Date of writing: February 14th, 2016
I am a speedrunner. For those of you who don’t know what that is, well, to put it simply, I’m a person who tries to complete games as fast as humanly possible, sometimes with certain gimmicks to make the run different, like disabling certain options, avoiding collectables, you get the jist of it. I sometimes do speedrunning for a living. I have also won a couple of world records and have been speedrunning for many, many years.
I’m also an Easter Egg hunter. For those of you who also don’t know what that is, an Easter Egg hunter is a person who tries to find hidden messages and cool hidden references in video games, no matter how hard they are to find.
That being said, last Wednesday, I experienced something that I don’t think I will ever forget, not because I achieved anything noteworthy or impressive, but because I still am unsure of what exactly happened that fateful day…
A few months back, a friend of mine on Steam gifted me a copy of the game: Undertale. Back then, I had practically known nothing about it; all I really knew was that it was the origin media of that weird looking short skeleton with a glowing blue eye that had been popping every now and then on social media, I wasn’t reluctant to trying it out for myself at all, so I gave it a go.
I was surprised, yet amazed at how the game managed to convey so many emotions through the use of simplistic visuals and pixels, even more-so by the fact that about 98% of it was made by one single human being who had never made a full game from scratch before in his entire life.
On my first playthrough, I had killed some monsters in presumably self-defense, including the first major boss: Toriel. I had also killed the third major boss: Undyne, and Mettaton; the 4th major boss. I made it to the end of the run and fought Asgore, whom I thought would be the final boss, only to be greeted by the nefarious Flowey.
Flowey managed to spook me with great shock, due to his game-crashing shenanigans, and his extremely out-of-place, vile 7-soul form known as Omega or Photoshop Flowey, which was a bit challenging, but fun and game-changing. I managed to beat Flowey, I felt infringed by his constant and unpleasant misdemeanors, yet, I felt the necessity to spare him, and so I did.
I then proceeded to get a phone call from Sans detailing the wrong and good doings of my journey and the future of the underground as it currently stands, though, I wasn’t happy with what I got and felt that there was more to this game than meets the eye, after all, growing up with games like Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex, the Playstation 2’s trilogy of Grand Theft Auto games, and Sonic The Hedgehog 3 taught me that games always had something offered in every nook and cranny, no matter how obscured or hard to find, after all, it had been passed on to my way of making a living in the form of Easter Egg hunting, so I thought to myself: “why not give this game another go to see what it had to offer with it’s connective yet mysterious tone and nature?”
So, I decided to replay it once more, only this time befriending every monster and unlocking the true, pacifist ending. The ending genuinely touched my heart, and I was happy with the results I had gotten… or so I thought.
When I completed the Pacifist route, part of me felt there was a possibility of more endings, after all, I went back into the game to see if there were any more possible endings, especially since I was heavily considering speedrunning and Easter Egg hunting and I didn’t want any part of the game to spoiled, so I didn’t look-up anything…
To my surprise, I was greeted by Flowey; who told me my actions can have severe consequences, if not acted upon correctly. Everyone has their own life and you’ve made it that way, and should always keep it that way; after all, if I wish happiness for myself, why wouldn’t I wish it for others?…
But then, it dawned on me… These are just cartoonish characters, they don’t have actual lives, feelings, or any of that sort; they’re just silly, fun little illusions created by the author: Toby Fox to feel a sense of connection to the world of Undertale. And so, I decided it was just a no brainer to ignore Flowey, at least for now…
I reset, and started a new run. I quickly thought of ways to differentiate this playthrough from all previous ones, I planned on what could impact this run like no other. I was thinking at the time and muttered to myself within my own conscience:
“So, in my first run, I killed some enemies, but I left others to flee, on my second run (which was the previous one), I not only spared every enemy, but I befriended the boss characters… just what if on this run, the goal was to kill as many NPCs as fathombly possible?…”
And so, I started my 3rd, and what I assumed to be my last major playthrough of the game, I kept running in circles, slaughtering every single being that came in-sight in every room of the game, until the message “But nobody came.” would pop into my battle screen with an unsettlingly slow piano performance following me until I encountered anything important to the story of the game.
I fought Undyne the Undying, who was to my surprise a pretty tough battle, though, she couldn’t stop me from defeating her and continuing my merciless genocide. I “fought” Mettaton’s NEO form (Or what I’d like to refer to as a Non-Effective Obstacle), Flowey told me about his story as the Ex-Prince of the Underground as I had taken his once human friend’s identity, then IT happened:
Sans was just standing there, patiently waiting for what I felt would be an unpleasant experience, and it was. The fight was one of the hardest I’d ever fought in my video-game experiences, his attacks were surprising and hard to maneuver, and I finally got to know the thingamajig behind that blue glowing eye.
Despite all his efforts and tricks, Sans was futile against me, as after many, MANY, attempts, I managed to beat him and got a very bittersweet feeling while doing so, on one hand I was satisfied that I had finally beaten him after all those tries with my hard efforts, but I still felt… guilt as I describe it. I had managed to clear many waves of innocent monsters for the absolute sake of it, and I still felt some semblance of guilt, even if they were just mere pixels.
I merely brushed that feeling aside and continued. I was expecting some kind of even harder showdown with either Asgore, Flowey, or both, but to my surprise… nothing was set up, no hype or hints of it. Asgore didn’t look willing to fight and without even me touching my keyboard, he was automatically slashed, Flowed assisted in his own father’s death for mercy, but he ended up getting slashed and mutilated to absolutely nothing…
Right after that, I was greeted by a child in a green shirt, who looked like the player character/… They offered me a choice: to erase the world that I’ve been playing in… or not… very reluctantly, I chose to erase the world. The figure told me that I had no real control over the fate of this world after all the actions that I’ve done, then it jumpscared me, erased the game world out of my cognitive desires, and then popped the game shut.
What ensued was the most chilling feeling I ever got playing the game: upon rebooting the game, I was met with a blank black screen, with no sounds other than the essence of a howling, cold wind. I kept pressing random buttons on my keyboard, but nothing was of effect. After waiting for what I think was a solid 10 minutes, I was then greeted by slow text, presumably by that figure: CHARA, which made me feel guilty, over a fictional world.
The text was wondering why I wanted to go back to a world that I destroyed, and I really felt that I deserved this, after all: why would someone want to go back to a world that they destroyed and pushed it to the edge? they got what they wanted, but yet they weren’t satisfied with their destruction that they grindfully decided… feeling guilty, yet ever-so curious, I decided to agree to the deal I was given, I sold my soul to the being talking to me unsure of what was coming and wanting to discover more about the game…