My discussion section on Friday spent a considerable amount of time talking about whether we identified with or as Frisk - or neither. A lot of people in the section said that they didn’t really identify with Frisk in any form, which was so opposite the experience I had playing the game, and I wanted to write and think more about it.
I went into playing Undertale with literally no expectations about the game other than it’s tagline - “An RPG where no one has to die!”. Even though the game is popular and many of my friends have played it, I knew nothing about it. Since I didn’t finish the entire game before class on Tuesday, I also had no idea that the protagonist was Frisk - not the character I named after myself at the beginning of the game - until someone mentioned it. I can’t speak for other people’s experiences playing the game, but I feel like my lack of knowledge going in helped me to identify with Frisk more than some of the people in my section.
There were a few things that made me strongly identify with Frisk in the first few hours I played the game:
First, Frisk’s neutral appearance as a character. Many people cited this as a reason they did not identify with Frisk, but after having played many games where I did not at all identify with a white male protagonist, I welcomed the idea of having an androgynous and universally relatable sprite.
Second, the mechanic of showing Mercy. Befriending monsters instead of killing them, as is so common of RPGs, made me identify more with Frisk than with the character in a game like Pokemon. This mechanic felt closer to what I would actually want to do in real life.
Third, the parasocial interaction discussed in the Shaw piece that I found to be incredibly pervasive in Undertale. Especially in the case of Sans and Papyrus, I was endeared by many of the characters and didn’t think twice about sparing the friends I had made. I felt attached enough to these characters, through Frisk as a middleman, that I didn’t want to see anything bad happen to them.
Finally, the direct address on the “Game Over” screen when you die. In my case, the name I picked at the beginning was my own, and so every time the game directly said “Jenni”, my identification with the game was strengthened. This was a major reason I didn’t see the Frisk reveal coming at all.
For all these reasons, I think Toby Fox designed Undertale hoping for players to identify with Frisk. My strong identification with Frisk made the experience of finding out my named character was actually the First Human even more confusing and surprising, because it stripped me of all the identification I had built up with Frisk. I was upset enough by this plot twist that I felt my experience had to be intentional on the game’s part. I feel like knowing anything about the game (especially being aware of the Frisk reveal) negatively impacts your ability to identify with them. If it was Toby Fox's intention for the player to identify with Frisk, do you only really get his intended play experience if you go in blind to the lore of the game?
I would be interested in hearing about experiences from other people who knew nothing about Undertale going in! I’m so glad I went into the game blind, and I hope some other people got to have that experience too.
Thank you for your post! I felt very similar! An important aspect I felt as well that made me identify as the character is the first person perspective of the fight screen. Some of the most witty and impactful parts of the game are the fights and during the fights you are playing in a sort of first person mode, where you're represented by a heart instead of a person. The heart feels like your heart as you move it around. Additionally, in the fight screen, you are moving through a menu. This reminded me of games like Pokemon, where I certainly felt like I was the main person. Additionally, picking what to do and have the monster looking at…
Undertale to me wasn't so much about granting you the ability to project yourself onto the character fo Frisk for the purpose gameplay escapism, but was more to underline the element of player agency in video games. I think the game was purposely made so that no one character could identify with Frisk, as the intention would be to distinguish the player and Frisk as much as possible from the start in order to later nail home the point that the player doesn't have deniability for the actions they committed in a decision-based narrative game.
Personally, I went into UnderTale knowing a lot about the game based off videos, friends, etc. However, I didn't know about the Frisk reveal and I played the game choosing options that I believed i would have picked if i had knew nothing. What ended up occurring was that I killed Toriel, knowing full well i would regret it (yet ended up regretting it even more somehow). Anyhow, I don't thin that Toby really meant for us to identify with frisk, but just to portray ourselves onto him as an empty avatar. The beauty of the game, is that it lends itself to multiple playthroughs, therefore when we realize who Frisk is, we can then play as him, identifying at…
I had a very similar experience with identification, and I wish I could have been as candid in my discussion section as you are here in your blog post. I stubbornly stand by going in blind with certain games like Undertale (especially if I only have to play $5 and Reddit won't shut up about the game). I started playing Undertale over the summer, so I didn't exactly go in with the same kind of critical eye expected for our close reads, so my "identification process" felt like it differed significantly from the consensus I gauged from class discussions. I didn't know quite how to express it in class, but your post help make it more clear: we can miss…