#they processed their time loop trauma in very differing directions yet both fairly equally fucked up

[acerikus]

I LOOOOOOOVE these tags. So much save the goat stuff COMPLETELY misses that flowey same Asriel are the same, that flowey didn't magically revert to what he was like before he died when he became the god of hyderdeath (nor when he returned to his regular child form afterwards). He's shaped by his experiences - a lot of which are trauma and fear and bitterness and resentment at the world, desperately trying to cling to love and affection he doesn't feel like he can truly hold onto any more. He doesn't just... Lose those experiences that shape who he is just because he temporarily stops being a flower. Hell, I feel like some people forget that god of hyderdeath was laser-focused on killing frisk right up until the end!

god of hyderdeath is a power trip, born of having true godlike power. Reverting to his regular Asriel form is him letting down those walls and being himself, but he's not any less himself when he's a flower, not really, and despite everything he says. I'd even argue that his regular goat form kinda works as a bit of a safety net - for a brief amount of time he can just be seen as who he was before he was flowey, soak up some of that love and allow himself to be comforted in a way he probably doesn't feel like he really deserves. Be selfish for a little bit.

But if he were to regain that form permanently? There's only so far that could take him. At the end of the day he's STILL flowey and he can't pretend to be anyone else forever. It can only work as a mask for so long and I don't think he can ever really escape his trauma, nor who he's become through it. Regressing his character development wouldn't do anyone any favours.

But before this just becomes a full-on intense flowey analysis... Yeah. Outertale.

The way he's handled in it is weird. The weirdest part is that the way Asriel himself is handled in the ending of its LV0 pacifist admittedly... Isn't the worst iteration of save the goat I've seen? At least in terms of maintaining his personality. It's not great, but he DOES have to force himself to hold back on being mean to monster kid in the ending in a way that gets across that it's still pretty instinctual and natural to him, in a way that I feel is pretty refreshing for save the goat.

When I did a lv0 run, I also chose to do it right after a run in which I teamed up with him to kill everyone, and since this doesn't trigger an erase or true reset, he remembered and mentioned this a few times towards the end in a way that was kinda juicy (definitely recommend doing in that order if you do end up playing!) - and the fact that they let him act fucked up on the chaotic route while looking like Asriel was in itself a surprise! It DOES make me sad though that as a result of this he hardly ever gets to actually show his face WITHOUT being in his Asriel form, it really does feel like they treated twinkly as a means to an end rather than an important part of his identity.

It's also just... Very clear his entire existence had no thought put into it. He's there to BE saved, but he has no reason to be created and despite a few spiteful lines in the lab, it feels like it doesn't really touch on his trauma properly either.

G o d. All gekkos' outertale posting makes me wanna talk more in depth about the characterisation and plot issues in this game and why they bother me...

(readmore bc holy fuck this got long, it's probably like 5k words. It's also pretty much all salt, categorised by character)

Toriel

Why. Why is she like this. Kinda feels like the creator of the game hates her and if they don't, they have a weird way of showing it. She's treated as overdramatic and unjustified in her anger at asgore despite the fact that he DID declare war on humanity and he DID willingly let the people believe he was killing human children to harvest their souls. Even if he didn't do it for real in this game, she has every right to be angry and to not trust him, and it CERTAINLY doesn't make her undeserving to be a mother or whatever. Idk about you, but I don't think wanting kids to stay away from a man yelling about wanting to kill every child that crosses him makes you a bad parent, even if it turns out he didn't really hurt anyone y'know?

They also REALLY zoned in on 'mother' with her in a way that doesn't really make sense here. I could maybe see her feeling guilty for making a snap judgement but how would that call her motherhood into question?

Sans saying isolation messed with her makes no sense too!!!! The outerlands or whatever they called the ruins isn't sealed off in this game, other monsters seem way less intimidated by her in this game than in undertale (she has friends! She knows sans by name and goes to napstablook's shows and even has their phone number!), and we outright get told she takes the taxi to get her groceries... Meaning she headed off to the rest of the outpost and probably does that often enough.

