The Games I Played in 2018

Happy new year! Thanks to the influx of articles in October, this blog has had a relatively productive year. I'm going to continue to write about the games I love in 2019, but first, how about we look back on the games I've played this past year? 

Danganronpa V3

I was introduced to the Danganronpa series in 2017 and have loved this series of crazy visual novel murder mysteries ever since. I finished the series' third installment, Danganronpa V3, at the very start of 2018. It's got the best presentation by far and I loved it, but I prefer SDR2's characters and story overall. 

Spyro the Dragon 2: Ripto's Rage

I never played the Spyro games as a kid, what with my unbreakable loyalty to Nintendo, but finally decided to catch up. I finished Spyro 2 on stream in early 2018, making it the first game I finished on stream! It's my personal favorite of the original trilogy for sure.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon

After finishing Spyro 2, I went straight on to the third installment. I had a good time with it, but wasn't motivated to fully complete it.

Mario 74 (Super Mario 64 ROM Hack)

An impressive Mario 64 rom hack I played on stream. I was aware that Super Mario 64 has a very active and talented hacking community, so I decided to try the popular Mario 74. I had a great time, but the game's difficulty was clearly out of my league, especially in the later stages.

Psychonauts

After starting it up and giving up on it due to lacking a proper gamepad, I finally returned to Psychonauts - and I streamed my playthrough! It was a very creative, more story focused take on the 3D platformer and I loved it.

Slay the Spire

After hitting a particularly rough patch in early 2018, a dear friend gave me Slay the Spire, a roguelite turnbased RPG where you build up a deck as you progress. It was a welcome distraction, and I quickly became addicted, wanting to try again and again even after suffering shameful defeats. 

Pokémon FireRed RANDOMIZED

I enjoyed the old Pokémon games, but mostly gave up on the series after gen 2. I thought it might be fun to relive my old Pokémon memories while adding some gen 2 and gen 3 Pokémon into the mix, so I played a randomized version of Pokémon FireRed. It was very challenging but a lot of fun!

fault - milestone two side:above

After having experienced the first part in this visual (kinetic?) novel series by watching Dodger's videos many years ago, I finally played it and its sequel for myself. I enjoyed the story, though the game invested a lot of time and space into building up the world around the characters. I also had a regular chuckle at how differently the male and female characters are designed.

Karakara

I got Karakara from a visual novel bundle and decided to give it a look. The setting of a post-apocalyptic desert was pretty interesting, but most of the game was spent on, uh, this. And it was pretty fun really, but don't tell anyone I thought that.

Abzû

A vibrant underwater interpretation of what Journey did before it. I played through it in one sitting and it was a beautiful and therapeutic experience.

The First Tree

Perhaps I wasn't fair to the First Tree, but I gave up on it when what I perceived as sloppy and tedious gameplay (involving a lot of collectibles) and physics got in the way of its otherwise nice environments and storytelling. Perhaps I will return to it one day.

Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition

Another one from the visual novel bundle. A group of characters get trapped in a nuclear power plant in the middle of a terrorist attack. This game had a neat idea: You aren't in direct control of the protagonist himself, so you don't get to make choices for him, but you do decide how much he trusts each character at various points in the story and he makes his choices based on that. I still want to write an article about it some day! The amount of (voice acted) content in this one was staggering; I spent 30 + hours doing all the campaigns and getting the endings I wanted.

Secrets of Rætikon

Secrets of Rætikon's beautiful style drew me in, but it didn't hold my attention for long. The fault is more with me than it; the game is all about exploring its world, but I just felt lost and confused. Like The First Tree, I may return to it one day under better circumstances.

A Hat in Time

3D platformers haven't been the number 1 genre for some time, but A Hat in Time promised to be a return to the glory days of the N64 and GameCube - and it delivered. I was all smiles while playing this game, enjoying its great visuals and music, sharp controls and adorable sense of humor.

Cuphead

It's hard to say anything original about Cuphead; it's beautiful, it's fun and it's tough as nails! I loved every second of it, except perhaps a few of the seconds when I was fighting King Dice. 

