Oh well; nothing ventured, nothing gained, and he may be going to die no matter what I do anyway.

Trying to read the sign suggests that Efi may have memory issues. Or she’s just dumb. Or she’s just very young. Really there are a number of possibilities, but I’m leaning toward the young one because my current theory remains that this whole scene is set rather earlier in time than the bulk of the game will be.

This woman seems to be someone that Leo knows. They both seem involved in the “info” business. Also she has feathers? I was going to say maybe that makes her a dragon, but they’re more given to scales, traditionally...

Five houses later, the feather woman is the only other person we’ve found, which is kind of worrisome. We did get some new and improved weapons though. Efi seems to use baked goods for combat somehow.

Okay we found another, similar-looking person in another house. She says she thinks the only “real” people are in one specific building? Also Leo used to be called Harry, with a rather different appearance, and this woman doesn’t know who Efi is. But this house had some new and improved secondary weapons in it, huzzah!

We found a library, but the only reaction I got from pressing enter a lot was “A whole lot of different books.” No detailed backstory here. The game is being pretty close-lipped so far about what’s going on, but I’m sure there’ll be a dump in the near future.

We ran into a lie and killed it. Straightforward RPG stuff so far.

Ominous! So is underpopulation a problem with this town specifically, or is the whole world like this somehow? Maybe humans are turning into lies? Or dragons? And where do vampires come into the matter, or is this one of those things where the opening won’t matter until like 3/4ths of the way into the story when I’m supposed to have forgotten about it?

Suggestive of a local problem. Apparently this fellow (who is indeed a fellow) is named Keith and his sister is named Rachel. She’s probably the person I saw earlier in the library? Keith seems welcoming enough, but he warns us to stay indoors at night because there’s a wolf, and I kind of don’t believe him.

Efi found some candy, and also a moral dilemma! Or at least I assume it’s Efi, even though Leo is the one being moved around by the arrow keys... everything is getting very short, simple descriptions, as might befit someone very young, but then suddenly this candy generates a lot of enthusiasm and we already know she has some kind of (weaponized) affinity for sweet things. In any case, there’s probably no sense in angering Keith by stealing his candy; what if he needs it to fight people with? Anyway Efi already has a macaroon, that’s probably tougher than some little candy.

Okay, no, Rachel is actually in another room of the house and claims she is “not supposed to talk to people” which sounds a bit different from being shy like Keith claimed. Upon reflection, the quiet individual in the library looks more like an animal hybrid person... maybe a wolf...?

Efi is a dragon! Or at the very least, she hatched from a dragon egg that is part of Leo/Harry/Papa’s backstory as he reveals it to this other info person.

Neat!

So then the woman claimed to be Leo’s sister, but that was a lie. And that created one of those Lie creatures out of nowhere. So I guess I can infer that Keith’s statement about the wolf wasn’t a lie? Maybe?

The woman suggests that maybe this is the town where vampires and humans lived together.

Efi has been abandoned to wander the city on her own. Hmm... maybe Rachel will talk to me now? Nope. The wolf person? Nope.

Okay never mind the wolf thing. This woman offered to tell stories, but Efi recognized she’d have to pay for them and declined. This has to tie into the stuff with Lies somehow, yes? Maybe stories are regarded as the ultimate Truth or something, so they’ve become highly valued in this society where Lies have physical manifestations? Same thing for “info” but maybe less valuable? Or maybe more? Hmmm.

Okay but then I went to talk to Keith again and he seemed confused by the appearance of creatures when he said things. So maybe Lies are only created when Efi is around? Moreover, it looks like not all the creatures are even Lies... and the ones that aren’t, taste bad...

Eating a Lie is surprisingly cute!

Keith claims to be of a race with a “special diet.”

Okay now Rachel is willing to talk. I guess Efi had to send Levin out of the library first for... some reason.

healthyfamilyrelationship.jpg

“We’re a different race from the townspeople. That’s why everyone went away.” And before Keith said something about his special diet becoming less pronounced over the years/centuries/something. Okay this is all starting to come together.

A new key term, I’m guessing. Informant. Meanwhile the other woman, the orange-haired one, asked for 10k to tell Efi the real name of her “papa,” so there’s that.

The most handsome, friendly, and informative Leo has ever been. I thought he was an old guy, but looking at this bigger picture, maybe not.

Efi refuses to go to sleep, decides to go have an adventure! Unfortunately she is still too young/dumb to be able to read the book about vampires (I assume) that the cat person was looking at earlier.

There was a loud scream in the night and now orange-hair is missing! And so is Keith for that matter. And also I can’t figure out where we’re supposed to go... oh, hey, an alleyway!

Oh, hey, orange-hair is dead from a bite mark on the neck.

Wellllllll.

Hey, you know who likes to bite people on the neck? Cats! This is clearly Levin’s fault. Clearly.

Suddenly the town is full of people! Okay but they seem to be police or something.

(Neil is a DRAGON. So is BRETT. Maybe dragons are just naturally policemen?)

Another random police person claims to personally not be a dragon, though, so it’s hardly a guaranteed relationship.

Right, because when I see someone with bull horns trapped in a spiderweb, my first thought is “vampires.” Obviously. Ahhhh but this game is pretty sometimes though.

