You know how game developers will write like a dialogue for a character?
And then they'll add like a couple more lines at the end?
Just so if you wanna keep talking to the character, you can?
Yeah Toby Fox was like, "fuck that."
Undertale.
This Dark Side episode is about Undertale- the story of-
S-Sans?
Good.
Uh, listen now’s not a good time.
I’m about to unveil 5 creepy things in Undertale.
Oh my god.
Ju-just cue the intro.
Oh yes, Flowey.
Who could forget the adorable thing.
He’s the first character you meet in the game and starts off as a helpful companion,
even teaching you the basic fighting mechanics.
Of course, he turns on you the second you put down your defenses.
Throughout the rest of the game, he stalks you and can sometimes be seen briefly hanging
out at the edge of the map, just before disappearing.
The truth is he’s always watching your progress, waiting for a chance to steal your victory
moment.
When you eventually do fight Asgore at the end of your first playthrough, Flowey steals
all the souls, breaks the game, and transforms into Omega Flowey.
He doesn’t play fairly either.
He’ll save the game before an attack and if you happen to dodge it, he’ll reset the
game to right before the attack.
In subsequent playthroughs he continues to watch for other opportunities to manipulate
your actions and those of other characters for his cause.
During a talk with Sans at Grillby’s you learn that Papyrus has been talking to a flower.
Sans believes him to be talking to the echo flowers which are scattered all over the Underground,
though this flower is none other than Flowey himself, orchestrating a final gathering of
all the characters at the end to steal the 6 human souls in captivity as well as enact
a final takeover.
In a genocide run, the long droning sound that plays once you’ve annihilated all the
inhabitants of an area is a slowed down version of Flowey’s theme.
Speaking of the genocide or “no mercy” run, when you the player, eventually kill
everyone in the Underground, save for Sans, Asgore, and- well Flowey, the flower realizes
that you won't hesitate to kill him either and begs for mercy right before this happens.
Perhaps the most cryptic aspect of Flowey is his backstory.
Basically, he’s the reincarnated Asriel Dreemur and the result of a horrific experiment
on souls and corpses.
Having been injecting with “determination”- the game’s characterization of the human
power to change fate, he’s granted the ability to save "save states", and starts “experimenting”.
Lacking a soul himself, he grows frustrated over time at his inability to feel any real
emotion about anyone or anything in the game and after numerous playthroughs of his own
befriending others and solving their problems, he grows bored and begins killing them instead
for his own amusement.
That is of course until you, the player comes along and the ability to save shifts to the
one with greater “determination”.
It’s no wonder he hates you so much and it’s no wonder he’s probably watching
you right now.
In the True Pacifist run, once you’ve solved a good portion of the hardships between characters
and everyone seems to be happy, Alphys disappears and you end up searching for her, finding
a note in her laboratory that alludes to horrible things she’s done.
You might say she had, *skeletons* in her closet.
You also find that the door to the elevator that was inaccessible in previous runs is
now ajar.
The creatures you encounter while below in the true lab are nightmarish.
We learn that these “amalgamates” are the failed and horrific result of monster
souls fused together in an effort to inject monster souls, which are typically destroyed
shortly after death, with “determination” so that they might persist after death.
They are tormented, unable to maintain a form or speak comprehensible messages, short of
cryptic notes such as the “but nobody came” message notorious from when you’ve killed
everyone in a genocide run- a chilling reminder of your past mistakes.
The Dog amalgamate, Endogeny, doesn't have a face, but a single black hole that takes
up most of its head.
Its battle music is rhythmic dog barking, which sounds like low, demonic tribal chanting
and gives you the feeling of being hunted..
During the encounter with the Snowdrake amalgamate, the creature summons a handful of bullets
which float listlessly, the music sounds utterly broken, and they can barely hold their shape
together, while other amalgams were at least somewhat recognizable.
You learn later that they are 17 people melted together into one.
Worse still, this creature occasionally cries out for its child, as we realize that what
you are fighting is what remains of the Snowdrake’s mother.
Reaper Bird's appearance.
You walk past a series of mirrors, when something catches your attention.
Suddenly, your alarm bubble gains a face, and then transforms into a monster.
This is essentially a demon growing from your voice.
Oh, and this moment:
If the player sleeps on this untucked bed, a phantom-like amalgamate will appear, slowly
reach out, pull the sheet over Frisk, pat them on the head, and disappear.
