Undertale Plot Analysis (SPOILERS) - Nitro Rad

night draw Brad so it's pretty unlikely that by this point you haven't heard of undertale shortly after released this game it exploded he received critical acclaim from critics and fans alike with it amassing a sizable fanbase that grew and grew and grew and grew the undertale fanbase is completely out of control ah it's also not unlikely that this is you I've heard many people complain that they've been seeing nothing but undertale on their feeds for the past few months on twitter it's undertale on tumblr it's undertale facebook it's undertale everywhere you go it's undertale undertale and not to mention being voted best game of all time you gotta be kidding me but hey don't let the insane fandom get to you I'm honestly getting really burnt out on it myself but don't let that make you avoid the game undertale is a fantastic and incredibly well-written game and you really should play it I mean you really should play it before you watch this video because I'm going to spoil absolutely everything so if you haven't beaten the game yet I don't know why you're watching this we all know undertale is good but why why is this game good what is it exactly that makes this story so engaging so emotional and so smart we're going to try and figure that out in this video so let's just start by running over the game's plot this is undertale the first thing we see in the game is a little bit of backstory that music sound familiar it show that you're a fan of the mother games it's very similar to the title screen theme of mother known as earthbound zero or earthbound beginnings in North America it doesn't take long to figure out that there's a lot of inspiration from the earthbound series here in fact the developer Tony Tony Hawk Toby Fox used to make rom hacks for earthbound anyway the intro describes a war breaking out between monsters and humans ending with the human sealing the monsters away underground we're not told why this war happened and no one I knew who played the game had immediately wondered why it happened either having such an NES style introduction were thrown back into the old day where backstories were a brief and simple they were just there to get the ball rolling they didn't need to be incredibly detailed I like to believe that it's because it's in this style that it's likely the player doesn't question why there was a war it just resonates with us as all reason for the game to begin our awareness of this history without any reasoning in question has a huge payoff later in the plot alright so we name the character in boom here we are waking up on a pile of flowers we then meet this guy flowey our best friend now he's this guy's a dick he looks cute and he's being really friendly but immediately something just seems off about them it's probably the music I mean like is this there's this song make you want to trust this guy no flowey even gives us a little tutorial he explains that this heart is our soul and we can become more strong if we get a high LV what's LV uh it stands for love yeah ya know there's this jerk tries to trick you and his reaction is really funny if you don't follow his instructions but then he gets impatient and decides to kill you ah thank God for goat mom this tutorial her name's a play on the word tutorial and she guides you through the beginning of the game the game actually parodies how hand Holte tutorials and games have gotten she just does the first puzzle for you straight up draws an arrow in the wall solving the next one for you and she literally holds your hand and walks you through the next I always thought that was really funny she babies you through everything even telling you not to attack the dummy when teaching you about the combat system solve your problems with words not fists it's like our annoying nagi mom telling us to be good but she's so adorable so we love her and we listen to her yeah it's a freaking dummy it was literally made to be pummeled but we listened to her goat mom and we talked to it that is unless you're a dick you know under Tales intro has such a unique take on the earthbound vision of seeing a mature world to the eyes of an innocent child we see the influence on the child from us the player we don't have to start the game as an innocent child because here early in the game we get a chance to disobey our attitude is our own in undertale we're not forced to be nests or Lucas the good spirited youth the game tells us to be we have the choice to refuse the friendly option and instead attack which rewards us with what's expected from RPGs gaining experience and leveling up its undertale that dares us to be innocent because we have to make that choice even if it means we're not rewarded with conventional RPG elements like levelling up it goes against everything RPGs have taught us in the past 30 years kill enemies get stronger make the game easier that's how it's always been but instead we're rewarded with comedy defeating enemies via sparing requires talking to them which is always comedic and since the game's writing is absolutely superb we often want to do it this way this is often the mindset of a first-time player that doesn't really know much about the game and that creates a conflict do we do what we're supposed to do in RPGs shouldn't I be leveling up that's what we do in every other RPG but I don't want to level up it's way more fun not to I don't want to use this lame timed attack it's just not fun flirting with big blobs now that's fun eventually we get tutorials home which she shows you around shows you the bedroom in the kitchen and your room my room uh I got to get home I mean this is cool and all I appreciate you looking after me and giving me a place to settle down but I can't stay here this is where we start to feel conflicted toriel seems so lovingly and hell-bent on keeping you here she wants the best for us it's comedic and heartbreaking at the same time when you just repeat