Rosalie here gave some more vampire backstory but I don’t feel like repeating it all, suffice to say that Keith and Rachel are not full vampires but just had one in their ancestry some generations back.

A little late to give the poor lady a name, don’t you think? :(

Efi finds a photo of a man and two children. Rachel claims to have seen Keith go outside last night. She also recognizes the photo as being of her and Keith, and names her father as “Jeil,” which came up earlier in the vampire backstory.

Hmmm. So unless the random cat guy (who is Rosalie’s servant or slave or familiar or something) does turn out to be the culprit after all, I’m not sure where else there might be room for a twist in this plot. It looks like a very straightforward murder (well, vampire murder) that I guess is tailored to teach innocent young Efi that even if someone seems friendly, they’re not necessarily a friend. And other than the general ideas of Lies and Info, nothing that’s come up seems like it’s much tied to the outside world or is in any way a hook for future events; everything’s been revolving around Keith and Rachel and their vampirism. So I guess we’re nearing the end of this particular arc, which may or may not be the end of LiEat until LiEat 2?

Only one way to find out I guess.

Pictured: The only way to find out.

For serious, because I have no idea what else I’m supposed to be doing right now... even giving up and stealing Keith’s candy doesn’t seem to do anything.

That’s quite the upgrade. But the episode’s pretty much got to be almost over, right? This is way too overpowered a cake otherwise.

Maybe I should consult a walkthrough. I can’t seem to find anything else to inspect and resting isn’t seeming to make time pass.

Ahhh! Okay, the dragon policemen are in one of the houses! I thought I’d checked them all over and over but apparently not this particular house this particular time. They say that physical dragon qualities can be deliberately taken on but are pretty much optional, which explains why Efi is just a cute little girl. (Why Levin looks so much like a cat remains a mystery.)

“Theobald Leonheart”

The police dragons are presented pretty unambiguously good guys by this scene.

Hmmm, okay, several fights and one conclusion later, that was LiEat (1). Efi reacted a lot less to the breach of her trust than I thought she would, but apparently she’s only supposed to be like 4 years old, so I guess that makes sense. Presumably this whole thing was something of an extended tutorial and the themes will be further expanded on next time around.

I didn’t have much to say about the big Undyne scene last time, but only because I was very much falling asleep. But I definitely had a strong negative reaction to it at the time, and I think this is why:

Before I entered her house, the game seemed to take Undyne seriously. She was the ultimate expression of the monster Side in the game’s broader story, since ASGORE was too busy being sad about everything to really take much of a moral stance. Undyne was the one who believed in the cause, worked hard, accomplished great things, and almost won. (She even becomes the new leader if you kill ASGORE but not her.) Every time she wins the battle in any given playthrough, that’s her as the hero of her own story.

It helped that nobody else in the gameworld had a single bad thing to say about her. The yellow spike kid idolizes her. Alphys is powerfully attracted to her. Papyrus respects and fears her. The others... don’t really talk about her much, I guess, but still, all her major relationships portray her as this imposing, inspiring figure who is believed to be the savior of their kind. She’s silent. She’s intimidating. These are all good things.

Admittedly, some cracks do show when she takes off her helmet and actually talks to you. I can’t quote specific lines, but it’s obvious that she’s gotten very frustrated chasing you around and is having trouble containing her anger. So sure, it’s not a stretch to think that anger management is a general thing she has to work on. And yet...

And yet, all that nonsense in her house had nothing of the Undyne whom everyone else talked about.

Which in and of itself is fine, right? Showing unexpected sides to people is part of what characterization is all about. But we already knew that Undyne has a softer sight, or at least is able to have caring feelings about other people--Alphys, and her mysterious friend, assuming I’m not missing something there--and there are sure to be plenty of ways that could have been demonstrated more meaningfully in the privacy of her home.

Instead, I got Papyrus Redux with a side of She’s A Bad Woman, You Guys.

She gets all but instantly duped into some stupid dare thing from, if I remember correctly, Papyrus of all people. Then she spends the entire rest of the time demolishing the rest of her credibility... not only is she incapable of regulating her actions enough not to destroy her house, she doesn’t even seem to care about it afterwards. It’s occasionally questioned how much she’s just putting on a show to pretend to be your friend, but my takeaway was that for the most part, she meant what she was saying and is simply completely incompetent.

And it gets weirder when you consider that specifically what she’s doing is kitchen stuff, a super-traditionally feminine activity. Immediately after talking about Papyrus and how nice he is and how he’s separate from her army life. Why is this how I had to get shown Undyne’s home life? Why is it so important to take this universally respected woman who’s in charge of the royal guard and insist at length that she really likes cooking and is really, really bad at it?

I’ve never had an easy time figuring out what the hell Undertale wants me to think about any given subject, but in Toriel’s case, my general impression is that I’m supposed to feel positive about her. Characters will mention her being sweet or liking jokes, and her eating snails seems like it’s supposed to be an endearing characteristic. Apart from the moment she attacks you with fire magic--and even then, she refuses to go through with it--she also happens to be coded as deeply feminine.