Unlike the others, this one has almost no features whatsoever.
There’s a video room where you can watch a series of old home video tapes which hint
at the events prior to your arrival and of the first human.
This is where we learn about Asriel and the first human’s plot to escape the underground-
one which involves murdering 6 humans to acquire their souls.
As you delve deeper into the True Lab, you find Alphys’ secret journal entries which
become increasingly more panicked:
In Entry Number 15, she quotes "Seems like this research was a dead end...
But at least we got a happy ending out of it...?
I sent the souls and the vessels back to Asgore.
And I called all the families and told them everyone's alive.
I'll send everyone back tomorrow."
Followed by Entry Number 16: "no No NO NO NO-"
And then of course, there's this cryptic scene:
As there is no fight with Alphys within any mode in the game, it is heavily implied that
in runs where she no longer appears at the end, such as in the neutral and genocide runs,
she has committed suicide over the despair of her friend’s deaths.
Undertale has a lot of strange and creepy secrets, though the mystery of W.D.
Gaster might just be its biggest.
This is largely due to the fact that though his existence is vaguely hinted at in various
parts of the game, we aren’t actually able to encounter him by normal means.
After completing a True Pacifist run, the game starts to generate random codes that
can spawn a number of ethereal and ominous figures throughout various parts of the game.
When spoken to, they allude to a vague backstory surrounding W.D.
Gaster, before disappearing forever.
The game’s lore tells us that Gaster was the head scientist of the underground before
Alphys and was responsible for the creation of the core in the hotlands.
Based on the limited knowledge surrounding Gaster, fans have speculated that he was erased
from the timelines, becoming an interdimensional being.
Others have theorized that he has some kind of connection with Sans and Papyrus, with
one theory citing him as being their creator.
Naming the fallen human “Gaster” in the beginning of the game will abruptly cause
the game to reset.
It is also widely speculated that the broken machine in Sans’ secret workshop belonged
to Gaster.
Sans’ association with the mystery is further fueled by his possession of the gaster blasters
in his fight during a no mercy run as well as his knowledge of the player manipulating
the timelines citing them as “the anomaly”- having perhaps worked with the former scientist.
Fan theories suggest that the machine is an experimental interdimensional construct meant
to assist in traversing the various timelines possible within the game- and that the machine
broke down while the being referred to as Dr. Gaster was inside.
This might hint at why Alphys became the new head scientist and as to why Gaster is not
present- he was erased from existence by the interdimensional machine.
Certain characters in the game have special fonts when speaking.
Sans has comic sans and Papyrus has well, Papyrus.
However, certain secrets within the game unveil hidden messages written in a font that is
believed to be Wingdings.
“W.D.
Gaster” is presumed to be a play on the fonts, Wingdings and Aster.
The mysterious Riverperson says a number of odd things when hitching a boat ride back
to any of the explored areas of the game, however two things stand out that might refer
to the Gaster mystery:
"Beware of the man who speaks in hands."
and "Beware of the man who came from the other
world."
Though the latter could refer to the Fallen Human, So Sorry, or a number of other creatures
in Undertale, the former is undoubtedly a reference to the odd messages written in Wingdings.
Speaking of messages, a hidden message in the True lab only through SAVE manipulation
continues the series of journal entries and reads as follows:
ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN DARK DARKER YET DARKER
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS
VERY VERY
INTERESTING ...
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?
Once the message is over, the screen turns black, and the game closes.
By adjusting the games files and changing the “fun” value to 66, a player can cause
a missing corridor with a door to appear.
Behind this door stands a lone figure.
The NPC does not have any collision physics and simply disappears when approached.
Leaving the room causes the door to disappear and eventually, the corridor itself.
The sprite’s filename is simply room_mysterman.
This mysterious unnamed figure is widely believed to be Gaster.
Through SAVE manipulation, various articles of text, sound, and file names allude to the
notion that Toby Fox initially intended to add encounters with Gaster in the game but
ultimately scrapped his inclusion.
Why did Toby Fox decide not to include Gaster?
Why does the Riverperson ask you to beware of the man who speaks in hands?
Why do these files exist in the game and what do they mean?
The reasons are unknown and the lack of hard facts has fueled the internet with another
creepy fandom.
You can even attempt to fight the entity in fan-made Undertale games.
