VS Blog: sans vs The Judge (Undertale vs OFF)
valve
helton
If I seem a little strange...
Well, that's because I am.
- The Smiths
While you’re at home, playing your games, helping the protagonist ensure an end to their story… there will always be someone a few steps behind you to catch them when you fall. These mentors are always there to lend a helping hand, no matter what happens in the time they spend with the hero.
But sometimes, the fate of mentors aren’t always positive. It’s almost certain that some heroes might not be as good as they seem, and it’s a feeling two of these characters know the most.
sans. from undertale.
The Judge, also known as Pablo, the competitively loyal feline companion originating from the role-playing video game OFF.
There’s not much introduction either of these two need, so let’s get right into it. Which one of these always-smiling RPG heroes can make it through to the special ending of mercy? We’ll find out today on Valve’s Versus!
Before We Begin
For this blog, we’ll be taking two avenues of discussion for this blog. For starters, we’ll be obviously looking into the original OFF and Undertale games within their first releases. We’ll also take a look at rereleased versions of both Undertale and OFF that developed overtime (such as Undertale’s console/Switch remaster, OFF’s remake, etcetera) as there’s no reason to disregard these entries of the series.
We’ll also look at extended media present in these series. For reference with Undertale, this would include media like Undertale’s scrapped Alarm Clock app dialogue (which is directly attached to Undertale’s story), series of Twitter dialogue, official Undertale character Q&As for the one year anniversary, developer interviews/Q&As, and official comics. As for OFF, we’ll look over most of the extended media present for the series that we can such as developer interviews and any of the anniversary streams with Mortis Ghost, though we’ll have to unfortunately disregard the pre-order comic that won’t be released until next year. While it appears to have mentions of extra lore tidbits particularly in favor of Judge, there is no concrete story present yet, and applying any dialogue visible on the four pages we get to see of the comic could lead to later contradictions once it eventually comes out.
Regarding the actual story and our blog’s approach, a lot of OFF (and some individual concepts in Undertale) are based off interpretations, directly intentional in OFF’s case but mainly because of undeveloped information. However, for OFF, we intend on locking in the most on for this blog, and the only concepts that Mortis explicitly mentions being up to you as the player is the morality of the Batter (since you control him). Mortis is not really sure on every concept in the story even as the singular main writer and claims his own interpretations of the story is not truly canon to the product as it is based on how one looks at it. He will often mention several different ideas for the game that he himself wasn’t intentionally planning, for example, and obviously doesn’t intend on these concepts made up on the fly to respond to questions as being literally true (especially when he’s mentioned the concept of “OFF never being on Steam”...). While Mortis is a reliable source for drawing what the root of the story or scenario in question is supposed to be, it should be noted that his thoughts are not concretely “what happens in the game”, and concepts that we’re looking at should at least be present in the original story to matter here. Thus, statements like “I think dark matter explodes out of Elsens but idk” will be disregarded unless they can be outright supported in the story. A lot of questions are similarly loaded with arguments of lore, such as asking if both the Zones disappear in color because of the Guardians and that the Secretaries killed everyone which are not both maintained narratively– only the former. This is also applicable to Undertale, though it does not face these issues notably since it has a less intentionally vague story. In both cases, we will also present the most recent remasters (as mentioned, Nintendo Switch/Console Editions & OFF 2025) as the main source, and reference other iterations of the games just in case context surrounding feats changes since both versions make some notable boss changes and the like.
We also wanted to thank the Undertale text project and many of the various groups for Undertale that have come together for the sake of compiling media for the series that would otherwise be lost to time. Similarly, the OFF community is rather small but still very intertwined to the history of the game, ensuring that there’s older media to draw from like the anniversary streams, and they’ve been a big help.
Background
sans
heya, kid.
there’s a skele-ton of stuff that was put together down there.
not here though.
don’t want the cat to get too curious.
but if you skip any sections…
you’re gonna have a b a d t i m e .
The Judge
There cannot be any other beings on this blog beyond myself and the set of bones, so I must assume that you are only a mere figment of my imagination.
Nevertheless, I will introduce myself.
I am the Judge, and I assure you, reader, that my skeleton compatriot will not see the end of the blog as complete baggage of bones.
Henceforth, my extensive history will not be published– his tomfoolery is far too plentiful for a preview of my personal character to be allowed.
H é h é h é !
Skill and Experience
sans
You feel the sins of blog writers crawling down your back as a pair of eyes skim the skill and experience section. You know that not many blogs go in-depth on this kind of writing, but seeing these sections filled in fills you with DETERMINATION.
sans is not a fighter outright, often being too lazy to even pick up his laundry. However, he isn’t a slouch in instances where the fight itself might not even matter in the long run, having fought against both Frisk and presumably Flowey. In his fight with Frisk, he acknowledges multiple deaths occuring and calls back to what he’s said in former kills, only losing track of how many times he himself has killed you past twelve times and deciding to cut down the pace. He will even acknowledge dialogue he’s made to Frisk after killing them in the actual fight.
Saves and resets reshape the timeline by altering events themselves, removing memories and the like. sans, akin to Flowey, is able to retain knowledge of the timeline changing and resetting entirely even inside of the occasional fourth wall breaks. Because of this cosmic knowledge, he can piece together the root cause and recalls every time Frisk resets in the fight, and this is why sans gives up fighting against Frisk because he knows it resets. This could be potentially attributed to Flowey fighting sans when he wielded Determination, though sans notes that the timeline jumbling and constant stops are present even now rather than events he’s seen prior. In his fight with Frisk, he’s able to pull off a decoy of fake sparing which allows him to kill them.
Though there is not much context about it, the back of his house contains a lab with a mysterious futuristic machine that sans himself presumably built, which is theorized to be tied to his knowledge on time-space shenanigans (though this is solely theorized) or a connection to the former royal scientist: a man who speaks in hands.
The Judge
Though not much of Judge’s history is presented in OFF, he is depicted as particularly knowledgeable of the history of the world due to (at least, implied) his interactions with Hugo. With this history, Judge grew very aware of the nature of the world and Zones, traversing them endlessly while guarding over his own Zone. From here, he would witness the development of a new Puppeteer holding influence over the Batter, an embodiment of Purification who’s sole goal was to fix the world through taking the lives of anyone who broke the vague standards of “natural”. This extended from Spectres to mentally ruined Elsens, and all the way to the sick boy that brought many of the world’s most notable beings into existence: Hugo.
However, in the end, Judge would oppose Batter before he could turn the world OFF… off! With a set of competences– special abilities that can be used in combat for a variety of effects– he can either side with the Player to defeat the Batter, or fight against the Player siding with the Batter. If the Player sides with the Judge, he’ll be left with the purified zones to wander with the knowledge that he simply allowed the Batter to continue on. If the Player sides with Batter, the Judge won’t be able to fight against his true purpose either, which is to be purified. In other words, Judge will be killed, unable to prevent the world from being destroyed.
