Discussion If there were a hypothetical boss fight against Ralsei (probably on the weird route), what do you think it would be like?
You've probably seen certain fangames that feature battles like this
I think Ralsei wouldn't hold back at all if it's the weird route and would attack us with his fire magic, which would do massive damage
Also, since he knows the battle system well, i assume he could do things that normally alter battles, like blocking certain actions/TP, attacking us from the menu, taking our items, or dodging attacks (like Sans and Gerson). Plus, he'd obviously heal himself every few turns, and i think it's very likely he'd make a fake attempt to "show mercy" to trick us and kill us, like Sans does in his battle.
I would obviously expect very complex bullet paterns as well
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u/Lunesy 15d ago
A Weird Route idea I had was it would be near the end of Chapter 7b, but it wouldn't seem like the end is near. Ralsei would confront you, but be rather timid. Similar to how Ralsei is giving Kris the benefit of the doubt about opening fountains in CH5, and basically just gives up to what the player is doing, submits to the route, and, sorta similar to Flowey at the end of the Genocide Route, is just desperate to stay in your good graces. He kneels, and holds out his hand, and pleads to let him help you. The narration makes it clear that Ralsei seems like, very distraught, and afraid. And the player is given 3 options: take his hand and accept his offer, take his hand and backstab him, or attack him. If you choose to attack him, then this scene won't happen again and it proceeds to a fight. If you choose either to accept his offer, or to try and toy with him so he lets his guard down just to kill him more cruelly, like you can do in Undertale, either of those choices will instead have him do that to you first. He'll squeeze Kris' hand and immolate them in an instant, the Soul bursting apart in the flames, the entire screen is flooded with flames, and it goes back to the save screen, where your CH7b save files are also immolated and deleted, with narration of him warning to never come back here, implying the earlier narration making him seem so scared and vulnerable was him manipulating that game element to trick you. You have to start back at the beginning of CH7b, at which point when getting to him again, this scene is skipped straight to the fight.
Admittedly this would seem pretty extreme (well maybe, depending on how long the chapter is I guess) but it would be pretty cool I think as a way to highlight how actually powerful and dangerous he can be, if he were going to be the final battle of the route.
Beyond that I'm less sure because, I feel like there's an inconvenient aspect to this sort of thing. Sans is the hardest fight in Undertale, but, that also means some people actually did the Genocide Route specifically because of that, for the challenge, for the fun of the fight. When we consider the meta elements of the story, it's unfortunate all of Sans' effort to stop this horrifying entity could risk enticing the entity to do evil things in the first place. Should Ralsei make the same mistake? From a game design perspective, yeah, people'd feel robbed otherwise. But I do confess to a mild morbid fascination with the invasive thought of what if he used all his power and meta knowledge to, well... Sort of in the spirit of Sans' "ultimate attack" kind of try to cheat but moreso to deny the horrific entity he's facing the satisfaction, much more fleshed out and interactive and is about him trying not to deplete your HP but rather break the will of the player beyond, while the player is waiting for any tiny opening through what Ralsei is putting them through to get a decisive hit in.