All things considered, Toriel seems fairly well adjusted in outertale, at least by outertale standards. Kinda then makes it feel like everyone's just trying to convince her she's hysterical and that... Sucks.

Also the fact that they added an ending where you stay with her and framed it as a bad ending that doomed everyone is... Really mean? It sucked ass I'm sorry :/

Sans

... Why is he like this. This take on Sans is absolutely infuriating tbh. The only positive I really have here is that his puns are kinda good, I've seen fangames that fuck up this element massively and it was kinda fun to see his interactions in starton.

Okay, back to salt. His whole 'i became a sentry to help humans' thing is trash. He didn't care about that in ut! He didn't care about that at all! The only reason he looks out for frisk is because he made a promise to toriel, and he hates breaking promises. He didn't want to let down his friend.

...Huh. realising this is yet another case of Toriel disrespect somehow. Yet another thing they took from her, that they then just... Handed over to sans instead. :/

His lack of backstory. Look, I get wanting something silly, but they took almost everything that makes sans interesting away. Not hyperfocusing on sans like certain aus do is nice, but it feels like in a lot of situations in this game they overcompensated by a long shot.

No mysterious past/origins. We know he worked with alphys I guess but???? Honestly I have a LOT to rant about for that part so I'll leave it for twinkly's section. And yet despite all this, Sans inexplicably bleeds in tpe when not even undertale has that happen? Make up your mind!

His role in non Asriel chaotic also... Sucks ass. I'm in a pretty awesome corner of the fandom in terms of the people I follow and the takes I see as a result, so if I'm honest, when I saw all those posts about 2024 fanon sans being indifferent to his brother's murder, I kinda just figured they were vaguing about this game. You're telling me that sans of all people just shrugs off you killing everyone and complains a little bit before letting you pass?! He should know alphys already ran off. He should know the only person left to stop you is asgore, and that it's obvious he won't. Part of this could be connected to how frisk is written perhaps, and much like the twinkly situation, I'll have much more to say on that further down.

I understand the creator didn't wanna have a sans fight in their game - however, if that's the case... Maybe come up with a reason for him to NOT show up in the last corridor, then? Have him busy helping with evacuations or something, or already dead like in the first chaotic ending... This was just sloppy.

Papyrus

Honestly he wasn't... Terrible. The phonecalls were fun even if most were cheap references (though they can be fun in fangames sometimes so I'm not mad at this lol). Him being extremely talented at making spaghetti is just one symptom of one of this game's biggest flaws, however. I really don't like how nobody's really allowed to be bad at anything or have any real struggles in this game - especially when spaghetti in undertale is used to demonstrate his relationship with undyne and the similar wavelength they're on when humans aren't involved. She's the one who started teaching him to cook it, it's deeply intertwined with his desire to be a royal guard, and it's something they suck at together. Him just inexplicably being good at it is... Weird, and feels really disconnected from their friendship and her reluctance to let him in the guard yknow?

Also: his boss final phase. Having the dog NOT take his special attack away this time was really funny admittedly but... Idk? Not only is the fight really unfair for pacifist/neutral and those who aren't as good at the game (ut never gets this hard outside of geno), it feels way too on the nose in terms of insisting he's strong and has powerful attacks. Undertale didn't need to overcompensate to get across that papyrus is strong and disciplined and the way you have to infer that in undertale is way cooler. I might just be nitpicking with this point tbh but it's whatever. Letting myself be a hater for once.

And don't get me started on him getting together with Mettaton. It seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere, the idea that they were already friends in this was glossed over really quickly and no time was really put into developing the relationship save for papyrus commenting on finding him attractive every few minutes.

Gotta be honest, I've never been a fan of this ship nor understood its popularity. Papyrus very briefly mentions thinking he's attractive in undertale, but it doesn't really go anywhere and I'm not even sure mettaton knows he exists. It feels like it was just kinda added because it's a popular ship and that's it, not sure it really contributes much to either of their arcs. It was a light-hearted celebrity crush in canon and never really tried to be more.

Oh, oops. Had more to say here than I thought.