In either case, Judge is an extensive combatant. He hasn’t held much history about him, but the context showcased throughout OFF gives him notable points of experience and knowledge that nearly no one else in the Zones has. Beings of extensive history, even like the Queen, were very likely unaware of the concept of a Puppeteer, and Judge has always been knowledgeable of who you are as the player even before you bought the game on Steam.
Abilities
sans
Monster Physiology
A long time ago, two species ruled over the Earth– HUMANS and MONSTERS. But you’ve heard that story, haven’t you? Monsters were sealed away by humans, leading to them living underground for years. sans wasn’t apart of that war (the lazy bum probably got out with a million-dollar wound), but he is a monster, and retains most of the innate abilities that one would have.
For starters, monsters are beings almost entirely made of magic with the exception of their soul which is what is tied to the magic’s power. These souls are vastly tied to emotion, with strong internal emotion empowering it, and even greater external emotion overpowering it or weakening them via internal emotions present in a monster. Because their souls effectively project magic and their bodies are built entirely by it, it allows them to create and use a variety forms of different magic.
At its core, even the most basic of monsters like ghosts possessing dummies can create magic capable of harming others. sans, however, holds a unique style of magic which induces an effect known as KARMA– A physical poison of the sins weighing in one’s SOUL. It seems to drain those on-hit physically to the point of exhaustion, but it does not kill the affected outright. sans also displays some more unique applications of Magic in a variety of different contexts, all of which he’s capable of applying to combat with at least some degree of skill.
Bone Projection: sans’ most basic ability shared between him and his brother, he is able to create bones that can hit enemies. They can be formed into long or short projectiles, used as walls, or summoned from the ground to trap or maim. If sans decides so, he can instead create blue bones which can hurt enemies if they’re moving, but don’t deal damage if they stand still.
Gaster Blaster: One of sans’ most iconic abilities, he can summon a cow-like skull that can shoot out a laser depending on the size of the skull. He can create patterns with his summons of these skulls, allowing him to create game-ending danmaku if he combines it with other tactics.
Platform Creation: In his boss fight, sans can create platforms while the soul is “Blue”, which act as… platforms.
Telekinesis: As a more indirect form of telekinesis, sans is able to turn one’s soul “Blue”. This causes the SOUL to be affected by gravity, forcing a jump-styled movement. He can also grab one’s soul, slamming it downwards or causing them to fly to a direction he so chooses.
Teleportation: In a brief flicker, sans can teleport. There’s not much more application to it, though it allows sans to appear at seemingly multiple places at once.
If none of these work, though, he’ll be pushed to use his strongest move, the special attack!
Miss!
Go ahead and try to hit him if you’re able; sans is able to dodge any attack thrown at him, making sure you’ll take as long as possible to defeat him. For reference, Frisk is able to normally track moving opponents, and this dodge is in particular connected to the very mechanics of attacks rather than sans needing to maintain reactions. Even if he’s knocked out cold, he’ll be able to instinctively dodge attacks by virtue of his familiarity with the in-game system. It requires direct exploitation of this system on the same level and the exhaustion of sans physically to tucker him out to the point of not being able to completely dodge. This is because, even if sans were able to be tired out, he’ll always be able to tap into his immensely powerful special attack.
Mechanic Exploitation and Manipulation
sans demonstrates very extensive exploitation of the system of Undertale’s fights, intrinsically tied to his ability to break the fourth wall and natural familiarity with the functions of the timeline. He can fake being spared to deceive Frisk despite perceiving him as spareable, allowing him to kill them as a surprise. His attacks can also act outside of the standard area and attack Frisk as they’re making options, alter the battle box itself to cause Frisk to move endlessly, flicker out the screen to create surprise attacks with new attack patterns instantly appearing, and his special attack renders Frisk unable to do anything because his turn will never end. Only when sans is asleep can Frisk control the battle box itself to attempt an attack and sans is still only defeated because Frisk attacked twice in one turn. rather than the typical singular attack. sans is the only boss in Undertale capable of bypassing “I-Frames”, an invincibility state in the game that registers hits and makes Frisk, for a short time, immune to damage after getting hit. This mechanic allows sans to induce damage up to 30 times per second with just a single attack if not avoided, with each hit in it of itself inflicting a stack of KARMA.
Fourth Wall Breaking
dude. i fucked up
Demonstrated occassionally by sans, he is able to directly talk to the player. He can even kick you out the game if you’re a dirty hacker! The infinite amount of hoodies that sans stuffed in the couch had broken the speech box and spanned outside of space itself. In the end of the Undertale demo in specific routes, he and Papyrus conversate about them not appearing in the game yet.
Resistances
Potential Empathy Manipulation - Able to display the “yellow text” present for enemies convinced by Frisk to stop fighting through interaction, which comes from exuding a peaceful aura of Determination around themselves. This is, however, a fake and allows sans to remorselessly kill Frisk instead.
Extreme Temperatures - sans is able to withstand the heats of Hotlands and Snowdin. Hotlands can dehydrate Undyne, who was unfazed by her house being burnt down.
Biological Manipulation - I don’t have any skin, cuz . . . I worked myself down to the bone.
The Judge
Zone Guardian Physiology
Judge is the Guardian of Zone 0, which he was presumably given some form of access to the power of the Queen. This allows him to imbue his island with life and color, though it lacks any life… at least, to his knowledge. It doesn’t offer him much more beyond this, however, and most details of the Guardians are kept vague. (See Before the Verdict)
Cosmic Awareness
Judge is extensively aware of the mechanics present in the game, acknowledging the existence of the Player as the Batter’s puppeteer several times. On the official OFF website’s sketches, it is noted that he can acknowledge the Player’s existence even before they’ve installed the game.
Competences
In the final battle against the Batter regardless of ending, Judge showcases access to a variety of different competences.
Resistances
It’s okay to have empty sections, Pablo. . .
Equipment
sans
Sweaters
sans is a bit too avid of a sweater collector. He owns an infinite amount of blue sweaters and, if he wants to, can always put on a green one if its more his style. If sans is too lazy even for his own sweater, he’ll be able to steal from his brother too.
Ketchup
With such a high tab at Grillby’s, you might have expected sans to have a lot more on his plate. But, no, it’s only ketchup really. No clue how he drinks it, though.
Musical Instruments
sans is a one-man band who can play a few instruments, displaying that he is capable of playing both the drums and the trom-bone.
Vehicles
sans owns a bicycle that he doesn’t even need to pedal. He also owns a bulldozer for the hundreds of Valentine’s Day mail he gets as a Tumblr Sexyman.
Head Dogs
sans carries an indefinite amount of head-dogs back at his stand in Hotlands.
Grillby’s Menu
At Grillby’s Bar, sans sells a bunch of different exotic foods to Mouth. These include “Sea Tea”, “Glamburger”, and world-famous “Fried Snow”.