Ape Escape

Another PlayStation classic I missed as a kid and decided to stream. It took me a lot of effort to get used to the controls (and the long breaks between streams didn't help), but I ended up really appreciating all the intricacies of Ape Escape.

Just Desserts

A strange dating sim set in a military camp fighting an alien invasion. It's hard to really comment on it; some of the art and voice acting was pretty good, and some of it wasn't. There was also some very basic turn based combat involved. I cared about it enough to clear at least one character's route, so I guess it's alright.

This is the Police

A management game of sorts where you play the role of a police chief who is about to retire. You manage the police work day by day and try not to get killed or fired by being just corrupt enough. It was interesting enough for me to play for a few hours, but repetition set in pretty quickly and I gave up after the story took a strange turn. Another game I might return to one day - or maybe I'll just play the sequel.

Dropsy

A point and click adventure with no written dialogue whatsoever. Dropsy is a scary looking clown who just wants to give everyone a hug. Like the game's namesake, the game looks strange and disturbing but hides a gentle and kind core. I still wouldn't recommend it for kids, though, because it has some very disturing imagery.

Stardew Valley

I played the heck out of Stardew Valley when it came out, but I streamed the co-op with my friend Back2Murder this year. I hope we can pick that up again, because the game's just perfect for playing with friends.

Pyre

Pyre is hard to describe in simple terms; it's some kind of sports RPG with visual novel elements made by the geniuses at Supergiant Games. Got hooked on the story and characters from the second I started it and binged through the whole game in just two sessions. Beautiful music and visuals, exciting competitive gameplay and meaningful choices make Pyre a contender for the best game I played this year. It's truly incredible.

Hollow Knight

A beautiful metroidvania about a Knight coming to a decaying kingdom for purpose you'll discover as you play. And every character in the game is a bug of some kind. Hollow Knight is an excellent game in every way, but it also hits just the right spot in terms of atmosphere. It's very dark and somber, but not scared of having some charming characters, some heartwarming moments and some laughs. I enjoyed every second of it and it's also a contender for the best game I played this year.

Alicemare

An RPG Maker horror game like Crooked Man or Ib. The player takes on the role of an orphan in an orphanage and travels through the other orphans' dreams. It was competent, with some decent atmosphere, story and puzzles, but I'd only recommend it to fans of the genre.

Human Resource Machine

A fun puzzle game from the mind behind World of Goo and Little Inferno. In this game, you use a basic programming language to direct a little character and use him to solve simple problems. I got stuck in the later stages, but I'm sure a good programmer could get through the whole thing easily. I think this game could be really useful as a teaching tool for kids, since the logic is pretty universally applicable.

SOMA

One of the games I played for Halloween. I actually wrote a whole article about SOMA, which you can check out here:

http://arjenartdesign.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-few-thoughts-on-soma.html

Oxenfree

One of the games I played for Halloween. Just like SOMA, I wrote an article about Oxenfree which you can check out here:

http://arjenartdesign.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-few-thoughts-on-oxenfree.html

Orwell and Whispering Willows

I thought Orwell was great and Whispering Willows was alright. You can read my thoughts on them here: 

http://arjenartdesign.blogspot.com/2018/11/halloween-leftovers-orwell-whispering.html

Pinstripe

A game I played for Halloween, although it wasn't really that scary. I mostly enjoyed the game but felt it had a few minor gameplay problems. You can read my full thoughts here:

http://arjenartdesign.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-few-thoughts-on-pinstripe.html

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

I enjoyed the Castlevania games on the NES and SNES, but forgot about the series when it moved over to Sony consoles and became more focused on exploring a huge interconnected environment. I finally rectified that this past October when I streamed the beloved little pile of secrets, and I had a blast all the way through. In terms of blind streams, this might be my favorite yet.

