KEEPING UP WITH THE BOSSES #1: TORIEL

Yo momma's so fat, she's the first boss

Disclaimer: Since this is a boss discussion, I will freely utilise spoilers. If you haven't played Undertale yet, you might not want to read the article. I will try and not reveal too much, though.

This series is about boss battles and what makes them interesting (to me, at least). I will first give a profile on the boss and some story context, then move onto the fight itself.


It takes some effort to find something non-suggestive.

Background Info

Toriel is the keeper of the RUINS, the first area of the game. She's encountered after being welcomed to the underground by Flowey (who quickly drops his cutesy act to try and murder you), who is then driven away by her. You'll be guided to her home, feeling irresponsible upon leaving to buy groceries halfway through. She'll put up great effort to accomodate you and tries to make you not leave. While making excuses at first, she'll eventually reveal that other children were here before, which all turned up dead. The boss fight then starts at the door leading out.


The quote's already on the image - how convienient.

The Battle

A small word to the general combat system: Your own attack is based on a timing minigame and deals more damage the closer you stop it in the middle. When the opponent attacks, it's a bullet-hell style minigame where you dodge projectiles to avoid taking damage. You can also choose ACT (has a variety of options that allow you to interact with a targeted opponent), ITEM (either use a healing item or switch to a different piece of equipment) and MERCY (allows you to spare enemies who don't want to fight anymore or flee from battle).

In most RPGs, beating a boss usually results in incapacitation if the enemy is more forgivable. This is not the case in Undertale - if you bring an enemy's HP to 0, they WILL die. Since talking and sparing has no immediate reaction, this will often drive players into attacking to make something happen. Upon being brought down to about half, the next hit will spike up to be about ten times as powerful, likely killing her. Basically, the game tries to trick you into killing her.

This doesn't necessarily happen during the battle - if you killed all the random encounters prior to fighting her (just leveling up isn't enough - you have to keep fighting random battles until enemies stop appearing), attacking her kills her in one hit (with even more excessive damage) and changes the game quite a bit. But elaborating on this should be an entire article on its own.

Killing a beloved character is something most people don't want to do - there is a clue about what to do, though. If you get to very low health yourself, you'll notice that her attacks intentionally avoid you, proving she does not want you to die (either that or seeing that her attack power is four times your HP, yet you can still take her hits well). Whether you're weakened or not, waiting for enough turns (either by spamming spare or intentionally failing attacks) will make her eventually stop fighting altogether and let you go.


Coming with an adorable hug as well.

There's one more interesting thing: You will meet Flowey again afterwards, who'll comment on whether you killed or spared her. What he says also changes based on if you killed any/all prior enemies and even if you reloaded your game after killing/sparing her.


"I know what you did. You murdered her. And then you went back because you regretted it."

That's all for this episode of Keeping up with the bosses.

Images taken from the game itself and an artwork by luminaura.

Posts

Pages: 1
The programming that goes in Undertale should be an example to every single game maker. :)
Toriel's fight actually treats opening an attack, and letting the bar used for timing run its course as the "spare" command. This actually works well within the narrative too - you show Toriel you're capable of fighting, but you choose not to.

However, once you get Toriel to a position where she starts speaking about how you could stay with her, all of your attacks do critical damage, because she wants to fight just as little as you do. This "choosing not to fight but displaying you know how" mechanic makes it easier to accidentally kill Toriel, since you're spending most of your time in the fight menu rather than the spare menu.

So even if you aren't spamming "spare" like the plague, you're still likely to be tricked into accidentally killing her.
Pages: 1