The format of the gameplay itself is pretty standard. A more famous example is The Legend of Zelda. The player operated character wanders around a mapped out world and engages with both friendly and unfriendly characters. Combat is more like PG movie violence. Instead of first person shooter where the gore becomes part of the fun the combat is a necessary evil to level up and progress through the game. Ultimately, after puzzles have been solved, low level minions have been dealt with, boss monsters have been conquered there is a definitive ending with a normal good triumphs over evil finale.
But then there’s the famous twist. The rug pull that makes Undertale a bit different. And I find it to be quite brilliant as an allegory to real life social Darwinism.
Backtracking to the obligatory gematria reference, you need to remember our concept of reverse trolling. Where your gematria newbie and ringleaders would slam out video and blog content aimed at getting algorithms to misdirect unwitting users to view the allegedly magical gematria content. You thought you were getting a video about that bridge collapse just because you wanted the latest news on the story. Fat chance, you have to listen about how the Freemasons did it. You thought you were getting a video about your favorite game show. No way, that Wheel of Fortune video isn’t just about the funny moment from last night you missed. Now it’s about how the phrase equals the same gematriot as ANTICHRIST. And oh boy, if you made the mistake of suggesting the video maker was delusional, the pack of wolves would descend in the comments and troll you for as long as you stuck around pointing out reason and facts.
That is the reverse trolling combat system. Instead of you searching actively for monsters, the monster comes to you. Sometimes someone will drop a gematria comment into an unrelated stand alone video to try and stir up trouble, but the majority of the combat was generated by the mere existence of the content combined with uncaring algorithms and nonexistent platform moderation propelled by corporate greed more than actually caring about user satisfaction.
So what did Undertale do that is so different? If you didn’t get spoilers and know about it, your reward is how you interacted with NPCs in the game affects not just the ending, but subsequent returns to the game. The default ending is called the Neutral ending. If you limited your killing or didn’t kill any monsters that’s your ending. Additionally, if you did not kill any monsters you can reload the last save and experience the Pacifist ending, meant to be a more fulfilling good triumphs over evil ending.
Or you can take the killing to heart and either because of your nature or just for fun having heard about it and wanting to try it play for the Genocide ending. There you get the full weight of the best joke. LOVE and EXP accumulated isn’t love and experience. LOVE is Level Of Violence. EXP is Executioner Poijts.If you’ve embraced the seeking out and killing everything possible your narrative changes. Here - you ARE the monster. And the gameplay changes entirely according to your nature being shown. The soundtrack becomes bleaker. The world becomes bleaker as erstwhile friends have disappeared, not willing to engage with you. Your reputation as being an untrustworthy, rampaging murderer has alienated them. And finally, after the Genocide ending future Pacifist endings are PERMANENTLY changed. There’s no buyers remorse apologies enough to bring back the more standard ending.
Starting with the Zachosphere - things have not been going great. Views are down. Gung ho crazy about gematria new talent is almost missing. Some old timers are starting new channels trying to rebrand. Some have taken long breaks and dropped the amount of new content drastically. One even took a long break, came back and immediately posted a gardening video without a hint of gematria. There’s a significant pushback on the idea that you can decode sports and become fabulously wealthy by predictions, as it should be because that’s bullshit. By all appearances there is now recognition that THEY are the monsters. The trolls that showed their true colors and maybe now they finally want to experience the modified pacifist ending since it’s far too late to experience the full version.
Which brings us to what’s happening with the MAGA movement and Trump voters in the U.S. There’s a lot of FAFO, leopards eating faces, buyers remorse apology content and straight up, “Do you regret voting for Trump?” These are mostly hype bringing up the outliers. Polling has shown that 9 out of 10 do not regret it. Those are the people who don’t mind at all a bit of violence to get their way, as well as the genocide ending lovers. U.S. politicians who have done nothing about the kleptocratic and oligarchical trends have also forgotten that the world is a big place and lots of other people have different ideas about what makes existence valuable. Some like democratic freedom. Some opposing governments have their own oligarchy related issues to deal with and how to handle them. None of those people want to deal with a stubborn and petulant child who has been reverse trolling its way into alienating as many characters as possible. The tariff plan has backfired. Tourism is taking a hit. Purchases of U.S. military equipment are being reconsidered. And the layoffs are already here. The rest of the world is retreating from the Undertale monster with the permanently altered ending. Most of the sane and coherent narrative about the U.S. self inflicted economic destruction has our ending at something like a poorer version of the neutral ending the inevitable rise of China and the BRICS nations as the dominant economic superpowers.
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