Undyne

Not much to say here... I think she was okay, there's nothing super bad with her. I do think the way gerson kinda downplays her/lacks faith in her in the chaotic route kinda sucks and I think choosing to make her non-undying chaotic bossfight harder sure was A Choice, but it's whatever. Undying was weirdly easy in a way that didn't do her much justice. Honestly they didn't do enough with her for me to have a wall of complaints and I can't tell if that's a good thing or not. Her relationship with alphys didn't really amount to much and her lack of understanding of human culture doesn't really hit as hard when she's just talking about random sci-fi things that we have no way of knowing are real or not in this game's idea of the 2600s ourselves, y'know? Her love of anime (that she mistakenly thinks is human history) is pretty absent here except to validate her relationship with alphys in a very shallow way.

The Ghost Family

Hoo boy... Was gonna make this the mettaton section, but I wanted to talk about napstablook at the same time, so I'm just gonna lump them all together.

What. What the hell was this plotline.

It feels like they tried to go for 'smalltime farmer chases passion for stardom after feeling unfulfilled at home' and as I've seen someone else say, 'shy business owner struggles to talk to their cousin outside of work'. This would've been fine tbh, but... There's a lot of things in the execution of this that kinda grossed me out if I'm honest. I don't think they were intentional, but I think it could've been thought through a lot better to avoid some unfortunate implications - or even lean into them in a respectful way.

Firstly, the ghost family intervention was pretty long, awkward, and didn't feel like it really added much - especially when most people playing would already know mettaton's backstory anyway (and his house is still accessible like in undertale!!!!! What was the point?)

Mettaton airing out his family issues on live TV feels very ooc - he keeps that stuff very close to his chest and I doubt he'd like it getting out. Him entertaining any of that out in the open seems... Weird.

Speaking of the intervention, his cousins' treatment of him was horrifying! Part of it seems intentional and it's nice that there's at least one part in the game where characters are allowed to have flaws and do bad things but... There's also elements that feel like you're meant to agree with them? Their insistence that mettaton just come home and everything they did in the past with constantly badgering him to come and help out on the farm were rightfully treated as something that hurt mettaton's feelings and that gave napstablook and the others pause. That's (mostly, we'll come back to it later) fine. He called them out for it and they reflected on it, cool. The way his ghost form was utilised makes me extremely uncomfortable, however.

Napstablook talks about hearing 'the real [mettaton]' in the recording, right to his face, 'the real mettaton' in this scenario alluding to his ghost form. Considering mettaton is a trans allegory, this feels... Kinda gross? In a similar vein, when passing mettaton's quiz barriers, one of the questions is 'what is mettaton's true identity' and you have the option to deadname him (using a name papyrus literally just made up in undertale rather than having any kind of creativity ofc) Alphys' reaction is simply to ask how you know that which... Doesn't feel great. The correct answer is 'mettaton' ofc thankfully, but everything around this particular plot point feels weird. Maybe don't do that w the most prevalent trans allegory character..?

And ofc, they keep insisting he just come home, go back to working on the farm, go back to his family... Idk, gives me vibes of someone abandoning their shitty transphobic family and then insisting they want to see 'the real [deadname] again' and for them to abandon their new life and just go back to the way things were before. Not good.

All of this would still be okay for the most part since the ghost family are painted as being unfair to mettaton... But in true pacifist, he goes back to helping out with the farm anyway and talks about how he thinks he was probably just being dramatic after all, and how 'blooky didn't do anything that bad'

... What?

It takes me right back to Toriel's treatment. Napstablook, Maddie and lurksalot gave no real thought to mettaton's feelings, made it all about them and showed pretty much no support for his transition nor his career! Fuck those guys! It's funny - mettaton is pretty consistently a pompous asshole (affectionate) in undertale but here, I think all his feelings towards his family were COMPLETELY valid. Mettaton outertale didn't do anything wrong.

Lurksalot didn't feel like they contributed much to the story either, save to be yet another character treating mettaton like shit with zero consequences nor narrative judgement. They just made every ghost family event even more drawn out.

