@Daz:
As far as those names go, those are entirely fandom-made, and not featured in the game itself.
Whoa, what? Then I would argue those qualifiers kinda color the way you want to play.
"Hey, I'm gonna play Undertale."
"Oh cool, how?"
"Huh? I guess I'll play through and beat all of the bosses, you know, standard stuff."
"Oh so you're doing the Genocide run."
"W-What?"
"Yeah, that's Genocide. Have fun! :D"
It's not that the two terms don't fit the styles of play, but they're such colorful words with such intense implications. You're sparring everyone, so you're a Pacifist! "well not exactly, but this Papyrus dude is kinda charming." You're killing (jesus I feel wrong using that term, isn't everyone supposed to be _un_dead?) everyone, so you're doing Genocide! "C-Can't I just play the game?"
! Really, the more I think about it, I think I've found the perfect metaphor for Undertale, which I'm going to share now because I'm really dang proud of it you guys
!
! Only, undertale has an alternate button for Feeding The Fish. And a big sign saying "Please Do NOT kill the fish! Please?". And it records a video of you should you activate the blender.
! Now, whether you kill the fish or not is totally up to you, and either is a valid option. The whole point of the excersise is just to make you reflect on why you did either choice.
Pretty solid metaphor Daz. Like I said, I do like when your choices matter in a video game.
And like I said earlier, it infuriates me that the internet has basically ruined this part of the experience. The response has been so massive that now everyone is doing pacifist then genocide by default because thats how you get the "real experience", thats how you get all the content right? - which is an absolutely terrible thing to happen to a game all about making personal choices and dealing with them. Its the equivalent of playing a game knowing everything going in, like Robbys example with Journey above, and sure, people are free to play a game with a 100% walkthrough running on their laptop simultaneously…but with Undertale, where it undermines the core point, I think its a big shame.
Really now? I feel the opposite is true - if you're killing everyone, then the internet has declared you to be playing the game wrong, because clearly you don't give a crap about the world to just be offing everyone! After all, you're doing Genocide!
(I mean…..am I interpreting everything wrong here?)
Uh, sorry for the rant. I just think this game is brilliant, truly a case for Video Games = art; it used the medium to engage myself in a way no other game has ever done. With 2 decades of gaming under my belt and an overanalytical mindset, I guess Meta games was a thing I never knew I wanted.
Actually I'm amazed such a 8-bit game can do that to you, Daz. It warms my heart to see that even in this era, a game not buffed by HD 1080p graphicz and flashy visuals, or made by a triple A+ studio (and by one person!) can charm so many people. Video games are truly magical.