Alphys is more ambiguous. She’s kind of annoying, but not on purpose exactly, and nobody ever seems to imply otherwise. I don’t think she’s consistently coded in either direction--she’s a scientist, she has a dress, she watches anime, she’s really worried about her perceptions on social media... she either bounces around or is generally neutral. (My instinctual reaction to her whole otaku thing is that it’s more male-coded, but I recognize that some of that stems from erasure of women in nerd contexts... my reaction isn’t based on any actual numbers, so I hesitate to give it too much credence.) I’m not sure yet how I’m supposed to feel about her as a whole, but she’s apparently got more screentime coming up, which will hopefully help with that.

I dunno. I don’t think I can currently put my finger on any particular (hypothetical) viewpoint and say “this right here is how Undertale feels about gender roles.” At the very least, it’s not taking an invariably hardline position. Papyrus is a buffoon, but I don’t get the sense that’s either because or despite his being male. Sans also exists. Mettaton (being a robot, for one thing) gets to experiment a bit. The Hotland Royal Guards are a specific version of masculinity and... maybe made fun of I guess? Not sure. But it kind of weirds me out that the characters who read to me as most feminine--Toriel and Napstablook (although honestly I don’t remember if Napstablook is ever explicitly gendered, maybe I’ve been making up the whole thing?), and a few aspects of Alphys--are portrayed as sympathetic and endearing, and the moment that Undyne’s credibility is violently stripped away from her, it’s while she’s failing at a traditionally feminine task... but not (and this would have been good) in a way that reminds us she’s still perfectly good at plenty of other things that happen to be more important to her, individually.

Basically, right now Undertale seems to have something against Undyne, and I don’t know why, but there’s at least one kind of creepy possible answer. But the True Pacifist Route Guide that I’m using suggests she does return to the story again--albeit perhaps more in the context of a supporting role for Alphys, don’t know yet--so I cannot honestly pass judgement without further information. (I think it’ll also be important for ASGORE to get more screentime later down the line, because I feel like he’s not very traditionally masculine, and I’m not sure where the game wants to take him just yet.)

Right now, though, I’m uncomfortable.

Anyway, back to the game I guess. My next assignment from the guide appears to be sparing Mettaton. Although first I’ll grab some unanswered questions from (the end of) my first playthrough, so I can keep them in mind in future and see what does or doesn’t get resolved, and maybe add a few more along the way...

Who’s that mysterious character who saves you from falling, using yellow flowers? The one character you ever introduce yourself to?

What are Flowey’s origins, and in particular, how is Flowey connected to the yellow flowers and/or Asriel?

For that matter, are all yellow flowers somehow references to Asriel, or is there some other reason for them?

Who is/was Undyne’s friend?

Who is Shyren’s sister?

Where do skeletons come from?

Why can you kill skeletons but not ghosts?

Are any or all of the six captured souls characters? (In particular, Sans, Papyrus, Napstablook, Mettaton, the Ghost Dummies. I’ll pretend I didn’t notice that’s a list of six, because that would feel much too pat.)

Alternatively, are any of those undead characters Asriel? (If so, does anyone know about this?)

What is the meaning/symbolism of Toriel’s tree?

What is the meaning of Determination?

Why does Undyne’s name make her sound like she’s undead?

Maybe more stuff? I dunno. I remember wondering a few times why the monster world had e.g. internet connections, but the implication is that all that stuff gets washed down the Waterfall, so okay, sure. And the question of how Undyne feels about Alphys seems likely to be resolved or at least further developed.

Huh, this is different-looking. I guess this is a tally of how many major characters I’ve spared... plus Sans? I’m going to guess that Toriel’s chair being on top of Flowey’s grass isn’t foreboding anything in particular, and try not to pay any attention to the fact that Papyrus appears to be tolerating a rambunctious Undyne.

Here’s another thing to remember to do, along with the snowman piece...

Now I recognize this as a reference to Mettaton’s backstory, not a generic platitude. Neat.

This doesn’t seem to be on the guide but it sure feels like it would be an important component of making everyone happy. Fine, Mew Mew it is. Lord knows I’ve watched worse animes.

Okay, now it’s time to make friends with the spider queen.

...or apparently all I had to was stay alive a turn or two longer than previous encounters. Oh well. Looks like none of the spiders’ problems will be solved today after all.

GOOD END

Friendship continues. Sans said a bunch of stuff and some of it was probably related to multiple playthroughs and some not and I don’t really remember which was which. Alas.

Bought the Mystery Key again for the sake of completeness...

Ohh, I just figured out what that one character in the restaurant was talking about with the core being made of interchangeable parts. That’s why Alphys is getting confused. Right.

I went out of my way to bring these girls TWO glamburgers and got no different reaction. :(

Is this the face of a ghost robot who recognizes the caller? Hard to say

Never mind, that’s pretty clear. awwww.

Back to the guide.

Backtracking out of the core is a slow process. At least now I know why the riverboat always gave an option to go back to Snowden.

Well, your posture sucks, so there’s that.

These are some very specific gifts, aren’t they?

Well, you’re capable of talking, and I’m not, so this can really only work one way.

Not according to the current primary delegate trends, no.

Wait what? Why am I here? I don’t understand. I didn’t fall from anywhere this time, did I?

Stopped by Napstablook’s on the way to the lab again but she had nothing to say about Mettaton. Bleh.

This “True Lab” place looks suddenly incredibly plottish after all that dating! Time to read up on backstory I guess.

