Undyne the Undying
You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT.
Undyne the Undying
Undyne the Undying (JP: ふじみのアンダイン) is the third boss in Undertale's Genocide Route. Undyne gains this form via determination after the protagonist fatally wounds her.
In Undyne's Undying form, her pupil turns white and her sclera becomes black. She no longer has an eyepatch, with her empty eye socket emitting a flashing light in the shape of a spear. The end of her ponytail flairs up at the ends, and the tips of her fins are sharper.
Undyne's armor drastically changes, and is more fitted to her physique. Instead of being rounded, her shoulder pauldrons, arm guards, the ends of her gloves, and the toes of her armored boots are sharp. Undyne's chestplate and gloves also depict hearts.
Similarly to the Neutral Route, Undyne pursues the protagonist throughout Waterfall, and Monster Kid repeatedly impedes her, oblivious to the fact the protagonist is a human. Finally cornering them at a lone Echo Flower, Undyne monologues about King Asgore wanting revenge against humanity and demands the protagonist's SOUL. Monster Kid intervenes, not understanding who she is fighting with. Undyne drags Monster Kid away and insists that they must stay away from the protagonist, who had hurt and killed many people.
Disobeying Undyne, Monster Kid confronts the protagonist on the bridge; however, the protagonist attacks them. Undyne leaps in to protect Monster Kid, and her HP is depleted in one strike. Undyne lies to Monster Kid about her condition and convinces them to flee.
Undyne laments that the human defeated her so easily. She blames herself for letting everyone down and reminisces about her friends. However, realizing the severity of the situation, she prevents herself from turning to dust through sheer willpower and transforms into Undyne the Undying instead. In this form, Undyne is empowered by the hopes and dreams of both monsterkind and humanity, as she acknowledges the entire world is at stake.
When Undyne the Undying is defeated, she remains confident that Alphys has taken the necessary precautions and informed Asgore to absorb the six human SOULs, and dies declaring that the world will live on.
The battle with Undyne the Undying is one of the battles where Serious Mode is enabled.
Green mode is used initially, with the red mode being used twice briefly, and then exclusively following the last set of attacks in green mode.
- Note: All attacks deal 8-14 damage.
- Undyne throws arrows from all sides at the protagonist in Green mode, including specifically slow and fast moving arrows.
- During the second Green SOUL cycle, she introduces yellow-colored arrows, which flip the orientation that they are approaching from.
- First cycle
- Undyne restricts the bullet board to a minuscule box which launches spears upwards toward the protagonist in three columns. This attack has a pixel-perfect safe spot between the left and center spears.
- She also throws a volley of continuous spears at the protagonist on a larger Board.
- Second cycle
- Undyne summons rings of seven spears that converge on the SOUL. She uses this attack twice before turning the SOUL green again.
- Third cycle onward
Undyne the Undying repeats the following four attacks endlessly after finishing all of her Green SOUL attacks:
- Continuously summons rings of six spears that converge on the SOUL. The interval between rings becomes shorter as the attack goes on.
- Summons rotating rings of eight spears that converge on the SOUL.
- Rapidly summons individual spears that target the SOUL. These travel faster than they did during the first cycle.
- Restricts the bullet board to a small box that launches spears upward in three columns. These travel faster than they did during the first cycle.
One potential strategy for fighting Undyne the Undying is to equip both the Torn Notebook and Cloudy Glasses for increased invincibility frames. This can enable longer survivability if the player is not confident in dodging, but increases the time needed to defeat her due to lower AT. Undyne the Undying has a special rule at the end of damage calculation, multiplying the final damage by 21, which is why she takes so much damage during the fight. Additionally, any hit that would deal below 600 damage to her will instead randomly deal 600-666 damage.
Due to the different EXP gains available from each type of enemy, the protagonist's LV when fighting Undyne can vary, similar to the fights on the Neutral Route, but unlike the battle against Sans or battles on the True Pacifist Route. Specifically, it can range anywhere between LV 8[2] and LV 13,[3] with the most notable choice being to grind as many as 15 Glyde battles for its 100 EXP reward. Higher LV increases the protagonist's HP, but against Undyne the Undying, it also has the negative effect of reducing base INV by 1 frame for each level,[4] which ranges between 17 and 21 frames (0.56 and 0.7 seconds), rather than the normal 30 frames (1 second). This can cause Torn Notebook and Cloudy Glasses to be beneficial versus certain bullet patterns.
