Undertale (Part 3)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

(Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers!)

Well... That certainly is a waterfall.

Whoa, that knight is crazy! Cool magic though.

Waterfall area! This place starts off pretty calmly, with a few sweet puzzles to solve in order to cross watery gaps. However, we soon encounter Undyne. The helmeted knight waits on the side, away from the hero. When Papyrus shows up and admits to his (we presume) boss that he was unable to capture the human child. Yeah, big failure there, he befriended the child instead. That’s okay, Undyne is there to deal with that now. Problem is, that is one Hell of an aggressive knight. TOSSING SPEARS AT US? Holy wow! Calm down!

Phew, it was just for one screen. Welll that's better. The knight is there again later, but catches the Monster Kid accidentally.

You wouldn't see stuff like that on the surface!

Past that point though, the knight is mysteriously absent for a while. Waterfall is a soothing, if gloomy, place with a few puzzles, some interesting enemies (though all of the areas have interesting enemies, no?), and some nice secrets if you know where to look. Further down the path, rain starts pouring in and, as we grab an umbrella, the armless kid shows up and walks along. He follows even as we walk out of the cave, seeing the King’s castle in the distance. This is… quite beautiful, actually. Later, a steep cliff is in the way, but the monster kid helps us get past it - he’ll find another way, no worries.

Oh God! That's a close shave.

We get to a bridge and Undyne attacks by piercing it with more spears. We flee, but when we reach the end, Undyne cuts the bridge and sends the human child tumbling down into a watery area filled with garbage. Oh hey, I think we found the place where they sent all the Pixels DVDs. Scratch that, it’s the place where they should send all the Pixels DVDs. …Oh wait, no, that would be too cruel a punishment to inflict on Monsterkind! I am a jerk.

Down there, our fall is stopped by a bed of flowers. Geez I’m lucky, it’s the second time today! Walking around the trashy waters, we find our way out - though in order to leave, we have to fight a dummy. Which is possessed by a ghost, so it can’t get hurt by physical attacks. The only way to defeat it is to move the heart in the Bullet Hell portions so that the dummy’s bullets, which move past the edges of the square, hit the dummy at the top. Not too tough once you figure it out. It eventually gives up and lets you pass... or gets cried on by Npstablook, back for a surprise appearance.

See those? They're your petards. You just got hoisted by them.

Having so many puzzles in Pacifist Mode, in fights and in the overworld, is both a blessing and a curse as the game forces you to think, sometimes outside the box (and against the Mad Dummy, literally so!), and some puzzles lead to special areas. Why is it a curse? Well, a lot of rooms are needed for one puzzle or a single story event and that’s it. It makes backtracking through some areas (to get particular items) all the more annoying as you keep encountering empty rooms with completed puzzles or story events that no longer happen. Thankfully, backtracking isn’t needed to beat the game (yet) and, once it's necessary, there's a boat service to carry you between Snowdin, Waterfall and Hotland.

Aaron (on the left) is a real creep but I'm not allowed
to punch him, even a little? Aw, shoot.

Another annoying element is that, while there is quite a variety of enemies, you will often encounter the same ones over and over, especially if you spend a lot of time in some rooms. And of course, barring a few cases of enemy interaction (their attack patterns combine in the Bullet Hell space), defeating them for the Pacifist Route always goes the same way. Thus, your fights against them will always follow the same commands. Do the same actions, Flex three times against Aaron, ask Woshua to clean you and then grab his green attacks (which heal you). Lather, rinse, repeat, however long you need to if you’ve got to backtrack a lot in a large room with random encounters.

Cats with derp faces. An entire species of leet-lingo cats!

A little further, there’s a secret path bringing the player to Temmie Village, a land of bizarre catlike characters who speak in Internet lingo. Hm… And they all look the same! There’s a bit of a quest in here that will allow you to get the second best armor in the game, though it’s pricy (and, thankfully, you can go back and forth in the area to buy stuff from a turtle merchant, and the Temmie Shopkeeper will buy them at a greater price than you bought them). After some requirements are reached, the Temmie shopkeeper will even decrease the price of that armor every time you die. That’s interesting! How does she know you die, though...

Don't let the looks fool you, she's a ferocious businessfeline.
Who'll buy all of your stuff, but don't piss her off.