DETERMINATION! Okay finally we’re making some progress here. And then interestingly, saving in the big room afterwards doesn’t fill you with determination...?

Oh huh, I wasn’t actually thinking there’d be any monsters down here. This sink ghost thing feels pretty Earthboundy.

That sounds like a terrible idea

Here’s a new keyword, subtly hidden not in caps! This has to be connected to Flowey somehow, right?

I’m just going to assume this is Shyren’s sister until I see proof otherwise.

...wait, I’m right, aren’t I? Sort of? This is part Shyren’s sister, and part Aaron(’s bro), and so on? Judging by the actions and general confusion? Neat.

This “DT Extraction machine,” come to think of it, looks kind of like that ridiculous contraption Flowey was using.

Now I seem to have run into Asgore and Toriel’s home video collection. So far it’s just sweet stuff, nothi

WHAT?

Tape 3 doesn’t appear to be narrated by either Tori OR Gorey. In fact, the language (and the reference to buttercups) sounds more like Flowey...

Okay, well that video collection was ambiguous as all get out, but I am willing to hear more. ENTRY NUMBER 4 suggests this all happened a while ago, prior to Alphys’s soul research...

Like all these flowers nearby?

You are not the Runaway Five but I guess you’ll do.

So, the natural reading last time was that this was Asriel and Asriel’s human, but... maybe not...? I think I may be misjudging the timeline somehow.

Let’s see what our old buddy Sans has to say today! Apparently... nothing.

Oh, hey, it’s Toriel! Things are going very differently all of a sudden.

Toriel seems to know very little about what’s been going on! That’s kind of refreshing, actually.

Look at everyone more or less getting along and not explaining anything at all! This is proof Katie can’t talk or she’d be asking about all that true lab stuff, but noooooo.

Aha! Once again I have Flowey to thank for putting everything back on track. Yes, tell me things, Flowey! For instance, why do you suddenly have the power to destroy the barrier...?

A ring of flames! ASRIEL?

...no, perhaps not.

*tries again*

ASRIEL?

Yes! I got it right this time! Asriel is Flowey what a sho--no okay not shocking at all really. Though this doesn’t quite seem to match up with the true lab stuff yet........

This is a respectable fight so far. I’ve even got the snowman piece with me (but I forgot about the turtle guy ugggggh). But am I supposed to use it or keep it ahhhh I don’t know :(

My heart... refused to break? Wait but did that reset the fight or...? I’m confused

It’s the DT extracter again I think?

Really? Really?

No, this choice will not stand in the way of the harem ending! Besides, none of them would approve, whatever it would even mean...

Assuming I can find something else to do, anyway. Assuming FIGHT is still strictly off-limits.

Hmmm.

Aaaaah neither of these are good choices! But I guess the game really really wants me to pick SAVE, so maybe that’s the trick to advancing the cutscene. Okay, how about... Alphys? We never did watch Mew Mew together, so there’s a dangling plot thread there.

This lost soul looks nothing like a cute zombie schoolgirl. :|

Oh, I see, it’s not a choose-one situation. It’s just saving them one at a time. Sure, whatever.

GOLLY GOSH I WONDER

yes, I’ve played MOTHER 3 too, good job

Okay the timeline is making much more sense now that he says that. The yellow flowers in Waterfall? Much less. But at least the timeline is looking solid.

“They all care about each other so much!” Well, except for that bunny lady who was walking her bunny, she didn’t seem very sociable.

I’m guessing it doesn’t much matter whether I do forgive him or not. Personally I don’t, but narrative logic says I have to.

Well, I guess it makes sense now why Katie never told anyone her name? Sort of? From a purely Doylist perspective at least. But my disbelief just doesn’t stretch that far.

why the hell do you have tear ducts

Another chance to talk to the turtle! And... the snowman? Gosh how generous!

The leftmost coffin had mummy wrappings in it for some reason.

Good for you! I didn’t contribute to your happy ending in any way!

At... what?

You are NOT HELPING

The metaphor continues unabated!

Yes! Yes, I can fulfill this final sidequest for you, Mr. Snowman! (Although it’ll probably melt when I get there.)

All mysteries forever have been solved!

TRUE LOVE

and then they ventured into a human settlement and were met with panic and fear and wholesale slaughter

unclear

You had better have that artifact ready to unabsorb, punk.

Yeah, yeah, I know already. Any attempt to characterize the main character in this run will only lead to failure, I think. Perhaps it is time to lie back and play Undertale the way it is intended to be played: as if the fact you are controlling any playable human being is mostly an unfortunate byproduct of the art style and any backstory you may wish to ascribe to the opening cutscene is irrelevant. Undertale wishes the characters to speak directly to you. So let’s give them one last chance, shall we?

Still no Flowey at the start. Works for me.

Talked to the dummy. Toriel says I’m very good.

This isn’t listed in the guide but I don’t trust Undertale not to mess me up for taking more than one anyway, so one it is.

Toriel called on the phone and said some stuff about seeing old friends for the first time, perhaps forgetting that I have never once let her live. Perhaps she is getting senile.

Did we ever figure out who “they” are or what Napstablook is even doing here? Things to watch out for while busy not antagonizing her in the place she actually lives later, I guess, even though those too don’t seem to be requirements in the guide.

you know what, fuck it, let’s get ghost married (does not seem to be possible)

Oh, right, she comes here because there’s nobody around. Apart from all the frogs I guess.