Deltarune

The mad genius known as Toby Fox finally gave us a glance at what he's been working on: An episodic follow-up to Undertale called Deltarune, which seems to be set in an alternate universe. With better visuals, (even) better music and a more involved combat system, it did not disappoint the towering standards Undertale set before it. If you want to read my own speculation about the game's story so far, you can click here to read the article I wrote right after playing it.

Ape Escape 2

The first PlayStation 2 game I streamed, and in my opinion, it was a success. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first game and thought it was pretty much a textbook sequel, improving on everything. Why'd they have to nerf the Sky Flyer, though?

Rayman Legends

For some reason, it took me several years to finally play the sequel to the acclaimed Rayman Origins. It's basically an improvement over its predecessor in every way (even including revamped versions of Rayman Origins stages), but I did feel the sense of progression was less strong since you start with the full moveset and never really learn anything new. The game instead derives its variation from the level design and single stage gimmicks. What I'm basically saying is: bring back the cute nymphs, Ubisoft.

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

A visual novel where you mix drinks and change lives. In VA-11 Hall-A, you play as a bartender called Jill in a dystopian future. People come to your bar to drink their drinks away, and it's up to you to serve them the drinks they want... or sometimes, the drinks they actually need. The overall narrative doesn't branch, but you can unlock several characters' unique endings by paying close attention to their needs instead of just serving the most obvious drink. I enjoyed it, especially the humor and music.

Whew, that was a lot more than I thought! It's been a really great year in terms of games, and I'm looking forward to all the games I'll be playing in 2019. This article probably missed a few games I played, as I'm only focusing on games I played on PC that I made screenshots of, but this was most of it.

Feel free to share the games you've played in 2018 in the comments. Thanks for being here and reading my articles!

"Games are Political"

I don't usually dip into controversial topics, but this has been on my mind, so... feel free to skip this one if you're not in the mood for this particular discussion. The topic of today is the entire debate surrounding videogames and whether or not they are political. Not so much the subject in and of itself, although I'll address it briefly, but the discussion around it. There are going to be a lot of anecdotes and tangents, but bear with me if you've come this far already.

For an industry revolving around entertainment, the games industry seems to ignite a lot of controversies and what I hesitate to call 'discussions.' One of the more frustrating topics to me is the idea that games either are or aren't political.

One thing that immediately jumped out to me in this discussion is that the sides aren't exactly mirrored. Rather than having one side proclaim the negatives of political messages in games and the other proclaiming the positives, one side of the debate exists mostly to invalidate the other by default. Rather than arguing why games can be a useful tool to make you think about certain political perspectives, people will dismiss the topic altogether by saying (all) games are political, or all art, or everything period.
_

If you don't care about my opinion, you can skip this bit, but I'll take a moment to explain my own views before I move on. Taken by its dictionary definition, political is defined as:

1. Of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government.
2. Of, relating to, involving, or involved in politics and especially party politics

Based on its definition, the answer is apparent to me: Games can be political, but are not inherently so. There are a lot of games - the majority, I would say - that have no message or intent relating to the government or its conduct. Once the fact that most games do not have such a message is presented, the goalpost usually shifts - I've received counterarguments along the lines of:

"People are political and their lives are always influenced by politics in some way, so politics will always be reflected in their art."

This is debatable, but let's assume in good faith that this is true; that no matter our agency as individuals, our political beliefs will always be reflected in our every action and expression in some way. The simple question that follows is 'so what?' The claim is that games are political, period. The quite possibly true notion that 'politics will always have some kind of impact on what we do' does not make our every action political in and of itself. If a religious person paints a still life without any religious content, is that painting of itself still religious? Plenty of great artists over the years had their eccentricities and even bigotries. Can a painting of a flower made by an artist who held some form of bigotry be labeled as being bigoted as well? I may be wrong about this, but I think that's a very reductionist way of thinking about art and even people in general.

Adrian Chmielarz, developer of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, argues that it's not a simple yes or no question, but rather, that we should think about it in degrees - think of the phrase 'the dose makes the poison.' He wrote an excellent article a few years ago that you can read by clicking here. 