And then ofc!!!! Mettaton and Alphys' friendship is so bland in this game! They're two people who kinda know each other and she says some nice things about him in a letter in chaotic but that's about it. Their friendship and the subsequent conflict frisk's arrival brings to it in undertale is the heart of hotland and the core, but here it's just replaced with unnecessary, hard to watch, boring family drama. The two of them have no issues to work out. She doesn't ask too much of him. There's no funny quips and barely any chemistry at all. God forbid either of them have any real flaws.

One last thing: I'm glad maddie gets her mew mew body, it's nice. Wish it was an on-screen moment or something alluded to more though. Some of that time dragging out the family drama could've been used on that instead, y'know? Especially with napstablook getting the mew mew doll... Genuinely thought they were gonna show it to her when they first got hold of it, rather than dragging Frisk into their intervention. She should've gotten to be more mad, too. Kinda a big part of her identity.

Oh, and mettaton's no-asriel chaotic fight was bullshit. It was a nice spamton reference and the first phase was cool, but the second was utter bullshit and dragged out the fight way too long. Attacking him after snapping all the wires should've killed him im sorry. It's even more of a shame bc I genuinely really liked this game's mettaton neo fight - it was fun and creative and felt possible.

Holding myself back from adding any more to this bc I could go on and on, ugh.

Alphys

Alphys. For a game that tries to make her the star of it, it's actually kinda impressive how much they managed to take away from her and just how uninteresting she is in this game.

At the surface level she's awesome, powerful, and the star of the show. In my first playthrough I was actually pretty happy to see her thriving like this! The more routes I played and the more I thought about it though they just kinda... Declawed her. Took away all her flaws. Made her 'perfect' in a way that I don't think works at all.

The amalgamates never happened. None of her experiments went wrong. She never hid away from her mistakes, or lied to anyone (save for keeping Asgore's secret, which she has no negative feelings about), nor did she over engineer any situations to make herself seem cooler. She doesn't argue with Mettaton! She's confident and assertive! She's Asgore's right hand woman and next in line for the throne! And ofc, the badass final boss! What's not to love?

...But none of this is Alphys, is it?

Her anxiety isnt just because of the determination experiments, it's pretty clear she's always been a pretty shy and nervous person. In fact, based on her entries they were one of the things she was more confident in before it all went wrong. People are hard, but she knows science, y'know?

She doesn't get to be flawed or interesting - despite her presence, she's just a generic cool scientist who's suave with the ladies, I guess..?

She isn't particularly dorky, shes overly confident, she has zero issues to work through. Her relationship with undyne is perfect (derogatory) and her infodumping about anime just before the archive feels very forced, like they remembered last minute that she does that and thought it should be included somehow.

Depicting what she'd be like in a scenario where the determination experiments never happened is a fun and interesting idea! But deltarune demonstrates how to do that well, and I think they completely missed the mark. The way she talks, her body language, the way she acts around others in general... These things are universal constants and yet in outertale, she's basically a different person entirely.

Outertale alphys isn't allowed to lie (save to cover for asgore Secretly Being A Good Person), she isn't allowed to miscalculate, she isn't allowed to mis-speak or make mistakes or do anything she'd regret. She feels like an alphys written by someone who hates her in canon and thinks all her flaws make her terrible and unlikable. I doubt this is the case since I don't think a person like that would've given her such prevalence, but that's the level of love and attention I feel was given to her writing here. It makes me sad.

And, of course... The DT experiments and her fight.

... Why did she have vials of determination if all the humans are alive? Did she take it from them? If so, was this before or after they went into stasis? We know she's not been the royal scientist for long in relation to how long humans have been falling, so did ROMAN take the determination? How much of this did she even DO?

Why did she and sans even DO anything with determination? It... Doesn't really make sense.