Okay, this makes buying things a bit harder. Sorry, Muffet. I mean I’m not really sorry, I don’t like you as a person, but I figured I ought to apologize or something anyway. (Later I got more gold somehow but felt unmotivated to go back.)

Apparently if you get multiple enemies down to yellow you can use a single SPARE action to get rid of them all. That’s helpful.

Does it make any sense to get the knife? Maybe it doesn’t, actually. Pacifists presumably don’t have any use for weapons, unless they’re facing Vegetoids... hmmm. Maybe I should get it just in case.

Not technically--I think I already returned home but that wasn’t good enough in some respect. I don’t know what’ll actually be waiting for me at the end of this. But if saying that will make you let me out  your house, sure! (Interestingly, this was by far the least i have ever interacted with Toriel, and yet, pacifism? Whatevs.)

Whoops Toriel killed me. This is slightly harder than I remembered! Let’s try that again.

Still no Flowey...

Apparently I don’t have to do anything special until after sparing Papyrus, so that’s good. Sans will be ignored at every opportunity.

Once again Tough Glove is available in the crate. Once again I don’t quite know why.

This doesn’t seem to be in the guide either but I will still try to remember it this time!

Jerry is not a familiar name! Weird. Either the random number generator happened to skip this one earlier, or maybe this is what one of Undertale’s various mysterious patches was about? (Probably the first one. I remember there was also an enemy with removable barbed wire who didn’t show up this time, so it’s totally possible a different enemy might not have shown up earlier.)

Just noticed how much this computer, which was apparently made by Alphys, resembles Mettaton. Nice detail.

For the briefest of moments, Undertale realizes it might have a messaging problem. I checked these characters to see if they had anything particularly interesting to say about dogs no longer being extinct, but no, not really.

Oh but hey Grillby’s is absolutely full of dogs. The Greater Dog actually kind of reminds me of the Fierce Pork Trooper for some reason.

Papyrus’s gags are getting predictable. I wonder how much I have to do here to qualify as “completing” the date.

hey, I’ve written this fanfic

k

Onionsan still doesn’t make much sense, tonally or otherwise.

I tried to put the Annoying Dog down somewhere less unhelpful but it only was in my inventory in the room with the artifact. :(

So far there does not seem to be any way to avoid encountering the mad dummy.

There is a lesson here somewhere.

Then we were one with the universe. That was nice.

In the Obvious Things I Missed department, while editing this post I finally figured out Napstablook’s name. I mean, obviously one reads it as Nap-Stab-Look the first time around, because of her Ghost Eye Attack, but she gets nicknamed “Blook” a lot. So what part of her name does that leave, which might be the reason for her headphone wearing and music collection?

Yeah! Should have caught that one sooner, probably. Clever gag.

That’s decidedly less condemning than last time around.

Well I should bloody well hope so.

According to the guide, the trick to not making Undyne suddenly disappear from the game is to heed Papyrus’s phone call and go back to Undyne’s house. Okay, can do...

this is new, and also uneventful

Undyne looks undressed. This is odd.

Of ASGORE? Is this important? Probably not but who knows.

Undyne said something that suggested her old friend might have been male, and therefore probably not Alphys. Hmm. Suspicious?

It’s time to kick ass and slaughter the innocent. Nothing shall distract us on our dishonorable task to--

--hey, those look kind of like bunny ears is this a Zootopia crossover all of a sudden?

Right! Nothing shall distract us! Just as soon as i figure out how to start a new game (I’m stuck back with Katie at The End for some reason), one shall surely commence.

This is very distressing. I wanted to be someone else. Why would Katie go back? Her story is over. It was supposed to be time for Charice, slayer of demons! She was going to descend into Mt. Argot in search of the Monster King, believing that if she returns to the overland bearing his crown, the gang of hooligans that has recently descended onto her school will return her stolen lover. Why won’t this game let me name a new character? Every time I select “No” I just get sent back to the Continue/Reset screen again. Ughhh.

Maybe I need to sit through the end again? No, apparently the last save was before the ASGORE boss fight, that’s a bit too much to replay just to try to rename the darn protagonist.

Okay apparently there is nothing I can do on this front. (Other than delete all local files, of course, but that would probably be missing the point a little too much.) Katie has been... revived? Sent back in time? Maybe Charice has possessed her and is guiding her body into the depths of monsterville, hoping to use the monsters’ familiarity with her as a sneaky way to win their trust before murdering them? Joke’s on you, Charice, Katie barely even remembers her adventures now and has written it all of as a fever dream from the poorly-studied “pre-cockatiel” era of her history. Although I think Asgore got killed last time around, so this probably can’t actually be a direct sequel. Tch. I guess we’ll have to find out what Undertale has in store for us with this weird name forcing thing...

~together~

Okay, we seem to be skipping Flowey this time around. But Charice is on guard nonetheless. Katie? Katie is on guard? This is confusing.

Toriel was all “follow me!” and Katie was wary and went back and checked out the starting area some more, but Toriel didn’t comment on that. Actually she seems a lot less talkative than I remember in general. I guess the game figures I don’t need to get a tutorial twice over? Or maybe I’m just remembering wrong.