how do I leave and reply to every cute mom thing she has to throw at you but then you both land on such an opposite consensus I want to leave and I will not let you leave so here we have the first boss fight and it's with what's pretty much become our mother figure we can act in two ways fighter like this is a normal video game and expel a rebellious pent-up rage and don't do what mom tells us to or we can settle things another way this is the first battle that it really doesn't look like you can win by doing it the fun way by talking and having a comedic situation that you spare the enemy in but you can spare her it's just that you have to be absolutely relentless about it you have to really drill it into her head that you want to spare her clicking it again and again and again even though it really doesn't look like it's having any effect we aren't simply given the option to be good here we have to go so far out of our way to be good and only because of that is it truly an act of good because it's not convenient because we're doing what we think is right even though it requires working for it even though it requires doing something that doesn't seem like we're going to win by doing it so many games just give you the option of doing what you think is right but so little make you work for it so little games have an attitude that if you really are the good guy you'll be patient and relentless enough to drive the long way home infamous is the perfect example of a similar morality not done nearly as well they always want the evil option to be the more convenient one but the good option is never really enough of an inconvenience to make being the good guy that much harder than being the bad guy undertale understands this and gets it right so bird omote Oriole Killer Sparrow either way warned us of the awful outside world she told us how dangerous it is how terrible it is and how we'll never fit in she couldn't have been more wrong the outside world is sick we got skeletons telling joke we got Christmas presents grill bees libraries fun stuff all around we love it we freaking love this place we're greeted by sands who is like immediately the most likeable character in the game and then we see papyrus who's like immediately the most likeable character in the game these two bozos are hilarious and even though they're technically the bad guys you can't help but to love them now it's not hard to make a villain lovable like literally all you have to do is make them funny and bam likeable villain but villains like these always have some sort of despicable traitor motive that makes you not want to light them in the end papyrus on the other hand he's only the antagonist due to circumstance and as you know in order for the monsters to break the barrier and reach the surface they need human souls you being the final one so it's really for the better of the monster race and it's not because he's evil or anything in fact he's so kind-hearted that he ends up being friends with you that is if that's what you worked for if you decide not to attack him if you decide to go ahead and do the side quests where you go to his house and hang out and this side quest is crazy funny papyrus has something that's actually funny to say about everything in his house the writing is is so consistently good it's it's astounding really now this experience with the first main antagonist plants the seed of expectation at this point you're probably thinking okay I get the game by now I'm going to be able to become friends with these so-called villains and have a good time you know that's how I'm gonna be able to beat the game without killing anybody because that's how undertale is marketed as the friendly RPG where no one has to die and now it's time to make the player struggle to make that seed sprout Jesus this one really wants us dead like really dead unlike papyrus who tries to stop you with wit and whack undying is here to impale you and tear the soul right out of your tiny human body though you're also accompanied with a monster child who's constantly trying to tell you how awesome undying is how badass she is on the journey through waterfall you become close friends with the monster child all the while trying to avoid being hunted and killed by Undine there's even moments for the child's sides with you when you find out that you're the one undyne is trying to hunt and then the confrontation there's a lot of character development during this fight you find out why she's so hell-bent on killing you and how it's really for the better of her people and after growing to love the monsters from chapter one it's really easy for you to understand her plight so what do you do kill her no you can't do that and she's not gonna let you spare her either so I catch you running away and then you find yourself in a situation where you can save her from dying but why would you do that she was trying to kill you well you know I'm kind of a nice guy and I'm like I'm laying Weaver to die I did the predicament they're in really makes you empathetic even if they need to kill you in order to solve it and this sparks the idea of maybe there's another way or at least uh I'll leave and you guys can kill the next human that falls down here and not kill me either way it thanks the question is there a way to solve the problems of the monsters while you know not dying this one's easily the most outrageous chapter in the game as you walk through hot land your phone will be constantly blowing up with alphas as status updates about anime and other nerdy stuff and then at the same time turbo deadly mettaton the robot is coming after you in a way that combines a hilarity of papyruses dumb and elaborate traps and puzzles with undines help and desire to destroy you I often forget how much I really loved mettaton and that's because the fandom won't let me picture them as this but instead only makes me picture him as this even though he's only this for like a minute in