Anyway, those are my two cents on the topic, but I'm willing to hear arguments to the contrary. Feel free to post a comment or send me a message.
_

What frustrates me is that the 'games are political' perspective is often presented as a foregone conclusion, requiring little to no argument. Even though the discussion isn't that old, people with the view that games are political seem tired of arguing for it, even though most people have probably never heard their arguments. They are so convinced of the obvious nature of this belief that they often end up presenting it in an angry or smug way.

The way this debate is going, I genuinely wonder if either side even really understands the other. When someone says 'I don't want politics in my games,' the phrase will often be countered with the correct statement that a beloved game or franchise (like Bioshock) has strong political themes or content. In this regard, I think both sides of the debate aren't quite thinking about 'politics' by its dictionary definition. This is my personal interpretation, but when people say they don't want 'politics' in their entertainment, I believe they are mainly talking about contemporary politics. They don't want to see the same talking points people repeat on social media right now in their entertainment media. I've come to this conclusion because a lot of people who hold this view express that they play games for escapism, among other things. It only makes sense that you don't want to be faced with the fears and frustrations of real life in your entertainment media if you specifically consume said media to escape those fears and frustrations.

But instead of reaching out with empathy and understanding that there may be very good reasons why a person wouldn't want recent political topics to come up in their entertainment media, the 'games are political' side tends to resort to a frustrating kind of Bulverism. C.S. Lewis' words are especially relevant here, particularly how he reflects on the way we don't address whether a person is right or wrong, but rather, how their supposed secret wishes or thought processes led them to this wrong conclusion. In the context of this subject, you'll often see people proclaim the following:

"When people say they don't want politics in their games, they only mean politics they don't agree with."

I think this statement does hold a grain of truth. Considering the sheer size of the industry and its audience, it's statistically likely that there are people who are frustrated with the politics present in certain games not because they are politics, but because they themselves hold opposing political views. But it isn't logical to attribute this 'secret wish' to all people who have expressed a distaste for politics appearing in their entertainment media. Until you've found a significant amount of people who specifically dislike the notion of politics in games for that reason, you're just making up a reason for why these people are wrong without even addressing their concerns. The best course of action to take when a perspective seems confusing or contradictory to us, is to ask questions, not make sweeping assumptions about the speaker's intentions.

I've mostly addressed the attitudes and behaviors I find frustrating on one side of the debate, namely the side that argues that all games are political. If you've read my personal view on the topic as well, you've probably noticed that I lean further the other way. My view remains that games can be political but aren't political, but I find myself sympathizing more with people who want to avoid politics than those who claim they are universal. It's mainly because expressing a distaste for politics is simply expressing a preference, a desire, an opinion. On the other side, proclaiming that games are political by nature is a statement intended to be factual, and in many cases, obvious. It is my personal view that there is a lot of arrogance to proclaiming games are political. It's perfectly fine if that is what you believe, but it is just that - a belief. An opinion.

I think the discussion would move forward a lot quicker if either side dropped the snappy sounding but ultimately divisive statements they so often use. Instead of 'keep politics out of videogames,' why not say that you 'prefer that videogames not be used to present a stance on contemporary political issues in a hamfisted way.' It takes more effort to say, but it's also a lot more reasonable and closer to the truth. Similarly, instead of 'games are political,' why not explain that you 'believe our political beliefs always have some impact on our self expression.' That's just what I think, but the Twitter character limits have probably pushed people to simplify their statements - and perhaps even their views - more and more.

In any case, that's where I'll leave it for now. It's hard to summarize the raving rant I just wrote, but I'll try: The discussion surrounding games being political is stagnant, mainly because neither side really understands the other. I personally find the side that argues games are inherently political to be the more arrogant side, as it proclaims to know an objective truth rather than expressing a subjective preference (like not wanting politics in your entertainment media). I don't condemn any specific individual, but those are the general trends I've observed, perhaps through my own biased lens. 

If you have any thoughts, feel free to share them!