Did we ever establish who was behind all these puzzles? The ancient diversion/doorkey things?

And here we go. Incidentally, I thought of Toriel the other day! I was watching a cat eat, because I have become very attached to seeing cats eat ever since my cat died of starvation last year. (Well, of some internal thing that manifested itself as an inability to eat, which led to starvation.) And I stood there looking down, hands clasped, just like Toriel does! Is the missing piece of the puzzle, the reason she’s so condescending, that she really doesn’t think of Katie and the other children as, uh, human? (Monster?) But as pets instead? Hmmmmmm.

You know nothing. You saw nothing.

Katie(???) killed Froggit but Toriel still walked her over the spikey spike puzzle because it was too dangerous.

Later on when you hide behind a lamp or whatever it is, is that because you learned the skill of hiding from Toriel? (But not very well?)

Charice needs all the help she can get against the monster hordes okay! Especially because further evidence suggests Froggit is not yet dead :O

Toriel thinks that Katie is Katie, but Katie is too busy being Charice. Butterscotch it is!

Well played, Undertale. Perhaps the most potentially emotionally draining encounter, right off the bat. (Whimsum has been having some weird things to say about being forced to fight or something, and seemed harder than I remembered, but that’s not particularly emotional.) Okay but, Napstablook is already dead, isn’t she? This doesn’t matter.

Napstablook agrees with me. She should know, shouldn’t she?

For realsies, though, I am not going into this run predicting a very emotional time. Everything I said in the asks and stuff from last time around was pretty much correct: the writing in this game is not something that gave me strong emotional attachments to these folks. Maybe if their artwork was more detailed, or rather, if their personalities were. But right now... seriously, eh. Killing enemies is just what one does, nbd. And it’s just a game instance anyway, Crash Bandicoot all over again.

This is genuinely amusing, but I’m not going to take the time to figure out what it means in terms of Undertale’s weird acronyms.

In the room to the right is the Spider Bake Sale, but I think a genocide run probably means genocide, and that means I have to fight Muffet again? Ugh this is already getting difficult. But I think buying anything from them is probably the wrong move, for all it might be more helpful to have items in a game with more fighting.

Charice told a frog to tell its friends not to use yellow names. I don’t know what that will amount to either.

Got the Toy Knife, following a couple of encounters with Vegetoid and its pal. That should be useful.

Apparently the pie is too hot to eat, so Toriel suggests taking a nap. Maybe there really was no other solution but to fall asleep and eat a slice after waking up? Tsk...

I tried entering the basement a whole bunch of times until Toriel ran out of dialogue. I guess there’s some event flag I still need to flip. Maybe the nap. Well, if nothing else the nap produced a slice of pie, which I seem to recall being a healing item... no, but I still can’t leave. Maybe if I talk to Toriel about it in the living room? Yeah that was it.

If you say so, goat lady. She got beaten up again, time to escape and go looking for the monster king. Or just play the game. I dunno how much the Charice conceit really adds anything. Yeah dropping that.

Flowey still doesn’t seem to be around. I guess there was talk of him being more in tune with the save/load/etc. game mechanics than most other characters, so that makes sense. Wonder what it’ll do to the ending.

Sans asked if I’d heard the whoopee cushion in a hand thing before, which I’m guessing is another way the game reacts to having been played before. Good for you, Undertale? I guess? That’s really a completely meaningless detail.

Sans and Papyrus show up. I’d forgotten how much I didn’t miss them.

Somehow “Tough Glove” was already in the storage chest thing? Weird. Well, more ATK is always handy. Then I beat up a Snowdrake, which I guess is good news for that cameo in the restaurant or whatever toward the end actually making sense?

Genocide is hard work, snowman. You can’t take any chances! Maybe you’re a requirement too, I don’t know!

I ignored the word search thing this time. Success! Then a bunch of other stuff wasn’t skippable.

Greater Dog’s music is actually pretty good. This is the... third time I’ve noticed the music, I think?

Still no idea what to do here. No combination of mushrooms seems to make the door openable. :(

This doesn’t look familiar at all. Did I just never enter the Inn last time? Weird.

Got a call on the cell phone looking for “G”, but then heard the wrong number song instead. Does the game do something special if you make your name “G”?

Oh boy it’s time to actually send the plot in a different direction! Slightly! Maybe! Papyrus has a whole bunch of health but I’ve survived this blue attack before and I’m sure I can do it again. And lo, one SPECIAL ATTACK later, it was so. Moving on, without all that friendship stuff to take up time...

Ah, right, Undyne time again. Staring creepily at the rushes from the darkness.

You are going down

Imagine, if you will, an Undertale that actually built on its puzzle ideas instead of abandoning them all after the second iterations or so. An Undertale that cared about gameplay. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I hope this doesn’t interfere with genocide somehow but I didn’t remember having done it before... hmm, wait, is this the song I’m supposed to play on the piano? Hey yeah it shows some symbols! And now there’s a door in the wall! I am changing history here!

what the hell

another enemy to go looking for, I guess?

This scene is still bewildering.

Apparently I still have to fight the dummy despite beating up the other one instead of running away from it. Okay? And apparently it’s a ghost.

And then Napstablook showed up to save us again... despite being battled earlier? That’s friendly I guess.