Speaking of determination, why did she melt at the end of her fight? I'd assume she's injected herself with determination as one of the vials in her lab is mentioned to be partially used, but I'm pretty sure it's also like this on pacifist. Was that overlooked? Are we just meant to assume it's MORE depleted? Does she just have natural determination now because She's So Cool And Badass? This isn't even really a complaint about the fight, more just how poorly that part of her lab is handled lmao

But getting into her fight... Idk, it didn't really feel like her. A lot of it was just random bullshit that was hard for the sake of being hard, that didn't really seem to be tied to her identity very well at all. People complain a lot about the Zenith Martlet fight in undertale yellow but that's done far better than this, imo. It clearly reflects martlet's character, personality and canonical bullet patterns (we see Alphys' in ut tpe!), there's a genuine feeling of progression in the fight and the act you're given to help with the fight feels more effective - you can still damage her on her turn, so taking a turn to heal act doesn't feel like a waste. The Asriel acts though... They just don't last long enough to feel that worth it? Sure they're okay, but in general, you get a lot less time to breathe. Martlet's fight lets you retry from phase 2 if you die. Sans' in undertale gives you as many turns as you need to heal while he's sparing you. Alphys' fight just feels like it's made to feel un-fun and painful throughout in a way that just isn't worth it, and doesn't really feel like it fits her personality either, y'know? The fight was just a slog and like many others, I had zero motivation to finish it legit. I don't think it helps that the undyne and mettaton fights in this route are fairly easy and simple in comparison.

Tldr: they took away everything that makes alphys endearing, fun and interesting. This isn't alphys at all.

Asgore

A huge chunk of this essay accidentally got deleted, including my first attempt at writing this section. In it, I mentioned that the Asgore apologism went way too far.

This time though, I don't think I'd even call it that. Reflecting on it, it feels less like an attempt to defend him and more like a way to hate on and spite Toriel.

Seriously. So much of his character basically just feels like someone going 'fuck you toriel. I'm giving EVERYTHING to asgore.'

It's... Really weird?

Asgore having a way out of killing humans is an interesting concept! Outertale takes place 500 years in the future compared to undertale, so the idea that they have the resources and technology to do that is kinda cool and in theory, exploring this idea sounds really fun. In practice though, it feels like it was mostly done to make Toriel out to be an asshole for no reason and to laugh at her for ever assuming he would've really killed anyone (despite... Y'know. Telling everyone that's what he was doing.)

He just. Completely moved on from Toriel without a second thought seemingly, and doesn't even look that affected by seeing her turn up again - meanwhile SHE'S got crumpled up tea recipes in the trash and all the Sad Divorced Energy - it doesn't really fit either of them! Toriel wasn't really given a reason to miss him like that, and I think even if he DID fully move on, he'd be way happier to see her than that.

All his leading statements on how she must feel in LV1 pacifist sucked ass also, especially with the way she kinda just agreed that yeah, she feels like shit for not trusting that he'd suddenly do a 180 and not hurt anyone (AGAIN. AFTER HE CONTINUED TO LET EVERYONE BELIEVE THIS) and that she must feel unworthy of being a mother. She hadn't even said half of this in front of him yet! He put words in her mouth! That in itself would be fine (social blunders are pretty normal for asgore after all) but it... Wasn't treated like that. It was handled as if this was a sweet and compassionate thing for him to say which... Yikes.

And ofc he gets to adopt frisk, and monster kid, and get to have Asriel live with him! His fatherhood is never called to question in undertale, but ofc Toriel's motherhood has to be here. Hell, despite their divorced status, if you talk to gerson in tpe it's highly implied frisk asks if asgore would start aging again if he became their dad! Idk, all of this part just reeked of Toriel hate and nothing more. Asgore is just yet another character to get sanded down and de-clawed and it sucks. So much of what makes him interesting is his mistakes and flaws and how they impact him, y'know?

Twinkly

I wanna start this by saying I don't think his writing is too bad. It's not amazing by any means but by outertale standards, he's one of the better written characters. That being said, Flowey is my favourite character of all time so I'm still gonna be critical.