Basketballs
Geeeet dunked onnn!
The Judge
Cat Chow
Is not this publicity so effective and efficient whilst defying the basics of consumer marketing? Crunch om nom nom…
Pillow
Z… z… z…
Soda
Maybe the real soda was the friends we made along the way.
Zone Cards
Used at various save points across the game, the Zone Cards allow Judge and others to access the entrance points to Zones whilst in the Nothingness. Judge has individually shown access to an extra Leo Card which he gives to Batter, and is implied to have a collection of the rest as he can access any of the other Zones with the exception of the Aries Card.
Usable Items
The Judge has shown access to a few items in the game that Batter himself can use. He has personally shown access to Luck Tickets, which recover a moderate amount of HP, and Silver Flesh, which recovers a moderate amount of CC.
If Judge is supported by the Player, though only in opposition to the Batter, the Player will offer Judge access to the various items that the Batter has come across in his adventure. For all intents and purposes, Pablo won’t be given access to these, but they will face a mention in the verdict.
Weaknesses
sans
sans’ most recognizable trait is his laziness if he’s not in a fight that matters to him morally. He is canonically noted to not feel like fighting often, which is why he didn’t even appear in Smash Bros. as a character and instead gave the Mii Gunner his outfit so they could do it for him. He’s very unlikely to do much in situations as a result unless he’s truly forced to, such as fighting Frisk at a last ditch moment only in the Genocide Run, and sitting on the sidelines in Pacifist or Neutral Runs even if his brother gets killed.
The Judge
Beyond a lack of all-round knowledge in everything, as he’s simply not omniscient, the Judge doesn’t really hold any particular weaknesses due to not holding a vulnerability to any element at the cost of no particular resistance either. His Competences do cost a lot to use at their strongest, making it difficult to constantly use them as he’ll eventually run out in a fight, though.
Feats
sans
Overall
The laziest bag of bones ever.
Has more than one job, somehow.
Capable of killing Frisk several times over in the Genocide Route.
Lived through the countless resets of Flowey and by extension Frisk, always present as an obstacle if they tried to kill everyone.
Alongside Monster kind, able to be set free into the overworld in the Pacifist Route.
Got into Smash Bros.
Power
Broke a stick while first encountering Frisk (18.6 Kilojoules)
sans can fling bones at high speeds, creating long paths of attacks (At least 40.6 Kilojoules per bone)
Can kill Frisk over… and over… and over…
Speed
sans’ Gaster Blasters are able to span the whole screen (71.9 m/s)
Capable of dodging attacks from Frisk,
So lazy to the point that he can stuff an infinite amount of hoodies in his couch.
Durability
1 HP (See Before the Verdict)
Took a strike from Flowey’s vines in the Pacifist ending before his soul was absorbed, being undamaged by it and implicitly still performed normally with his magic to block his attacks (585 Kilojoules)
The Judge
Overall
The Guardian of Zone 0
Capable of defeating the Batter
Inspired by Mortis Ghost’s roommate’s cat, meaning he has R>F transcendence.
Really cute!
Why, thank you.
Better ending than the canon one.
Power
Able to kill the Batter, goring him into nothingness with a single blow while in the Overworld (799 Kilojoules)
Sustains the color and life of his Zone, including a large building.
Speed
Judge can dash around his zone at high speeds, crossing a building in under a second (60.8 m/s)
Capable of fighting the Batter in direct combat.
Judge can enter the Nothingness, which is stated to have one move at lightspeed to traverse it (See Before the Verdict)
Durability
Able to withstand a variety of blows from the Batter in their fight, as well as his various Competences.
Competences are able to one-shot other Elsen, completely obliterating their physical form (799 Kilojoules)
Scaling
sans
Monsters
Tsunderplane is able to fly in tandem with Vulkin’s lightning attack (At least 0.14 Tons of TNT)
Snow Cap can create large ice attacks (0.24 Tons of TNT)
When punching down the Lab’s wall (99.6 Megajoules), Mettaton produces shakes in the whole area (0.47 Tons of TNT)
Knight Knight is able to produce a miniature Sun in attacks (1.24 Tons of TNT)
Mettaton’s kick attacks are able to move as fast as his own electricity (At least 2.01 Tons of TNT, 10.05 Tons of TNT for all legs)
Flowey can move an elevator across the Underground spanning from the True Lab to New Home (7.28 Tons of TNT)
Humans
While sans isn’t some sort of powerhouse, even in sheer stats, he’s definitely beyond your average Pacifist human. Combine that with a high 30 DPS in his most basic of attacks even against a LVL 19 Frisk, and there’s very reasonable evidence to place him physically on a similar level.
Frisk’s Yellow Soul allows them to destroy blocks in their way vs. Mettaton
Frisk was able to survive an explosive letter from Mettaton without taking damage, which was able to vaporize a nearby tree (0.59 Tons of TNT)
Frisk can evade various projectiles, such as barks from Greater Dog (Mach 0.5), Vulkin’s lightning projections, and electricity shot directly from Mettaton’s soul (Mach 2.9+: At least Mach 5.5 for Frisk moving) (See Before the Verdict)
JUSTICE can project massive bullets, which Frisk can withstand getting hit by (1.07 Tons of TNT)
An individual Human Soul in general would require the entire Underground population to equalize it in power.
This will be more notable in the verdict.
The Judge
Denizens of the Zones
The Fission Spectre is able to self-destruct, creating an explosion that reaches Batter (0.02 Tons of TNT)
Batter is able to fight off and purify a giant sperm whale in Zone 2, being able to instantly destroy them whole in a single blow (0.037 Tons of TNT)
Enoch is mighty big, dwarfing the Batter in size in his greatest depiction (0.6 Tons of TNT)
Using his power, Japhet created the Library “that pierces the sky” in an unknown timeframe.
The Guardians are stated to be the living engines of their zones, maintaining their color and vitality (See Before the Verdict)
Before the Verdict
The Weakest Monster (ft. Scaling to Frisk)
sans is noted to be the easiest monster, as he holds low stats and can be taken out in a single hit by Level 19 Frisk. However, regarding his actual strength, he can kill Frisk several times over. Thus, it should be fairly reasonable for sans to scale on some level to the strength of other monsters, though he doesn’t actively push himself. While he only deals one damage, a main mechanic of sans both as a boss fight is that he does the bare minimum of damage that multiplies over time thanks to KARMA to easily kill Frisk, so he would simply downscale from wherever low- or mid-tier monsters are placed as he can still ultimately kill Frisk.
If you look at this statistically, while sans only hits 1 ATK 1 DEF, other enemies boast lesser stats like the Ruins Dummy, so the statement isn’t really literal in claiming sans being the easiest enemy comes from a lack of power. While he does statistically hold 1 HP in the files, it’s not something we feel like should be taken seriously in regards to sans dying to any source of damage.