Maybe this is Undyne’s house and we’d get to go inside if we befriended her or something. But hey, that’s not happening!

It is proving very difficult to attack Napstablook. Like, difficult to figure out how. Also she is genuinely sweet and stuff but the draw of the genocide is winning out if only I could figure out how to make this work.

well, maybe she doesn’t count because she’s already dead

even though the same should apply to Papyrus??????

This time i left the yellow spikey kid to die but Undyne saved him. Genocide is hard. Especially since there are so many random NPCs in the villages and stuff whom I couldn’t touch? Making all that angel of death stuff from the tablets kind of silly?

No, I suppose he wouldn’t have. And apparently Undertale’s idea of how to try to make me feel guilty about someone is... saying he never missed a meeting?

Sheesh.

Flowey...?

Undyne had a very drawn-out death sequence (and implied having some feelings for Alphys along the way) and didn’t seem to drop anything. Cute idea, fairly well written.

...really? Have you been paying no attention at all?

Ahhh, there we go. Come on, dramatic tension or whatever-----never mind.

alas, poor tsunderplane

I found them! They have... a mystery key! Which maybe is to Napstablook (’s neighbor)’s house? I guess I should give that a try in case there’s anyone else in need of killing...

They were totes cute.

Look what else I found! Searching for a locked door has kitty-shaped benefits!

Whoa their shop actually buys stuff. Time to dump all those old weapons and things and try to buy a temmy college

okay this is probably not in the spirit of a genocide run but sometimes you just have to sell all your food items to send temmies offscreen

it seems it would be possible to obtain 8000G for armor by repeatedly buying tem flakes for 1G and selling them for 2G, but that would be a really bad idea

mystery houuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse

Okay if I’m reading this right, and combining it with what the shopkeeper girls were saying, this is Mettaton’s backstory? Mettaton and Napstablook and the dummies were all ghosts together, but the dummies became dummies, and Mettaton became a robot (a soulbot?) which is why he knew Alphys already

huh

not sure what the bit about “Shyren’s sister” is about, though

Later I destroyed Mettaton and Dr. Aphys took it surprisingly well, like there’s nothing I can do to get her to attack me???

Heyyyy someone noticed. I was beginning to lose hope anything I did would ever have consequence.

...and then... he disappeared?

...so maybe that didn’t either.

Sigh.

THERE’S my baby!

Aaaaaaand he’s not going to fight me either. Wow. I think I must have done something completely wrong, like not found a way to fight NPCs or something. Bleh.

Well, that was boring, but at least there was some new dialogue from and about Napstablook? >_> Like I was being kind of ironic last time around but I am really coming to wonder if she doesn’t happen to be the game’s best character. She’s too quiet to get into the super-annoying endless monologue thing that Undertale is so fond of, and there are various ways of learning more about her indirectly, from books and things, including in Mettaton’s old house apparently, and that’s a cool detail. Alphys gets a similar treatment from the game too at times (talking to the valley girls, poking around her lab when you first enter it), I guess, but Napstablook just pulls it off better somehow?

Otherwise, though, there was much less fighting than I was hoping for (no new battles at all? and Flowey even removed??), much less of the game seeming to notice what I was doing and actually changing the narrative around it. Even when I did have fights, they didn’t seem to be any more difficult or last any longer. There just wasn’t a lot that changed, other than the game trying to be cute by having characters occasionally say something sounded familiar, which... accomplishes nothing, really.

And it was never made clear why I couldn’t change name, either.

Right? Right? It even talks about hearts! This looks properly adorable and also low-color-depth. Glancing at some screenshots, it seems to rely on the color black a bit more than Undertale did, giving almost a Hero Core vibe... but, y’know, with more than two colors. And it’s free! And she’s got a bandage for a tiara! How can this go wrong?

(well, her breasts aren’t drawn terribly well on the title thing there, I guess, but I’ll give that a pass for now)

Before I even run the game, the name “Hurtland” draws my attention. It’d be really easy for some Super Meat Boy ripoff to be set in a “Hurtland,” right? Because everything hurts you? But I wonder, in this game, if it might not be the case that everything just... hurts.

Let’s find out!

I honestly don’t know if this is “safe mode” like the computer thing or if it’s an actual narrative thing?? I guess I’ll go with the first option

Well then. Um, there’s a cat asleep on top of me right now so I’m probably not at my most agile. Normal it is! Also I apologize for the blurriness, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to choose how the game window is resized, and there’s no way I’m playing this at 1:1 resolution. Wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing.

So far the music is repetitive but very peppy.

This is not a great font, but I’ll get used to it... oh wait! Have you folks seen the Ultimate Online PC Font Pack?! More low-res fonts than you could ever possibly need, all in one place! Super neat. Anyway unless these two aren’t related this is an awfully silly way of addressing your own daughter--do you really need to throw in “Saturnian” like that like you’re talking in exposition?--but oh well this is just an opening scene and will probably be gotten out of the way quickly enough~

Amelia does indeed get out of the way quickly enough. She tells us that we--Remedy--are a recent healing school graduate, and we need to go see Prince Hingst (a derivation from Angst? I assume). But also, and this part was not mentioned in the game description, we have a friend! Had a friend? Someone else went to see Hingst but has not returned yet. Foreboding!