A Million Points of Damage, Part 1: RPGs, Math & RNG

While some games hide the variables under their hood to preserve immersion or avoid confusion, some like to show off their numbers. I'd like to look at how different games handle the way they present these numbers to the player and why, starting with a few older RPGs. 

Some games wear their numbers on their sleeves, and RPGs are a common example. After all, strategy is an important part of any RPG.

Take classic Square-Enix RPGs, for example.  The damage dealt, the damage received and various stats are visible to the player in battle. Have a look at Chrono Trigger:

source: Xygor on YouTube

It's quite common for turn-based RPGs like this to boast rather high numbers. Characters may hit other characters for hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands points of damage. But then there are RPGs that are incredibly modest with their variables - take Paper Mario, for example.

source: Destiny Entertainment on YouTube

It's easy to dismiss this difference in design because Paper Mario was designed for a younger audience, as demonstrated by its visual style emulating a children's book. But I would argue there's a little bit more to it than that.

Consider one of turn-based RPGs common criticisms - repetition. Fighting the exact same enemy with the exact same moves using the exact same party; that gets old after a while. Of course, game designers have known this from the start, and this is how RPGs and RNG became bedfellows. Now, RNG simply stands for 'random number generator.' This may sound weird at first, but think about how often RPGs rely on a roll of the dice. From random encounters to critical hits, there's a lot of chance involved. To get back to the point, random numbers eliminate repetition to some degree. You're never quite sure which enemy or enemies you'll run into, never quite sure how much damage you'll deal or receive and so on.

So, why the big numbers? I believe one reason is because they allow for more flexible RNG. Note that the aforementioned Paper Mario, which uses tiny numbers, also employs no random numbers for the damage dealt and received. How could it? Were you to attack an enemy with 3 HP, using a base attack of 2, a random element would make a huge difference, because a single point of damage would. The game would rely far too much on luck. But allowing a few dozen points of variation against an enemy with thousands of HP adds a level of surprise that doesn't undermine strategy or skill, while still allowing you to just barely make or miss that last hit on the boss.

Of course, RNG is really just one facet of complex mathematics. I've claimed that RPGs are forthcoming with their numbers, but in reality, they only show you the end result of a few numbers that went through a dozen formulae. RPGs need to consider a character's attack power, the type of attack, the enemy's defense and many more things, and calculate a number based on that. Using only small numbers, those results would be robbed of all elegance; that 10 % buff a piece of armour gave, for example, will mean a lot more for a 1000 damage equip than a 1 damage equip, even if they have equal strengh within the context of their own game. As such, having big numbers behind the scenes has its advantages. A great example of an RPG franchise that is amazingly complex, yet pretends to be simple, is Pokémon. Take, for example, how the game calculates whether or not you catch a Pokémon.

source: Bulbapedia

But all of this only shows the advantage of using big numbers behind the scenes, not why some RPGs present these numbers to the player. That still boils down to a level of unpredictability, as I mentioned before.

However, is that all? Using numbers in the hundreds or thousands should provide plenty of variance if it was just about the RNG and maths. Why is it, then, that some turn-based RPGs use numbers that are much, much higher? 

To answer that question,we have to cover two things: Progression and spectacle. If you start the game dealing 1 damage, and you knock the final boss down with a 100 000 damage hit, you're going to feel incredibly empowered. You could've built from 1 to 10 damage, and if the game scaled at the same rate, it would've worked much the same as if the numbers would be higher. But it wouldn't feel the same, because the jump from 10 to 100 000 is so much greater than the jump from 1 to 10. Mechanically, it's completely arbitrary, but larger numbers allow for this greater sense of progress and have a way of looking spectacular. If your character spends a whole minute on a cutscene preparing the greatest attack you've ever seen, doesn't it feel like a dud if they deal 10 damage, even if that is a lot in the context of the game? Especially if there are spectators observing you playing, who have no way to contextualize the numbers, although that's a topic in and of itself.

So there you have it! The reason why turn-based RPGs have a fondness for large numbers is that they're flexible enough to use with RNG and complex mathematics, as well as the fact that they allow for a great sense of progress and spectacle.

