[Suzerain of Sheol]

So, I'm a little late on this one, but thought I'd share my thoughts. I did the neutral and good endings, and I might go back at some point to beat Sans (only lasted 9 turns against him after like 25 tries), but at this point I feel reasonably satisfied with the time spent with the game.

I think I have a weird perspective on it, though. I have this strange sort of masochism where I enjoy experiencing art that causes me pain, so going through pacifist and coming to love all these characters only to go back and viciously murder them was a really memorable, meaningful experience for me. Not because I enjoyed killing them, but rather because it was amazing how bad the game could make me feel about doing it. The integration of the mechanics into the storytelling is such a powerful device to get you engaged into the story, and I have to say, I think my favorite moment in the entire game was the fight against Undyne the Undying. Being to able to be a part of such a phenomenal tragedy was really rewarding. Even though she was incredibly hard for me to beat, that's precisely what made it so meaningful -- she was doing everything she possibly could to stop me, because she absolutely had to, but lo and behold with DETERMINATION she fell like all the others. In a way, I almost felt proud to have brought out the best in her like that.

My favorite character, though, is by far Flowey, not only for how heart-breaking his story is, but I just love the way he functions as a player-proxy. In-universe he behaves exactly the way anyone else would when playing the usual rpg, and given his situation it's not hard to see why a position of total solipsism on his part seems completely justified. Before you come along, he's really the only thing that's real in his reality, and even when that power is stripped away from him, the way he intermediates between you the player and the linear characters of the setting is really fascinating, I find. From what I've seen, a lot of people hate him or get really scared of him in Neutral, but that was one of my favorite parts of the game. When he started crashing the program and messing with reality, the whole time I was just like "Oh my God, yes, let's do this, Flowey! Show me how deep the rabbit hole goes! Make me regret my pitiful existence!"

One of the reasons I'm not too keen to beat Sans is that I actually really don't want to kill Flowey. :/ Not even cause I feel particularly worse about hurting him compared to the other characters, just that I really don't like seeing him reduced to such a pitiful state. I know it makes sense in the canon that Chara's evil is on a whole different level from anything he conceived in boredom, but... I was kind of rooting for him the whole time. :P I know the point of genocide is to make the player feel bad with a really unsatisfying ending, but part of me would have enjoyed seeing Chara and Flowey reunite in that awful world they found themselves in after Chara's killing spree. They're the only people in that universe who can really understand each other, and I guess that's what makes Chara so damned evil, in the end.

Anyway, really more of a work of art than a game, in my opinion. Was an incredible experience. Lots of food for thought, throughout. In a way, though, I actually find Chara's role in Genocide to run counter to the message of the game. I felt more like I was just watching her carrying out the genocide, I didn't feel particularly guilty for it. If she hadn't been a thing, I might have had a harder time going along with it. She literally deprives you of agency in the end, but I kind of feel like she's been doing that the whole time.

Going to stop typing there, because there are a lot of things I can say about this game and this is getting long. :P