The Prophecy of Undertale talks about an angel that will descend from the surface and cause
the underground to go empty.
There are two interpretations for this prophecy.
One in which the player destroys the barrier and frees the monsters in the underground,
or one in which the player descends on the underground as an angel of death, enacting
a genocide.
Hinted at vaguely in the neutral and pacifist modes of the game, Chara’s existence only
truly becomes prominent during a no mercy run.
As you go through the game murdering everything in your path, the text descriptions take on
a noticeably more ominous tone.
As if someone is speaking to you.
Towards the end of the game certain actions are taken out of your control, such as delivering
the final blow to the king and murdering Flowey.
Only then, does the fallen human appears before you, congratulating you on your endeavors.
They offer you a choice to end the world.
Answering yes crashes the game.
Answer no and this happens.
Then the game crashes anyway.
Upon returning, the game window displays an empty black screen for 10 minutes before Chara
reappears and offers to reset the game in exchange for the player’s soul.
Refusing the change will repeat another 10 minutes of darkness after which point Chara
will make the same offer.
The only way to get past this is to either reinstall the game or accept, though the change
is permanent and will cause any subsequent playthroughs of the game, neutral, pacifist
or genocide to have a “bad ending”, alluding to the thought that Chara not only still possesses
your soul from the encounter, but is now watching your every action moving forward.
Chara is the default name given to the first human who fell into the underground, though
the character of Chara is really just a placeholder for us the players.
Chara represents the desire for power and our thirst as gamers to fight and reap the
rewards of all the challenges within a game.
Basically the embodiment of our "completionist" sides.
According to the tapes in the True Lab as well as dialogue with Asriel, Chara was adopted
into the Dreemur family, though they had more sinister agendas in mind- plotting to obtain
the souls of 6 humans to break the barrier imprisoning the inhabitants of the underground
and unleash hell on the humans above.
Asriel admits that Chara purposefully poisoned themselves in order to possess Asriel’s
body and while in control of Asriel’s physical form, took their own corpse up to the surface
to destroy the humans and likely the rest of the world.
Chara’s reasoning for their absolute hate for humans is unexplained and left a mystery,
though Asriel later admits that in life, Chara wasn’t the greatest person.
Undertale is a truly groundbreaking game that isn’t just a heartfelt RPG, but an experience
truly meant to be played on the computer.
That it constantly breaks the fourth wall in a refreshing way resets the standard of
indie game development.
Not only do certain characters have different things to say after an unsaved reset, but
they seem to be aware of the player resetting the game and few characters even tease us
for this.
The thought of a game on our computer being “aware” of our actions is chilling enough-
though the way in which it will occasionally reset itself, crash itself, and cause unique
encounters and events within itself- based on these actions is unnerving.
Toby Fox is a coding genius.
Either that or the game is haunted.
Probably both.
Undertale is an incredible experience and in all seriousness- the best game I’ve played
in years.
Don’t let it’s simple appearance fool you.
It’s much more complex than most of the games that have been released in recent years.
It’s characters are incredibly diverse and fully-formed personalities that are each lovable
and relatable in their own ironically, human ways.
The music is addicting and composed with an emphasis on reminiscent themes and melodies
that pump you with all the feels.
No single run through is the same and while Undertale does eventually have its limits
when it comes to repeated dialogue and experiences as do all games, it takes a while to get there
with the seemingly infinite amount of thought and care put into truly making it an unforgettable
experience.
This is one that many can agree, will take a very, very long time to grow tired of.
Where it lacks in next-gen graphics and console adaptation, it more than shatters through
in the best quality storytelling, gameplay, and even creative usage of its limited graphical
assets.
Even if you’re not a hardcore fan making comics, remixes, or videos surrounding the
game; even if you disagree with it beating out Ocarina of Time and winning Gamefaqs 20th
Best Game Ever Award; even if you absolutely HATE all the hype it’s been getting since
its release- you have to admit, UNDERTALE is an unsuspecting beast of a game that at
the very least, is deserving of being on par with the greatest of them.
And if you’ve somehow made it to the end of this video and have never actually picked
up the game or played it for yourself- I sincerely recommend at least trying the demo at this
link here.
No amount of words or internet content surrounding the fandom can compare to the unique experience
that is Undertale.
Thanks for watching!
My name is Blue Lavasix, and I will see you in the next video.