That's my 2,458,948 cents, but it's entirely possible I'm wrong. Please feel free to respond! I'm planning to make 'A Million Points of Damage' into a series where I explore the transparency of variables in other genres and games as well, and your feedback is going to be an important part of how it develops. Have a great day, and I'll see you in the next one! 

Undertale: Two Anomalous Bosses and an Arbitrary Blockade

Let's kick off with Undertale, a turn-based RPG by Toby Fox that has - since its release on September 15 - gained a huge and passionate fanbase. This isn't going to be a general analysis of Undertale, but rather, a look at a few specific things that stuck out to me about the requirements for getting a certain ending.

Be warned that I'm going to spoil a lot of things about the story and mechanics of Undertale. Read only if you've played it, or don't care about spoilers. I'm going to explain some things about the game, just to establish them, but in general I'll be assuming the reader knows the game. 

One of Undertale's greatest virtues is in how many ways it can be played. Enemy encounters can be handled in two distinct ways; you can either attack the enemy until it dies, or Act to convince them not to fight you and Spare them. This is the first RPG I've seen that has an actual 'Mercy' button in its battle system interface.

source: http://theawesomer.com/

Now, due to this option, you can play the game without harming a single creature. This is referred to as a Pacifist playthrough by most people. Completing a Pacifist playthrough is the only way to get the true ending. Now that's established, let's get straight to the point.

You cannot get the True Ending without first getting a Neutral Ending, which is a simple ending consisting of a phone call briefly discussing or demonstrating the consequences of your choices; even if your first playthrough is 100 % Pacifist, you'll still be pushed into the neutral ending. The reasons why, and what this means for the design, are what I'd like to examine.

The in-game reason why you're prevented from getting the True Ending is simple. To get it, you need to befriend three major characters: Papyrus, Undyne and Alphys. You have to befriend them in order; you cannot befriend Undyne before Papyrus, and you cannot befriend Alphys before Undyne. However, you're arbitrarily prevented from ever befriending Alphys until you see the Neutral ending. To complete her sidequest, you must deliver a letter from Undyne, which she simply won't give you until after having completed a 'neutral run.'

From a narrative perspective, it makes little sense for Undyne to only give you this letter until after you've seen an ending. After all, when you get the letter from her, as far as she's concerned, the "ending" never happened since you returned to a prior save. Regardless, this wouldn't be much of a problem in and of itself, as Undertale plays around with the idea of memories from previous timelines or "save points" carrying over into new ones.

The problem is simply this: Alphys doesn't cause the crucial difference between the Pacifist and Neutral endings. The penultimate boss of the Neutral Run is Asgore Dreemurr, the King of Monsters. On a successful pacifist playthrough, the battle will start, but Asgore will then be knocked offscreen by none other than Toriel. 

source: KiteTales on YouTube

Toriel is the second character you meet, and the first major boss. She disappears from the story fairly early on. So, how come it's her that makes the difference? Why does she only interrupt Asgore after you've discovered Alphys' backstory? This all doesn't make a great deal of sense, until you realize this:

You're supposed, or at the least expected, to kill Toriel on your first playthrough. 

Maybe that's a hasty conclusion to draw, but think about how much sense it makes considering the 'flow' of the narrative. She's the defining difference between the ending of a Pacifist and Neutral playthrough. But if you're not convinced, allow me to delve into the mechanics of her battle.

Toriel's battle sticks out compared to other battles. In Undertale, as a pacifist, every battle is solved in one of two ways: You either solve a puzzle using the Act menu, or outlast the enemy until you can show Mercy. In Toriel's battle, however, you have to specifically choose Mercy and then Spare many times in a row before she'll finally give up on fighting you - and it takes several Spares before Toriel will actually start to show any signs of being affected. Compare this with, say, Papyrus, who you only need to Spare at the very start and end of the battle. He also literally spells it out in red text.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EvnJ5IkP5U

So, consider the design here: In terms of explaining how to Spare bosses, Papyrus might as well be the first boss because his battle's design is perfect for it. The reasons for this are simple:

The battle won't even really start until you either Fight or Spare.