So they did save the goat. Save the goat aus really aren't my thing nowadays - I feel like so often people act like he's a separate person to Flowey entirely and act like the alarm clock app dialogue doesn't exist. Asriel didn't end the story as a doomed tragedy fated to fade away! Flowey ended the story as someone who finally got closure on the loss of his best friend, and can finally learn to move on, even if it takes him a while to adjust. I don't think he needs to be a goat again for that.

That being said, I know these kinda aus are a big wish fulfilment thing for a lot of the fandom that aren't even necessarily something people want to be canon as much as they just wanna explore the idea and see him truly happy, so I won't judge that element too harshly. People are allowed to have fun, and I think save the goat can be fine if it respects him as flowey rather than separating them.

I really like that they allow Asriel to be fucked up and an asshole rather than him soft rebooting into some Sweet Perfect Little Prince once he returns to his old form, like so many other save the goat takes. Even in lv0's ending he struggles to bite back insults and mean comments aimed at Monster Kid which is... Admittedly kinda refreshing! There's definitely some flowey (or I guess in this case, twinkly) behaviour that still comes through here and I'm glad. This carried over to chaotic, too. While his characterisation wasn't perfect, this at least felt like twinkly obtaining a few form and continuing to play with the world, rather than your standard Asriel take. I also really liked that he remembers and acknowledges chaotic if done before pacifist, that was neat and adds to his character (as far as this game goes) I think.

However, onto the biggest, glaring issue I have with him.

Why. Why does he exist.

No, seriously.

In its attempt to make the world perfect, a world that blatantly only exists so the creator could make a save the goat ending, mind, there's no reason for the goat to need to be saved at all. Nor for him to exist after dying back when Chara lived with the dreemurrs.

Asgore isn't killing humans, so the souls don't need to be absorbed by anyone. Frisk can just enter the archive and lend their power to destroy the forcefield themselves, so there's no ultimatum like there is in undertale - there's no implied tradeoff of Frisk's life for the freedom of monsters without twinkly's intervention. In undertale, flowey's messing around opened up an ending that would've otherwise been impossible, something that worked for everyone.

Without him existing at all here, frisk could've broken the barrier just fine. All it really added to pacifist was a couple extra boss fights and asgore being dead for two minutes. And him being saved I guess but again, there's no real story justification for him being here EXCEPT to pat yourself on the back for saving him.

Why was he created? In undertale it's pretty clear - they wanted a vessel to hold all the souls in for now during the true lab experiments. He exists because Alphys selected the first flower to ever grow in the garden and injected it with determination that she extracted from the human souls.

... But all the humans are... Alive and well in outertale? They don't need a vessel to contain their souls. They don't need to extract any determination from anyone. Again, why do they HAVE vials of determination? And why did she inject one into a flower?

AND THAT'S THE OTHER BIG THING. It's established she and sans injected a starling flower for... Whatever reason. SO WHY THE HELL IS TWINKLY A CARTOON STAR?!

This point makes absolutely no sense at all. He looks absolutely nothing like a starling flower nor does he behave like a flower at all, which is confusing if that's what he started as. Honestly, I think it would've made more sense to just keep him as Flowey if they were gonna include him at all, and just have his appearance reflect a starling flower instead of a golden flower.

This applies to his fight too. Mechanically I think it's AWESOME, but the visuals are... Just very very boring. A huge part of why his fight in the original is so good it's the bizarre and chaotic nature of it, the horror elements, and the way so much of flowey's trauma in terms of how he was created and the things he finds scary was put on blast for all to see. The combination of mechanical and organic elements, all the plants and insects... Idk, just going 'hmm he's a star. Let's have him go through a star life cycle' is boring, there's no visual appeal.

If his creation is so vague and wishy washy, this would've been a great opportunity to flesh it out more. How was he created? What kinds of technology and machinery did alphys use to put all this together? How did she (or roman????? unclear) get the determination? What does twinkly remember?

That leads me onto a tangentially related topic - his trauma. I... Don't think this was shown very well. He talks a bit about BEING traumatised from the lab, but telling isn't the same as showing and canon flowey is terrible at hiding it, whereas I'd just as easily believe outertale Asriel made it up for sympathy points. He never really projects, he doesn't force anyone else to experience anything like he did, nothing like that. He's just a cocky asshole who likes killing, and who eventually decides to start being nice.