"I might not have arms, but I have courage!"

Past that point, our travels continue with the armless kid showing up a few more times… usually when Undyne appears to battle us. Thankfully, the knight considers it more important to bring the kid to safety than to kill the human just yet. Even then, it doesn’t stop the kid from coming back and almost fall off a bridge - though we rescue him in time. This actually makes the monster kid get in the way between Undyne and the human child, deciding that we, the human, can’t be so bad if we saved a monster. Please, I’ve been doing that for hours now. Not that he would know, but then again... 

However, this is the last chance we get to be protected from Undyne, as the captain of the Royal Guard appears soon afterwards and, following a dynamic anime-like entrance, starts fighting us. And without her helmet on, either! I don’t remember what my reaction was to learn she was a woman, probably because the game had been spoiled to me way before I actually played it, but I guess my reaction was to think she’s awesome. Can someone organize a duel between her and Samus? You know, Undyne for Smash could be a lot of fun.

But now, we kinda have more pressing matters. Namely, SHE’S TRYING TO KILL US! And she’s tough. Acting nice to her does nothing (though you can taunt her by saying you’re unimpressed). She has the ability to trap your soul in one spot. Worry not, you can move a shield around the heart to protect it from the incoming attacks. That’s pretty creative.

Only a monster wouldn't... er... only a jerk wouldn't help
Undyne. Because all the monsters would actually help
Undyne.

Since Undyne refuses any sort of mercy, you have two options: Fight… or flee. And as it turns out, in order to “win” this one, you have to flee. Undyne chases the human child all the way to the end of Waterfall. All this time, all you can do is run away, then see her catch up to the human and try to fight again - and growing angrier every time. Like she’s burning with anger. This continues as we hit the next area, Hotland - a place with fire and lava. She’s overheating! Hyperventilating! And that armor mustn’t be helping. So, she faints out of dehydration in the second screen of Hotland. A screen in which there’s a very convenient water cooler, so we can use it to get a glass of fresh H20 and pour it on her. Or we could let her there… No, that’s not who I am. Let’s get some water for the fish woman. Once rehydrated, she gets up, and… just leaves. Alright then. I guess that’s a victory.

Well, time to continue into Hotland.

Whoa, that knight is crazy! Wait, how do they use magic?

Waterfall area. This place starts off pretty calmly, with a few easy puzzles to solve to cross the waters. It isn’t long until we meet Undyne. Is that spears? Oh, we’re having spears thrown at us! Whoa! Okay, I’m asking for it, but still! That’s the thing, Undyne is here to deal with us now, and there won’t be any joking around. Though, if that was the case, there would be a head-on fight, not some side measures like what’s happening here.

Thankfully, it's just for this one screen. The knights hows up afterwards, but really just catches some dumb armless monster kid.

Meh, I see stuff like that all teh time in my video games at
home. Also, kid, stop following me!

Past that point though, the knight is mysteriously absent for a while. Waterfall is a gloomy place with some puzzles, some enemies that are easy to kill, and some secrets. The game will love to snatch some puzzle rewards away from you, though. Stupid annoying dog, taking rewards away! Further down the path, rain starts pouring in and, as we grab an umbrella, the armless kid shows up and walks along. He follows even as we walk out of the cave, seeing the King’s castle in the distance. This is… quite beautiful, actually. Later, a steep cliff is in the way, but the monster kid helps us get past it - he’ll find another way, he always does.

You're trying to kill me? Really?
You have no idea what you're going up against.

We get to a long bridge and Undyne attacks with hundreds of spears. And there is no way to flee, as the bridge is a dead end - though when we reach the end, Undyne breaks the bridge and we end up in trash-filled waters. I think I found the place where they threw in the whole team that made Anubis II. Wow, that’s a deep cut for my blog. Also, wishing harm on game devs because they made a bad game? Other times I wouldn’t, but today I’m an asshole.

Down there, our fall is stopped by a bed of flowers. Damn, so much luck, it’s the second time today! Walking around the trashy waters, we find our way out - though in order to leave, we have to fight a dummy. Which is mad and angry at the fact that you killed its cousin the Dummy earlier. Its anger fuses the ghost to the Dummy, making it corporeal at last! And then, it gets so happy that it stops attacking the child, so we can kill it. Well! That was… anticlimactic.