An interesting point to mention in this regard is that due to how magic is attuned to a monster’s body, they will naturally weaken if they don’t intend on fighting and even the Dummies themselves can extend up to 30 ATK from being mad enough to completely dropping in all stats to 0 ATK / DEF by losing the intent to kill. This, along with the inherent nature of “the weakest enemy” in Chara/Frisk’s eyes as well as being explicitly pissed off about dying implies an intent to kill, could make the argument that sans is naturally not pushing himself all the time as the reasoning behind why his stats could be much lesser rather than him being unable to scale in strength to Frisk or company. It’s not unfounded in the game to make this justification, either, as the fight with sans is centralized around Chara/Frisk having to continually attack sans versus him constantly mocking them with attacks. He explicitly states in the fight that he gave up on trying to fight long ago in regards to opposing the RESETs because it would constantly reset even if he and monster-kind make it to the surface, further proving this notion.
However, it’s unlikely sans could magically become that much stronger or anything just by putting in effort without evidence since he does note he feels like he should stop holding back against Frisk and eventually tuckers him out. On the other hand, we have seen sans been damaged by other sources though while superbly casual, so it’s unlikely that any hit would instantly kill him. We do agree that anyone at minimum comparable to Frisk at LVL 19 would be able to, or maybe even a LVL 1 Frisk could, but we aren’t really solid with literally applying the concept of 1 HP to sans when this is only something applicable to the Genocide boss fight at the end of the game whereas he doesn’t fold against being vaguely damaged (where taking 1 HP literal would one-shot him) in Pacifist.
Is Magic… Real?
This is a concept very extensively discussed in Undertale communities particularly with VS, whether or not the projections of magic classify as real or not. We likely don’t need to discuss every class of magic due to the several discussions already presented with these series, but there were a few classes of magic we wanted to bring up agreements for in this blog.
Mettaton: Mettaton’s soul simply projects electricity projectiles from his soul. There’s not really any reason not to take this non-seriously, as Mettaton’s design obviously implies the magic is of a realistic source. Since ghosts in the series do retain the attributes of what they possess (Mad Mew Mew, Ruins Dummy, Tsunderplane, etcetera) it wouldn’t be unreasonable to apply this concept to Mettaton. Magic “electricity” in general is pretty consistent in regards to following properties, like the Conduct ACt vs. Shyren making Frisk vulnerable to electricity because of its pun on Conducter or Vulkin. Vulkin in themselves is a very unique topic, but they very simply project electricity from a cloud that also matches how Mettaton’s electricity works. In both cases, these projectiles are very obviously intended to mimic electricity. However, Vulkin’s strikes are unlikely to be full-on lightning strikes at the usual speeds argued, as lightning strikes are built upon the static charge between the ground and cloud– which Vulkin’s strikes are not showcased doing. They are, however, still very intentionally designed to be electricity (1-13 km/s) and should be applicable to Tsunderplane as a result.
Greater Dog: Greater Dog projects an onomatopoeia of its barks, so it’s pretty likely meant to be its actual barks. Other monsters in the game also similarly project sound as attacks, such as Shyren projecting magical notes via her singing to damage you. There’s not much more to talk about here.
With all of this in mind, these are the concepts we felt like were most directly applicable to sans in this blog. There are other arguments to discuss for Undertale’s speed in general, but we don’t think it’d be proper to discuss every Undertale feat of speed for the whole series just for sans alone since they’ve been discussed many times before. This is mostly because it’d require many more indirect leaps in scaling for a few feats (such as Napstablook reacting to the flash of light from the Hyper Goner) than directly scaling to Frisk dodging electricity and sounds.
FTL OFF isn’t OFF the table?!
At the beginning of OFF, it is stated being sent to the Nothingness allows one to traverse at lightspeed, allowing one to lose their physical form to enter it, and then vice-versa in order to enter other areas. Several beings showcase access to the Nothingness such as Batter, Zacharie, and the Judge himself.
Arguments For
The Judge states very plainly that the Nothingness gives you the ability to travel from one point to another at the speed of light, as such The Batter would need the relativistic reaction speeds to effectively control his movement as we see in the game. While that may seem weird since there are no obstacles, think about it like this: if you woke up one day and you were moving 10000 times faster than your brain could react, you wouldn't really be able to effectively move at all, meanwhile The Batter in the Nothingness is able to make precise movements and land on the exact spot he needs to. If he didn't have the corresponding reaction speeds this wouldn't really be possible.
However there are common counter arguments against this which will be addressed now. First let's talk about the idea that The Judge was simply exaggerating and wasn't being literal, this one is mostly based on vibes than anything actually provable, not only is the statement mostly normal with no real hint of exaggeration or flowery language, but The Judge was simply explaining how the main way to travel from Zone to Zone in his world works to a new person, why would he decide to exaggerate for such an explanation? However, this argument is rather small compared to the main one against Nothingness scaling. The main argument against Nothingness scaling that you'll see nowadays is the idea that The Judge was simply talking about the act of going to the Nothingness and not moving inside of the Nothingness itself.
This argument is mainly based on the warp animation as well as a Mortis Ghost statement. We'll start with that latter as it's easier to address; as we explained at the beginning of the blog Mortis Ghost's own personal views should not be what the entirety of an argument is hinged off of, go back and read that for a more detailed explanation. However, what about the warp animation? That seems pretty cut and dry right? Maybe at first until you realize that this warp animation appears all throughout the game and is treated more like a teleport than anything else, meaning this animation can't be what The Judge means by “going from one point to another at the speed of light”, maybe you could explain this by saying these instances aren't actually teleports and are instead just light warps, but that has no real basis and would defeat the point of having a box for light warps at all.
Finally this interpretation just isn't really consistent with The Judge's wording, he says the Nothingness gives you the ability to travel from one point to another at lightspeed, this would be a very weird way of phrasing “this red box warps you at lightspeed into a place where you can walk and warp to other places at lightspeed”. Once everything is said and done, you can make a solid enough case that yes, the Nothingness scaling is valid.
Arguments Against
While it is true that the Nothingness would translate to lightspeed, there’s no direct evidence that the Nothingness translates to reactionary speeds, as there are no real measures of obstacles within OFF. While Batter and the cast can choose where they travel and seem to physically reform within it, it’s presented as nothing more than a game’s typical world map, making it very difficult to reason. On a similar note, because of the actual transference between Zones where Batter and company become rays of light, it’s very hard to actually reason Batter actually moves at lightspeed in the Nothingness. Judge’s methods of speech would support this concept of “the Nothingness traversal” because you are using the Red Boxes to activate a Nothingness transfer, allowing one to travel through the Nothingness at the speed of light. The Nothingness shouldn’t really be considered responsible for lightspeed, as even in-game, the warp into Zones as flashes of light are present while entering and exiting but not through walking around inside of it which even regular people far below Batter or Judge can do like Zacharie.