- [Attacking Monster Kid]
- [Monster Kid] Undyne... You're... You're hurt...
- Hurt? It's nothing.
- Next time, listen when I tell you to leave, okay?
- [Monster Kid] Undyne... I...
- I'll take care of this!
- Get out of here!
- [Occurs the first time]
- ... heh... "It's nothing"...
- No... s-somehow, with just one hit...
- I'm already...
- Already...
- D... damn it....
- Papyrus... Alphys... ASGORE...
- Just like that, I...
- I've failed you.
- ...
- No...
- My body... It feels like it's splitting apart.
- Like any instant... I'll scatter into a million pieces.
- But...
- Deep, deep in my soul.
- There's a burning feeling I can't describe.
- A burning feeling that WON'T let me die.
- This isn't just about monsters anymore, is it?
- If you get past me, you'll...
- You'll destroy them all, won't you?
- Monsters... Humans... Everyone...
- Everyone's hopes. Everyone's dreams. Vanquished in an instant.
- But I WON'T let you do that.
- Right now, everyone in the world...
- I can feel their hearts beating as one.
- And we all have ONE goal.
- To defeat YOU.
- Human. No, WHATEVER you are.
- For the sake of the whole world...
- I, UNDYNE, will strike you down!
- You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT.
- [Subsequent rematches after dying, but without quitting]
- You...
- You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT!
- Damn it...
- So even THAT power... It wasn't enough...?
- ...
- Heh...
- Heheheh...
- If you...
- If you think I'm gonna give up hope, you're wrong.
- Cause I've... Got my friends behind me.
- Alphys told me that she would watch me fight you...
- And if anything went wrong, she would... evacuate everyone.
- By now she's called ASGORE and told him to absorb the 6 human SOULs.
- And with that power...
- This world will live on...!
- Heroine reformed by her own DETERMINATION to save Earth. [Check]
- The heroine appears. [Encounter]
- The wind is howling... [Neutral]
Undyne the Undying, referred to as Undyne X prior to her final name being decided, was added late into the game's development as one of the final few bosses, though it is unknown whether she or Sans was finalized first among the Genocide Route's bosses. As shown in the UNDERTALE Art Book, her design came together relatively quickly, her sprites being created by Toby Fox based on her original form.
Earlier designs depict her with her hair far more vertical, almost straight-up, which was only changed because it wouldn't fit on the screen.[5] Briefly, Toby considered the idea of her lower half being a mermaid tail, with two variants - a more traditional tail and one having spiked tips like her boots in the final game. Most of these sprites also depict her with her left hand melting, as well as with an aura around her, details absent from the final game. There also exists a design with far larger and more curved spikes on her shoulders, and one where the heart on her chest was black with a white outline, rather than colored in.
Undyne the Undying makes an appearance in Touhou Danmaku Kagura: Phantasia Lost alongside Flandre Scarlet in the track U.N. Owen Was Hero?. This track is a remix of Battle Against a True Hero, made in collaboration between ZUN and Toby Fox, and was released as a free DLC alongside the launch of the game.
Undyne the Undying melting upon being defeated.
Undyne the Undying's official tarot card as Major Arcana VII, "The Chariot".
- Undyne the Undying is the only major boss on the Genocide Route that cannot be defeated in one hit.
- Undyne the Undying's armor closely resembles Asriel's final form, featuring large, spiked shoulder pads and displaying a heart on the chest and both gloves.
- When Undyne the Undying changes the SOUL's color, she laughs as she swipes the spear, as opposed to keeping her facial expression static during the fight on the Neutral Route.
- ↑
Heroine reformed by her own DETERMINATION to save Earth.
— Check narration - ↑ I did the Weakest Genocide Run in Undertale! on YouTube
- ↑ I reached the maximum EXP in Undertale's Geno route on YouTube
- ↑ gml_object_obj_battlecontroller_step_0 script, lines 50–51
- ↑
Designing Undyne the Undying. Her hair was supposed to be much more vertical. The ONLY reason it isn’t is because it wouldn’t fit onscreen.
— Toby Fox, UNDERTALE Art Book, pg. 109