This game constantly seemed to be speedrunning ways to get him from being twinkly to being Asriel as quickly as possible in almost every single route which... Huh???? It's weird. Would've been nice to let him be a star more rather than just Asriel...

(final amendment bc I lost a huge chunk of this essay originally and had to rewrite it, and I'm realising I didn't manage to fit this in this time... How does a single monster soul let him get his Asriel form again? Sure he's still treated as if soulless and it doesn't make him a good person, but if he was 'so tired of being a star', why hadn't he tried doing this sooner? It makes no sense...)

For a game that exists to give him a good ending, it's so ironic how little he needs to exist at all in this world. Just goes to show what it looks like when you go too far with 'fixing' things or removing stuff you seem 'too problematic' for the sake of being wholesome or whatever.

Chara

Speaking of which... Look I'm just gonna say it. This version of Chara sucks so bad.

Chara is one of my favourite characters - they're really interesting, morally grey, and a fascinating way for undertale as a game to interface with us as players.

They're a child who likely saw the worst of humanity, then found themselves in a home with family who genuinely loved them once they fell down and met the monsters. Their intense saviour complex made them feel like the best way to help their family was to sacrifice their own life to get enough souls to break them free (and once they realised they had control, get payback against the humans while they were at it). They could be mean-spirited and a prankster. They valued efficiency HIGHLY. Their favourite number was nine because it's the limit, the absolute, a way to stop hurting and to stop others hurting.

And by doing geno, you can push this fixation on stats further. Max out all your stats. Gain power. Get stronger. Become invincible. Nobody can hurt any more if the world is gone. And ofc, they stand as the final arbiter of consequences for the player. Your punishment for killing everyone and for pushing them into believing it needs to be completed. Chara both IS is and is separate from us in a way that can't really be fully disentangled and it's really, really cool.

Anyway, enough gushing about undertale Chara. What's outertale Chara in comparison?

... Nothing.

They're nothing.

Outertale Chara narrates occasionally. They're a ghost that follows frisk around, but aren't confined to that, and have been actively wandering the underground since their death. They also still have a SOUL for some reason? This part doesn't really make sense at all.

Other than sacrificing themself and maybe wanting to take out a few humans after Asriel absorbs them, they don't do anything that could be considered bad ever. The most devious thing they ever do is snatch Asriel's diary to leave a silly comment in there when they first arrive at the outpost (sans does this with Toriel's phone in undertale tpe for comparison lmao). Despite what Asriel seems to believe, Chara is completely absent from the chaotic route - never getting corrupted, never caring about our stats, never wanting to hurt anyone, never even trying to make us face any consequences. They're just... Not here. For a character so prevalent in the murder based route of undertale this is fucking wild.

They all but vanish if you so much as say something slightly mean to someone, too! It's strange, makes no sense, and just like with sans, it feels like they overcompensated waaaaaaay too much for the people who insist they're evil. On top of that, if you do chaotic before lv0, they don't even remember chaotic happening! They'd may as well have just been a member of the ghost family who likes following Frisk around when they're especially nice. Like Asgore and alphys, they've been sanded down and de-clawed to be 'wholesome' and 'perfect', and it just results in a bland, boring character who loses anything that made them interesting, nuanced and fun.

'Chara wasn't the greatest person'... Why, though? They don't have enough substance in this game for that line to really have as much impact.

Frisk

I'm gonna be honest - I actually ADORED their frisk at first, and I think that's because I started with a neutral run and ended up drawing them a lot. They felt silly and mischievous and interesting, and this continued into chaotic. They seem pretty chill with what's going on but then take that even further by being hilariously affectionate with Asriel and still doing silly things like being up for picking up the electrodampening fluid or drinking directly out of the fountain. They felt like a funny little mini-kris (save for being okay with all the murder ofc).