Rather, it’s likely that the state of transition is what allows one to move in and out of zones at lightspeed given how Judge describes that part specifically as being at the speed of light (the traversal itself). The actual timeframe of being in the world map, like in other series, is very likely not literal. Judge’s methods of speech would support this concept of “the Nothingness traversal” because you are using the Red Boxes to activate a Nothingness transfer, Given that there are also no obstacles present beyond needing a key to be allowed entrance, and the lack of any interference in the Nothingness makes it very difficult to reason with relativistic speeds especially with the lack of any interception feats or forms of scaling beyond vaguely travelling within it. This, in tandem with no supporting feats, makes it very hard for it to be reasoned. While Mortis Ghost has explained that his perception of the series isn’t considered canon by virtue of OFF’s story being built upon personal narrative interpretation, we can very evidently see within media and the game that his own statement of “Zones are continentss” are indeed correct. This statement of light warps being placed between Zones is practically straight confirmation of what’s argued here and it is a concept presented in the game (and thus shouldn’t have the issues of application as we mentioned at the beginning, it’s not Mortis’ interpretation of events but straight context), which would make sense with the way OFF’s travelling works between the Nothingness of Zones.
The Room with a… Sun?
In the Room, it is usually argued Batter travels to the Sun. This isn’t really true, though, as it is consistently noted that the Batter is traversing through Hugo’s memory in these scenes, and the actual scene ends with Batter returning to where the Room begins since he walks from there to the flashback area. This is pretty solid evidence against the concept that the Batter literally physically moves to the Sun, and it is shown that the Room exists in the same area that the Queen’s area does exists in a walking distance, so the gap can’t be interstellar either.
The Queen's 100% Accuracy
Another argument for speed that we felt should be clarified is the concept of accuracy in OFF. There is no established metric of “dodging” in the game, and should not be referenced as a means of speed since all attacks have a built-in chance to miss (unless they are at 100%) and can be altered. Mechanically, this isn’t a real concept in the game that makes every attack impossible to miss, either. This is mostly applicable to the Queen’s fight, though, who’s add-ons vaguely use Competences named after types of sound. These moves can only miss if Queen were to have her accuracy lowered, however, making it impossible to justify the Batter as “dodging them” in a fight. As for the common argument that Queen's attacks are light-based, the answer is no and pretty blatantly. Not only do none of her add-ons have any attack names that could be applied to light speed, but Queen never physically attacks The Batter and instead goes for insults more than anything meaning these can't be light-based because... well they're just words. Even if we assume Queen and her add-ons were using light-based attacks, everything said above would still apply.
Zone Scaling and Sizes
Zones are the areas that OFF centralize around, owned by three Zone Guardians (excluding Pablo), and Batter’s plan of “purifying the world” require him to kill the Guardians. By killing them, it will take the lives of every being within it, and they will become barren landscapes or ruined cities. There are many arguments applicable to Zones, though we have a main thought process about their application.
Arguments For
For starters, Enoch's explanation is rather explicit; he and the other guardians mold the Queens energy into a solid context and they are the living engines for the Zones. While you could argue this is just creating the structures and life and not the country itself, not only is this never really what's stated but things like the skies also end up losing their color without the guardian to power the Zones, implying that they created much more than just life and a few structures. Finally it's also worth paying attention to Hugo's wording, he says Dedan said they'd work together to build the world, nothing suggests this would entail only adding color or life to stuff that was already there (Dedan also states that they'll rebuild everything with their bare hands).
As for the Zones destruction and whether or not it happens, there's the fact that Enoch makes an important distinction: during his death he says the Zone will vanish and the people who inhabit it will fall into nothingness, this is important as it implies that both things happen and are effects of a Zone without a guardian. You could claim that he's being metaphorical but that's unlikely considering he's about to die and this is meant to be the game explaining why the purified Zone's are the way they are, there's no reason to assume the game would start being flowery with its language at this moment. As a bonus, Mortis Ghost also states that a Zone dies without its guardian.
The main counter to everything is that we don't see a Zone be destroyed from purification explicitly. However, this doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't happen, Zones can gain the usual monochrome purification effect just from their guardian being out of energy, this implies that the monochrome hellscape of the purified Zones is a recent effect of a Zone with no guardian and the Zone actually being destroyed happens later even if we don't see it (you could also bring up how the final scene of The Judge in the special ending is a white void as supporting evidence, though this has a potential flaw that'll be elaborated on). Ultimately while there are other ways you can read it, there's more than enough evidence in the game itself to suggest that the guardians do create the Zones in their entirety and that said Zones would be destroyed without them, as such it would qualify for the usual levels of power you see thrown around.
Arguments Against
Most statements about the “destruction of Zones” are very contextual, and almost never discuss any properties of the Zones themselves falling apart or disappearing when the Guardians of Zones get killed. We’ll look at these one-by-one, and explain our thought process on the argument against it.
Enoch’s statement exclaims that the individuals of the Zones will disappear now that he’s been killed, though this isn’t in reference to the fact that the Zone will disappear, but rather the actual living beings they rule over within it. Zone Guardians do explicitly influence and control the vitality of their Zones, as Judge himself presently does not have living beings into his Zone and assumes that his Zone is an empty piece of land while others who Guardians who’ve built the lands from the barren wasteland, creating life or habilitating them, and giving them color by rebuilding the world. The Queen creates energy that sustains life, as noted in the backstory, and the Guardians can form this into a physical context which allowed them to construct the physical land, but isn’t equivalent to them literally creating the entire Zones. In the silly space apes cutscene at the end of the game, regardless of whether Batter turns the switch OFF or gets killed in the process, it is noted that the world is turned white, too, further cementing the fact that Zones aren’t literally destroyed but rather intends on taking out their power. Within the context of these colors though, even arguments like affecting the skybox or the oceans are simply unreasonable to justify as them scaling to the entire Zone or much greater sizes than the grounds built up. In Zones, concepts like pollution are very constant staples (I.E the oceans in Zone 1 and the skies in Zone 3), and the colors are just a side-effect of the life being applied to worlds since the skies only reflect what color the land itself is.
In this regard, we never explicitly see the Zones themselves disappear into nothing, only that the constructions the Zone Guardians have made do so, and they remain that way even after extensive timeframes and in the special ending. Though Judge’s special ending seems to showcase (as commonly argued) the world phasing away, there’s not really any direct evidence of this being the case, and the timeframe would be simply nonsensical for how the timespan of events in the game goes on. In fact, the special ending is far more likely in reference to the third Zone (traversing from Zone 1 -> Zone 2 -> Zone 3) than a world being flattened into nothingness since it wouldn’t make sense to displace the entirety of oceans to nowhere (ones which were present before the Guardians even created Zones), and the Zones being naturally purified across the game doesn’t actively break down their geography visually more than breaking the architecture and man-made areas of it. There are one off instances of the areas being physically altered I.E blocking off the mines in Zone 1, but these are much smaller and do not alter across the game, and these are in areas heavily physically altered underground with man-made constructions that could’ve very easily collapsed in rather than the land itself faltering. This is more in line with the concept of anti-industrialization which would make sense with Mortis Ghost’s writing (a story he notes was about heavy political themes), as Batter’s purification is intended to destroy the guardians of Zones who control manufacturing systems, taking them out. He doesn’t literally destroy every Zone he’s in, but only targets the Guardians who break the moral code presented in his purification guideline in order to put an end to the law-breaking citizens within it.