the game but yeah sooo mning you've played the game I don't really they regurgitate the entire chapter for you what's important is that it makes you laugh and in turn it makes you really love these characters and the world they live in and now comes the time for you to fight for your right to leave it it's finally time for the big showdown with the king of the underworld has gore the entire way here I was always wondering what he looked like he's supposed to be this big terrifying dude but at the same time people are always telling me that he's a big teddy bear as he roamed through his house which looks identical tutorials house you'll constantly get into random encounters but this time the monsters aren't here to fight instead they here to tell you a story the story of as Goran toriel's child named Ezreal after the war between the monsters and the humans Azrael found a human child who had fallen down into the ruins they grew to become the best of friends friends so close they were almost like siblings as time passed the human fell ill and then died Azrael wanted to bring the human back to the surface to give him a proper burial or memorial or whatever but when he got there all the humans were there and all they saw was a monster carrying the body of a dead human child so the humans kill Azrael and this sparks a strong tension and hatred between the monsters and humans so now do you remember the very beginning when the backstory was presented in such a classic way that didn't make you think much of it this is the payoff after hearing this story it really reiterates to you the struggle between these two races and having this story being so close to the end of the game makes it so powerful I'd argue it wouldn't be nearly as powerful if the introduction had already made this feeling concrete it's emotionally elaborating on something that we already consumed but just didn't properly digest yet and after you realize what it was you ate kind of gives you a little bit of a stomachache so anyway on the way up to as gory bump it to her old pal sands and he hits us with some pretty hard info it turns out that exp stands for execution points and LV or love stands for level of violence so now depending on whether or not you chose to slay monsters you might be feeling pretty awful about yourself but after being judged by our good in sands he feels that deep inside were good-natured and you know we're not really evil and going to kill everyone or anything like that so we meet with this özgür character finally and he's either completely what you expected or not at all what you expected either way he's this big friendly fella who politely greets you with a smile but it's awkward because he knows he's gonna kill you you know he's gonna kill you and neither of you want him to kill you but that's what he's gonna do and neither of you are gonna stop him from doing it I always found it really unsettling how he tries to tell you to think of it like a trip to the dentist you know it's painful but you got to do it and it's really for the better but the dentist doesn't kill me dude but here we are the epic final show did we know by now that there's got to be a way to beat him with them oh oh like flowey told us in the very beginning it's kill or be killed and that finally applies but now when she beat him you get the option that Smile he shoots you if you choose to attack is really creepy either way you know what happens flowey that little [ __ ] and he comes and destroys a score soul so you can't break the barrier and then he crashes the game okay now that was weird let's open the game again and then the game starts glitching out and this really scared me like game's glitching out in terrifying ways freaks me the hell out but not only that but it's a conscious reminder that we are playing a video game more on that later so we start the final battle with flowey and this scared the [ __ ] out of me when I first saw something like this being made out of photorealistic assets in an entirely otherwise pixelated an 8-bit game it really caught me off guard it's like when Courage the Cowardly Dog would cut to something that's in a completely different art style it has shock value not just because it's scary but because it's also an erratic Lee different art style you can't beat flowey alone in fact the souls of the humans he absorbed somehow managed to help you out almost like that part in Full Metal Alchemist where something similar happens I always thought it was a really nice touch that all the attacks you that coincide of the soldier trying to save represent all the different weapons you find throughout the game as if each weapon belonged to all the six different humans that has score defeated this battle is is crazy with his new godlike powers flowey takes control of your save file he then saves and loads the game as certain parts of the fight just to screw you up there's even parts to reload your save just so we can kill you over and over and over again so there's two common motifs in undertale first the one I've been drilling into your head over and over the fact that this is in fact a video game now undertale isn't the first game to do this words can into the game that the game is a game and it's more so using the device that the games being played on until a story one-shot did a similar thing and there's a bunch of other games that do it too but this also works in conjunction with the secondary motif the theme of repetition again more on that later once flowey is defeated you'll get the chance to spare or kill him and if you want to spare him dear god you gotta work for it he tells you again and again that he will not learn his lesson that he'll do this again and again so here we are again being delivered the theme of repetition more on that later alright so we all know this is just the standard ending that we get right here it's not even much of an ending just kind of leave and that's it you don't even actually really get