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Did Undertale push me to make 'moral' decisions?

In class it appeared that many were aware of Undertale being an rpg where violence is not necessary. I went into Undertale knowing little about the characters and even less about the game. For the games we play for class, I tend to research the game after playing as to avoid spoilers or other things that could affect how I play the game.

Toriel seemed like a monster with good intentions that wanted to protect me but was also lonely and wanted some company. I would have stayed with Toriel if I could have. Unfortunately, I killed Toriel despite wanting to because I was at 1HP and my attack power skyrocketed to 10x my average attack power. I thought Toriel's death was a lesson on how, despite not having used violence against other monsters until this point, the choice of whether to use violence is not always mine. Prior to attacking him I had been trying to passively defeat Toriel.

I did not grow any attachment to Papyrus. He was funny and quirky but I felt that his goal of capturing humans to move up in status would interfere with any chance I had at befriending this character. This idea led me to believe that I would have to kill Papyrus to continue. When the time came, I could not kill him. I was not strong enough. I thought choosing the flirt option would be the 'right' move to weaken his defenses and allow me to do damage. I was not only too weak to defeat him, and thus he lived, but he came to believe I was infatuated with him. I went on a date with Papyrus all while not changing my mind or feeling guilty about wanting to kill him.

Something similar happened with Undyne. I could not defeat Undyne with force so I chose the non violent method, but not because I felt that it was the right thing to do or felt morally obligated to not kill the monsters.

For general enemies I think the only one I consciously spared was Greater Dog. That was to me probably the only enemy where I did struggle with the moral dilemma of whether to kill him or not. A greater amount of my 'moral decisions' were decided by my ability to defeat them not because I specifically chose to spare or kill them. Others mentioned in class about time, boredom, being overpowered affecting the way they made decisions. Were there other things that affected the moral dilemmas presented in the game that perhaps we're not supposed to affect your gameplay? We're these things out of your (the player's) control?

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Kailin
Kailin
Nov 05, 2018

Prior knowledge and lack thereof of the game definitely affected gameplay in a way it perhaps shouldn't have for me. I don't recall the details of how I fought Toriel my first run, but it was a neutral run because I did kill monsters out of expectation for what one should do in an RPG, not knowing about the whole "the RPG where you don't have to kill". I'm not even sure I would consider myself having any moral dilemmas while playing Undertale, because once I understood better that the monsters were meant to be more like people, my second run was a pacifist play through because there was no dilemma at all with the idea of not killing people.…

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sjwang
sjwang
Nov 03, 2018

In my own case, I think a large part of my 'moral decisions' were motivated by the game itself. Granted, I had prior experience playing Undertale, and already had developed an attachment to these characters. That said, I do believe that Undertale tries to push its players, or at least give its players, as many chances as possible to be good. In boss battles, if the bosses' HP is lowered enough, or if a player is on the path of a Genocide run, boss characters will often offer the player the option to spare. It seems to me in those cases that the game is giving you one last chance to make a good decision, oftentimes handing the player that…

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