In a similar regard, killing Hugo also alters the color and formation of the Room that he controls, but its core structure remains, showcasing that it’s merely the structures formed by the Guardians that alter than the actual whole areas themselves, and they do not maintain the structures as much as they maintain the actual energy to maintain life. Most extended media for OFF also reference the fact that Batter is inducing justice to those breaking the laws of the land, and his purification is him literally killing people, so his purification isn’t really a concept you could justify as being responsible for ite either. Purification is very evidently tied to the fact that Guardian’s dying leads to these Zones losing color and life, not anything related to Batter’s strength, nor would it have a measurable metric for energy.
Even if you agree with the concept that they sustain Zones, it is very unlikely they are sustaining the forms of entire countries regardless. We explicitly know that the Guardians outlined the areas of countries they owned and built up from it, and the areas of Zones that Guardians control are only portrayed as cities polluting the area. It is simply unreasonable to assume that the Guardians control the Zones as countries when the areas themselves could be physically maintained without Guardians present. In any case, the fact that the Zones never physically collapse when purified prevents any reasonable energy to be applied, as otherwise it is the life of an unknown nation given all of the Enochs present could very much be localized to the accessible sections of Zones. We can visually tell that Zones are not large beyond the ocean and extent of nothingness between them, only spanning the sizes of cities, and the term country used in various contexts doesn’t really imply that they are the size of “an average country” so to speak. The smallest country of Vatican City, for example, only spans about 0.44 km^2/0.17m^2, and the second largest country in the world (Monaco) spans 2km^/0.8m^2, so the concept that these areas could be much smaller especially when vaguely talked about as “forming new countries” should be considered too. Irregardless, there are a lot of assumptions required to assume that Zones literally span countries in size despite having explicit sizes one can visually measure, such as Judge’s Zone being an empty, lifeless small island despite the fact that Zones are called countries. Thus, it’s very unlikely the statements of them being countries is literally in reference to them individually being big landmasses, but rather cities built upon the dead landmasses we see in the Room’s flashback instead. This is a concept also supported by the descriptions referring to the Zones as continents, as the term in itself is used geographically rather vaguely as a “notable landmass”, which would make sense without the Zones needing to be at specific sizes but rather just notable areas in the ruined land. This makes the most sense within the story, too, as the Zones are only notable because the Zone Guardians established ownership over them rather than the size of the Zones themselves.
Here Comes the Sun Scaling
Queen does not sustain the Sun, assuming it were a real structure though this is unproveable. Her death causes Batter to teleport to Hugo’s room, but the actual areas are physically connected in the same space, and killing Hugo or the Queen doesn’t destroy the Zone or the Sun in itself. It is demonstrated in Judge’s ending that the Zones remain the same afterwards, and the Queen is stated to fuel the color/life of Zones presenting the Guardians as metaphorical Gods that transform the power she gives into a physical context. She does not explicitly create or use the Sun to empower the lands unless you take the description literal, and if you do interpret it in that way, it’s far more likely that the Queen is what draws from the Sun than any of the Guardians as she herself cannot bring her energy across the Zones and relies on the Guardians to create living spaces from her life-giving power. In this case, you could visualize the Queen’s power more closer to photosynthesis, her power to give life is from the energy of the Sun brought onto the wasteland, and she can share this with her subjects so they too can share life and construct with the energy. She does not really have evidence for creating or destroying the Sun, either, since as mentioned the part of her Zone is not attributed as an entirely separate area, rather allowing Batter access to Hugo’s own section. Even if the Sun acts as her own Zone and not the source of her power, there’s no evidence that it is destroyed upon her or Hugo’s defeat since structures in Zones very often remain in form, nor is there any evidence it was affected in the first place.
Even with Hugo in the picture for cosmic Star level arguments, it’s very difficult to justify Hugo actively creates the world either both in the context of the narrative and the actual scaling chain. He demonstrates a connection to several beings within the game, and the Queen mentions that he brought them into the world, but Hugo creating the world in the first place is a concept never demonstrated in the actual game. Killing Hugo acts as if you’re killing the Guardian of the Zone, but does not translate to any other Zone, so it’s hard to justify that this is the case. While we don’t want to stick to the idea of “Mortis’ perception” since he doesn’t agree with it being canon himself, he does outright state that it’s a lot more complicated than “Hugo creating the world”, and as a result we can’t really agree at face value that Hugo is responsible for creating the entire world. Hugo does alter the Room with his mind and demonstrates it constantly shifting in favor of his head, this is far more tied to the concept of it representing his past and mental state, and is an inherent ability you cannot scale Batter to mostly since there’s no evidence of it scaling to physicals. Hugo is very explicitly noted to be a frail, sick child and does not attack back, only bracing for impact as Batter attacks him.
The Defend option also get removed in Hugo’s boss fight in the remake so… uh… yeah!
SUMMON THE PLAYER!
A general concept present in the ending of OFF is Judge’s capability of siding with the player to defeat the Batter. We mentioned this vaguely in the Abilities/Equipment section, but it’s not really something Judge can personally weaponize. He could hypothetically get more from the Player, though it’s pretty difficult to reason that an unwanted third party could carry a bunch of counters to poison or heals for Judge if it wasn’t after a shopping spree with Zacharie.
Fan Art
(fnaf fan_1234)
Verdict
To start with the verdict, we’ll have to talk about one of the things neither of these combatants are shown to particularly excel in (ironically enough); strength.
Without Zones
sans is one of the weakest monsters, and holds no real outstanding feats. He hasn’t really done anything too physically impressive on his own, though his two directly physical feats do hold some pretty high Kilojoule numbers. Judge’s own direct feats also get into a pretty high ~700 Kilojoule ballpark, which would land both in similar physical ranges. The highest feats in OFF generally centralize around the large scale of enemies that Batter has fought, which Judge would be comparable to at least. This includes the common Whale enemy, as well as the Zone Guardian Enoch; both of these get into fraction of tons ranges, ending up to be around 0.6 Tons of TNT at a high-end which Judge (admittedly) only downscales from, since this form of Enoch even challenges Batter to the point of needing to weaken the boss. sans does pretty directly scale to Frisk and other monsters (especially in his strength aspect), most notably to Knight Knight’s sun creation (1.24 Tons of TNT) and Mettaton’s leg kicks (2.01 Tons of TNT) at least, though the latter could get much higher when noting that Mettaton is able to produce five kicks at once even at a physically handicapped state (10.05 Tons of TNT) that sans would pretty directly scale to, as well. In this case, sans is very blatantly stronger, but the gap in durability is definitely short enough to justify Judge being able to potentially one-shot unless you scale sans in durability to his own attack output by virtue of “he shares ATK and DEF stats”.