a real credit sequence either but of course we're not done here yet we still have those side quests we can do so we can unlock the true ending well I don't even know if you'd really call them a side quest because it's kind of mandatory to get the real ending but I particularly love the bid analysis lab for just a little while the game almost becomes a horror game with a very dot flow feeling to it and this here is the second time the music sounded familiar to me both the overworld and the battle themes in this place sample songs from earthbound we hear the trumpets from the cliff that time for God and the strange echoing sample from the place the malcolm ichi battle and undertale were actually a reused character design from that earthbound Halloween romhack toby made anyway I really like this part because it's where you have that big discovery of flowers origin how it's really as real soul injected into a flower since plant life is different from a human or monsters body now keep in mind that adds real had also absorbed the soul of the child meaning flowey is a manifestation of both of them combined flowey is a plant so physically he represents neither side of the war and he hates both sides because both sides screwed him over and killed him twice and after doing all this during the fight with asgore flowey is once again able to assume his true physical form as Azrael after stealing not only the souls of six humans but the six monsters as well six monsters that have grown on you as good friends and here we have the true final boss of undertale Azrael dreamer this boss fight is really cool not only is it flashy in the music kicks ass but you win by performing an action you normally do not do in battle and that action is saving and not in the traditional sense either instead of saving our game we're saving our friends we're using the button we've been using all along for something greater than just logging our progress and that's cool because again the game is reminding us that it is a video game now between this boss fight in the initial boss fight with flowey it does something really interesting it plays on game mechanics regarding saving and loading now flowey would load your game to screw you over and in doing this the game demonizes the concept of loading we're here during the Azrael dreamer boss fight it glorifies the game mechanic of saving loading is bad and saving is good that's what the game is trying to teach us now what the hell does that all mean keep watching and you just might find out so back to the boss fight y'all know what happens you get that one final moment with Ezreal who's like you know his actual Ezreal self and it's really touching like really touching it's not like mother 3-tier jerky putt damn dude it's it's pretty dang close once you're through of all that malarkey we get the true ending where everyone makes to the surface and we're all stoked we're all pumped except for sands he kinda is just like all right see ya and walks away back in the direction we came from that that always struck me as odd but okay but yeah we get this crazy satisfying ending credits sequence it's very reminiscent of a Super Nintendo parade ending where it shows all the characters do what cool things live in the lives you work really hard to earn for them and that's the end of undertale it's a charming heartwarming and loving experience it's something you just feel amazing after beating very few endings and video games make me feel as ecstatic as this one it's a perfect ending to an awesome adventure that's that it's over but you can always start over I mean it is just a video game after all flowey warns us that in doing this we're actually undoing the ending we're removing these characters from the perfect lives we've created for them but it's just a game right well again the games constantly reminding us that it's just a game because it's canon to the game story that these real characters are living in the world of a video game a video game you can just reset and now Toby's gonna take this world we've grown to love to no end and make us murder every living thing in it well not at all actually the game doesn't make us do anything I mean we don't even have to reset the game we can just leave it at that leave the game satisfied it doesn't force us to make any rash choices so many games do that they force you to do something awful or make you do it without knowing the consequences of your actions this is often done to make the player think wow did I really do the right thing or you know question their morality or whatever and even when it is a choice it's usually just as simple as yes or no undertale is different instead of making you do it or even telling you about it it's simply there as a possibility and only by your conscious decision can you do it and you have to work really hard to achieve this the two hardest boss battles in the game are only in this route and they are desperately trying to stop you from what you're doing in the end you get a result that sucks like why'd you do it unlike something like SpecOps a line or any other video game where you have to make the awful decision or the awful decision is merely done by pressing one button instead of the other it's like watching a movie you don't have any real influence over the story sure you push the analog stick forward and the characters got to that point because of you but there was no crossroads there was no other possibilities no that's not the case here this time you actually didn't have to do and the opportunity wasn't even given to you you worked long and hard to make this happen you had so many chances to turn yourself around to instead of being given the option to do a bad thing you're given the option to stop and you ignore it each and every time you do this until you get to the point of no return that's right I'm talking the fight with sands little did you know he is the most powerful being in the underground and he messes you