Undertale full version live reactions: day 4 & 5

[kjorteo]

I didn't get a chance to play yesterday because I was busy with things, but now it's the weekend so I'll try to make up the difference!

• This town has a scarily good balance of adorable and hilarious but then suddenly heartwrenching. Everything from the shopkeeper's pained expression as she talks about clinging to hope to the people outside talking about smiling despite the underground's problems is just... guh. Sudden feels.
  
• davidn implied that there were some great lines if I tried to sell anything at the shop (which I didn't try to do last time because I didn't really have anything I wanted to part with.) Just to test it out, I tried buying a bisicle and selling it back. Was not disappointed.
  
• The inn refund, too! I see Toby is out to deconstruct all RPG tropes, not just combat.
  
• All the dogs are in Grillby's! That movement-detecting one whose name I forget, Dog Marriage, Lesser Dog and Greater Dog, there they are... this all makes me dreadfully afraid of what this would look like on a genocide run when they presumably aren't there anymore. D:
  
• In the library now and monster funerals actually do sound pretty nice. And more feels aaaaaa.
  
• Ah, here we go, the long-teased and anticipated fight with Papyrus!
  
• That wasn't what I thought Sans meant when he warned me about blue attacks.
  
• Music upgrade! This fight just got real.
  
• I wonder what all the flavor text would be like now if I hadn't flirted with him at first.
  
• The date is actually a thing! Can you just... miss this entire part of the game if you don't flirt?
  
• 
  
• This is the greatest game ever made.
  
• I have secured Papyrus' phone number! Next it's time to progress to the next area, I guess?
  
• Oh, wait, no, I just realized that calling Papyrus gives you a comment about whatever room you're in. Time to backtrack just to see what he has to say about EVERY ROOM IN THE GAME (after the ruins which are presumably still locked.)
  
• Oh wow, if you go back and you're on a pacifist route, the random encounters have ceased and the monsters are all out as overworld characters you can talk to. I guess I was wrong about snowdrakes not existing outside battle!
  
• Oh my God, the snowdrake story got even sadder.
  
• Okay, now it's time to make progress?
  
• Or run into Sans and go back to Grillby's again, that too.
  
• PAPYRUS AND FLOWEY!!?!? Oh no, this is getting real.
  
• Okay, now it's time to make progress. But I'm scared.
  
• Ohhhh no. Papyrus and Undyne. I don't like where this is going.
  
• A psychologically damaged spinach egg pie. ...Okay.
  
• 
  
• At the wishing room now and THIS IS GETTING REALLY SAD.
  
• UH OH UNDYNE CHASE SEQUENCE
  
• HOLY FUCK UNDYNE JUST FUCKING KILLED THAT KID!! I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THINGS TO GET THIS DARK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH
  
• oh he's okay.
  
• WAIT A MINUTE, PAPYRUS ASKING WHAT I WAS WEARING FOR A "FRIEND"... UNDYNE????
  
• THE FACT THAT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS IN ANY WAY OKAY FILLS ME WITH DETERMINATION. YES I THINK I WILL SAVE HERE.
  
• *Pant, take break, come back later* okay moving on.
  
• The waterfall area has a few different music themes and they're all gorgeous.
  
• Every line Papyrus says is brilliant. Well, every line in this entire game is brilliant, but Papyrus... he managed to sell me out to Undyne and then call me back later with a perfectly... "logical" is the wrong word... Papyrus explanation that puts him right back into being adorable again. I love this game.
  
• Onionsan is the exact mixture of brain-scrambling WTF and "oh actually on closer examination that's really sad" that I really should come to expect from this game by now, but it somehow still gets me every time.
  
• I spent way too long trying to encounter the Shyren again after finding the piano puzzle, then trying in vain to come up with something based off what I remembered of the one rendition of the Shyren's song that I got, before it turned out that I was actually supposed to keep going and use the music box instead anyway. Also, the music box theme is pretty, too.
  
• "Carrying too many dogs"??
  
• wait
  
• I
  
• WHAT???
  
• 
  
• 
  
• And now one of my dog residues turned into dog salad?
  
• WHAT EVEN IS THIS GAME????
  
• Aaaa Undyne aaaaa
  
• Oh no, there's a candy bar or something I want to pick up but my inventory is full of dog residue (and a dog salad?) I guess throwing one of the dog residues away is okay; I still have the other one.
  
• The revenge of the training dummy, apparently. Sending the magical attacks back at it was super clever but I actually tried not to do that, because I didn't want to kill it. Turns out that was moot anyway because yaaaay Napstablook!
  
• Oh hey a shortcut back to that box earlier. Good, I really need to put the dog residue and dog salad away and clear up some--THE BOX HAS A SIZE LIMIT TOO???? Well, um... I guess I should throw away some of my old equipment, then....
  
• Okay, inventory sorted out, haven't gone into Napstablook's house yet but I saved right outside it, and that's where I'll leave it for tonight. This game is everything I ever dreamed.

Comments

[davidn]

I loved experiencing this and I love watching you go through the same mental journey :) So much to reply to!

I pressured you to try selling because I loved her reply, saying that she doesn't want any of your junk (that would be somehow acceptable to other RPG merchants) - that was the moment that I realized this game was going to set up and then defy a lot of my expectations. I didn't try selling her something back immediately after buying it, though - is that different?

The LIBRARBY! It reminded me that the library where my mum works (or it could be a game cube from Reboot) made the news when the road painters outside stencilled a no parking zone for the LIBARY.

The date :D When it just shoves all sorts of counters and numbers on to the screen - including just an EGG at the bottom left :) The question was rhetorical, but... yes, you can miss all this - you can, after all, opt to kill everyone...

I don't remember the psychologically damaged spinach and egg pie! I don't think I called Papyrus at all at this stage either - I could have missed a lot.

I didn't discover the secret with the piano at the time, I had to look up a hint for it online as to what to do to get it on my second playthrough. I actually tried to backtrack and look at it again, and probably would have made the connection with the umbrella, but I couldn't find the way - I'm wondering if it's a one-time thing or if I just couldn't remember how to get to it. I thought I would get a prize for it, but... of course Undertale would do something like that instead :) I thought "Too many dogs" was just a funny error message at first, I can't remember when I actually went in to check and discovered that there really was an Annoying Dog in my inventory...

I didn't have hesitation sending the magical attacks back and up the screen because I still wasn't picking "Fight"... I think that's the general rule. But yes, the sheer number of ways this game finds to use its own interface in incredible ways is amazing - and it just keeps getting better!