Then uhhhhhhh... That's when I experienced the second chaotic ending, the one without Asriel, as well as lv0. I feel like they definitely DID try to lean on the Kris angle on purpose in terms of their feelings on being controlled and stuff but it???? Just doesn't work very well? There's no ambiguity to this version of frisk once you've seen all the routes. Just like EVERYONE ELSE, they're just a perfect little angel who would never do anything wrong and anything past lv0 is just the eeeeeevil player influence or whatever. Come on, we have deltarune for that kinda approach to control 😭 (though even then, Kris is a layered and interesting character who isn't goodness and innocence personalised, and that's why they're cool)

In undertale, we have no idea what frisk is like as a person. WOULD they spare everyone without our influence? Would they kill? Would they be a scared child lashing out in self defense? Would they run from everything, then give up and let themselves die permanently somewhere? We just don't know! We're not supposed to know! It feels like it went back to the very early fandom interpretation where frisk is Good And Sweet and Innocent while Chara is evil incarnate - except this time they're BOTH the former.

It's a contradiction too! Why in the Asriel chaotic route are they so down to follow him, and pet him, and hug him every chance they get if they don't like all the stuff we're making them so? The player has no influence over Twinkly. Every single thing he did, he chose to do, and yet even if the only time frisk has seen him was him destroying their mercy button and forcing them to kill for him, they seem to love him to pieces and go along with whatever he says happily. What.

I feel like they didn't know what to do with Frisk here at all and it shows.

Other characters

This has been ridiculously long, but to quickly go over non-major characters... They did very few things to make Roman seem interesting, the amount of stuff hes implied to have helped Asgore with just reduces even further any influence or impact alphys had, and (a smaller nitpick)... Why didn't he use times new roman as a font when we DID see him speak in the archive/on the signal stars? It's such a missed opportunity...

Burgerpants was fun... Kinda. Developing him like this feels like something that should've happened DURING the actual game rather than before it though because it made him feel like a whole other person entirely? The poisoned food was very funny though.

Why is Snowy now Stardrake when his dad hasn't changed at all and Crystal looks like any other snowdrake? That was bizarre.

I actually really liked the humans! Establishing them as actual characters was really fun, and I especially like justice. Justice, at least in my opinion, is probably the most interesting character in this whole game tbh - someone who tried to do good but ultimately caused more harm than good, while NOT downplaying it, showing the consequences directly, and showing them work to try to make things better. The way we don't grab their item like the others in the twinkly fight nor go through an area for them in the archive (and just talk to them instead) really adds to their intrigue - what are they like? Who did they know? Is there something they don't want us to see? How are they strong enough to not need us to grab their weapon at all to lend their help? I think it's get funny that the only character I'm fully praising is the clover-adjacent one. Justice outertale they could never make me hate you

(that being said... seeing the way this game is clearly just supposed to be a 'fix' for undertale does sour my thoughts on the humans a little. did they only do this bc they thought them NOT being full characters in ut was bad/a problem with it? 🥴 This applies to the additional monster kid story focus too).

Speaking of monster kid... Them being an orphan was clearly just a plot device to give asgore more kids and therefore feel like he won more than Toriel. Monster kid in undertale seems like they probably did have real and loving parents, and they have a sister too!!!! Would've been nice if they'd at least done something with their sister :(

This got... Way longer than I expected, so I'll stop here. But outertale definitely gave me an even bigger appreciation for other ut fangames. My gripes with deltatraveler section 3 feel much smaller in comparison now, if tsus misses the mark on Flowey later down the line they've at least already done most characters so much more justice, and it really puts into perspective all the heart and soul that went into kissy cutie, as well as its genuine love got the source material and characters.

Sorry outertale, you weren't for me. That being said, if anyone disagrees with any of this then that's fine! These are all just my opinions and feelings on it after going through all the routes and talking about it with friends. Media is always gonna resonate with different people in different ways and that's a good thing! If your perspective on any of this is different and if you had way more fun with it, I'm glad you did and I genuinely wish I could've felt the same. I feel like at the very least, making it has probably been a great learning experience for the devs and I really hope they carry on making games and improving their skills. Hope y'all are thriving and having fun regardless 💙