up instantly so you reload you're safe and you come back but then he says something a little unsettling something about sands always just seemed off you can never lay your finger on it but it feels like there's a lot more to him than he's letting you in on from the talk you have a grill bees to the dinner you share together he comes off as old and wise like he's seen absolutely everything there is to see every time you die he remembers in fact he's completely aware of you reloading your save file in fact reloading your save file is canon to the game each time you reload it you're actually rewinding time on doing things that have actually happened and sans he's aware of it he's Groundhog days Bill Murray or Higurashi is reka Faru day his monologue during this fight is absolutely heart shattering can you even imagine how it feel to be sans knowing that no matter what happens no matter how hard you try no matter what you do it'll all just reset eventually that's why he didn't seem very thrilled when he got to the surface that's why flowey begged you not to reset everything because it's canon to the game story it's more than just reloading a save or starting a new game you're undoing all of the great things you did for these characters and this is what makes undertale so clever working the save function into the game's plot this story couldn't work as a book or a movie or a TV show only as a game in which you you alone have the ability to undo everything and have the characters be aware of that this is something I don't think a game has ever done before well at least to the best of my knowledge and the worst part is following through with this ending permanently dicks over your safe final finally winning this tough-as-nails fight against sand should feel rewarding but it doesn't you finished the game with the weight of destroying everything you love on your shoulders and for what just so you could see what happened just to see that light at the end of this tunnel will guess what there is no light in this tunnel never ends booting up the game after this just greets you with a black screen no no it can't end like this there's there has to be something I can do something I can do to bring it all back something to start a new game again well you're in luck because if you wait long enough you start to hear a voice you want to go back to the world you destroyed it was you pushed everything to its edge it was you let the world to its destruction but you cannot accept it you think you are above consequences this is the only way to bring it all back by selling your soul to the human that ruined everything this means you're no longer frisked you're no longer a loving child you're a hateful human being on the inside no matter what you make the character do from this point onwards but despite this you try for the good ending again right well guess what you're not frisked anymore you were only pretending to be nice to everyone you're still rotten on the inside and you're still going to kill them getting the bad ending ends your happily ever after forever but you could always just settle for a fake one and that is the bittersweet ending to undertale so you choose it it doesn't have to be that way it really doesn't there's absolutely nothing egging you on to do that there isn't even any achievements in the game there's no list of something telling you that you've missed game content the only thing that could make you want to desire taking that path is curiosity you could say that curiosity kills the cat but in this case curiosity kills everything but what really ties this game together so well is the incredible attention to detail from the Santa Claus costume and a scourge closet to the joke book and toriel's room this entire world is all linked together by dialogues and interactable objects to create a coherent and interesting world there's also a lot of upsetting things brought to light the tragic backstory between Azrael and the human and healthasyst failed attempts at bringing them back to life there is a crazy amount of lore in this game and it's also easy to uncover all you have to do is pay attention as you look around the environment it's impressive the amount of things you can learn about this game's world just by interacting with your surroundings including things you might not have wanted to learn I guess you can say that the devil is in the details and I guess it's all I have to say about undertale though this is just my interpretation of it I'm sure there's endless ways of arguing how it's well written and smart but thanks for listening to me ramble on about it undertale definitely is something special there's loads of things I didn't talk about though probably the most noteworthy being WD faster but there's tons of videos out there that digest this game's lore and I just wanted a chance to glaze over the game's general plot and try to appreciate just why it's so powerful besides I'm not really one to obsess over a single game for a long time I tend to play something enjoy it and move on to something new so I'm glad I finally got a chance to reminisce and thoroughly go over it before I'm completely under tailed out and to be brutally honest that actually happened a couple of months ago I at least hope you enjoyed hearing what I had to say about this game and with that said I guess all there's left to say is thanks for watching I thought one of the languages was Pokemon but it's just Portuguese in Korea next to each other

Channel: Nitro Rad

Views: 134,599

Rating: 4.9272203 out of 5

Keywords: undertale, plot, analysis, nitro rad, review, undertale plot analysis, asriel, secrets, hidden bits, saving, loading, demonizing loading, sans, skeleton, amazing, woah, plot analysis, pc, steam, toby fox, wd gastor, wd gaster, papyrus, amalgamate, mother, earthbound, game and sound, megalovania, undertale review

Id: O20o9Jn09nU

Length: 30min 26sec (1826 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2016