With Zones
As discussed pretty extensively, there are two different arguments present for Zones; the idea that the Guardians maintaining Zones causes them to collapse, and that maintaining Zones simply causes them to lose color and vitality. With the idea of maintaining Zones, it is pretty vague in application, as the Zones do not have canon sizes noted beyond vague statements. We have the notion that they are seen as individual countries and continents, but these only express that they are notable landmasses and nothing about the size given Zones visually only extend as far as small islands in the ocean, such as Judge’s own Zone. The land that the Guardians built their Zones upon also was not maintained by them but was physically present, further implying that it is not the physical make-up they maintain, but the cities and color. In this case, while there is no real way to apply a translation of “color” or “energy” as power, the entire concept of maintaining an entire Zone with energy could be applicable. This, alongside concepts like creating buildings in Japhet’s case (though also lacking any context and thus timeframe) could lead to tremendous results, though it’s impossible to get a serious number.
Most interestingly, however, is that sans isn’t really out of the picture if you discuss Zones as a concept. This is much more comparable to how Human SOULs are able to power an entire civilization– in fact, the entire Underground is equivalent to that of a single Human SOUL. We aren’t keen with looking at this as if it were a multiplier, but the concept of a single Human SOUL being equivalent to that of the entire population of a massive underground society with overpopulation of massive towns– ones that do visibly dwarf the cities seen in individual Zones– would conceptually put these feats on similar levels. Without the ability to necessarily draw the exact energy due to a lack of context in both, the fact that both centralize around “a singular being having the energy equivalent to an entire society’s life-force” would make it feasible to equalize these sorts of arguments. Granted OFF isn’t consistently presented on this scale and would be equivalent to a practical outlier (Enoch’s massive form being a physical challenge and Batter needing to drain him of the power when he’s implicitly using the same energy to grow, only notable feats of Batter’s being on a much more grounded physical scale in the Kilojoule-fractions of Ton range), like with Undertale (highest being 7-10 Tons of TNT, the full multiplier of monster power * population extending up to Kilotons if you really use it as one), it’s actually very easy to argue both would have similar legitimacy.
What matters more, however, is how sans actively scales to this. Realistically, it’s kinda silly to justify that “sans, as a monster, scales to the combined whole of monster society”. However, what’s more notable is that sans can fight Frisk at a point in a mode known as “Serious Mode” which is a specific flag set in the game only applicable when Frisk fights a big boss where they take things much less lightly. This is, specifically, tied to Boss Monsters (Asgore, Toriel, Asriel) and Undyne the Undying, fights where Frisk would most reasonably be having more DETERMINATION present than usual against the strongest bosses in the game. sans doesn’t literally scale to the combined power of monster society by virtue of fighting Frisk, but he does actively take advantage of game mechanics and his own special abilities (invincible frame negation, attacking outside the battle, avoiding every attack by just knowing how the game functions) as well as making fun of Frisk at every turn to the point of inciting visible anger in order to kill them thirteen times over (if not more, since he loses count). With this in mind, it’s a lot more reasonable to justify that sans’ usage of abilities would allow him to take out Judge by virtue of being able to take out those on a similar scale of “powering entire societies” even at such a great difference in power. Judge can be more physically powerful, but sans’ onslaught of attacks carry enough of a punch that it becomes very difficult for the physical advantage to prevent sans from taking on Judge physically.
With this concept of “abilities vs stats”, we’ll have to take a more tight-knit look on how the mechanics of OFF and Undertale function. Both games centralize around a turn-based system which sans himself actively exploits. Judge holds experience in them but this is only knowledge– he can expressly be overwhelmed by them, such as Auto Mode, which can kill Judge. He can also (at least non-canonically) still die against Batter just by hitting him enough, so it is very reasonable to argue that Judge’s knowledge would not literally allow him to manipulate the game mechanics. OFF’s system of game mechanics aren’t too restrictive on sans either, as the turn based system functions pretty similarly to Undertale, and he would retain at least all of his core capabilities (attacking outside of his turn, locking Pablo’s turn with his special attack, being able to interrupt his attacks by skipping forward with new ones, dodging attacks just by watching out for the turn system) and only be potentially limited by the inability to just create multiple attacks at once. This is, of course, assuming you take OFF’s mechanics all literal as Judge does in the tutorial. With this in mind, sans having to adapt to a new mechanic potentially if you took this as literal would not cause his general use of it to falter.
But we’re not here to talk just about how sans can abuse the meta to his advantage against Judge. Both sans and Judge have a bunch of interesting abilities to talk about, particularly in how they’d play off of one another here.
For starters, Judge’s Competences very likely would work on sans, despite their descriptions referencing biological ailments. Not only are Competence names very consistently non-literal in effects, but they can also function on Add-Ons in the official ending of OFF, which are spiritual beings in nature and are most easily comparable to that of your average Undertale monster. With this in mind, Judge would very easily be able to take out Sans with a single Competence due to their consistently high damage. Regardless of the stats you look into, they’re able to deal devastating damage to the Batter, who’d be much stronger than sans taking the big vine slash from Flowey by virtue of him physically obliterating whales into nothing with a single Competence. Their abilities at lower damage costs (Palsy, Mute, Blind, Poison) do also matter, though to varying degrees. Palsy completely shuts down the ability to fight, though not the ability for a person to move or for attacks to miss, so sans would be able to inherently dodge them. Even if you wanted to justify that Pablo’s moves have 100% accuracy, the fact that sans is the only monster capable of dodging Frisk’s attacks outside of Asriel who can consistently hit any enemy even while moving would showcase a similar factor. Judge’s moves do not have notable area-of-effect that would prevent sans from dodging, either, as Judge’s moves can be impacted by the Lethargic/Blind effect and only hit individual targets he has to directly aim at. Their individual abilities could also be particularly powerful, as Poison does percentage + 1 damage per attack vs. sans’ attack spam, Blindness/Lethargic reduces accuracy (though the mass of attacks could offset this), etcetera. Sans simply cannot take out Judge if he’s hit with a single competence, making it a game-ending move even if a single status effect gets induced because of how their effects work.
On the vice-versa, sans’ most unique ability is KARMA. This is an ability most notable in this debate, as it’s sans’ main way of dealing damage. Actually, as you might guess from the picture, KARMA’s poison actually has a really direct comparison in OFF.
