Subverting RPG Abstraction in Undertale

In Mason Arrington's lecture on Tuesday, he spoke on the element of "abstraction" as a key part of the RPG. That is to say, RPGs take real characteristics and represent them as abstractions in the form of numbers, text, or simplified images. The characters' well-being is abstracted as their HP, their physical strength is represented through some "strength" stat, their overall skill is represented through their level and experience points.

In Undertale, we see differing levels of abstraction, some of which are in line with RPG tropes, some of which subvert those tropes, and some of which come completely out of left-field. First, the game allows the player to gain EXP and increase their LV, but it's said early on that LV actually stands not for "level" but for "LOVE." Of course, at the end of the first playthrough it's revealed that LOVE itself is an abbreviation for "Level of Violence," and that EXP stands for "execution points." Despite this narrative posturing, however, the two stats still functionally serve as level and experience points, which is why I'd like to focus on a different way that Undertale plays with RPG abstraction: in the "bullet hell" combat sequences.

One one level, these sequences do their own sort of abstraction: the enemies attacking the player in combat is abstracted into this minigame. The logic of this seems simple at first: the turn-based combat system abstracts what is narratively a more complex battle between the player character the monsters, where the player's turn represents the player character's attempts to attack/interact with the monsters, and the monster's turn represents the player character's attempts to avoid the monster's attacks. As the game progresses, however, this clear distinction between player and monster turn becomes blurred. In the battle with Mettaton, the player is able to shoot projectiles to "attack" Mettaton during these sequences that used to be entirely defensive. In the battle with Flowey, the division between turns is eliminated entirely, and the entire battle is represented through this bullet hell sequence. The blurring of such barriers suggests that this system of combat is not simply abstraction, as was initially assumed.

These bullet hell sequences also disrupt RPG abstraction in another sense: during these sequences, the player character's skill is not abstracted through any stats, but instead is directly correlated to the player's skill in avoiding the monster's attacks. In a traditional RPG the player character's ability to dodge or avoid attacks and succeed in combat would be dictated by some statistic that abstracts the character's skill in avoidance; such a skill would be improved through repetition of combat and/or dodging, increasing at some rate determined by the game in order to abstract a sense of self-improvement. In Undertale, however, the player character's skill in these sequences is directly correlated to the player's skill at avoiding bullets/objects. If the player is skilled in hand-eye coordination and has experience in bullet hell games, then by extension the player character will breeze through such battles. On the other hand, if the player struggles with this aspect of gameplay, then they'll still need to train to improve their skills -- but the player will be improving their own, real-life skills in dexterity, not increasing some stat for the player character.

What does this mean for the game? Well, to start it, it means that the game privileges the skills of the player over the skills of the player character. In another RPG, all players would start at square one, and have to level up their character in order to make battles easier. In Undertale, players already skilled in the mechanics of bullet hell games are immediately playing with a stronger character than another player who lacks such coordination or skill. It's a different experience of playing of playing an RPG, where the player becomes focused on improving themselves rather than their character.