Movement is grid-based

My eyes are glazing over a bit--I really don’t think I like detailed menus very much. :| But it seems these aren’t really submenus but just power levels, so that’s better

Oh dear I’m trying to move entirely in tune with the beat of the music :| Crypt of the Necrodancer is doing things to my head. Seriously, play it, or maybe don’t...

Queen Amelia’s courtiers helpfully talk about the controls a bit, and they’re very freeform. One action button, which can be any number of keys on the keyboard, and it doubles as the menu and run keys too. Impressive.

The exposition in this game continues to be very unsubtle. “Frallan” is such a weird name it makes me think I’m missing something, after the straightforwardness of “Amelia” and “Remedy.” No offense meant to any Frallans out there.

And then Princess Remedy jumped off the edge of the castle I guess? And fell into Hurtland’s overworld.

Perhaps I need ten hearts before I can go this way.

Huzzah! So apparently combat in this game is... I’m not sure what the genre term would be. It’s kind of like a shoot-em-up, maybe, but you fire continuously (YES!) and you can change direction, so you fire whichever way you were last moving, up/down/left/right. And the “enemies” are I guess... germs? Viruses? Something like that. So far they didn’t really fight back but I’m sure that’ll change in later fights and we may get seriously bullet-helly or something. Maybe?

(“Single-stick shooter” apparently I read later)

The net two combats (healings) involved picking glass shards out of a patch of grass (so that a sentient flower could prance around in it) and unclogging a duck’s beak of bread crumbs. So apparently this is a bit more general than just germs/viruses...

While getting glass shards out of someone tired out from too much game-jamming (the origin of this game, I think), I discovered that flasks (the number in the bottom right corner of the above screenshot) can be thrown for I guess added damage

Take note: ∞% more explanation of where skeletons come from than Undertale ever bothered giving me. (Also, a talking skeleton AND a talking flower? Gosh!)

Then we brought Jenny back to life in the toughest battle yet (but we’ve got a big health bar)! Do Remedy’s powers know no limits?

As I thought, that overworld thing was destroyed by the simple act of having 10 hearts.

Nothing else of much note happened in East Hurtland. Remedy helped more people with their problems, like smelling bad, or losing their voice, or forgetting their names.

Plot development! Does this mean he suffers from every conceivable ailment? Or that everything in the world makes him unhappy?

Okay this sounds like the best hobby

Coming off Undertale, it’s odd how... physical all these interactions are? Like, they’re definitely a lot more fun this way (though so far I think I chose too easy a difficulty level), sure, but it doesn’t always make total sense. Cleaning grease off horns, sure. But unmelting someone’s face? Tidying a mummy’s bandages? It’s not always totally clear how these metaphorical battles work. Hmm.

it’s a secret to everybody

Apparently I have to have opened this chest first. But I’ve opened so many chests already! Oh dear. Remedy doesn’t seem to know how to cure jealousy though.

This girl was my first “death.” (HEALING FAILED!) The game is definitely getting harder, but fortunately death seems to be entirely without consequence. The metaphor that is combat continues to vary greatly in how much sense it makes, and I can sort of see why Undertale eschewed this approach in favor of dialogue menu options--enemies in Undertale attack you because they’re bad, so attacking them back is also bad... or no, wait, they’re not bad... okay, I lost track again. Anyway this is more fun, albeit a lot shallower.

I don’t think it comes off too well in screenshot form--it can’t flash blue, after all--but this is a really pretty attack style.

Then Remedy met a guy named “Mug” who had lost all his money on the lottery... she healed him... and now he says he’s rich. Weird.

Very curious. Princess Remedy seems to ignore entirely questions of good and evil, she just cures everyone of whatever’s ailing them. This Dark Lord was struck down by some Hero--so apparently this is at least somewhat a traditional RPG setting she’s operating in--but she thinks no more of setting him free than of helping a face laugh again.

I forgot all about this subplot because I forgot the game had a plot but! I did it! I won this subplot!

...huh. Remedy, do you have a dark past? Is all this healing your way of trying to atone for having hurt your best friend’s feelings? Is that why you’re so indiscriminate now with your powers?

...I may have spoken too soon about winning this subplot. This is really hard.

Okay did it. Frallan holds out hope, but can accept if friendship is all she’ll get, at least on paper. Hmm. It’s kind of neat that Remedy has this explicitly same-sex relationship, isn’t it? Even if it’s in her past, and now she’s off to heal a prince instead? But the fact that Frallan is also female is presented entirely without comment.

Well, that answers that question.

Awwwwww. Prince Hingst was not nearly so tough a fight as Frallan. Perhaps in Frallan’s case, Remedy was also fighting... HERSELF?????

Then Prince Hingst bestowed upon Remedy the... right? power? the something. Um, basically, she can marry anybody she likes! All she has to do is talk to them! Well, I guess the burger horn guy is tempting, or maybe the duck lord, or the girl with no friends, or the Seal of Quantity, but, really...

I mean come on

sure there’s a question of whether proposing marriage to someone after you dumped them is really the right sort of escalation, or if I’m forcing Remedy into this somehow, but if gameplay is story, Remedy did bring her a box of chocolates! and she tried over and over to heal Frallan’s heart, long past the point less emotionally invested people might have given up!

Whoa I missed a whole bunch of stuff apparently.