The battle shows clear progress, with Papyrus saying something new each turn and constantly hyping up his 'special attack.'

Papyrus literally tells you when Mercy becomes an option. 

Most bosses after Papyrus work similarly, with only minor differences between them. But Toriel, in spite of her role as the game's tutorial, has no such structure or clues in her battle. Attempting to talk to Toriel eventually leads to the game stating outright that "talking isn't the solution." As it takes several Spares to show visible progress, it's not unnatural for a player to assume that Fighting is the only option. 

I think it's important to sidetrack for just a minute here. You might have your doubts about that last statement, because actually, a lot of people do seem to successfully Spare Toriel on their first playthrough. This boils down to a related but seperate issue that I'd like to address in the future: Undertale's design assumes you're playing the game 100 % blind. The moment you hear the word 'Pacifist', or see that trailer proclaiming that 'no one has to die' in Undertale, the jig is up. One could say there's a conflict between the game's design and its marketing. It's important to realize this to understand where my "problems" with the design are coming from. In the future, I hope to look at Undertale's marketing in more detail.

So, now that we've established that, let's get right back to the heart of it. Comparing the design of Toriel's battle with Papyrus', it seems clear that either the game is explaining itself in the wrong order, or that you're expected to kill Toriel. And Undertale's design in general is too complete and well thought out for me to assume the former. 

Toriel's battle isn't the only evidence supporting this theory, however. The fact that you cannot get the True Ending when completing the game for the first time also supports it- being unable to acquire Undyne's letter seems little more than a mechanical failsafe to ensure that. However, I'd like to present one more compelling piece of evidence:

source: Super Beard Bros. on YouTube

I briefly mentioned him before, but now we're going in depth: Asgore Dreemurr, Toriel's ex-husband and the second-to-last boss of any Undertale neutral playthrough. Like Toriel's, Asgore's battle is completely different from any other you encounter on a Neutral or Pacifist run. When the battle starts, Asgore destroys the Mercy button from your interface. This implies that there is no way he'll accept Mercy from you. But surely, if you're a Pacifist, there is some clever way to talk yourself out of it, right? Like with Toriel, there is some hidden way to convince him not to fight, right? The unfortunate answer is no. Even if you didn't touch the Fight button a single time, on your first run it's inevitable: you have to Fight him. 

Not only does this seem out of place in the narrative, the battle also represents a major difficulty spike for Pacifists who aren't properly equipped. To compensate, a Pacifist is allowed to speak to Asgore to decrease his Attack and Defense, but that seems like a band-aid for the underlying issue; logically, the battle shouldn't even happen for a Pacifist who managed to spare Toriel. Fortunately, Asgore can be Spared once his HP reaches a certain point, but that doesn't change that you had to Fight him to get to that point.

With all of that said, it seems pretty clear that on your first run, a neutral playthrough wherein you kill Toriel is expected, which leads to the inconsistencies I've pointed out. 

With all of that said, it makes a lot of sense for Toby to want you to see the Neutral Ending first; after all, at the end of it, Flowey will reveal how to get a better ending if you Spared him. 

source: Super Beard Bros. on YouTube

This ties in with Flowey's role in the story, and the critical part he plays in acquiring the True Pacifist ending. After all, it's Flowey who gets Papyrus to call everyone together to interrupt the battle with Asgore - again, except for Toriel. 

source: Cryaotic on YouTube

So, that's the gist of it; both the narrative and game design of Undertale expect you to kill Toriel on your first run, which seems to have lead to some small inconsistencies. I'd like to stress, though, that Undertale's design and story are amazing in general. That's really the only reason why these details stuck out to me. Also, nothing I've concluded here is factual. In fact, I hope to write a follow-up piece based on responses and feedback, so please do respond in any way you can!

Thank you for your time! Hopefully, we can discuss design again soon.