Japhet and a variety of enemies in OFF are able to inflict the Poison status which drains a percentage of one’s life, dealing constant damage. This showcases a pretty direct vulnerability in Judge despite his lack of weaknesses in OFF, as KARMA’s influence works like a pretty lethal poison coursing through one’s veins, which all of sans’ attacks induce. This is in addition to his ability to hit through i-frames, meaning every hit sans performs if Judge can’t stay on top of the fight will be constantly inducing KARMA which will increase per hit and drain even faster as sans deals more damage. With this in mind, sans’ attacks would have to rely on sheer spam and dealing enough damage to Judge to take him out with enough poison, by virtue of the stat gap. This could definitely allow Judge to be more spontaneous and take more advantages overtime because sans needs to keep wasting his energy. Plus, with potential influence from the Player, Judge could circumnavigate the effects, but it’s hard to really put a proper number on how many heals or anti-poison items that the Player would have especially as most of these items are dedicated to the Batter. This in general just leads to one final comparison to talk about: speed.
Judge and sans both hold at a baseline comparable speeds, with the Gaster Blasters and Judge’s climbing feat in Zone 0 hitting similar 60-70 m/s speeds. OFF is less traditional in how many speed feats it holds, however, namely due to its lack of a conventional dodging mechanic. If you just go off of their own individual feats, sans would be slightly faster, but that’s just with his own feats. He also scales to the various interception and movement feats Frisk performs to evade the attacks of other monsters like Greater Dog, who can use its barks as attacks, putting Frisk at Mach 0.6– almost four times faster. That’s not even mentioning the potential of higher speed feats with electricity interception and traversal, hitting up to at least Mach 5.5. That’s about thirty times faster.
If you bought into Nothingness for movement with Judge, though that’s without looking into feats present in Undertale that we don’t wholly agree with either, it should be noted that this would only scale to reactions. Judge, nor do any characters in OFF, actively attempt to dodge or react to other attacks, making it unironically very difficult to justify them scaling beyond reactions to relativistic speeds. Judge’s lack of dodging in his own system or in any form of combat, both in the tutorial tanking all the damage even if it’s to the point where he’ll die and never displaying the ability to dodge attacks vs. the Batter unless it’s via accuracy lowering. This is much different than the idea that attacks can ignore accuracy because the stats are only built in to have a chance to miss– and sans’ ability to dodge is explicitly tied to the exploitation of the mechanics that limit Judge to being unable to move. The easiest comparison you can make to this idea to other games is that the Pokemon fighting system has a similar form of accuracy where 100% accuracy attacks can still miss through evasion or abilities, but abilities with null% accuracy will negate evasion. In this case, Judge’s abilities only have 100% accuracy and can explicitly miss, proving that they aren’t going to hit sans just by virtue of having 100% accuracy, and the inability to work around proper reactions in fights makes it pretty hard to reason that Judge can actually hit someone at FTL speeds given that it just isn’t something you can prove nor is consistent.
Ultimately, it should be noted that Judge’s speed regardless of how you look at it is something he rarely applies in combat. He will willingly walk through attacks and take damage to the point of dying, as it’s not a mechanic he has familiarity with, making any form of lightspeed reaction very hard to apply if you buy into the argument. With sans, he explicitly takes advantage of this kind of accuracy system in Undertale to avoid an attack that tracks moving enemies (The ATTACK option) and can always perform this if he needs to. Realistically, you can argue that the mechanics of the battling systems in either series wouldn’t matter for speed, but the mechanics are very important to how both Judge and Sans work with their CC/magic usage with meta awareness being a very important part of both characters. If Judge can’t take advantage of having a possibly better reaction speed by virtue of the battle system not allowing him to dodge moves without abilities or non-traditional mechanic manipulation like sans, it’s hard to reason that the speed advantage would matter at all if you bought into the argument.
Regardless, this would make the fight very intensive, and particularly difficult for Judge to stay on top. He could potentially work through it, but sans’ overall manipulation of the battlefield and applicability of magic in addition to being able to dodge outside of the turn-based system in OFF makes it far too difficult for Judge to reasonably keep fighting for long enough to lock down sans into a state where he can’t dodge. The fact Judge is canonically locked in to the mechanics of his game despite holding meta awareness would allow him to know about the sorts of techniques sans could apply, but not be able to fight back against them. This is actually pretty notable to their characters, too– sans can’t exceed the limits of the game, but he can still work around them, and that’s what makes him such a big threat to Frisk’s mindset despite being seen as so weak and never having a way to end the fight. On the other hand, Judge in his own canon ending cannot exceed the influence of the Puppeteer even if he wins, and it’s just the way his story concludes: even he cannot convince the player to make the choice they want, which is to purify this world and move onto the next.
Conclusion
sans
Advantages
Much greater area-of-effect and influence over the area with his abilities.
Greater meta-awareness and combat application with it.
Generally faster and more likely to evade hits.
I-Frame negation makes him more deadly against Judge, due to Pablo’s less-mobile fighting style and lack of dodging in fights.
Capable showings of dealing damage, while far weaker, against those comparable to Zone Guardian high-ends.
Magic allows endless attack spam due to coming from the SOUL…
Disadvantages
Could be seen as weaker overall, and can die to a singular hit from Judge.
Could be much slower…
… but Judge is unlikely to actively evade hits due to his fighting style.
… but stamina can falter overtime more comparatively in the fight, making it difficult for sans to dodge.
Much less combat applicable equipment and cannot restore stamina/health if he runs out.
Certainly, he is far too laidback to maintain a proper techinque.
The Judge
Advantages
Could be much stronger if the concept of living engines is taken literal.
Could be much faster if the Nothingness scales to reactionary speeds.
More useful and restorable equipment even without the Player with small heals and CC resource.
More likely to lock in over the course of a fight.
Competences can one-shot sans or induce potent and deadly effects upon hit.
Oh, come on. the guy’s a real rib-tickler.
Disadvantages
More likely to outright take hits across the fight, leaving him vulnerable to KARMA.
Can’t resist sans’ notable abilities or counter his sheer damage-per-second.
Much slower and potentially much weaker without taking into consideration his far less stable high-ends.
Very limited resource of CC even with additional items, which would force him to rely on physical combat.
Less experienced and skilled as far as we know.
Seriously, no prequel comic yet 💔
Canonically dies :(
These two really put in there all for this fight, and despite their short stature, were competent enough to bring this fight down to the bone. However, with how this fight pans out, Judge’s abilities could be ultimately lethal yet cannot push sans enough to tucker him out. sans’ greater influence over the fight with meta-awareness and sheer ability spam allowed him a far more powerful way to lock down Pablo, while the cat was stuck on first base.
trust me, i was rooting the guy too.
let’s just hope he can get all those bones taken out of him. . .
ouch.
I assure you, my fellow friend, I shall be okay. Well played, well played.
Well, I suppose it is only fitting then. . .
that I am the one to announce your winnings!
you’re too nice.
The victory of this long-winded battle belongs to sans. sans the skeleton.
heh. thanks, buddy.
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