rambling rant about undertale vs pokemon gen 1

a thing to think about with undertale vs gen1 pokemon. They seem to be ideologically different in the sense that while pokemon is a sofened introduction to the typical rpg status quo, Undertale seeks to subvert it. In pokemon, it seems more like they actively deny that any true harm is being done to the pokemon, saying that they only "faint" after suffering the damage from massive terrain-altering attacks. Meanwhile, in undertale, every battle's outcome has consequences. If you lose, you die. If you defeat a monster in battle, they die. And not only do they die, but often times their families have to suffer through mourning their death. And if you go back to your last save file and try to change things, some will still know what you had done. Meanwhile in pokemon, you're practically encouraged to savescum when trying to catch the legendary birds, which are incredibly difficult to capture.
I started out as a pokemon fan and have been one for years, though it has slowly worn down over the years as I've gotten older. I seem to enjoy the concepts more than the actual gameplay. It seems to be the same grind catch grind battle grind no matter where you go. The fiorst time around it's a fun adventure and you get attached to your team, but with each successive iteration the spark rubs off a little. You can only go up victory road so many times before it becomes a chore. With undertale the amount you get attatched to the characters can often determine what choices the player may make, and therefor impact the way the game reacts to it. In pokemon, it doesn't matter which pokemon you choose to pummel or catch, just that you catch enough to fill the pokedex eventually. Nothing ever changes except for at certain benchmarks, and even then it's just a simple barrier blocking off the next area, never really something that feels like it effects much on an emotional level. There are no options in the story, only progression.

When undertale came out, I immediately jumped on the bandwagon, having previously following Toby Fox's twitter due to being a fan of his work on the homestuck soundtrack, and his general sense of humor. That's a thing that undertale has a lot more of than pokemon. It uses modern internet nomenclature and mannerisms to make things fun and lighthearted when played in a nice manner, while further accentuating the contrast between the dark underlying themes it tends to cover. Meanwhile, pokemon seems to go more of a neutral route in terms of humor flavor, occasionally teaching a little bit about the way the pokemon world works, but for the most part there's not too much besides team rocket to stop, and let's get real here: if it took a 10 year old to bring them down, they were either already weakened, were going to disband soon anyways, or they were using the "disbandment" as a cover to go back underground as an organization.