See this? That's my fist. Your smiling face is getting it in
a second.

This dark area has one of the rare remainng puzzles of
the Genocide Path.

That’s part of the issue; the game is still built to be played in Pacifist and Genocide modes, and in such a way that you can switch to Neutral from either. The Pacifist Route has a lot of zones dedicated to puzzles, though it shares with the Genocide Route a lot of zones containing plot-based events. However, most puzzles are deactivated here - everyone’s too scared of you to block your way with them, for some reason. Wouldn’t that slow me down? Wouldn’t these puzzles stall me while everybody’s evacuating? On the other hand, there’s never a lot of backtracking to be done, once you’ve killed all the enemies in an area you can just move on - you quickly become too powerful to be stopped anyway.

Die, you fucking creep.
That's one monster I won't ever feel sorry for.

The relatively small amount of different enemies in each area does highlight the problem of repetitive battles. Since the puzzle aspect is thrown out the window in fights as well (why would you bother with ACT commands?), it just leaves the player with one option: FIGHT. You can do nothing else, since sparing even a single enemy throws you back into the Neutral route. The lack of puzzles makes the walk through the underground world boring, and once you’ve exhausted the kill counter in an area, random fights will still trigger, but no monsters appear (“…but nobody came”).

A little further, there’s a store led by an old turtle guy selling wares. Even though everyone’s scared of us, he isn’t. Why? Because, as a shopkeeper, he knows you can’t kill him. He even says so himself. He’s safe, he can insult you all he wants. You can’t hurt him. But hey, business is business, even at the approach of the end of the world. Further later, there’s a hidden village of Temmies, catlike creatures who speak in Internet lingo. They’re pretty annoying, and their village doesn’t serve much of a purpose here.

"You cannot kill me, I have shopkeeper cotractual immortality."

"I am literally cut in half, but I'll be okay! Now run!"

As we make our way through, we encounter Undyne again, but the Monster Kid is always around to interfere. Though the knight chooses to put the child to safety first and foremost. Not that this helps as we find him again shortly afterwards, past Temmie Village, and this time nobody’s around to protect him. I… I don’t want to kill him, but if I want to… report on this path, I have… no choice. Sorry, kiddo…

But when we attack, Undyne appears and gets in the way! And dies in a single hit! Well, that was kinda lame… Though she tells the kid to flee, and she stands there, about to dissipate into dust like all the others… but no! Unlike all the monsters so far, she has enough determination to rise again! And in a badass new suit, too! Where did that come from? No time for questions, the fight is on against the fish woman.

Not from my playthrough, had to make it a gif from a YouTube vid.

Get ready for the fight of your life. Undyne is not fucking around. She feels she has the future of monsterkind and humankind to protect from the Genocide Player’s murderous intents, and she will fight until she wins or dies. I said it multiple times before, by this point most enemies go down in one, two hits, three tops. Undyne takes a couple dozen hits to be defeated, and that’s if you’ve got the best weapon available at the time. And her attack patterns get faster and faster over time, and really difficult to avoid. Shit! I died!

-Game Over

-Reload

Good thing there was a save point just before the fight. Ah! Crap!

-Game Over

-Reload

Dammit!

-Game Over

-Reload

...This world, maybe. Its inhabitants, on the other hand...

All in all, a very tough boss battle indeed, and probably one of the few that people are actually looking forward to when playing the Genocide Route - let’s be honest here, if the entire path was nothing but battles against people weak compared to the child, there wouldn’t be anyone trying it. Undyne the Undying is one of those worthy battles. The idea is that, whereas the previous characters were a bit too easy to defeat, some of them even letting you kill them (in the hopes that you will spare them instead), the tough ones on this path are meant to be so hard that you give up and move to Neutral or Pacifist instead.

-Game Over

-Reload

But that’s not going to work on me! I… gotta power through… It takes me a lot of tries... but I finally defeat her! As she dies and melts, Undyne says that her friend Alphys will start her plan to evacuate monsterkind from the underground, making as many monsters safe from the child as possible.

And with that, we walk in the last areas of Waterfall, and into Hotland.

That’ll be in Part 4.